☆❀☆

Watched Conclave last night. I knew two things going in: That it's about a bunch of cardinals electing somebody to be Pope, and that it has a much larger fandom than one would expect given the premise.

This is a beautiful movie. The cinematography, the costuming, the casting and acting, the music - it's very well-crafted. Worth a look for that alone. Carlos Diehz was wonderful as Cardinal Benitez, and I'm shocked that this was the first full-length film he's acted in. Also, Lucian Msamati was excellent as Cardinal Adeyemi, and I can't believe I haven't seen any of his other work before; will need to investigate.

One thing that I really liked was the use of language in this film. A lot of it is in English, but a lot of it is in other languages as well, in ways that fit the characters. There are deliberate choices about which language to use at any given time. I'm thinking of Cardinal Tedesco in particular - an old Italian guy with his Opinions on tradition definitely would be speaking Italian as much as possible. Also, Benitez delivering his speech in his native Mexican Spanish rather than English. (I saw a post somewhere saying that the script originally had it in Castillian Spanish, and Carlos Diehz requested to rewrite it so that it would be correct - if this did happen, then I suspect that, in addition to being more fitting for the character, it contributed to how effective his delivery of the speech was.)

There's a lot of politicking and rumours and whispered conversations in this movie. Small moments of closeness. Lots of characters that you can build on. Isolation in unhospitable environments. ...Turns out, the director, Edward Berger, also directed some episodes of The Terror; I think that some of the broad things above apply to both. So when I give it some thought, yes it's surprising that Conclave has an active fandom, but on the other hand I guess it's not totally out there.

I enjoyed it more than I expected, and I think I will give the novel a read eventually. There are probably a lot of things that went over my head because I don't know anything about the catholic church but still - it was a very interesting movie.

Also, some of the fanart is very nice. Here are some select favourites from tumblr:
* Cardinals group by tuherrus
* Group with mural by wolfythewitch (login required)
* [Spoilers] Grant us a Pope who doubts by cherriielle

+ launchtheship: A multifandom fest where the goal is to write the first fic for a pairing. Signups open today; deadline is Oct 15th. I really like the idea of this - could be great for rare fandoms.

+ I'm thinking about dropping out of iddyiddybangbang. I love this event, but real life has been kicking my ass. I feel like I've been hit by a semi, and writing is the last thing that I want to do right now. Guess I'll decide whether I'm in or out at the next check-in.

+ Recently commissioned Kyuhu to draw me some fluffy Hetalia Est/Pol fanart! Ee, it is ever cute! So glad I jumped on the chance to grab one of her slots. I love the way she draws those two, and it reminded me of how much I used to love that pairing. (Well, I still like it a lot, but it's like I had only two EE/PL fics in me and now I'm totally out of ideas, haa.)

I found out today that user inegl on Lofter drew a cute Nor/Ice fanart inspired by my fic Close to you.

Ahh, it's adorable! I don't keep tabs on the Chinese side of Hetalia fandom, so I'm really happy that an acquaintance saw this and told me about it.

It's such a special thing when somebody is reminded of my work when they're drawing something, or they do something inspired directly by it, or whatnot. Especially when like... it's not one of my friends, or even somebody that I've ever spoken to; just someone who read something I wrote and enjoyed it. Fandom is lovely sometimes.

Potentially useful: A guide for requesting art in exchanges by chacusha.

It's a pretty thorough run-down of what kind of information is helpful in art requests. Details that are useful for a fic writer aren't necessarily something that an artist can use.

Of course, since it's just one artist's thoughts on the thing, it's a 'your mileage may vary' post, but most of the things on this list are suggestions I've seen in other discussions.

I don't do fanart, but I enjoy it a lot, so I do request it most of the time in applicable exchanges. Usually I don't have much difficulty figuring out what to request, but it'll be helpful to have a list of things to keep in mind so I can up my chances of receiving an art gift. ;V

The kinkluckydip exchange was a good one for me. Loved the parameters/concept; the bite-sized minimum wordcount and the freedom to write whatever I want as long as it was kinky in some way really worked for me. The only issue that I ran into is that it takes place at the start of the busiest part of the year at my work, but I managed to get everything in on time, so that turned out fine in the end.

Works were revealed over the weekend. 87 fandoms and over 150 works at this time. Yay!

Author reveals aren't for a while, so I can't link to what I wrote. But as for what I received - I made out like a bandit when it came to gifts, holy shit.

+ Art: Frosty Treat. Frozen, Elsa/Honeymaren, oral + clothes on, plus a cute little extra at the end that made me crack up. ;D

+ Art: Impromptu Hairplay. Hetalia, Romania/Norway, bondage and blindfolds and erogenous haircurl teasing... Somebody ("somebody") knows me very, very well. ;)

+ Fic: The Devil You Know (archive-locked). The Magnus Archives, Michael Distortion/Jon Sims, 2.3k, canon divergence from MAG 101 in which the door isn't locked, and Michael decides to... keep Jon around. ;) The author tagged for Spiral-typical mindfuckery and boy is it ever.

10/10, would participate again! If this one runs next year, I'll likely sign up, why the hell not.

Elli did some fanart of characters from Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. Ahh, it made me happy. :D

On Deviantart

On Twitter

She so often draws delightful ratties, so of course her art is great for this book. ;) Come to think of it, I think her style would be well-suited to Discworld stuff in general. (Who knows, maybe she'll do more Pratchett-inspired work some day? I know she likes that series.)

Anyway, now I have the desire to re-read Amazing Maurice. I've only read that one once, but I remember enjoying it a lot.

☆ [Exchanges] Chocolate Box assignments are out. I'm excited about mine! Already starting to brainstorm ideas for it. Hopefully I'll be able to come up with something really cute for my recip. :) I hope all of you who are doing it are happy with your assignment.

☆ [FTH auction] Signups for the Fandom Trumps Hate charity auction open on the 13th. I'm definitely planning to participate again - I'll have three fic slots open. Anybody else? Imagine if we brought its 4-year running total up to 100k. IMAGINE. We would have to raise around 27k, which is a lot, but I think it's possible. I'll be posting more info and trying to promote it around once more details are up, because I really hope that people in my fandoms will participate. I like writing fic for this, but it's also nice when there are people offering things that I can bid on. ;)

☆ [Books] Continuing with Cherryh's Chanur saga. Still enjoying it. I like that this series has some very... alien... aliens. The methane-breathers (especially the knnn, but the others as well) are so interesting and weird! Though it's possible that it's just a novelty for me because I don't read much scifi.

☆ [Fanart] Haranonaka has a tumblr for her Vinland Saga art now: here. Lovely as always. Nidsk has also been posting some very neat things since the anime aired. Man, I need to catch up on the manga - I've only read a couple volumes of it, but it's so good. Unfortunately, the library doesn't have it, though I could ILL it. Or I could watch the anime, though I don't stream via Amazon, so that might be a bit more challenging. ...I've heard it's so good that in either format it'll probably be worth jumping through hoops for, though. Anyway, go check out those artists if you like that series, their stuff is great.

☆ [Photography] Nils Nordenswan - I came across this guy's tumblr for original photography recently, and man, I love it. He mainly posts b&w Finnish landscapes. Some of the ones he's put up recently are really minimalistic and beautiful, I'd even say abstract.

☆ [Charity] Short comic by Cat's Cafe about the wildfires in Australia. The author notes at the bottom have links to various charities to help people & wildlife affected by the wildfires. Probably the same link list that has been floating around and everybody has already seen, but maybe some haven't seen it yet.

☆ Fandom: Signups for in_a_peartree are extended to Dec 03 (5AM PDT). This seems like a neat little gift-fest, so if you've been thinking about signing up but haven't managed to get around to it, there's still a bit of time.

☆ Life: My coffee meetup went well. It was nice to have an actual catch-up with C, rather than something surprised and rushed like when we ran into each other at the dollar store. Hoping to see her again some time soon. I'm not very good at thinking of things to talk about, but she talks A Lot, so it evens out really nicely. :D

☆ Hetalia: Inko drew some Sweden/Norway a few days ago and it's lovely and cute, I can't get over it. It's nice to see such cute fluff with them. Smiling Nor... <3 <3

Avrilcircus is at it again! With some cute fanart of Joxter and little Snufkin in German-inspired folk clothing. So cute!

Not sure if she had a particular region in mind, since I don't know this country's traditional clothing very well. But, still. Adorable. :D

I wasn't expecting that she would do another like this after the Polish folk clothing illustrations. ...I kind of hope that she will continue with these ideas, maybe make it a series of works inspired by various countries? :D (Ukrainian clothes next, PLEASE!)

So, Avril drew Moomin characters in Polish folk clothing and I am delighted. Two of my favourite things in one go! :D

Though now I wonder if people have drawn Jansson's characters in folk clothing of Finland - surely someone's done it! But I've never seen it. Maybe I should go looking.

Seeing Moomin art on my dash makes me want to dig up my volumes of the comics. I have no idea where I've stored them, though. xD (Whever I put them, my Black Jack manga is probably next to it. I have a feeling they're in the exact same place.)

And it reminds me that I still haven't managed to get around to watching the new series. I have access to it, because I participated in the kickstarter, but setting aside time to watch it has been a big challenge. Response from my mates has been mixed - one loved it, another was very disappointed... Have any of you watched it? What do you think?

Not entirely a fan of the visuals myself, but that's just because I have so much love for 2d rather than 3d. Without actually sitting down to watch it, I can't really judge.