sarcasm always wins out in the end

Happy revolution to all who celebrate, and those of you who do not - why not?

Anyway, I have updated my Les Misérables AU that is really about how I am deeply angry about Brexit, and also about Tories. This current chapter is 4th our of 5 - the final one is mostly done already, and I expect to finish it within a few weeks. Then on to the sequel with Eponine and Combeferre.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825402/chapters/98724297

I have made a fic.

Fandom: Faraway Wanderers/Word of Honor
Pairing: Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Then Zhou Zishu, the bastard, stops pulling away. He can tell that he does it on purpose, too. Like a dare, what will you do now? Stay there, arms touching, sprawled next to each other on a roof watching the moon? Feeling the warmth of another body, another person, a person whom he likes? Like a foolish child who likes another child. This is what he has been reduced to. Embarrassing.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/30138300

I seem to be on a roll - that is, I have just updated (after two years!) my modern British au of Les Miserables. https://archiveofourown.org/works/2825402?view_full_work=true

It mostly involves Grantaire drinking a lot of wine, thinking about wine, and talking about wine. Also about Enjolras.

Hello friends!

I have done a yuletide. Each calls into themselves the divine and the infernal

The fandom is Nirvana in Fire, a Chinese TV show about political scheming and interpersonal pining in 7th-century China. You can (and you should) watch here: https://www.viki.com/tv/22943c-nirvana-in-fire

The premise is this: 11 years ago, the Crown Prince Qi was falsely accused of treason against the Emperor and executed. A part of this false accusation included the supposed betrayal of the Chiyan army, led by General Lin and his son the Young Marshal Lin Shu (very special close friend of the Crown Prince's younger brother, Jingyan), who were all massacred by the supposedly loyal troops of the Emperor's brother-in-law.

Except Lin Shu survived, and spent the next 11 years in disguise - becoming the leader of the Pugilist World (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuxia), recovering from his injuries at the Chiyan massacre by changing the shape of his body entirely, and developing a bickering friendship with the doctor Lin Chen (who is a troll and a gift to the world). At the start of the show, Lin Shu arrives in the Imperial City Jinling with the aim of becoming a strategist to Prince Jingyan, so that he may become the next Crown Prince and eventually the next Emperor, and bring justice to the world generally but to the victims of the Chiayn case in particular.

But here's the rub - Lin Shu does not tell Jingyan that he is his special best friend whom he thinks dead, but rather he presents himself as a scheming political operator named Mei Chang Su, who by nature and practice is opposed to the virtues of honesty and righteousness which Prince Jingyan values.

And then you get 50 episodes of awkward pining and political drama.

I should also say that there are amazing female characters here - the Princess-General Mu Nihuang, who was Lin Shu's betrothed 11 years ago, and Xia Dong, a super-competent investigative officer for the Emperor, who is both the best friend of the Princess and extremely bitter about the supposed betrayal of the Chiyan army, who killed her husband (or did they? Or did he magically turn into a yeti-vampire?).

Anyway; it is glorious - the character dynamics are very well constructed and the end result is vastly engaging, the scenery is gorgeous and everyone has amazing hair and costumes, and it is very interesting to see, if you are mainly used to anglophone TV, how TV drama works in a new cultural context - how the mixture of historical drama and contemporary resonances is achieved, for example. I also ended up learning random bits of Mandarin (how to say "Your Majesty" and "Your Highness", for example, or the different gradations of "yes" when speaking to a superior, an equal, or a subordinate), so if you're interesting in learning a Chinese language, this is very inspirational.

Here is a thing I wrote for Yuletide:

Title: Respire le grand air
Fandom: Les Hommes Libres
Pairing: Salim Halali/Younes Ben Daoud

It is based on a film centred around the Grand Mosque in Paris during the Nazi occupation, and its role in saving Jewish people from persecution by issuing false certificates of Islamic faith. The extent to which this happened is a matter of some debate - there seem to be current politics related to the state of Israel and its relationship with other countries in the Middle East which affect this discussion - but one person who is thought to have been saved this way is Salim Halali, a Jewish Algerian who later became a famous singer. He was known, particularly, for reviving classical Andalusian music (which originated in Moorish Andalucia during the Middle Ages - it's beautiful, and I would recommend you give it a go. Try Jordi Savall and Granada Eterna as well as Salim Halali himself). He is also known to have been gay.

The film shows the relationship between Salim Halali and a fictional Algerian Muslim named Younes, who ends up (apparently through accidental awkwardness) getting involved in the operations of the Mosque; it basically consists of a lot of pining and longing glances and casual touching. There is even a happy ending.

It is not a well-known film, and I was sincerely surprised to get two comments on my fic because that meant that more than one person (my recipient) had seen it. But it is a good film, and a thoughtful film, and you can get it for £4.99 from iTunes, so you should all see it and then come and read my fic.

Today is my birthday; I was hoping to post a fic but unemployment and academic stress have made that plan undoable. I do, however, have a deleted scene from my current WIP, which I've decided to cut from the story because other things need to happen, but which amuses me too much for me to destroy it entirely.

This is the story it's from (Les Miserables, Enjolras/Grantaire, modern British AU), but you don't actually need to read that to get this.

Then his phone rings, and ruins everything.

The things with phones is that now that we have emails and texting, there is really no reason to ever call anyone. The only people who call Grantaire are British Gas, who seem to think that he owns his own boiler and wants to buy a winter cover for it, and his mother, who likes to chat. British Gas called last week, and his mother four days ago. He’s not due another ring for days.

He looks at the phone, which is resting on the kitchen table – too far for him to see who’s calling. It’s probably a wrong number, or someone selling PPI. He could easily ignore it.

But Grantaire is having a good day, and so he finds himself picking up a phone, and giving himself the second heart-attack of the day, because the caller is Enjolras.

Definitely should have ignored it. But then there would be the anxiety over calling him back to ask what he wanted.

Grantaire answers.

“Hello?”

A short silence, and noises of shuffling.

“Hello, Grantaire?”

“Yes, hello?”

“Hello, it’s Enjolras.”

“Hello.”

Well, you can’t argue that they are not at least part British; they’ve definitely got the awkward hellos part down. In the silence which follows, Grantaire starts a bet with himself over whether Enjolras is going to say another hello. ( Read more... )

I have written another chapter of Hunger Hurts. It only took eight months.

The next one will probably (hopefully) take less.

http://archiveofourown.org/works/2825402

In honour of the (failed) revolution of June 1832, I did a thing.

Beyond (Along, Above, Behind) the Barricade

Enjolras/Grantaire, 1600 words, post-canon.

Enjolras does not regret the manner of his death. Nor does he regret sharing it with Grantaire – an unlooked-for companion, but one whose hand had created a sweetness in his last moment that Enjolras had not expected. Grantaire, unexpectedly brave but not unexpectedly kind, had stood with him when he faced the enemy. It is reasonable, Enjolras reminds himself, it is just, that he should stand with him in the afterlife.

But Grantaire in the afterlife is much like Grantaire in life; full of words but rarely filled with sense. Keen, above all, to provoke Enjolras.

So! I posted a fic yesterday. Or at least, a part of a fic. The rest will come later.

I've been writing this story for about a year now - I remember starting it last Christmas, with the idea of writing something short and quick, and happy, where Grantaire gets what he wants (a deep dicking from Enjolras, that is). What I've actually produced is the first chapter of a 50000-word fic, where Grantaire is miserable and drinks too much and has too many feelings. But he will get the deep dicking in the end! And in the mean time, there's a pub quiz.

Title: Hunger Hurts But Starving Works
Fandom: Les Misérables
Pairing: Enjolras/Grantaire
Summary: Modern British AU, where Les Amis are all thirty-something professionals in London, who attend a weekly pub quiz and complain about British politics.

I have made a fic. It's about dead French revolutionaries, except I made it so that they don't die, on account of how I don't want them to.

Title: in dreams begin responsibilities
Pairing: Enjolras/Grantaire
Rating: R
Words: 10300
Warnings: Marius dies, so that everyone else may live. Gavroche gets slapped in the face, also so that everyone else may live.
Summary: Their discussions are not always about the things they discuss.