sumeria

Today is a cold, dreary day, and I am inside working on experimental art. This was originally conceived as idea for working the background in an ink wash over gold leaf, but that intention foundered in the face of technical challenges. I know the effect I want can be done - though the only western artists I've seen work over gold leaf were working in either oil or acrylic, neither of which I use atm, I have seen enough nihonga artists work over gold leaf in mediums closer to watercolor than anything else to know it can be done. (The paints in question, like other types of "japanese style" watercolors are not watercolor because the binder used is not gum arabic, but they're water based pigments not oil or plastic, so the technical challenges should be surmountable. I just don't know what nihonga artists use as a fixative/ground over the gold, and none of the solutions I have access to worked for the effect I wanted. Le sigh.

There will still be gold leaf in the final, I just had to radically reconceive how I wanted to use it. And I have no idea what the overall effect would be, so that's exciting.

The idea for this piece originated in wanting to do something for Cang Lan Jue that was post-series, showing Xiao Lanhua's aesthetic merging with the Cangyan Sea aesthetic - richer colors, still with the gold flowers, but with long sweeping thorns... And the pose definitely owes something to Klimt, which I blame on the fact that I was thinking about the use of gold while drawing it.


Initial pencils when first transferred to paper (I generally sketch on the computer, where I can draw different elements on different layers and then move them around.)	Inked lineart - I decided to forgoe inking the pattern on Dongfeng Qingcang's robes, since it's going to be done in something opaque, and can thus go down over the watercolor.	Current progress - Xiao Lanhua's hair and dress were the first elements I wanted to focus on rendering, so I could get the masking fluid off of the flowers in her jewelry, since I don't want to leave that on the paper longer than necessary.

One of the things I wanted to do more this year was return to reccing fic I enjoyed more often - if anyone has a good fic rec meme/prompt list, btw, throw it my way? I find it easier to think of things to rec with prompts. But in any case, I promised myself I would try to remember to throw up a rec post somewhere when I read something new that I really liked, and since I was pondering what to do with my dreamwidth, this seems like a good place to put those!

This fic is an unusual read for me - I liked Puella Magi Madoka Magica okay, but it's not the kind of thing that makes me seek out fic at all, and while I do read the occasional Bleach fic, I'm picky enough that I don't read a ton. And while I do like ridiculous long!fic pretty well, 480,000 words and not yet finished is usually a hard sell. Howsomever.

This was just a really well done story. Expansive, detailed, well-plotted, with excellent characterization, not flinching away from the harshness of it's source material in Puella Magi, but using the Bleach crossover to steer towards a gentler ending. The author also, in my opinion, does an excellent job in merging the settings - this is a crossover, not a fusion - in a way that allows them to coexist without breaking the logic or the rules of either. The premise: Kurosaki Ichigo has two younger sisters. What if Kyuubei had approached them? And what if they then met Homura when she was having one of her less pleasant turns round the wheel, and they got to talking? What then?

As N Approaches Infinity (481857 words) by Corisanna
Chapters: 84/?
Fandom: Bleach, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Akemi Homura, Urahara Kisuke, Kurosaki Karin, Kurosaki Yuzu, Kurosaki Ichigo, Kurosaki Isshin, Hitsugaya Toushirou, Kyubey, Hanakiri Jinta, Tsumugiya Ururu, Tsukabishi Tessai, Kaname Madoka, Tomoe Mami, Miki Sayaka, Sakura Kyouko, Momoe Nagisa, Gotei 13 | 13 Court Guard Squads, Shihouin Yoruichi, Inoue Orihime, Sado "Chad" Yasutora, Ishida Uryuu, Kaname Junko, Kaname Tomohisa, Kaname Tatsuya, Shizuki Hitomi
Additional Tags: Crossover, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Time Travel, Alternate Timelines, Doomed Timelines, Lies, Faustian Bargain, Magical Girls, Shinigami, Angst, Temporary Character Death, Canon-Typical Violence, Being Meguca Is Suffering, Slow Build, Making Use of Characters Kubo Wasted, Magic and Science, Homura Needs Therapy and Hugs, Character Study, Friendship, Found Family, Accessible to Readers From Only One of Each Fandom, Spoilers for Both Canons, Blood and Gore, Cussing, Introspection, Supernatural Elements, Female Friendship, Women Being Awesome, Family Dynamics, Kurosaki Family Weirdness as Playful Slapstick Insult Comedy, Grief/Mourning, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, These kids need many kinds of help, Protectiveness, Ichigo doles out Shonen Speeches™, Ichigo is every magical girl's big brother you can't change his mind, no beta we die like dumbasses
Series: Part 1 of Significant Figures
Summary: Despairing as yet another timeline goes horribly wrong, Homura wanders into Karakura. There she discovers that while the spiritually-aware people of Karakura were distracted by Ichigo Kurosaki and Xcution, Kyubey had managed to contract the Kurosaki sisters as magical girls. Drawing the attention of the shinigami could be just the advantage Homura needs.

My Full Reclist

So with the ongoing implosion going on at twitter, I've been thinking for a while that I should look into revitalizing my old dreamwidth account, and today seems as good a day as any to finally do so. It has apparently been ten years. O.o

I'm not yet 100% sure what I'll be posting here - history suggests my main social media content is fanart, fic recs, and the occasional piece of meta, and this seems unlikely to change. Lord knows "what fandoms I'm principally into" has shifted a lot over the last decade; currently, it's predominantly a mix of Silmarillion, a whole passel of cdramas/cnovels, and a handful of western fantasy novels.

So, I know I’m not the only one (particularly among newer fans) who prefers to buy the trade/collected editions of comics rather than the individual issues. However, as anyone who has given even a cursory glance at such can tell you, it is not particularly easy or intuitive to figure out what order books go in, as they’re rarely numbered, and what with retitling books and changing numbering schemes every few years, it wouldn’t be incredibly helpful even if they were.

I searched the internet for some kind of organized master list that would show both the reading order for individual titles, and for titles relative to each other (desirable because of crossovers, events, and the fact that Wolverine is in Every Damn Thing) but I didn’t find anything really comprehensive. Hence this Endeavor.

( Read more... )

Recently, I began a great and mighty Endeavor. You see, I wanted to start reading comic books again. Specifically, Marvel comics in the main 616 universe. (For the unaware, Marvel embraces the concept of "alternate realities" so endemic to comics to the extent of having one character [Reed Richards, of the Fantastic Four] actually create a numbering system for them. 616 is the principle reality in which the majority of Marvel titles are set.)

But actually figuring out what books I wanted to buy turned out to take quite a lot of research, and eventually, a really elaborate chart. Since I don't think my situation is all that unique, I wanted to post such chart upon the interwebs, that others who might find it Of Use would have the option.

( Being a chart showing in what order marvel comics should be read, from 2009-present, and an overly-verbose explanation as to my reasoning in constructing it. )

Edit: Now contains Fantastic Four, Hulk, and Wolverine-related titles.

Edit 2: Now contains Spiderman, Daredevil, and other solo titles, and I am begining to incorporate the new post-AvX Marvel Now! titles.

Edit 3: Now largely complete for 2009-present, working on 2000-2009.

Edit 4: Now replaced by complete version over here.

Current Mood: accomplished
Crossposts: http://sumeria.livejournal.com/15496.html

So, I haven't been posting much about this season of the vampire diaries, largely because it hasn't been leaving me with a lot I want to say. I can see the way the plot arcs have to flow, but this show is really really good about taking unexpected routes, so almost all my reactions have incorporated too much, "well, I guess I'll have to wait and see if I understand what they're doing with this" for it to seem worth talking about it much.

However! After last nights brou-ha-ha, there are a couple of things I want to comment on, most specifically: my feelings about the general emotional landscape this season.

( Cut for those on my flist who don't care about all my Vampire Diaries thoughts )

Books I ordered arrived today; baby!Loki, yay! (Baby!Loki is awesome; I highly recommend the new Journey into Mystery series. Highly.) And, luckily, it turns out I guessed right about what books I wanted, so double yay!

It kind of annoys me that there was guesswork involved, though, I have to say.

I mean, I'm a nerd. I read a lot, and I like to re-read things. I enjoy comics, but since I like to have nice copies of things, and I don't like to buy things twice, I usually prefer to wait until the trade/graphic novel version of something comes out, rather than pick up the monthly comic books. I hang out almost exclusively with other nerds, many of whom do follow quite a few of the monthly releases.

If I think to myself, "I want to own a nice hardcover copy of baby!Loki's adventures, as begun in Thor #617 and continuing in Journey into Mystery #622 onwards", it should not take me an hour of research across multiple websites to decide which books contain those issues, and at the end of said research, I should not feel only mostly sure that I've ordered the right books.
-_-

Would it be so hard, Marvel and DC, to maintain some kind of list of what issues are in what trade edition, that one could reference? For that matter, given that a lot of your characters move freely through books, why is it that I cannot go to your site and say, "I want to read about Iron Man!" and obtain from you a list of the graphic novels he appears in in chronological order?

Because I have to say, given how much work it is for me, who follows comics, to figure out what I need to buy to get the stories I'm interested in, I have to expect that any casual or returning reader has a non-zero chance of giving up and wandering off.

(I suspect this would also be a good way to increase their sales to women by lots, since ladies are way more likely, I think, to be invested in character arcs. Put together a list of, say, all graphic novels in which Magneto figures heavily, arrange them in a sensible order so people can follow the story contained therein, and Magneto fangirls will buy them.

In conclusion: baby!Loki is awesome. Anyone who ever wanted to see a redemption story wherein Loki decided evil had gotten too predictable, so why not kill himself and be reborn as an adorable 8-year-old version of himself that wasn't burdened by all his issues: Marvel has what you want.

Current Mood: aggravated
Crossposts: http://sumeria.livejournal.com/14918.html

So, the holiday season kicked my ass. I have more bookmarks on pinboard than I care to think about that I need to format and tag. To say nothing of my habit of adding new levels of tagging complexity periodically and then not going back to make compliant earlier bookmarks. -_-

New Year's Resolution the first: get my bloody tags in order.

New Year's Resolution the second: get my drawing speed up to something useful. My beautiful tablet laptop et itself a few weeks back, and though I immediately replaced it with a much faster model, I am now having to relearn how to draw. Steve the graphics tablet is a lot more temperamental than Itachi the laptop was, alas.

But since I am nothing if not a procrastinator, yuletide recs list probably coming before either of those.

Current Mood: busy
Crossposts: http://sumeria.livejournal.com/14629.html

So, as previously threatened, this is another of my older mixes. This need to make this one kind of struck like a bolt of lightening when I first heard the song that has since become track no. 1.

This is, as should surprise no one who knows me and my tastes in characters very well, a Lucifer playlist. Not Supernatural Lucifer --though there are, of course, elements-- not any specific Lucifer. This is the archetype of the devil as a literary figure, and to my great satisfaction, I believe it is both narratively and theologically sound. Fundamentally, it's about pride, the destructiveness thereof, and how redemption can be had for the asking but not at any other price.

An unfortunate number of the songs on this playlist turn up on other lists I've made, but it can't be helped; I think I managed to be using them all very differently here. This is conceived as a dialogue between the Devil, God, and Man, and is one of my absolute favorites of all the mixes I've made.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: cold

So, I apologize in advance to anyone on my f-list who is entirely uninterested in my nerdish mix cds; I'm going to be uploading a few that I never got around to posting before this weekend. There may or may not be a post about what I think is the root cause of Alaric's issue with Damon flirting with Elena to break it up (hint: I don't think it's the vampirism or the murdering that's principally bothering him), but that depends on if my thoughts arrange themselves into some kind of coherency.

Meantime! This mix is kind of a do-over. I was never very happy with the mix I made for the "Historical Figures" challenge (for which I drew Nicolai Tesla). I tried too hard to shoehorn in songs about mad science, and too many of them didn't have nearly enough to do with Tesla. As a result, the mix always sounded disjointed and incoherent. Since it was bothering me, I went back, stripped out everything I thought wasn't working, and retooled the mix along new lines based on the little from version one that I thought was on the right track.

Conclusion: This is now an Edison/Tesla slash mix. I don't know whether to blame my brain or my mp3 collection, but I was clearly sabotaged by *something*. Fair warning: this is bittersweet at best. Their relationship didn't end well in real life, and the slash musical version is no different.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: relaxed

Once again, the time is upon us for the Nerd Collective's Quarterly Mix Exchange. This time, our theme was "Fictional Places", and the prompt I drew was "The Court of Night-Blooming Flowers", from Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel series, for

imifumei.

It was an interesting exercise in how difficult it is to find music about sex that isn't tawdry, angsty, shippy, angry, or something to be ashamed of. There was a certain very specific tone, and even more specific sound that I wanted to achieve here, and to be honest, I'm not sure how close I came. Closer to the mark then I was with the Tesla mix, anyway. (Speaking of which, I have actually totally redone that, I was so dissatisfied with it; would people like me to repost version 2, now with added Edison/Tesla shippiness?)

Without further ado:

( Read more... )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Wicked Girls, by Seanan McGuire

In the persuit of imposing some kind of order on my online life, I'm posting some of the old mix cd lists I've made for purposes of sharing with friends and not actually ever linked anywhere that they could be found. Should my unusual and possibly questionable musical tastes and how I relate said tastes to to random concepts be of no interest to you, my appologies.

This particular mix was made by me about half a year ago, and is my ode/love letter to seasons 4 & 5 of Supernatural, a show that is occasionally wildly problematic, but which I couldn't help loving anyway.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: creative

So, for this edition of the Quarterly mix exchange, the topic was "color", and the specific color I was assigned was a peachy-pink poppy color which Brina, who chose it, called "Tequila Sunrise". I had a plan for this color; I was going to create an Alice in Wonderland themed playlist, and it was going to be charming.

I have literally *no idea* how this happened instead-- but this is the mix that wanted to be created, and I eventually caved. It is about sunrise, and sunset, and the ocean. And mermaids.

Tequila Sunset

1. Wind in the Pipes, by Meg Davis
2. Ocean, by Dar Williams
3. Erased, by Vixy and Tony
4. Calypso, by Suzanne Vega
5. Ariel, by October Project
6. Diamond Crevasse, by Sheryl Nome
7. Arms of the Sea, by Heather Alexander

8. Captain Jack and the Mermaid, by Meg Davis

9. In the Sea, Soundtrack: The Last Unicorn

10. Calling the Moon, by Dar Williams

11. Voices of the Sea, by Heather Alexander

12. Scarlet, by Iwao Junko

13. Still Catch the Tide, by Seanan McGuire

14. Tell me What the Rain Knows, by Yoko Kanno

15. First Rising Tide, by Alexander Adams

16. Into the West, Soundtrack: Return of the King

17. Balance of Nature, by Alexander Adams

Current Mood: accomplished

Well, that was a really excellent episode. Thoughts I had, in no particular order:

Is it me, or did we get a story arc about Damon coming to terms with his humanity, now to be followed by a story arc about Stefan coming to terms with his vampire-ness?

( Read more... )

Current Mood: blah

So, we know that Damon's default response to encountering a new hostile person/thing is to preemptively kill it. And we know that Stefan and Elena both seem to have the default instinct to try to talk, and reach some accomodation with it. We see this work for Elena fairly often, I think, but my question is:

Do we *ever* see that work for Stefan? Or is he just not really as good a negotiator as he thinks he is?

I may need to have a summer rewatch.

Current Mood: restless

...I don't think it does what they say it does.

I'm not here asserting that the writers are lying/trying to deceive us by describing the effects of the switch as "shutting off all emotions"; I think they reached for a short, pithy way to explain the phenomenon, and I think some accuracy was sacrificed.

Consider: Damon clearly spent more than a hundred years living with his switch flicked, and he still loved Katherine. When Stefan was going through his libertine period, he still wanted Damon in his life badly enough to beg. And consider, too: every vampire we've seen in an "emotionless" state (Damon, Stefan, Isobel) has displayed a pretty profound tendency towards blood-soaked orgies and the like, which doesn't strike me as emotionless behavior per se.

That said, "switched" behavior does seem to be reasonably consistent across vampires, so whatever is going on, one should be able to define its parameters. I, being an enormous nerd who's overly invested in a tv show, and who is twitching with irritation over having to wait for the end of season, am interested in trying to work out exactly how vampire psychology/physiology are working here.

( If for some reason you're interested in my long, rambling thoughts on vampire emotional capacity... )

Current Mood: nerdy

So, for today, I am to pick something with an alternate timeline, which I take to be fic set in the same universe as canon, but where something has alterned that universe. I was tempted to pick

psiten's "The Butterfly Effect", but then I'd be all tempted to discuss what the key event diverging the timeline from canon was, and that hasn't been revealed yet, and it would be a betrayal of my sacred oath as a beta, and so I can't.

( So instead... )

Current Mood: happy

Wow. I fail so hard...

I totally forgot all about this meme all weekend. In my defense, it was because I was marathoning Vampire Diaries with

psiten, who hadn't seen it before, making it totally in a worthy cause? And yet still. Even adorable pouty psychotic vampires should not so distract me from my course of action. I am shamed.

So, for... last Friday's entry... I was supposed to do a time travel fic. Being that I read crap tons of Doctor Who fic, that is, of course, pretty easy to find. I did think about taking the time to scare up the link to something less obvious, but my clock informs me that I have only ten minutes left before I am even more days late on this, so I will just go with my first instinct.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: embarrassed

01) Something from your very first fandom
02) Something from your current favorite fandom
03) Your all-time favorite fic
04) A good romance
05) A "bad romance"
06) Something from your favorite author
07) An epic
08) Something under a thousand words that you have never forgotten
09) A fic for feeling better
10) A PWP
11) A good angst fic
12) A fic for your kink
13) A well done blanket scenario
14)An amnesia fic
~~15) The fic with your favorite narrative quote~~ Crack fic
16) The fic with your favorite dialogue quote
17) A fic you strongly associate with a song or a soundtrack (may be a song fic)

This took me a while to decide upon-- I don't really read song fic. So I sat down, and scrolled through my delicious bookmarks that I'd tagged as awesome, looking for anything that had anything to do with a song. And I found something! This is the very first piece of Naruto fic that I ever read, Love Songs and Ladies by

maldoror_gw. It's SasuNaru, and it's old school; written before Sasuke ran off with Orochimaru. It is short and charming and in every way delightful.

Deathmatch Totals:

Star Trek	1
The Vampire Diaries	1
Labyrinth	1
Doctor Who	6
Supernatural	5
Revolutionary Girl Utena	1
Torchwood	3
Sherlock	1
D.Grey-man	1
Prince of Tennis	1
Final Fantasy VII	1
Naruto	2

Current Mood: sore

01) Something from your very first fandom
02) Something from your current favorite fandom
03) Your all-time favorite fic
04) A good romance
05) A "bad romance"
06) Something from your favorite author
07) An epic
08) Something under a thousand words that you have never forgotten
09) A fic for feeling better
10) A PWP
11) A good angst fic
12) A fic for your kink
13) A well done blanket scenario
14)An amnesia fic
15) The fic with your favorite narrative quote
16) The fic with your favorite dialogue quote

This one was surprisingly easy, actually.

This is from a piece of Torchwood fic, and is the best explanation I have ever seen for why the Doctor feels as he does about both weapons and "spoilers".

"If you've got a gun in your hand, you have only two choices. Fire? Or not? Weapons are like that. They narrow things down. There are other options, Ianto. A whole world of possibilities in every moment. It's like telling Jack about all this, giving away spoilers. If he knew, he'd be trapped, a prisoner. Down to only two choices every time -- going along with it, or trying desperately not to. Doesn't that seem small to you? Wouldn't it ruin it all?"

( Read more... )

Current Mood: energetic

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sumeria

February 2023

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Recent Entries

Cang Lan Jue - Progress Pics

Fic Rec! - Puella Magi/Bleach Crossover

Dusting off the shelves

Master Chronology of Marvel 616 Titles: Complete

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Vampire Diaries Season 3

It should not be this hard to buy comic books.

New Year's Resolution

A Man of Wealth and Taste

Tesla II: Lonely at the Top of the Lightening Rod

Quarterly Mix CD Exchange: Fictional Places

Apocalypse Now

Quarterly Mix CD Exchange: Colors

Vampire Diaries: As I Lay Dying reactions

Vampire Diaries: quick question

So, about that emotion-destroying "switch"...

Thirty Days of Fic: Day 19 (divergent timeline)

Thirty Days of Fic: Day 18 (Time Travel)

Thirty Days of Fic: Day 17 (Song fic)

Thirty Days of Fic: Day 16 (favorite quote)