Geri-chan's Journal

No time for a detailed post today, so I'll just post a quick rec for the HP Prognostications podcast. They generally have a nice mix of humor and analysis, and the last episode (#93) was particularly interesting. They were discussing an essay by Elizabeth Heilman, "Blue Wizards and Pink Witches: Representations of Gender Identity and Power," which argues that there are no good female role models in Harry Potter. As the hosts say, whether you agree with her or not, it makes for a very interesting discussion. One interesting thing that was pointed out on the podcast was that while there is a very traditional portrayal of women as wives and mothers--we see married women like Molly, or single women with no children (like McGonagall), but no single mothers, which is perhaps a little odd, since JKR was a single mother herself.

The episode was posted about a week ago, but I only just got around to listening to it now. You can download it from iTunes, or directly from the HP Progs website.

This isn't exactly a review, because I haven't read the book yet, but I just bought "Wolfsbane and Mistletoe," an anthology of werewolf Christmas stories by various authors, including Charlaine Harris (who writes the Sookie Stackhouse books, which were the premise for the True Blood tv show) and Patricia Briggs, whose werewolf stories I recommended on this post. It's a hardcover book, so it's a little pricey, but I got it half off with my Barnes & Noble reader discount and a 30% off coupon, so I felt that I could take a risk on it. I love Patricia Briggs's stories, and there are stories by two of my favorite mystery authors, Dana Stabenow and Nancy Pickard, plus I've been wanting to try Harris's books, so I think it will be worth the $13 I ended up paying. Besides, as a Snupin fan, how can I resist a collection of holiday werewolf stories? ;-)

What's really funny is that I'm such an HP geek that I forgot "wolfsbane" is not a word in the average person's everday vocabulary. I couldn't find it on the shelf at first, so I asked the guy at the info desk for help, and it took him three tries to pull up the right title on the computer: he tried "wolf bane" and "wolf's bane" until I explained that it's "wolfsbane," one word. Jeez, doesn't everyone know that? ^_^

Sorry, but I had to work late, and "Decisions" just isn't going to get done tonight. Hopefully tomorrow, or at most, the next day. I'm almost done, just another page or two left, but I don't want the ending to feel rushed or tacked-on.

So in the meantime, a couple of quick recs:

I'm still trying to keep up the National Blog Posting thing, so today's post is about Neil Gaiman, one of my favorite authors.

I first came across his works when a friend loaned me a copy of one of the Sandman graphic novels (Season of Mists), and I immediately got hooked. Sandman is about a godlike being known as Dream or Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams. He and his siblings (Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Delirium, and Destruction) are collectively known as the Endless, and are living embodiments of the concepts that their names represent. The characters are complex and compelling, as is the universe that they reside in.

I thought that I'd pimp the "Haru wo Daiteita" manga for today's post, since I just posted my first fic in that fandom. It's a yaoi manga, and the first 5 volumes were released in the US as "Embracing Love" by the now-defunct Be Beautiful. It's also known affectionately as "Harudaki" by fans. The BB summary reads:

Hey everybody, go check out the awesome Summer Fest artwork that the_bitter_word made for my story Happy Birthday, Severus! It was a fic/art exchange, and I was expecting only a single illustration, but instead I am receiving an entire pop-up picture book of my story! She did an incredible job illustrating all my favorite scenes from the story, from the humorous moments (Dumbledore holding the cartoon-snake pajamas) to the sad and poignant ones (young Severus slipping away to his room while his parents fight and his birthday cake sits on the table, uneaten), and the sweet ones (Lupin arriving at Snape's door with a birthday cake hidden behind his back, and Snape and Lupin clinking their glasses of wine in a birthday toast). (When I receive the actual book, I'll take some photos and post some scans of it.) Please go and tell The Bitter Word just how awesome the artwork is!

I think most of my Friends list has already seen these, but in case you're interested, my gifts to The Bitter Word were the stories The Return of the Slytherins (Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5) and The Werewolf Jamboree.

Okay, here's part 2 of recs and ramblings, and also weird plot bunnies eating at my brain... (Part 1 is here.)

lore made this wonderful post on coming out of the yaoi closet, so although most of my Friends list are HP slashers, I thought I'd share a few of my favorite yaoi titles, and non-yaoi titles that have slashy potential.

EDIT 7/23/08: Oops, just realized that I forgot to warn that there are a few minor spoilers below the cut, but I try not to reveal any big surprises, and I'm not giving away anything that hasn't already been officially published in the US.

I'm doing something unusual for me today: reccing a non-Snupin HP fic! But it's a wonderful, poignant fic that's only received a couple of feedback comments, and I think that people are being scared off by the pairing (Slughorn/Lily), so I wanted to try and promote it a bit. This was originally posted on hp_unfaithful, an asylum for--you guessed it--infidelity fics.

Title: Something Old, Something New
Author: purplefluffycat
Established Pairing: Lily Evans/James Potter
Infidelity Pairing: Lily Evans/Horace Slughorn
Rating: PG-13
Words: About 1200
Summary: "You liked her, didn't you?" said Harry Potter to Horace Slughorn, "Lily Evans was one of your favourites."

I think potential readers are being squicked by the pairing, and to be honest, I almost skipped it myself, because I was imagining something icky--Slughorn having molested or taken advantage of Lily when she was a student, for example. But there's no explicit sex (note the rating), and it's not a creepy sort of story. Slughorn and Lily genuinely loved each other (although it goes without saying that I wouldn't approve of a teacher/student relationship in real life), and it's a very sweet and poignant story.

 I know there are some people on my Friends list who would probably appreciate this awesome Teddy Lupin/Charlie Weasley drawing by venturous. I'm generally not a big Weasley-smut fan, but this drawing is just beautiful. And I love how detailed and intricate Charlie's dragon tattoo is! Please note, it's NC-17 and NWS.

And I meant to mention this on my last post, but I forgot--I am totally hooked on the Torchwood TV series! I've heard people raving about it on Metafandom because of its bisexual characters and canon slash pairing of Jack/Ianto, and I finally got a chance to watch the first season on dvd. I love sci-fi, and sci fi + slashiness is just full of win, but what really got me hooked was John Barrowman, who plays Captain Jack Harkness, the head of Torchwood. I swear, this guy just exudes charisma, and he is so compelling to watch. I think the show would not be nearly as good without him.

Here's a review of a couple of series that I thought might appeal to Harry Potter fans. One is a book and TV series about a wizard, and the other is a series of books that deals heavily with werewolf lore. I should warn that this review will contain a few spoilers, especially for the Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs.

This journal was set up mainly to host my Harry Potter and Petshop of Horrors fanfiction, but I want to take a moment to plug the nemu*nemu webcomic and graphic novel. And in case you've ever wondered, the "puppy wuv" icon that I sometimes use on comments is from nemu*nemu. It's a delightfully sweet and whimsical comic drawn in the manga style, so if you're a manga fan, I think you'll probably like it, although it's far lighter and more innocent fare than the darker style of Petshop.

( Read more... )

Hey everybody, go check out the awesome artwork that </a></strong></a>karasu_hime made for me for the Trading Places challenge! One piece is the full moon scene from Summer Vacation, where Lupin and the Japanese werewolves and kitsune (fox-spirits) change into their animal forms while Snape watches. The boy is Naoki, an OC, the grandson of Snape's Japanese host, and he looks so cute here that I want to write a new story centered around him, although he was just a minor character that I never really intended to bring back again. I love how his face looks a little foxish, since he's half-kitsune, although he can't change into a fox-shape like the other members of his family. He and Snape were feeling just a little bit left out in the beginning of this scene, being the only two humans watching all the canines frolic. ^_^ Love the cute little black wolf/fox cub, Miyako, too!

The second piece is a collage of scenes from my Always series--mostly from the first story "Always," from which the series takes its name; Summer Vacation is the second story in the series. It's so great, it's like seeing an overview of the history of their relationship! And in the bottom right corner are the two little wolf-figurines that Miyako made for them in Summer Vacation--they're supposed to represent Snape and Lupin, of course, and they have the red cord tying them together. (If you haven't read the story, it's in reference to a Japanese legend that people destined to be lovers are bound together by a red cord--this theme also shows up in the anime series Kimagure Orange Road, which is where I first heard of it.)

Even if you haven't read my stories, you should still go check out the pictures just to appreciate the beautiful artwork that Karasu did--I'm sure any Snupin fan will enjoy them. And as an added bonus, you get to see Snape in a kimono in the first piece!

If you're interested, my stories can be found here, on my website (scroll down to the middle of the page for the Always series), or on the Moonshadow archive by author ("Geri"), title, or series.