kangeiko

So, after much flanick, I was able to write a few treats for yuletide . The reveal -

up, up the long delirious burning blue for destina 
Fandom: Top Gun
Characters: Maverick/Iceman
Warnings: Major Character Death
Summary: Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth / And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings ... Maverick is re-assigned to Bosnia. He's not prepared for it, not in the least.

Salome Dances for selenak 
Fandom: The Borgias
Characters: Lucrezia Borgia/Giulia Farnese, Cesare Borgia, Vannozza dei Cattanei
Warnings: obligatory Borgia incest warning
Summary: Lucrezia is quite taken by the lovely Giulia Farnese

The Winter Queen for sloppycronkite 
Fandom: Game of Thrones (TV)
Characters: Daenerys Targaryen/Viserys Targaryen
Warnings: obligatory Targaryen incest warning
Summary: Daenerys knows it's just a matter of being patient. Things will be better once Viserys is king.

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I am also able to thank my lovely Yuletide authors! I was doubly-blessed this year with not one, but two wonderful fics. Both of them are sweet and happy, and made me squeak with joy on Christmas Day. Thank you so much to bethbethbeth  and Serenade , you guys are awesome!

"Unless I'm very much mistaken..." by bethbethbeth 
Formula 1 RPF, Senna/Prost.
This is my main fic, and absolutely wonderful. It's the Senna/Prost relationship through the eyes of a young fan, who goes to the Brands Hatch GP in the hope of winning Ayrton's affections for herself. I love this story to bits, it's absolutely brilliant. From the setting - it's Brands, you guys, I practically live there half the year these days! - to the flashes of the motorsport world, to the Senna/Prost relationship itself, this is hilarious and heart-warming.

Homecoming by Serenade 
Seafort Saga - David Feintuch, Seafort/Tolliver
This is my lovely treat from Serenade (I totally knew it was you, lol!), who has managed the impossible: funny, happy fic in the Seafort Saga universe. I know, right?! I love it. Tolliver is fed up of Nick's unreasonable demands re: the redecoration of his office, so drags him to Ikea. This is cracky and hilarious.

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A couple of yuletide recs. I haven't really had a chance to do much reading, but what I have read I have enjoyed a lot.

Please, please please by AdaptationDecay 
John Lewis adverts
This is lovely! I love the adverts anyway, I think they're brilliant, and this fic manages to capture the spirit of them, and is also wickedly clever. It put a real smile on my face. Plus bonus sekkrit crossover!

Turn a New Page, Tear the Old One Out by shrift 
Breakfast Club, Bender/Brian
Bender gets a new life, and how. Lovely and well-realised future fic.

Dear Yuletide Santa, Thank you so much for signing up and offering to write one of the below fandoms! I am used to being in super-obscure fandoms-of-one, so to find a kindred spirit has made me ridiculously happy. Any fic at all in any of the below would make me squeak with glee. But – a vague disclaimer being no one’s friend – I have some more info on stuff I love & stuff that squicks me to help out.

Stuff I love:
1. Gen, slash, het, femslash, whatever. I love them all! I do confess that I love gen most of all. I’ve requested pairings in my prompts below, but if any of the pairings doesn't work for you, rest assured that I would be equally happy with strong words across the room as I would be with a steamy sex scene.
2. Plot! I do love me some plot. Failing that, angst!
3. Awesome female characters.
4. Something upbeat - not necessarily a happy ending, but some glimmer of light, or something bittersweet.
5. Dialogue. Words! Words in people’s mouths! People having opinions, and arguments, and snarking at each other!
6. First-times. I tend to be less interested in a couple after they have been happily settled or wrapped up in each other, and a lot more interested in how couples get together.
7. Conflict. I like change in fic - change in relationships, change in preconceptions, change in situation, good old-fashion action-adventure - and having characters disagree or take opposing sides. I'm not generally a fan of schmoop, smarm or fluff.

Squicks:
1. Chan, shota, underage, however you term it. I have trouble with anything below the age of consent (16 where I live);
2. Non-con, rape. I sometimes read it, but it's rare, and I normally find it very difficult to read.
3. Character-bashing. If I've nominated a fandom I tend to love all the characters.
4. The common sex-based squicks - chan as mentioned, also scat, watersports, snuff, etc.

On to the fandoms! This year, I requested -

( 18th Century CE RPF )

( Formula 1 RPF )

( Air (comic) )

( Seafort Saga - David Feintuch )

As always, OPTIONAL details are OPTIONAL, so please don't despair if you read the above and thought "what is she on about, this woman is insane", I am sure to love whatever fic you end up writing. Feel free to comment anonymously if you need to ask questions. Thank you again and enjoy writing!

I am finally pounding out some words for help_japan , and need a beta if anyone is available. Babylon 5 fic, Lyta-centred. Any takers?

The common image of Africa is of desert and red sand. Maybe that's true of some parts - the Sahelian and Sahara regions, for instance - and red is certainly a major part of the African palette. But green is a much bigger part. My experience of Africa has primarily been one of greenery dripping with rain, and the thick smell of flowers in the air. Even in cities like Abuja, which are more akin to Milton Keynes than anywhere else, trees and bushes and ferns are abundant. In a place like Lilongwe - lazy and sprawling - it feels like the city is barely hours old, freshly claimed from the forest. I know, intellectually, just how much work goes into keeping each compound lush and beautiful. I've seen the hours put in, and bills for a full-time gardener on staff. But leave the compound and walk along the street, and you should watch where you step, because on the ground is a carpet of blue-purple flowers, thick and soft, freshly fallen that morning from the blossoming trees. I will try to take a picture of the road near my house in the enxt few days, before the trees finish losing their blossoms. Even then, the green is not yet done. The rains are coming, and with them, the most beautiful time of year. Every tree and shrub bursts into bloom, and the fern underfoot - kept neatly trimmed in a thicker lawn than mere grass could provide - make a bid for freedom. The green explodes into life.

The animals and birds respond. My colleague has been bemoaning the birds outside her window: charming in daylight hours, but infuriating at 5am. I don't have sognbirds keeping me awake, but there is a persistent rooster that wakes up at about 4am and makes his presence known. My grandparents had roosters on their farm, and when I was little I'd be woken by the crowing. Last night, I curled up on my bed - on my own sheets, with my own pillow case, in my own bedclothes and with my books and water bottle and phone beside me - and fell asleep after a struggle. Too much coffee, you see. I slept oddly, trying to wake at the usual 6.45am but unable to do so, staggering upright finally at 10am. I dreamed I was at home. I woke, and stretched, and here's the thing: I was. Suddenly, everything was familiar.

I stretched and staggered into the bathroom to brush my teeth, my hands automatically reaching for the bottled water to wet my toothbrush rather than turning on the tap. I pulled on my gym kit while half-asleep, forced down a banana, and worked my way through Davina's aerobics and legs workout. I was half-way through a follow-up pilates session by the time I was fully awake. I filtered some water, filled the kettle, and got into the shower for a luxurious eucalyptus-scented wake-up call. Wandering out refreshed, I had a pot of rooibos tea and scrambled eggs while reading The Observer that had helpfully downloaded onto my Kindle while showering. I did a load of laundry. I read a chapter of Antonia Fraser's Mary, Queen of Scots. I did my washing up. I listened to the worshippers singing as they returned home from church. I made another pot of tea, opened all the windows and sat down with melba toast and home-made jam and my laptop to check my email.

Outside, it started to rain.

I was totally intending to do a travel round-up, but I'm struggling with the connection. Instead, I'm going to whine about working on a giant spreadsheet that gets more complex with every added formula. Why, world, why? This is why I don't like project work. Or, well, I do, but I feel like I've been dropped in the middle of it with no briefing, and am struggling to make sense of everything in the allotted time.

On the plus side, I'm definitely travelling in-country in a couple of weeks, which should be awesome. On the downside, the rest of my time seems to be pencilled in to interview panels and workshops, with no actual time to get any of the work done. ARGH. Plus Monday is a bank holiday! And my normal lift has her sister visiting so probably won't want to drive us around!

Oh, I totally forgot to mention that I've been driving a giant 4x4 pick-up truck in Africa. THIS IS SO COOL. Also terrifying. And painful. I can't change gear without sacrificing a wrist-bone. And no one here indicates, and pedestrians don't look, but walk in the middle of the street, and there are no street lights. I'm so not ready to be driving myself around anyway (at least not for the next couple of weeks), but I'm putting in the time behind the wheel, which is good. I've been trying to persuade the business manager to let me borrow a car over the next few weekends so we can go to the beach, but he just moans something about likelihood of me ending up a mangled wreck in a country with poor medical coverage, and changes the subject. BORING. Just because the lake-side roads are rubbish and inter-city traffic is hideously dangerous and we've suffered several car accidents as an org this year already...

ANYWAY. No beach until the end of the month, when we're gonna try to persuade a colleague to drop us off. Er, 200km out of his way, but whatev. Better than the mangled wreck option.

In any case, when I get back to the UK, there will be Top Gear Live!  Front row centre seats, bb, oh yeah!

Yes, I can be fannish, what of it?

It's not even October, and already I have my flanick hat on. The fandom!pimp post is UP, you guys, check it out! While we're about the business of fandom pimping, allow me to reiterate my fandom pimp of David Feintuch's Seafort Saga. It is pure, unadulterated joy in a (series of) books. Future!Navy, officers in spiffy uniforms, and much bending of wayward young midshipmen over the barrel - what more could you ask for?

Meanwhile, nominations are down to 3 fandoms this year. THREE?! OK, yes, this makes sense. But it makes my soul ache to have to cull this early.

My initial list is something along these lines -

- David Feintuch's Seafort Saga
- Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy
- Kim Stanley Robinson's Science in the Capitol Trilogy
- Top Gear RPS
- ROME
- Warren Ellis's Transmetropolitan
- Le Carre's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (or the film, for that matter)
- Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead RPS 
- China Mieville's The City & The City
- Warren Ellis's Fell
- Fables
- Downton Abbey
- Blake's 7

... I'm nowhere near done yet in writing up this list, am I? Oh, yeah, this is gonna take a while...

I don't even know why I'm trying to blog anymore, I'm failing miserably at this.

Right, bullet-point version:

1. I hate my job. None is surprised by this. I have reached such a level of rage that it powers me on even my least caffeinated days. I am being proactive, and interviewing for other jobs. This may or may not add to my stress levels.
2. More job hate. This takes up most of my time these days.
3. WTF it feels like I'm always travelling. Except I'm not. But then I am. Two countries in 3 months and an in-country trip, and in a little bit a holiday (yay!), and then a residential workshop, and then probably another 2 or 3 trips before Christmas. ARGH. It's good, it's good, but it feels really disjointed. I can't really cope with travelling with this much adrenaline in me.
4. No, that's about it. I'm using up all my rage in motorsport. Motorsport and much beer. Not at the same, obviously.
5. I can't sleep. Please send all my sleep to the usual address, for I am having about 3/4 hours a night.

In conclusion, I may have accidentally applied to some jobs in war zones. ooops. Back when i have a brain.

Safely back from Burundi. The placed was beautiful, but the conference was very stressful. I had hoped to have some time to write, and I did, a bit, but it really wasn't the most conducive environment for creativity, so I got neither of my help_japan fics done, for which I apologise. I'd hoped to get them done by the end of June, but that's looking less likely by the second. I got back on Friday morning (by virtue of saying "sod it" and getting a flight a few nights earlier), and on Tuesday I leave again, this time for full immersion security simulations, complete with men in balaklavas and toting AK47s. Then I get back, repack, and set off for the Isle of Wight, to see an old friend I haven't seen for months. Then I get back, repack, and set off for women traveller-specific security training, i.e. The Rape Simulation Exercise. That one promises to be a barrel of laughs for all concerned. Then I get back, have a couple of days at work doing admin-y things, repack, and set off for the Superprix at Brands. Then I get back, have a week at work, and 84 celebrations are in that weekend. Then I have another week at work, and then pack and set off for the MSVR weekender at Brands Hatch. Then I get back, etc etc.

Basically, I will be lucky to have time to breathe, let alone write, for the next few weeks. GAH. My existential writer-angst is made all the more poignant by the fact that both of the people I bid on for help_japan have already finished their fics for me, and OMG they are EXCELLENT. I mean seriously, overwhelmingly good. Stuck as I was with minimal internet connectivity, they even emailed me copies I could download and read offline, which made me a very happy camper indeed.

So, without further ado, I urge you to go and read the following excellent fic. Both are Top Gear RPF, J/J, and both are NC-17, so use your own judgement if RPF troubles you.

Wise Man by marginaliana [locked to AO3 registered users only] is set during the Middle East episode because, well, I was a little bewildered that no one was writing about it when it could be the source of so much angst. So I asked for it specifically, and marginaliana obliged with a sweet, angsty, hot fic from Jeremy's POV, centred around James's accident.

and

Well After All byblacktofade , which is also set during the Middle East episode, this time from James' POV. blacktofade asked if I had any particular wishes or kinks, and I immediately said, "awkwardness and uncertainty during first-time sex, please!" And Well After All delivers. Boy, does it deliver. Hot and funny and awkward and brilliant.

Both of these fics are absolutely amazing, and I swear I didn't arrange it to have one from James's POV and one from Jeremy's, but it made me insanely happy. You wanted Middle East fics? THESE ARE THE DEFINITIVE ONES.

So, athena25 and I are moving house soon. This means we're clearing out piles of books, random bits of furniture, etc. It also means that - after many years - we're going through our graphic novel collections and clearing out a lot of stuff we don't need any more. If you're interested in any of the below. As we're moving in a week, it's pick-up only (unless you're wanting to buy stacks of them, in which case we can arrange postage). They vary in condition from 'very good' to 'as new', but of course you're welcome to see them if you're not sure. They're all paperbacks, except those marked (HC) which are hardcover novels.

£5
Rising Stars: Born in Fire (J Michael Straczynski)
Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (Frank Miller)
Preacher Vol 1: Gone to Texas (Garth Ennis)
Justice Society of America: Thy Kingdom Come (HC) Part 1 (Geoff Johns)
DC Identity Crisis (Brad Meltzer)
Supreme Power: Nighthawk (Daniel Way)
The Boys Vol 1: The Name of the Game (Garth Ennis)
The Boys Vol 2: Get Some (Garth Ennis)
The Boys Vol 3: Good for the Soul (Garth Ennis)
Sam & Twitch Book One: Udaku (Brian Michael Bendis)


£4
Durham Red: Ther Vermin Stars (Dan Abnett)
Kinetic (Kelley Puckett)
Eternals (Neil Gaiman)
Crossing Midnight: Cut Here (Mike Carey)
Girls Vol 1: Conception (The Luna Brothers)
X-Men Fairy Tales
Books of Magic: Summonings (John Ney Rieber)
Exit Wounds (HC) (Rutu Modan)
Lenore: Cooties (Roman Dirge)
The Umbrella Academy Vol 1 (HC): Apocalypse Suite (Gerard Way)

£3
Hellraiser Vol 1 (Clive Barker)
The Dreaming: Beyond the Shores of Night (Terry LaBan) x 2 copies
The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales (Jon Scieszka)
The Professor's Daughter (Joann Sfar)
The Books of Magic: Bindings (John Ney Rieber)

£2
The Best of ST: TNG (Michael Jan Friedman)
ST: DSN: Emancipation and Beyond
ST: The Modala Imperative (Michael Jan Friedman & Peter David)
ST: DSN Requiem
ST: TNG Beginnings

Also lots of individual issues of The Witching, Gloom Cookie, The run of New Universal, Young Avengers & Runaways Civil War event, Grimm Fairy Tals, Serenity Rose.

We're based in London, so if you - or anyone else you know - wants to snaffle up some graphic novels and comics at bargain prices, send them our way! Cheers.

PS yes, I will be back to the internets once the move is over. Cross your fingers for us!

Safely landed and tucked away in Nicaragua. I'm very confused about what time or day it is, and was wide awake at 5am this morning despite trying to wear myself out by going to bed at 11pm last night. The flight took approximately eleventy billion hours. But at least we got there in the end - several colleagues took a different route and had their connecting flight inexplicably cancelled, ending up stranded in Miami.

Nicaragua is HOT. Hot like Africa Hot. The hotel is a corporate affair, though, so there's wifi and air conditioning.

The conference is pretty cool actually. Strategy for a different region, which means I can approach it with a fresh mind, rather than having years of history and preconceptions weighing me down. And it is a difficult time, with many challenges. Latin America and Caribbean countries are (with the notable exception of Haiti) mostly classed as middle income countries, and are not high on the UK's development priorities. But 3/4 of the world's poor people live in places termed 'middle income'. They are the hidden poor, masked by a growing GDP and structural inequality. So tackling inequality and hidden poverty  - rather than the visible poverty I normally work with - is an interesting and different challenge. I'm looking forward to see how things develop here.

In the meantime, despite frequent reminders that I will be unavailable, the moment Africa received my out of office, things spontaneously caught fire and my boss had to email my private email to ask me to call them back. SIGH.

I have a couple of days off in the middle of the conference, so will try to post some pictures of whatever I end up doing.

Edited - this didn't crosspost before, trying again...