Maryx

Yes, I'm still alive.

At the moment RL is quite busy and I don't spend much time online, only to write emails and - far less often than I used to - to read fics.

And - contrary to popular belief - not all the the fics I read center around Harry and Snape, so when when I find outstanding stories I sometimes cannot review them on S.C.H.A.L.. And so I rec them here.


Today's rec goes to Crookshanks22, who writes amazing, refreshingly intelligent stories about minor characters. So if I are sick of reading the same pairings over and over again and seeing the same often shallow plots, just take a break and read her fics.

Maryx

*yawns*

It is snowing, quite heavily actually, and I suddenly realised that Christmas is only some weeks away.

That lead to two further realisations:

1. I definitely have to hurry up and buy some Christmas presents
2. I have to send out Christmas Cards.

So: Who wants one?

I already have some addresses, but I would like more ;-)

I can offer traditional Christmassy Christmas cards, self-decorated modern-Berlin ones or self-christmassified mediaveal town ones (although I won't be able to send those before mid-December)

Leave your address, name, age, shoe-size, favourite colour and whatever else you want to tell me in a comment.
(All comments are screened)

In the Closet
by Michi M. Chu.
Summary: Ron needs to see a psychiatrist, Ginny's paranoid, and Harry’s in denial…

 H/D, touching, funny, creepy - one of the best fics I've read recently.

M

Title: Fortune Favors the Bold
Author: opalish
Rating: a kiss... do you really need a rating for a simple kiss?
Pairing: HP/BW
Summary: Ginny was the first to recognize the signs. The reddened cheeks, the sidelong glances, the funny little smiles...

A nice fic about an innocent Harry and his influence on members of the Weasley family. I love innocent Harry! *dreams*

M

I watched the new 'Pride and Prejudice' movie today.

I adore the book and I loved the BBC production and because of that I wasn't sure if there was any possibilty for that I might like the new version. Surprisingly, I did.
Sure, it can't compete, but they still did a good job. No romanticised crap with  a 'Jane Austen' label, as some of the adaptions of her other novel are.

The new movie was quite interesting. I liked that the Bennett family's relativ poverty was shown. Keira Knightly is not as comfortably settled as as Jennifer Ehle: plainer robes, smaller carriages, the run-down house. And she's not as accomplished, well-behaved or sure of her place either. That is a interesting new interpretation, as now class distinctions and the difference in rank between Darcy and Elizabeth are even more obvious.

In the novel Lizzy is around twenty, Darcy in his mid-twenties. I always found Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth always were a little too old and too mature, especially I read 'Bridget Jones' diary'. The BBC version has grown-up characters, people who you could easily picture in a job or with their own family, but not the younger, still slightly insecure people of my age.

The down-to earthness of most characters in the new film was nice, although the exaggerately whimsical protagonists in the BBC version where quite enjoyable, too.

My view on this film might have been a little coloured: I was really fond of Mr. Bingley and his sister - though the reasons were quite different: Kelly Reilly was a wonderful bitchy upperclass snob and I loved her for that. Mr. Bingley was just adorable and very cute. Did I ever mention how much I love red hair? *smiles dreamily*

All in all a pleasant surprise.

M

Starved by Mosylu.
During his first visit to the Burrow, Harry asks Mrs. Weasley something he's been wondering about.

A cute bit of Molly-Harry bonding. And of butterflies. *grins*

Mosylu was one of the first authors I read when I was new in this fandom and I really loved her stories back then. I still do.

M

I just found a wonderful little fic through gmth's journal:

Crayons by florahart

It has a Harry/A Crayon ship.
Make sure to read the author notes first ;-)

*still shaking her head*

The first novel-length fanfic I read in quite a while:

Unbecoming by Cinnamon
Part One: Denial (The Unbecoming of Ronald Weasley) Denial and fear aren’t such horrible things, especially when you’ve got alcohol and loneliness to hide behind. Ron is perfectly happy in the empty life he’s made for himself, until Draco Malfoy takes one look at him and understands the things Ron fears even better than he himself does. Draco/Ron, R, AU, Post-Hogwarts
I loved the first chapters of this story, Draco Malfoy was quite Malfoyish, Ron was nicely portrayed in his insecurity and his denial. Later parts are unfortunately a little confusing and too emotional. The old problem of the girlification of gay characters. It also bugged me a bit that Harry was gay as well. Writing slash doesn't mean that every leading character has to be homosexual, it's not very realistic.
'Unbecoming' is the first fic that convinced me that Ron,  the straightest character in the whole series could actually be portrayed as gay.
All in all quite interesting.

I felt myself tagged by kennahijja

Rules: Bold the following that are true about you, italicize things you wish were true, add one true thing about you, and then tag five more people.

( Read more... )

Feel yourself tagged!

I never imagined I could enjoy,... hell, even read a HP/TR story, even less one with a dubiously incestous subplot.
I stumpled upon A single Love via painless_j's time-travel list. It has a very different take on the 'After the final battle a broken Harry travels back in time' scenario and the old 'nature versus nurture' will never lose it's fascination. I'm not too sure of what to think about some minor issues the fic deals with, but all in all it was a very pleasant surprise.

Maryx

There's only one possible explanation:
Physiotherapy has been invented by the Health Mafia, that wants that people feel as uncomfortable as possible for as long as possible so they can make as much profit of any case as possible.

Or perhaps they are all controlled by little aliens that feed on pain...

Since I have started Physiotherapy my joint is hot and swollen and it has started hurting again.

And here I thought it was supposed to make me better!

Happy Birthday to lisamarie0921!


I always enjoy your recs and comments very much!

Maryx

... but I'm able to bend my arm up to  90 degree again.

This is a huge step in my recovery, believe me. It's only been ten days since the put all this metall in my elbow and now I'm (almost) able to type properly again when I take the cast of.

Yeah!

Maryx

( A Maryx Doll )

The picture is not entirely faithful (yep, really!), but there's just such a bad selection of simple non-frilly, non-lacy, plain black clothes...
Hair and shoes are quite realistic though.

I saw this little thingy on Nessime's LJ and I thought it might be interesting.
The results are a little surprising though. ;-)

You scored as Albus Dumbledore. Strong and powerful you admirably defend your world and your charges against those who would seek to harm them. However sometimes you can fail to do what you must because you care too much to cause suffering. </td> Albus Dumbledore 80% Severus Snape 75% Harry Potter 75% Hermione Granger 65% Remus Lupin 60% Ginny Weasley 55% Ron Weasley 45% Lord Voldemort 40% Draco Malfoy 35% Sirius Black 35% Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...? created with QuizFarm.com

I'm currently rereading HBP, much slower this time and with more attention to detail.


( Thoughts on chapter 1 )

I am ready to kill my flatmate!

We never got along too well. I always thought of her as an immature
little brat, moody, lazy, selfish and always ready to point out
faults in others, while overlooking these sames faults in herself. She
thinks that  I am a stuckup Dursley-type or person. It escalated
this morning, when the dog she got herself last week against all
agreements kept me awake all night. She was away, the dog was
howling  her small room and I was quite angry after only 
three hours of disturbed sleep.

That would not be a reason to kill her, no, I'm moving out anyway (sick
of weeks of uncleaned bathrooms and mouldy food in the kitchen), so I
can very much ignore her name-calling door-banging.

But now she did the unforgiveable deed: The post came and with it my
copy of HBP and she refused to accept it! So the postman went away with
my (my!) HBP. I hope I can get it later today at the post office. I was
there and they told me that they did not know if it would be possible
to pick it up today. Now I'm sitting here, all giddy and very very very
very annoyed.

If you hear of a very cruel murder in connection with HBP than that
might have been me killing her if I do not get my copy tonight.
Grrrrhhh! At least in prison I would have enough time to read it!

Maryx


It's three in the afternoon now and I still don't have HBP!

It's almost three o'clock now. Night-time and I'm still far away from sleep.

Thankfully tomorrow is the odd Monday I do not have course in the morning. ;)

I was just reading a wonderful conversation about cats and their antics on kennahijja's journal: Open Letter to the Furry

I found it quite interesting although I'm anything but a cat person.

I might finally be sleepy enough to go to bed.



Maryx

I thought I'd never add any post after the initial one, but I just had to share this news: I just got any eMail from an old boss who told me that someone wanted to print something I wrote some years back.
Nope, I do not have any fiction in the drawer that I did not want to share with you, it's a research paper.
About 30 pages of historic research that I wrote when I was still in school. I spend several weeks (full-time!) studying sources in the local archives, digging through old newspapers and 19th century records. The paper turned out well and I was really proud of it. And after several years at university and a lot of written papers I can say that the research paper I wrote for school is still my best academic work. ;)

So this guy found a copy of it in the local archives and really liked it. He asked my former boss where he could find the author of this text and contacted me this afternoon. He wants to print it as part of an anthology on social history. It's not going to be anything fancy, but I get paid and I can have it at my terms. Sure, they are going to edit it and I know that there are some things that I have to rework (I was 18 when I wrote it), but I am going to decide on the final version. (Which basically means that I can keep all the footnotes that I deem necessary ;)

Yeah!

Maryx

It's SCHAL's fault! I finally decided to open a new journal. (I somehow lost the password of my old one.) Here I am.

As I am not much of a poster, this will probably be the only entry I ever make.

Yours,

Maryx