bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (duel of the fates (forestgraphics))
I wrote a rec over on Tumblr for the Star Wars: Knight Errant comics, which are by John Jackson Miller and a passel of different artists and are so good. So good. They aren't my favorite Star Wars comics, but they're up there.

Cut and pasted from my Tumblr rec:

Knight Errant takes place during the Old Republic, about a thousand years before the movies, while the Republic is involved in a decades-long war against the Sith. During a blitzkrieg raid on a Sith world, the young Jedi Knight Kerra Holt becomes trapped behind Sith lines with no way to get back to the Republic. At the point when the first arc, “Aflame”, takes place, Kerra is eighteen and has only been a Knight for about a week, and she finds herself in the unenviable position of having her entire Jedi strike team killed around her, including her friend and mentor. Now on her own, Kerra decides to do the only thing she can as a Jedi and fight the varied Sith lords in any way she can, saving civilians right and left.

Knight Errant fascinates me because of the world-building, because all the Sith lords — and there are quite a few! — are very different and very distinct, as are the worlds they rule. The big two are Daiman, who believes he’s the creator of the universe, and Odion, who wants to be its destroyer, but there are a number of other Sith, as well as non-Sith antagonists. (I bet you never expected to see a Hutt wearing a jetpack and dueling a Jedi in zero gravity! NOW YOU CAN!) John Jackson Miller, the author, has clearly done his research on everyday life under totalitarian governments; Knight Errant isn’t all lightsaber duels and space battles. There’s a lot of page space and thought that goes into the civilians who are just trying to make it by on Sith-ruled worlds.

The other thing I really like about Knight Errant is that Kerra isn’t exactly a sympathetic hero. I reblogged an article the other day about the importance of the unlikable heroine and Kerra Holt definitely fits into that mold. She’s rash, impulsive, self-righteous, equal parts selfless and selfish, idealistic, bloodthirsty, ruthless, and prone to mood swings depending on her circumstances. She can be grating at times, and is occasionally very petty and very judgmental. And she’s amazing.

Another reason Knight Errant is really interesting is because it has both a comic component and a novel component. The novel, just called Star Wars: Knight Errant (also written by John Jackson Miller), takes place between the first TPB and the second. You don’t need to start with volume one in order to read the novel, and you don’t need to read the novel in order to read volume two, but it’s very, very interesting to see how these characters and situations translate from comics to the page, and there’s some great worldbuilding in the novel.

Links to Amazon over on Tumblr, since the digital editions of the comics are only $1.99 today for Star Wars Day.
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (strength (forestgraphics))
So I wanted to talk about my favorite Star Wars comics title, since the final omnibus (of three) comes out tomorrow. There are a lot of really excellent (and some not so excellent) Star Wars comics out there; Marvel originally had the license, then Dark Horse had it, and next year it's reverting back to Marvel/Disney, which unfortunately means that everything in progress is getting cancelled. Which is really a shame, because some of the current titles (Dark Times, Star Wars, Legacy II, and a few others) are really, really good. Fortunately, my absolute favorite Star Wars comic is finished and has been for a few years now. And the really good news: it was a 50-issue run with a 6-issue sequel series.

That would be Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, written by John Jackson Miller.

(That description also sums up Star Wars: Legacy, written by John Ostrander, but I might talk about Legacy another time.)

Knights of the Old Republic shares a title and a timeline with the video game, but you can easily read KOTOR without knowing anything about the game, which is what I did. John Jackson Miller described KOTOR's relationship with the video game as a helix; they occasionally intersect but usually occupy different parts of the universe. I'm sure the comics are richer if you're familiar with the game, but not being so, I can't say for sure.

KOTOR takes place four thousand years before the movies, in the days of the Old Republic, and the galaxy is a much wilder place than what we see in the movies. The Jedi Order hasn't yet crystallized into the institution of the prequel trilogy; there are still branches and offsets and different schools of thought and theory. It's still a time of war, though; the Mandalorian Wars are raging across the Outer Rim, disrupting peace and security.

If I had to sum up KOTOR, I'd say that it's Farscape in the Star Wars universe. ExpandScans beneath the cut )

If you like Star Wars and you like Farscape (or Firefly, I guess there's a little Firefly in it too), you will probably like Knights of the Old Republic. The entire series run is out in trade paperback (ten volumes) and, as of tomorrow, in omnibus (three volumes). (Here on Tales from Another World and here on Amazon.) Individual issues are also available digitally on Dark Horse Comics. (Looks like they've got the omnibuses, too.)

As an extra treat, John Jackson Miller also does author's notes and trivia for everything he writes (the Kenobi notes are amazing), which are on his website here for KOTOR.
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (strength (forestgraphics))
As past experience has proven, if I say I'm going to do a more substantial review and wait on it, I shall probably never do it, so best to do so now instead of waiting.

HOLY SHIT, Y'ALL, THIS BOOK.

Star Wars: Kenobi, by John Jackson Miller, takes place immediately following Revenge of the Sith, as Obi-Wan is trying to settle in to life on Tatooine, before he becomes the crazy old Ben of A New Hope. And for a novel that's actually named after a character, a lot of it isn't about Obi-Wan, which is what makes it so brilliant. Because Obi-Wan isn't a viewpoint character. (While Obi-Wan does have a POV, sort of, the only time anything actually appears from his POV is when he's meditating.)

In fact, the name "Obi-Wan" only appears four times in the entire book, three times within the same few sentences, and the use of it is very, very deliberate. Expandquote, spoilers )

I've been thinking a lot about fanfic and tie-ins recently, since I've been reading a lot of Star Wars tie-ins. It's a less obvious link when those tie-ins aren't dealing with movieverse characters -- anything set before the lifetime of the PT characters, largely; I don't have much interest in anything set after the OT. But tie-ins where movieverse characters are major or secondary characters, or which deal with movieverse events (novels set during the Clone Wars, for example, or set between ANH and ESB) are another beast entirely, because in some ways they are essentially fanfiction, just published and authorized fanfiction. But tie-ins -- interstitial tie-ins specifically, since (and someone who actually knows stuff about the post-OT EU can back me up here) tie-ins that take place after the main canon has been closed are yet another beast -- are a lot more limited than fic, because you can't have really, really major events in a tie-in, rather than on the big screen, so to speak: while there are lots of big events that take place in the Star Wars EU between TPM and RotS (whether in novels, comics, or the two TV series), there's no way to have Anakin's discovery, Qui-Gon's death, the start of the Clone Wars, or Palpatine's reveal, Anakin's fall, and Order 66 in a piece of secondary material. In fic, you can do that; you don't have to worry about the Hand of God or George Lucas saying NOPE NOPE NOPE. (I've also noticed that tie-ins tend to have a lot more blatant emotionalism even than fanfic, but I'm not sure if that's a characteristic of the genre or just of a couple of specific authors.)

Kenobi is an interstitial tie-in, since it's bounded by RotS and ANH. We know where Obi-Wan is before it starts; we know where Obi-Wan has to be by the time it ends. We know that Obi-Wan's story is essentially not going anywhere, which is one reason that there is very little EU material that involves Obi-Wan during the nineteen years between RotS and ANH. Miller slides around that conundrum (how do you tell a story about a character who isn't going anywhere except emotionally?) by not making the novel about Obi-Wan.

Let's back up.

The Pika Oasis, a small settlement on the edge of the Jundland Wastes. Annileen Calwell runs Dannar's Claim, the only general store for kilometers around. It's a small, more or less self-sustaining community largely populated by moisture farmers. Over the past four years, attacks by Tusken Raiders (the Sand People) have been on the rise, and the settlers around the Oasis have banded together to form a posse that reacts to raids if the alarm goes off. Of course, settlers who want to be protected by this posse have to pay for the privilege, but it seems a small sacrifice. Heading up the posse is Orrin Gault, a friend of Annileen's late husband. It's a system that seems to work well, as does Annileen's and Orrin's friendly relationship.

For the Sand People, things are changing rapidly, and in ways that threaten their millennia-old traditions. Reprisal attacks by settlers and changing environmental conditions have winnowed their numbers, forcing them to adapt their traditions or die. Four years earlier, an entire tribe of Sand People died under mysterious circumstances, further lessening their numbers. Leading the tribe near the Jundland Wastes is the one-eyed Tusken A'Yark -- called Plug-Eye by the settlers -- who wants nothing more than to clear the settlers from what was once Tusken land.

Into this comes a new settler, a stranger who calls himself Ben. Newcomers are a rare sight around here, especially ones who want to live so far from civilization. Despite his apparent reluctance to get involves in the community, he and Annileen soon become friends.

Sound familiar? That's right: Star Wars: Kenobi is a Western.

It's great. Miller always refers to the non-native residents of Tatooine, even the ones who have been there for generations, as settlers, because that's what they are -- still scratching at the surface of the world, essentially farming the rarest product on the planet: water. The Tuskens have a very distinct (and alien) voice and culture, but they're never presented as black-and-white bad guys (and they aren't the primary antagonists of the novel) and the impact of the settlers on their culture is never whitewashed by Miller. There's even a background robber baron, so to speak, Expandspoilers ). Obi-Wan is the mysterious stranger who rides in from out of town, trouble seeming to follow in his wake, who knows a lot about a lot, but not much about Tatooine.

Annileen and A'Yark are both great, fully-fledged characters -- Kenobi is their story as much as it is Obi-Wan's, maybe more so. Even in Star Wars, it's rare to see a novel where the main character is a middle-aged widow with two teenage children who doesn't need a man, who's perfectly capable of holding her own, and Annileen is that woman. She's not royalty like Padme Amidala or Leia Organa, or a Jedi like Ahsoka Tano or Aayla Secura; she's a shopkeeper and a mother and a woman with a life of her own, friends, and dreams that she never quite managed to fulfill. Expandspoilers )

There's a lot going on in this novel about identity, as there should be for a novel that's named after a character. It's also a novel haunted by ghosts -- not literal ones, I should hasten to add, since this is Star Wars and anything is possible, but the ghosts of the past. Tusken habits are changing because of Anakin's slaughter of the tribe in AotC. Obi-Wan carries the weight of the dead with him in every waking moment. Annileen's shop is her dead husband's legacy to her. But Kenobi never wallows in any of it, which is a surprise and a delight. The closest that it comes is in Obi-Wan's meditations, and he always cuts himself off before he can wallow. Miller doesn't need to have Obi-Wan wallow or dwell on Order 66; the reader knows what happens.

And that, I think, is the real difference between this novel and a lot of the other interstitial tie-ins I've read recently. Miller trusts the reader to remember the events of the PT; he never has to sit down and say, okay, kids, so the Republic fell and now there's an empire, all the Jedi are dead, Obi-Wan Kenobi's life is terrible. Because the reader knows that. Nobody picks up this kind of novel without already knowing that. But quite a few tie-in authors don't trust their readers, which is why you have the kind of blatant emotionalism in some novels that basically tells you what you already know, just in case you couldn't pick it up on the screen. (It's a show, don't tell issue, and certainly isn't limited to tie-ins or to fanfic because I've also seen it in purely original fiction, but it strikes me the most about those two genres because it echoes and tries to explain what already appears in the canon.)

I can't really ever think of tie-ins critically without comparing them to fanfic, because they do the same thing -- work in and around the existing canon to tell a story. This is probably the best example that I've seen so far, which I think is because it isn't Obi-Wan's story. I don't think Miller could have written this novel from Obi-Wan's POV and had it be as good as it is. From an outside POV, it works because he trusts the reader: we know why Obi-Wan is on Tatooine, we know what his secret sorrow is, we know what his history is, we know what that mysterious blue light that sometimes appears around him in the midst of firefights is, and we know where his story ends. There's no need to write that from his POV. It would be extremely difficult to sustain a novel on that.

On Twitter earlier I said that Kenobi is the profic equivalent of [personal profile] synecdochic's SGA fic Freedom's Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose. It's an apt comparison; it's the same "the meaning of life is do the next thing" type of genre. They're very different stories, but it's the kind of genre you never expect to see in a pro tie-in novel. And it's brilliant.

Just a note: Kenobi has a couple of nods to the EU, but it's rooted entirely in the movies and you can read it without knowing anything about the EU. It's entirely self-sustaining aside from assuming that the reader has seen the PT.

Expandnotable bits, spoilers, now I'M going to wallow in blatant emotionalism )

Seriously, if you like the PT and you ever wanted to read one tie-in novel: read this one. It's fantastic. It's everything a tie-in novel could and should be. And the cover art (by Chris McGrath) is amazing. I want it in poster size so I can put it on my wall and sigh over it.

'sup

Jul. 12th, 2013 11:56 pm
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (yggdrasil (girlyb_icons))
Man, it's been a weird day. It's been hot in England? Which is way more bewildering than it probably should be. I know, I know; I've been having the "but you lived in NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, the place where you go to sweat and die for FOUR YEARS, how are you overheating in goddamn Leiccester, England?" conversation with myself for the past week too, but the big difference between England and Louisiana is that in Louisiana they have air-conditioning.

They do not believe in air-conditioning in England. Granted, probably because it would only be useful for like ten days out of the entire year, BUT STILL.

Anyway, this is especially unfortunate for me because I've been having problems sleeping through the night anyway (I've been taking melatonin in hopes that it will help, but nope), and now I don't just wake up, I wake up overheated and miserable, and then my computer's fan makes angry sounds in the middle of the night while (a) updating or (b) turning itself not-so-quietly off (either normally it's not so loud or I'm just not sleeping well). I don't want to open a window because I live right next to the train tracks, and trains are really noisy, okay? (Also next to a major road and a fire station. Not the best combo for peace and quiet.)

Normally I grump around, hiss back at my computer, go to the bathroom, and go back to sleep, but today was one of the rare mornings where I couldn't get back to sleep (I tend to wake up at four hour intervals, so between five and six am -- I think it was about 5:30 today), so I ended up sitting in my room reading my way through several books, including a Robin Hood novel I still can't believe I paid money for, even from a charity shop. (Okay, it's not bad, it's just...it's very much a book written by a dude. Also, I think it's pretty legit never to take a book that includes the phrase "some nameless masculine terror" seriously. Look, the tag line on the cover is "Meet the Godfather of Sherwood Forest", which I think really sums it all up.)

Then I went and bought All The Things. The Continental Market is in town, and I've been eyeing the amber jewelry stalls for the past few days -- I have a weak spot for amber, first of all because it's pretty and second of all because, uh, in The Last Herald-Mage trilogy Vanyel has a focus-stone made out of amber and that's apparently stuck with me all these years STOP JUDGING ME -- er, but anyway, I ended up with a pretty amber and fluorite necklace, and I might get earrings afters I change money again. Well, it's easier to transport than books, which is my normal drug of choice. (As an aside, when I move out in a couple of months I'll probably be getting rid of a bunch of books, so watch this space if that's a thing you're interested in.)

Jewelry, bread, fruit, a Danish that I swear was as big as my head -- I had it for dinner -- lunch, library books from the public library, library books from the university library, groceries (more fruit. also, fruit juice, and broccoli. Look, I really like fruit, okay). (My life, so exciting.)

Today's been a weird day for me in the social media world, where I am reminded for that for about every five or ten things that makes me smile, there will be one thing that makes me want to punch someone in the face and one thing that makes me want to light the world on fire. And then my internet cut out, which may actually have been a good thing.

I desperately need to e-mail my supervisor with an update on my dissertation progress (status: every time I read something new about (ancient) slavery something else wtf comes up, also, seriously, have I been doing Roman slavery ALL YEAR, or in conclusion, damn, those Romans, what bastards) but I keep forgetting.

In conclusion: Here is a piece of genderbent HP fanart I really like.
bedlamsbard: animals: a cougar standing on a tall rock (girlyb_icons) (a high place (girlyb_icons))
Ugh. Baking disaster tonight. Obviously that was a cake I was attempting to bake for my class tomorrow, so now I have to decide whether to beg off or try something else if I get up early enough. I won't even eat that thing, I'm not feeding it to anyone I know and respect. (Let's start with: I know how to bake cakes, I should not have followed those instructions so closely. Also that was a shit-ton of butter and I didn't need that much and now I have no butter. Also I should have put it in a different pan. Also I shouldn't have attempted to do anything that involved that much arm work when I have a bum wrist anyway. Among other things.)

Sadly the baking disaster ate up my evening; the only thing I salvaged from it was a sort-of outline for the presentation-I'm-supposed-to-do-tomorrow/paper-I-have-to-write-for-next-week. Except it kind of devolved into notes like "don't spend too much time on this b/c you don't know anything about it" and "What Were Those Tricksy Romans Up To, Anyway?" So this will clearly go swimmingly, on top of me freaking out about my dissertation proposal and wondering if they'll kick me out if it isn't in on time. (Also I'm realizing how much having to drop my honors thesis last year is affecting the way I think about this dissertation. Like, I still think about my honors thesis and go, "I am a failure, I didn't deserve to graduate," along with, "Man, the classics department at Tulane really fucked me up."

On the bright side, my left wrist hasn't been in whimpering (not screaming) pain since Friday. Or possibly since some point yesterday, but Friday is the last actual point I can remember. On the other hand (heh), my right wrist has decided to act up instead. ON THE EVEN BETTER SIDE, I may or may not have picked up a cold somewhere, because right now we can combine the "oh shit everyone's back at school bearing germs" plague with the "oh god finals stress stress stress DEATH" plague. I'm hoping I can head the damn thing off early with liberal applications of chamomile tea with honey -- actually, no honey right now, because I can't bear the sweetness on top of the disaster that was that cake -- and this cold & flu medicine that is, alas, not NyQuil by has a much cuter name.

Oh, bugger, I said that about my left wrist not hurting and RIGHT ON CUE it twinged. NO STOP THAT.

I finally got through to my parents on Skype and what I got out of that conversation is that my mother wants me to see my dad's coworker's teacher's husband's acupuncturist. Or possibly that my dad's teacher coworker's husband is an acupuncturist. I can't tell if that's the most small-town or the most West Coast thing I've ever heard from my parents. Or both. (Me: "Uh, I want to see an actual doctor?" For multiple reasons. For so many reasons. FOR ALL THE REASONS.) It strikes me that the fact I've been on a crying/hyperventilating/whimpering mess at least once a day every day for the past month and almost every week for the past three years might...uh, not be normal. Or good. (Well, considering some of the stories I've heard about graduate school, it might be normal.) Except I do it so often that I don't think anyone notices anymore, including my mother, which is...problematic. (Not that I do it for attention? IDK how this is coming out. Probably reflecting terribly on me. I either end up crying hysterically at my desk or in the shower.)

*

Hobbit art rec round-up tomorrow, but since I'd already pulled out the pieces I was going to rec, I'll do a rec set tonight anyway.

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is Thorin and Dwalin! (Or Thorin/Dwalin, depending on how you look at it. This is -- hot damn -- a Hobbit ship that I am very much in favor of.)

War Dance by [deviantart.com profile] qed221b
Ered Luin by [profile] ramida_r
Fanboy by [tumblr.com profile] megatruh
young Thorin and Dwalin in Ered Luin by [tumblr.com profile] spesiria
old and gray by [tumblr.com profile] ladynorthstar
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (what still remains (isapiens))
Today I managed to get stuff done by sheer virtue of making up a reasonably detailed to-do list that started with "get up before 11 am" and included meals. (If "before 11 am" sounds late, factor in that my sleep schedule somehow managed to get even more fucked up and I went to bed at 4 am. Although "before 11 am" was what I was aiming for even when I was only going to bed at 2 or 3. I'm not even going to bed that late because of schoolwork -- I am not doing as much schoolwork as I'd like to be, but at least I'm doing some every day -- I just...am.)

I keep buying (and taking, thankfully) vitamins and supplements in the vague hope that they'll actually have some effect. My mother and (American) grandmother are both big proponents of vitamins, but I got out of the habit of taking them when I was in undergrad and again, this year, because I -- um, this is awkward -- I don't usually eat enough at breakfast to balance it out, so I generally get slightly nauseous afterwards. And I don't usually remember to take them with dinner every day. But I've been better at it since my wrists flared up last month, so there's that. And I've never had a problem with pills, thankfully.

My wrists are still fucked up, if anyone's wondering. It's mostly the left wrist that's in actual pain, though the right wrist has its moments too. My left wrist flared up big time today while I was in city centre with English Flatmate N., obviously when I didn't have any painkillers on me. Usually it's so low-level that I won't go for the ibuprofen -- we've established I have issues with painkillers, yeah? Which means that the doctor's advice that I cut down on the hobbies and take painkillers was somewhat less than helpful. Also I never actually think that painkillers will work. (I...I have issues.)

*

I finally finished reading Tom Holland's book Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic today. (I need to return it to the library because I need to take out more books and I can't figure out how to make the library photocopiers make photocopies properly, so I can't return the two issues of the Journal of Roman Archaeology I have out yet. Ugh, stupid 25 book limit.) I just have so many Roman Republic feels, y'all. I mean, the empire has its moments, but it will always be the Republic for me -- and the Late Republic is frankly hilarious, but it's also so sad, because it's just this slow unstoppable slide into the empire. It's the Middle Republic that I like the best; I always default to the Punic Wars, of course, because the Republic and the Hannibalic War frankly amaze me. It's just...I have so many feelings about the Roman Republic.

In retrospect, it really shouldn't be a surprise that I'm attracted to the period of history that hits the same emotional notes for me that my favorite fandoms, pairings, and tropes do. I am very predictable. (And my favorite historical figure fits pretty neatly into the same space as a lot of my favorite fictional characters, too. Obviously he is from that period. Weirdly he is not a Roman.)

*

Today's -- well, yesterday's, since it's 1:30 am over here (see above for my stupid sleeping schedule) -- Hobbit art rec theme is Thorin Oakenshield. Hopefully I won't repeat myself.

Got Lost Twice by [deviantart.com profile] kimberly80
Thorin by [tumblr.com profile] goobo
Thorin and His Mountain by [deviantart.com profile] ancalinar
scarred Thorin by [tumblr.com profile] fetalnightmare
Thorin Oakenshield by [tumblr.com profile] nautilusl2

Look, I can comfortably say that I am not going to run out of Thorin fanart to rec any time soon. *g*
bedlamsbard: animals: a cougar standing on a tall rock (girlyb_icons) (a high place (girlyb_icons))
Oh gods I should have looked at this dissertation proposal a week ago, now I'm kind of scrambling because I AM A GENIUS. (It is due on Tuesday. I will be frantically e-mailing my supervisor all weekend. I hope he's aware that he's my supervisor.) (I think we can safely say that I am not actually the most-prepared MA student in the world.) (He's probably aware. Well, he's probably guessed. I mentioned the topic to him last week, and then looked extremely shifty whenever he talked to my course as a whole.) (I AM THE ACTUAL WORST, OKAY.) (Well, at least I have a topic.)

*

I seriously have to get out of England and go home for a couple of weeks. OH WAIT I'M NOT ON TOP OF THAT EITHER.

*

Yeah, it's that time of year again.

*

Let's not even discuss my final projects. THEY'RE PAPERS, JUST CALL THEM PAPERS, WHAT THE FUCK, ENGLAND. "Project" makes it sound so fluffy. IT AIN'T FLUFFY, IT'S A 5K POSTGRADUATE CRITICAL RESEARCH PAPER.

*

My fraying nerves fray even further, an autobiography, by Bedlam (which also accurately describes my state of mind).

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is villains, a theme for which I have barely scraped enough art without dipping into LotR or Silmarillion characters, or too far into book-inspired rather than movie-inspired. (Weirdly, I have actually not run into a whole lot of Smaug artwork. I'm sure it's out there, because, you know, GIANT DRAGON and the book's been out since 1937, but still. I have seen two separate dragons I have never heard of before and thus assume that they are from the Silmarillion, but no Smaug. WHAT? Okay, there's some Smaug.)

taking tea by [tumblr.com profile] bridgioto
Gollum by [deviantart.com profile] cg-warrior
Thieves! Fire! Murder! by [deviantart.com profile] dragonsoul2
Azog the Defiler and the Great Goblin by [tumblr.com profile] dwalinroxxx
Azog the Defiler by [deviantart.com profile] axlsalles

(I guess I could have added a lot of Thranduil art to this, but I don't really think of Thranduil as a villain? And I recently realized that I have no giant spider art.)

ETA: Literally two seconds after I posted this I found a really nice Smaug. Oh, well, next time.
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (brothers (icondothat))
The weather's been nice recently, so I've been leaving the windows in the kitchen and in my room open as much as I can just to get some fresh air in this apartment. Also because I've been feeling overheated lately, and actual air helps. It's right now that I really, really miss being at Tulane -- not just because I miss the weather, or the food, or my friends, or the environment, though that's all part of it. But I miss having a university campus that wasn't so alienating, where I was actually willing to go somewhere to work: inside, outside, library, PJ's, LBC, the quad, whatever. At Leicester, well, I basically walk up to the campus, flinch, go to the library, remember that I hate that library and take out five books instead of doing any work before fleeing back to my flat because the idea of being on that campus a second more than necessary is painful to me. (This backfires, I always miss my prof's office hours because I just don't want to be on campus, and also because I constantly forget things.)

I live right by the train tracks, next to a railway bridge. Every time I go into the kitchen, there's a train coming in or going out. There's something romantic about it, about looking down from so far up (I live on the ninth floor) and listening to the trains rolling along. (The trains themselves aren't romantic. I've been on those trains. Not romantic. Also, I always think of the massacre in Being Human, which is not what you want to think about when you're on a train.) It's nice. Peaceful. For thirty seconds or so until the kettle finishes boiling, anyway.

*

Today we will actually get a Hobbit art rec set! Shocking, it's...been a while. This week's round-up will include last week's sets too.

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is young dwarves.

Shield-Brothers by [deviantart.com profile] qed221b
'Look, Mama!' by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
Bofur, Bifur, and Bombur by [tumblr.com profile] vera-ist-44
Blunt those knives by [deviantart.com profile] erry
the brothers Ri by [tumblr.com profile] petitpotato
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (at sea (forceiswithyou))
Oof, I made the -- hmm, I don't know if I want to go ahead and say "mistake" -- I made the decision to try and knit the entire time during the Vikings finale, and I'm not entirely sure that that was the smartest decision. I have been outright afraid of knitting for the past couple of weeks, of even trying to knit -- I think I did four minutes one time, ten minutes another -- just in case I found out I couldn't, that even trying would hurt too much to be worth it, that my (not terribly extensive compared to some) collection of expensive yarn was now worthless, etc., etc. But I bit the bullet and did it today (I just finished up the gusset on the 3x1 ribbed sock that I started about a month ago at about the same time the wrist pain was kicking in again), and knitting for about 44 minutes straight was probably not the brightest notion, because I could definitely feel it afterwards. In the left wrist and a little bit in the right, maybe, I'm never sure whether I'm actually in pain, if it's all in my head, or if I think I should be in pain so I make myself actually be in pain (this makes sense in my head).

Today was actually probably not the best day to try, since this week's wrist experiences have varied between "ow ow ow", "okay", "ugh", and "eh." Though it hasn't veered into "OW MOTHERFUCKER MAKE IT STOP" for the past couple weeks, and both wrists have been kind of poppy for the past two days. Right wrist is normally poppy, left wrist has been more so recently -- Monday was painkillers, Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty much "whatever IDK", Thursday was intensive note-taking and thus some aching/poppy-ness, yesterday was on and off poppy, veering into "wow, I really shouldn't be doing this and yet I can't stop typing," because I went into the writing madness on Thursday and Friday. Although typing works my hands in different places than knitting, and yeah, I don't know. I do know that my left wrist has been kind of "eh" all day, so testing it may not have been the best idea.

Although, let's be honest, English Flatmate N. and I are going to go see Iron Man 3 tomorrow, and I was -- still am, I guess, we'll see if my hands have fallen off tomorrow morning -- anxious about what I can do with my hands in the theatre. Normally I knit; if I don't knit, I take in a skein of yarn and spend the entire movie winding it. (I actually did this through all four screenings of The Hobbit, because I didn't have anything on the needles I could do without looking.) But I obviously don't want to start winding yarn if I don't know if I'll be able to knit anytime soon, and I don't know if I'll actually be able to knit, and I don't want to get popcorn...I guess we'll see. I mean, I may just end up in the theatre clutching my ziploc of half-knitted sock. (Which I end up doing if I screw up badly enough I can't fix it without looking. Basically, I need to have something in my hands.)

The vague upside to the whole hand thing is because I can't knit while I'm watching TV, I'm watching a lot less TV -- an episode or two a day (sometimes more, depending what I'm doing). Usually while I'm eating; if not or after I finish, I end up with my hands wrapped around a mug, usually bopping around on the internet too. A couple of times I've sat down with some lengths of yarn to work on my multi-strand braiding techniques. I don't know how I'll deal with an actual movie. Anyway, if I watch less TV, then I'm doing something else. Schoolwork, hopefully. Mostly. Sometimes. (Actually, I wish I was reading more, for school or otherwise. I mean, have you seen my to-read pile?)

One side effect of the whole wrist business is that I'm much more likely to reach for whatever painkiller I have on hand -- ibuprofen, today -- out of sheer irritation rather than the level of pain. (I mean, the pain too. I notoriously have problems with painkillers.) Which is not the best idea ever, but I'm clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed.

*

I've got a LotR art rec post coming up sometime -- it was going to be today, but then I realized a lot of what I'd put aside to mine for later actually turned out to be Silmarillion art, which I'm not going to rec until I've, you know, actually read the Silmarillion. (It is at the top of my to-read pile. Well, one of them.)

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is book-based art! I thought I had a little more of this, but I can't find it right now. That is to say, art that's based on written depictions of characters in the book, rather than the movie versions. So a bit of a change from what we've seen recently! (Don't worry, I've got some Hot Dwarves (TM) lined up for later too.)

Bilbo Baggins and Long Way by [deviantart.com profile] CG-warrior
Thorin Oakenshield and There and Back Again by [deviantart.com profile] gold-seven
The Arkenstone by [deviantart.com profile] ullakko
Balin, Bombur, and Dori by [deviantart.com profile] ancalinar
He came alone, and in bear's shape... by [deviantart.com profile] sceithailm
Gandalf the Grey by [deviantart.com profile] lucasgraciano

Slightly odd numbers, I know, but I kind of lost track and didn't feel like cutting anything out. There's quite a lot of book-based art out there, of course, these books have been around for much, much longer than the movies, The Hobbit or LotR! It's rather disconcerting to look at book-based art for familiar characters, especially if you've been spending as much time looking at visual representations of them as I have. (Read: a lot. I've got about 500 pieces saved on my computer, and there's a lot I don't save because it doesn't really do it for me, not to mention pictures of the actors, the actual movie, concept art, etc. And that's just Hobbit stuff, not counting anything for/from LotR.) You end up staring at it going, "Wait, but, Bilbo, what? Wait, dwarves, what? WAIT GANDALF WHAT?" I pulled out my copies of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings when I was at home over break, which I can't take seriously anymore because of the cover art -- this box set. I KNOW RIGHT? (Also, I think between me and my father we might have about three or four copies each of all the books.)
bedlamsbard: animals: a cougar standing on a tall rock (girlyb_icons) (a high place (girlyb_icons))
Today has been a day of variable adulthood, but I have a tentative dissertation topic and, more importantly, I finally did what I have meaning to do for the past month or so and made an appointment to get my hair cut! I am very proud of myself, because I've been very anxious about it and it comes up two or three times a day. But the salon has online booking, so I didn't have to talk to anyone, and hopefully in a few days I will have hair that is no longer uneven and is slightly more manageable.

This means I get to stare at pictures of loose hair legitimately and try and decide how much I want to cut off -- I think I need to have at least five inches, and maybe a little more.

*

Apparently I can still have deep thinky thoughts about the actual Narnia canon several years on, instead of just making shit up the way I usually do. This is weirdly reassuring to me, since I've been deep in Revelations thoughts the past few days, and Revelations is, er, only loosely tethered to canon.

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is modern!AUs, because I kept running across new art.

'It's technically correct' by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
modern!Fili and Kili by [tumblr.com profile] hvit-ravn
Hipster Bofur by [tumblr.com profile] lanimalu
baker Fili and Kili by [tumblr.com profile] miusart
Thorin and Dwalin, Thorin and Dwalin again, and Fili and Kili by [tumblr.com profile] evankart

The [tumblr.com profile] miusart piece is apparently actually fanart for a fic, which I haven't read because it's not my ship. The three [tumblr.com profile] evankart pieces I've had up in tabs for the past week or two, heh. (I just love how casually Thorin and Dwalin are touching there; it makes me smile every time I look at it.)

I actually haven't recced some of my favorite modern!AU art, since it's attached to my absolute favorite fic in the fandom and I haven't gotten around to reccing that yet. (It's been months, what's wrong with me, and I have, no lie, had it up in a tab since about January or February because I keep rereading it.)
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (archer (fading_melody))
Today's hair was a Caryatid-inspired hairstyle (tutorial here), because hair and Classics, two of my favorite things! Except if I ever decide to do that many fishtail braids again, please shoot me. It took me thirteen and a half minutes to do each braid, and there are fifteen FIVE of them; two braids in, and at the point where I could put on my glasses and my headphones, I just sat down and watched last night's episode of Revenge while braiding, and had just started pinning the side braids up when the episode ended. Fishtails look cool but they're so damn fiddly, man.

ETA: And it took forty minutes to take the fishtails out, too. Fishtails don't leave cool waves behind the way three- or more- strand braids do, they just sort of frizz.

*

Classes started again today, which was...I don't know. My Monday class is a four pm class, which is always mildly aggravating, though also the reason I can spend an hour and a half doing my hair. I'm pissed off that I wasted my vacation, since my answer to "what did you do?" was, "Didn't leave Leicester for five weeks, watched seven seasons of Spooks, had some health problems." Although I'm weirdly proud of myself for being able to actually say "I had (and still have) some health problems," because, yeah, I did and I do. My wrists are still messed up and then there's my mental/emotional state, which is...fragile...at the moment.

*

I want a certificate of achievement for not burning down the world when I finish this year. This will, of course, be null and void if I actually succeed in lighting anything on fire which isn't supposed to be on fire.

(Last night was kind of a night of rage. I wish I wasn't so freaking conscientious, sometimes I really want to break things but the most I ever do is rip up paper and then I feel bad about it. Once I hung up on my dad and threw my phone into a pillow. I'm pretty sure that was my big teenage rebellion.)

*

I am very tired.

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is archers and archery. It's not as single-character as you might think!

Beware the Sea by [deviantart.com profile] sceithailm
Fili by [tumblr.com profile] larbestaaargh
Archery Lesson by [tumblr.com profile] lookimadeasomething
Dis and Frerin by [tumblr.com profile] kannibal
Arrow of Durin by [deviantart.com profile] studiomia
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (brothers (icondothat))
My wrists are -- I don't know. They've mostly been consistent for the past few days, with an almost -- IDK, burning? -- in the left wrist, around the joint beneath the thumb (definitely the wrist and not the hand, though). Right wrist has been achy but not bad -- definitely better than it's been, and not with that bone deep ache. Prone to popping, but no worse than usual. Most of the pain has been in that one point in the left wrist -- which, come to think of it, was the same point my right wrist was in pain at a few weeks ago. I kind of hit the breaking point tonight and slathered on tiger balm and popped a paracetamol, even though I don't think the amount of pain had actually gone up, I was just sick of dealing with it.

*

Classes start again on Monday, which means I'm now back at the stage where I'm like, shit, gotta do work because there's stuff I have to have done for Monday, not to mention major papers in about a month, and my at the moment highly theoretical dissertation.

*

I'm putting together another Revelations post. I'm now sort of antsy about Revelations because of what happened in Boston, but I love Revelations, I love the concept, and I love the characters, so, you know. *hands* IDK. (One of the things in this post is my fancasting for the mains in Revelations, and I am just so fucking thrilled because -- I know this is my thing and it was my choice, but still -- nine out of eleven of them are women and four are (sort of, given it's a fantasy world) characters of color. And five are dwarves, because, well, it's me. And two are canon characters, because, ha, me again. Obviously the canon characters would be scrapped if I decided to do this as origfic instead of fanfic. I should honestly not be this pleased with myself that I am writing what is basically a novel where the majority of characters are ladies, but, you know, the world.)

Also putting this together keeps making me claw at my computer in agony that Hollywood has not yet given me Lena Headey and Katee Sackhoff as badass sister-bros (or whatever) in a film or TV series yet. Ugh dreamcast.

*

I was going to do ship art, and then I kind of panicked (I do that) about whether I ought to only rec things I ship, and then whether it's wrong to rec things I don't ship (most things), and oh god I don't have enough diversity in the amount of ship art I have saved, and then I kind of panicked some more and briefly considered just reccing porn and then remembered that it's not really my thing, it's just that I know quite a few of the artists who do it in this fandom because it's hard to avoid like BotFA fanart, except differently NSFW), and then I just decided to do Durincest instead. Which I don't know if I necessarily ship all the time -- there is actually one ship that I do ship in this fandom, believe it or not -- but I do have a fair amount of it saved. Though not as much as I'd thought. I think it's just that I don't necessarily save it, not that it doesn't exist, and also that sometimes it can be hard to tell incest from gen in this fandom, because they can be a pretty handsy family in art.

In conclusion: tonight's Hobbit art rec theme is: Durincest (or: the handsiest family in Middle-Earth). Incest, obviously, I'll add notes if there's anything more explicit than kissing.

Fili and Kili: Kisses by [deviantart.com profile] irbisn
hello, brother by [tumblr.com profile] megatruh
'Kili, for the love of Aule, I'm okay, lad' by [tumblr.com profile] loobeeinthesky
'Are you sure?' by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
Thorin and Fili by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart

Yeah, I know, there are two by the same artist here, but I wanted some triple Durincest and some Thorin/Fili and all the rest I could find was so explicit that I kind of blushed looking at it. (I am aware this would probably not dissuade anyone, but it's my hang-up, so. *shrug*)

No count on the number of dying dolphin noises I made during this search. At least one of them was about a different fandom entirely!
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (brothers (icondothat))
I'm sorry that I've been so upset lately. Actually, I'm going to come right out and say it: I'm sorry I've been so depressed lately. That's a loaded word and I'm nervous about using it, but sometimes I feel like saying that I've been "miserable" or "upset" is dancing around the point. I mean, yes, both of those are true. I've been miserable and I've been upset. I've been mentally, emotionally, and physically fraught these past few weeks, and I still am. I've been sleeping too much (even if I have trouble actually getting to sleep), I'm tired most of the time, I'm probably not eating or eating the right things, I feel like I'm constantly in pain in some part of my body, and even if I'm not actively in pain, I'm worrying about being in pain to the extent that I keep thinking I'm spontaneously causing pain (can you do that? I worry that I'm doing that). When I'm not stressed about my physical, mental, or emotional well-being I'm stressed about school: my papers for this term, my dissertation for the summer, what I'm doing next year. (At this point, reasonably certain I'm going to take a year off because dear god, I can't take three to nine more years of this right now.) I worry that I'm having wild mood-swings because I honestly can't tell if I'm having them or not.

And I don't have much of a filter, either in RL or online, so if you're following me on DW/LJ or Twitter, it's pretty much all just hanging out there. So I apologize for that. There hasn't been a whole lot of fannish squee or fic lately.

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is Frerin. Frerin is, as far as I know, another character who's only mentioned in the RotK appendices, rather than in the books themselves. Frerin in Thorin's younger brother, the second of Thrain's children, and he died young in the Battle of Azanulbizar (Tolkien gives his dates as 2751-2799). This being a fandom that's mighty fond of tragic brothers and epic family feels, there's actually quite a lot of Frerin artwork, just like there is for his sister Dis.

Like with Dis, there's no physical description of Frerin. He isn't a movie character (as far as we know, and while it's possible that he could show up in flashback in The Desolation of Smaug or There and Back Again, it seems even more unlikely that he'll appear than it does that Dis will), so we don't have any casting to go off of, and he isn't mentioned in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles at all, so if there was any concept art done for him, it wasn't meant to appear in AUJ. As far as I've seen, artists tend to go one of two ways with Frerin: he's either dark, like his brother Thorin, or fair, like his nephew Fili. In fact, there's quite a bit of artwork where he has similar beard and hair decorations to Fili, just like representations of Fili and Kili's father tend towards -- the moustache braids are a recurring example. (Interestingly, I've never yet seen a blonde Dis.) Frerin has actually shown up in a few pieces I've recced in the past, usually alongside Thorin and/or Dis, but once with Fili and Kili (though according to the timeline, he was dead long before they were born, because most depressing family ever).

Frerin by [tumblr.com profile] cidershark
Dwalin and Frerin by [tumblr.com profile] ankad
Thrain's Three by [tumblr.com profile] kannibal
Frerin, Thorin, and Dis by [tumblr.com profile] ladynorthstar
Thorin finds his brother after the Battle of Azanulbizar by [tumblr.com profile] papermachette

There are a few more, but I try not to repeat artists in a single rec post if I can help it. Previous rec sets that have included Frerin: 2/19 random, 3/13 Dis, 3/15 young dwarves, 3/24 Erebor before the dragon, and 4/22 art that tells a story. (Normally I wouldn't include previous rec sets that feature a character, but since he is, like Dis, sort of an odd one, I will this time. Also, wow, I didn't realize he'd shown up that many times.)

As an aside, I've been watching Vikings, and every single time that he shows up on screen, I keep thinking that Ragnar's brother Rollo (played by Clive Standen) would make a great Frerin. Maybe it's the hair and the beard, which are basically the same as Thorin's in AUJ.
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (aslan's how (elec3nity))
As I usually do when I'm having bouts of...homesickness, I guess. I hesitate to actually label it homesickness, but since I've spent the past week sobbing, "I want to go home," in the shower (and half the time meaning Ellensburg and half the time meaning New Orleans), I guess homesickness might actually be the correct diagnosis. Er, what I was saying was, as I usually do when I'm having bouts of homesickness, I rediscovered Sugarland on my iTunes, which is the music of my heart, and hits home in so many ways. And sometimes the lyrics stab me in the heart because they're just so relevant to what's going through my head. (dear mom and dad / please don't worry because I'm all right -- although most of the chorus for that song is actually dear mom and dad / please send money.)

Anyway. SUGARLAND. Most of the country music on iTunes is my baby done left me angst, but then Sugarland.

(And what just came on is it gets better all the time.)

*

Today I thought I'd be good and go to the library and study, but I walked into the library and remembered that I HATE IT. Like, it's a decent library, I just hate how the study spaces are set up, and the lighting's too bright and it's always too warm and there are too many people. So I took out five books instead, I just have to find somewhere to read them that isn't my room, because now that there's like sun and stuff it's become very obvious that the lighting in my room is TERRIBLE. The kitchen gets a lot of light because we have a corner apartment and there are floor-to-ceiling windows in that corner, but sometimes there's a lot of traffic.

*

I don't even know what my hands, wrists, and forearms are doing. They're okay? Except when they're not. I think that I'd actually be fine knitting, I'm just mildly afraid to try. (Also I'm kind of convinced that I'm about to hit a point where I can knit but not type, but I'm also super-paranoid and that seems unlikely.)

So far the most bizarre (and least painful) thing is that my left hand, after I put the brace on, has recently started -- hmm, you know when you usually wear rings and then you take them off but your fingers are still used to the weight? My left hand has started doing that. I wear my NCI ring on my right ring finger, but I don't wear any rings on my left hand -- I used to, but not for about three years or so. So that's bizarre.

*

As soon as I realize that I've been low-appetite I go back to having to eat ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. Okay, I'm fine with that, since my sweet tooth still hasn't reappeared so it's mostly fruit and bread.

*

Today I made a LotR reference and neither of my flatmates (both English) got it. I was SO SAD. Although I've had the conversation with them before about how neither of them have read The Hobbit and LotR or seen all the movies, so I should have expected it, and YET.

(following discussion of how jacket potatoes are baked potatoes in America and if we call any other kinds of potatoes something different than in Britain)
S: "What else can you do with potatoes?"
Me: "Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew."
Me: *waits*
S and N: *blank stares*

*

And on that note, today's Hobbit art rec theme is going to be food and eating. I thought I might have to scrape around to get enough art to fit the theme, but, as you might expect from a movie that includes a big food sequence near the beginning, nope! So ta for that, fanartists.

birthday cake and aftermath by [tumblr.com profile] olgg
Bilbo cooks for the company by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
MEAT! by [tumblr.com profile] doublenegativemeansyes
You idiot children! by [tumblr.com profile] kannibal
Goodbye, food by [tumblr.com profile] hvit-ravn

Huh, you'd think I'd have more Bombur. Oh, well, another time, another rec set!
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (brothers (icondothat))
Today's Hobbit art rec theme is art that tells a story. (Some of these have explanations, but I like the sense of urgency/story/whatever in the piece itself.)

young Fili and Kili on the run by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
'You just have to take the axe out' and 'Welcome back to the land of the living, cousin' by [tumblr.com profile] bridgioto
two kids without the jackets by [deviantart.com profile] olivietta
'Mister, please, sell us this toy?' by [tumblr.com profile] ankad
Dis encountering a bear in the woods by [tumblr.com profile] ppitte

*

Eep, I realize I haven't done last week's Hobbit art rec round-up yet, I'll do it tomorrow.

*

LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT MY DAY. First I had a hair experience that made me want to set my head on fire, though I resisted and eventually my hair looked fine, but that was after, like, an hour and a half because apparently my hands forgot how to do lace braids and I eventually ripped half of them out and just did English braids instead.

And then I went to the library. Okay. Nothing wrong there, except for the SUDDEN AGONIZING PAIN in my right ring finger, in one spot, for about five to ten minutes, and then it sort of petered off. (And was back on and off, though in more irritation and left agony, in a couple of fingers -- that kind of pain where it feels like it's right up against the bone, which I've been feeling a lot of in my left thumb. Fuck my hands, man.)

And then I went into town, okay, except it was late so everything was already either closing or closed already, and on my way back A BIRD POOPED ON ME. Or grazed me, whatever: hair, jacket, somehow my bag that was on the other side of my body, IDEK, and my left wrist brace, which is now in the laundry.

BUT I ate three meals today (OMG! no, seriously, OMG) and did schoolwork and read my book (when in doubt, reread DWJ), so there's that.

AND THEN my left wrist flared up hardcore with the kind of dull ache that made my life agony back in February and which until today hadn't actually recurred amongst all the other crazy shit my hands and wrists have done. Which made me dive for the paracetamol, which I haven't done in a few days, but anything that makes me sit there and chant, "fuck fuck it hurts kick in painkillers kick in fuck fuck fuck," at least is actually better than the all-consuming misery of the past few days. What the actual hell, world.

And I don't have a third brace, so I'm mildly worried about what my wrists will do tomorrow, given that I sleep in them.

And my hands were mostly fine (ish...I don't even remember what not being in mild pain and/or discomfort is like) for most of the day, too. *sigh* Last night I actually started to feel it from typing for the first time, which was alarming, because typing is one of the things I've been able to do without being in pain. This really sucks, okay. For one thing, my rapidly fraying sanity. For another thing, fuck, my degree.
bedlamsbard: miscellaneous: woman pulling her pink corset tight (a woman's armor (ravenclawbest))
So today I spent an hour and a half doing my hair (this Lagertha-inspired hairstyle; I kind of messed up the sectioning so it looked messier, another in a fine tradition of TV- and movie- hairstyles that look like they take five minutes to do but actually take, well, an hour and a half), ate two and a half meals, which is up from the past week, started rereading one of my favorite novels, and discovered that my automatic, bone deep, deep-seated reaction to accidentally walking into a parade where there are fifes and drums and people carrying the British flag is to pump my fist in the air and yell, "Revolution!" You will be glad to know I refrained from doing so. My second reaction was, "Wait, why are there a bunch of small neckerchiefed children marching down the street?" (Apparently, the St. George's Day parade.)

Anyway, I was doing my hair today, and at about an hour in I was still doing my hair and wondering why I was doing it, what if it looked horrible, what was the point when I was going to take it out in the evening anyway, and then I finished it and it looked, if not quite like how it does in the tutorial, or quite like Lagertha's, pretty badass to my eyes (pics here and here -- the lighting in my room is terrible and that's off my webcam, so). And after that I went outside, and I was walking down the street thinking of the idea of clothes, hair, makeup, jewelry, etc., as armor. Because I finished that hairstyle, and even if it didn't look fabulous, even if it looked a little wild, even if the average person on the street had no idea what I was doing with it, I felt amazing. I felt like nothing could touch me. And after the week I've had, that felt pretty amazing.

*

Yesterday was...a bad day. The past few days have been pretty bad for me, and I don't know why though I have my guesses. A lot of things suddenly adding up. Which culminated in me writing a really long mopey e-mail to my mother that ended in me waking up this morning to two very alarmed e-mails from both my parents.

Today has been less bad, though right now it's threatening to slide right back into 'everything is awful' territory, which, gods, I wish there was some kind of magic switch to just turn that part of my brain off. Can technology please get on that?

I don't know what my hands are doing and that really upsets me. They're mostly okay, but I am, frankly, afraid to knit just in case I find that I can't. So that's upsetting. I keep worrying that my computer posture's off somehow, but I don't really know what else I can change at this point since I changed my typing posture already and there are a limited number of ways in which I can sit and not have my back pain flare up. (I guess it's my mouse-handling that's really worrying me, but I don't know what else I could do.)

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is rather a mixed bag: I was going for a whole set of characters meeting either their actors or other characters their actors have played, but I actually only came up with four instead of my usual five. (I suspect I had another and lost it somewhere. *shrug*) But yesterday there were six, so hopefully one short isn't too terrible a sin.

Kili meets Mitchell (from Being Human UK) by [tumblr.com profile] mutsunn
Dean and Aidan meet their characters by [tumblr.com profile] hvit-ravn
Dwarfsitting by [tumblr.com profile] lanimalu
Gollum, Thorin, and Bofur during the Hobbit livetweet session by [profile] pionochan

Actually, come to think of it, I am mildly certain that I've run across some Bilbo-meets-Watson and I've definitely found some -- oh god -- Smauglock art, but it's not the sort of thing that shows up on my usual sources and it's not something I've saved. I am mildly surprised that I haven't run into any Fili meets Anders art -- I think I've seen one more Kili meets Mitchell piece, but don't have it saved. (Unsurprisingly, a crossover pairing that's sprung up is Mitchell/Anders -- Aidan Turner's character from Being Human and Dean O'Gorman's character from The Almighty Johnsons. Oh, fandom. Never change.)
bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (brothers (icondothat))
I was going to do a big long post talking about how miserable I am and how I'm pretty sure I'm in an emotional downturn, but y'all are saved because I'm putting it all in an e-mail to my mother, which I'm sure she'll take well.

*

Unsurprisingly, I now own The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey Chronicles: Creatures and Characters. AWW HELL YEAH. The only thing that really bothers me about this book and its companion, the concept art book is the size and shape of both books: I have to constantly bend in really uncomfortable ways to read them, so I end up in a lot of pain. (My back pain has been flaring up for the past few weeks as well as my wrist pain, and this aggravates it. I remember it happened with the other book too.) So it tends to be squee interspersed with OH GOD THAT HURTS SO MUCH.

*

Today's Hobbit art rec theme is another one of those tropes that shows up over and over again: Thorin reading to a young Fili and Kili.

Read us something by [tumblr.com profile] hvit-ravn/[deviantart.com profile] pabuttego
Dreams of Gold by [deviantart.com profile] emorenji
storytime by [tumblr.com profile] loobeeinthesky
The Folk by [deviantart.com profile] llano
facepalm by [tumblr.com profile] kaciart
bedtime stories by [tumblr.com profile] flatbear

I've actually recced the last piece before, but it fits in so well with the theme that I'm going to go ahead and rec it again. The [tumblr.com profile] loobeinthesky piece is one of several that I have open on my browser for...ehehehehe, a while now. I'm kind of tempted to do a set of "art that I have kept open to stare longingly at for more than a week and/or a month (or three)", but I've recced most of it already in various sets. Unless this would be a thing people would be interested in? It probably says a lot about my taste.

ETA: To add the [tumblr.com profile] kaciart piece.

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bedlamsbard: natasha romanoff from the black widow prelude comic (Default)
bedlamsbard

December 2022

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