#mes lectures : bd

[bx-xear]

Sitting in a lecture thinking about being absolutely ruined by an older guy while he whispers praises. Normal girlie things

[jezatalks]

Une des choses qui me manque du célibat, c'est de pouvoir allumer ma lampe de chevet, attraper un roman, et lire quand vient l'insomnie.

Là j'ai été obligée de me redresser doucement, soulever délicatement la couette et sortir de la chambre le plus silencieusement possible afin de lire sur le canapé. Le salon étant, heureusement, à l'opposé de la chambre.

[cerulane]

Il se passe de drôles de choses dans les vestiges de l'abbaye de Loch Castle : des moines fouillent les ruines à la recherche de traces d'une diablesse et de son animal satanique. Mais ces moines sont surpris par Emilia et viennent s'expliquer auprès de Yoko. Ils racontent que la diablesse en question, une adolescente aveugle qui voyait à travers les yeux d'un aigle mécanique, aurait disparu dans une spirale de lumière !

À l'aide de Monya et de son translateur, Yoko part pour le XIIIe siècle découvrir ce qui s'est réellement passé dans l'abbaye calcinée.

Les dessins donnent souvent l’impression d’être tordus, les visages asymétriques. Même le lettrage donne parfois l’impression d’être tremblant ou écrasé pour rentrer dans les bulles…

Au niveau de l’histoire, je ne l’ai pas comprise. J’ai eu l’impression de passer du coq à l’âne. Le fil de l’histoire est l’aigle du titre mais on le retrouve dans le passé, puis chez les Vinéens. Mais le lien entre les deux ? Je ne sais pas.

Les premiers tomes de la série étaient relativement indépendants. On y retrouvait parfois des personnages mais une rapide explication permettait de les resituer. Dans ce tome, comme les précédents, l’auteur se sent obligé de nous remettre tous les personnages rencontrés précédemment. Il y a donc une multitude de protagonistes, dont on ne se souvient pas en détail, et qui n’apportent pas forcément grand-chose à l’histoire. L’intrigue est elle-même dans la continuité des tomes précédents et il est très difficile de la suivre sans se remettre en tête ce qui s’est passé avant.

Au final, une série qui décline et qui continue à décevoir…

[ducleto]

Mes lectures BDs et manga du weekend

[petermorwood]

@nimblermortal sent me this last week:

A second blade weapon became increasingly common in the later Viking Age. It does not have a formal name, being often referred to as a fighting-knife or battle-knife, and it was essentially a development of the one-handed, long seax knife of the Migration Period. A single-edged blade with a thick back that added weight to a short, stabbing blow, it seems to have been intended as a back-up weapon. By the tenth century, battle-knives had elaborate scabbards that were worn horizontally along the belt, allowing them to be drawn across the body from behind a shield if the sword was gone; a variant hung down at an angle from an elaborate harness. It seems they may also have been worn on the back - again for a swift, over-the-shoulder draw. Children of Ash and Elm by Neil Price @petermorwood (Mr Morwood! Mr Morwood!) I found an archaeologist claiming people were doing over-the-shoulder draws! Would you care to weigh in?

*****

Would I ever! That's a button well pushed. But things got odd when I tried, because as soon as I'd written even the smallest reply and saved to Draft, this happened:

Letting it stand would have seemed like I was trying to avoid comments, corrections or criticism, but despite poking around in Settings there was no way to turn things on. It was only by cut-and-pasting @nimblermortal's entire original as a Quote starting a new post that the problem was resolved.

Anyone else encountered this?

Anyway, on with the lecture response. :->

*****

As regards Back-Carry / Back-Draw of "battle-knives", I'm not convinced.

("Battle-knife" is a term I've never seen in connection with any Viking Age weapon. What's the Old Norse for it? German "Kriegsmesser" (war-knife) refers to something much bigger from 500 years later, also not back-carried or back-drawn - which from here on will be BD / BC.)

To get where he is now, a full professor, Neil Price will have defended his PhD, and should know such a statement as "It seems they may..." will need evidence to support it.

That phrase is easy to write, as is "According to legend..." and "It is said..." However these are IMO default History Channel phrases, with all the authenticity that implies. None of them actually PROVE what they're speculating.

"Experiments conducted by museum staff wearing authentic armour reveal that IT SEEMS medieval knights could use smartphones."

But does it prove medieval knights USED smartphones? See what I mean?

*****

I first asked if anyone had actual proof of BC / BD on Netsword almost 30 years ago, and to date there's been nothing. I've also posted about it quite a lot on Tumblr, so being poked with this particular stick is no surprise. :->

The quotation from "Children of Ash and Elm" is the first time I've heard of a trained archaeologist making a claim for BC / BD, and the odd part is that Prof. Price also states the weapon was intended for "...a short, stabbing blow" - which means wearing it horizontally in front makes far more sense. From that position it can be drawn far faster and with less telegraphed intent than "...on the back - again for a swift, over-the-shoulder draw."

Reaching up for any weapon carried across the back, whether long or short, is a bigger movement - and thus less "swift" - than snatching out the same weapon worn at the hip or across the front at waist level, especially if - as he suggests - that move is masked behind a shield (or for that matter a cloak, a door, or a half-turned torso...)

Try both moves in front of a mirror with a ruler or even a length of dowel, and you'll understand.

With a weapon-hilt visible behind one shoulder or just a cross-belt suggesting something slung out of sight, what's a Norse warrior going to think when his potential opponent reaches up there? At a moment of hot words and high tension, will he wait while an itchy back gets scratched or until an attack happens?

The explosive violence described in sagas suggests not.

If Prof. Price has solid proof for his BC / BD notion in the form of artefacts or art - and it'll need more than a one-off example - I'll be very pleased to finally see some "show me" evidence.

(It won't do anything for longswords of 500 years later, of course, though I bet the uncritical back-carry brigade would leap on it regardless.)

But without that evidence, I'm taking "it seems" with a wary pinch of salt.

*****

There's a weird internet fixation about BC / BD (which are NOT the same thing) and an equally weird need to show that back-draw "works", whether with hooks under the guard and a leather condom at the point...

... or by being open most of the way down one side.

Neither are real-world historical, so let's see how they work in fantasy.

IMO they're not appropriate there either, because the designers are so eager to provide working BC / BD that they ignore the main function of a scabbard, which is to carry the weapon in something which protects people from the weapon's edges, and the weapon from the elements.

Real scabbards for real swords went to some trouble over that. They protected people, including the wearer, with a completely enclosed wooden, leather and / or metal case, and protected the blades by having them fit into their case well enough that inclement weather stayed out.

This fitting could involve metal collars (Japanese habaki), or tight-gripping lanolin-rich fleece linings, or leather flaps, caps and rain-guards mounted on hilt or scabbard-throat. Real scabbards didn't have exposed metal and weren't open-sided rainfall buckets, because the priorities of actual sword users were very different to those of back-carry fans.

Given the number of posts I've seen about the technical side of fantasy world-building - history, geography, even geology and meteorology - I think this difference is worth noting.

*****

The first time I recall seeing back-carry mentioned in a historical-not-fantasy context was in "Growing Up in the Thirteenth Century", © Alfred Duggan 1962. Here's the extract in question:

Unfortunately Duggan - though according to his Wikipedia entry "His novels are known for meticulous historical research" - doesn't give any cited source for this; his introduction to the book says:

I know the feeling! :->

I'd still trust him more than some modern historical writers who seem over-willing to add a touch of fantasy speculation / interpretation if it rounds out something inconclusive, makes the history more interesting or chimes with a personal agenda.

"Accurate" is better than "interesting", and "I don't know" is better than making stuff up.

*****

To repeat: I've yet to see any museum-exhibit or manuscript-illumination examples of BC / BD ever done For Historically Real with Western European swords, especially the hand-and-a-half longswords on which modern back-draw fans seem fixated.

A seax, scramasax or just plan sax is shorter, but yet again, this is the first time I've read anything even remotely scholarly about them or their later Viking-age version (saxes were associated more with Saxons than Vikings, guess why?) being BC / BD.

By contrast, there are at least three art instances of saxes worn horizontally, on 10th century crosses at Middleton Church, Yorkshire:

The art is backed up by surviving examples with scabbard-fittings still in place, indicating how they were worn. Here's one example, from the Metropolitan Museum, New York which makes that very obvious.

The little decorative masks (originally part of the top of the scabbard, now corroded onto the blade) are clearly meant to be This Side Up, and also show that this scabbard was This Side Out for a right-handed draw, since there's no detail on the back.

There's a similar fancy-front / plain-back / right-hand-use leather sax scabbard at the Jorvik Centre in York.

There's only a single photograph of this bigger one - 54cm (21.5 in) overall - from the Cleveland Museum of Art, with no way to see if the L-shaped scabbard mount is decorated on just one or both sides. However it does indicate the weapon was meant for horizontal wear.

I've also flipped the website photo to show right-hand use, because "It seems..." (hah!) more probable. Here's why I did it:

For most of history being left-handed was unusual, a disapproved-of aberration and the origin of the word sinister.

Left-handers were useless in any formation from Ancient Greece through Ancient Rome to the Saxon and Viking period where the shields of a phalanx, testudo or shield-wall had to overlap for mutual support.

In the Middle Ages, both the specialised armour and the layout of jousting courses were almost 100% right-hand only.

Most surviving swords with asymmetrical hilts, such as swept-hilt rapiers, are made to for right hands not left.

Even nowadays many weapons - including the current British Army rifle (SA-80 / L85/A2) - are set for right-handers only.

*****

The longest saxes are called Langseax (surprise) though this may be a modern-ish term. Here's one from the British Museum, the so-called "Seax of Beagnoth"...

...which is 72 cm (28.5 in) total / 55cm (22 in) blade.

That's about the same as a Roman gladius (another sword never back-worn despite its convenient size) and is a good 25-30cm (10-12 in) shorter than the average "proper" sword of the same period, which means it could be drawn over-shoulder...

However the layout of its runic engraving shows it was almost certainly meant to be worn horizontally As Per Usual.

*****

And now we've come all the way back around to Prof. Price's claim that Vikings did BC / BD with their battle-knives.

Such a claim needs proof.

Please, show me some.

[breakfastteatime]

Today's Fallen Order request is "That looks broken" for @blueflowertea

The sun shines outside, flowers bloom, Greez has freshly baked bread cooling in the galley and all is calm and quiet aboard the ship. The others have ventured into a nearby market, leaving Greez with the whole ship to himself. He’s set the navicomp to run maintenance routines, the deck is sparking from his intense scrubbing, he baked the aforementioned bread (mostly to get rid of the odour of whatever the heck Cal tracked in from their last stop on an honest-to-great-grandma swamp planet), and the refresher hasn’t been that tidy since the day the ship left the production line.

All in all, Greez has had a very productive day while the others go gallivanting, with their ‘the Force is calling me’ and ‘I wish to see a new world’ and scanning, always scanning. It’s the first time in too long Greez has been able to play his own music on the sound system too. Apparently Latero lounge funk is nauseating for Humans. And Greez means that literally – both Cere and Cal get all woozy and pale if he tries playing it. It makes Merrin giggle uncontrollably in a genuinely dangerous to her health kind of way.

Greez makes himself a cup of caf and prepares to sit down, maybe catch a pod race, when he hears familiar voices approaching. He switches off his music and watches BD lead the way. That’s unusual. He rarely puts his own feet on the ground unless…

Greez looks up. Cal is on his feet, conscious and limping. Cere and Merrin follow, Merrin looking extremely pleased with herself while Cere looks like she’s ready to catch Cal at a moment’s notice.

“What happened?” Greez asks.

“Cal did not look where he was going,” Merrin says. “He tripped over a market stall.”

“And did such a great job putting it back together the stall owner wasn’t even mad at me!” Cal flops down onto the couch. Good thing Greez didn’t get around to cleaning that off today. He’s covered in soil. “And I was looking where I was going. I just got distracted. Totally different problem.”

“Yes, you see something shiny, and all other thoughts fall out of your head,” Merrin says.

“Nah, that’s BD, right, buddy?”

BD cackles and dashes off to scan the terrarium.

“Take your boot off,” Cere says.

“I twisted it, Cere, it’s nothing.”

“Take your boot off. Greez, grab me the medscanner.”

Greez never, ever, messes with Cere when she’s using this tone of voice. Cal, on the other hand, is not that wise.

“I twisted my ankle. Some ice, a few stretches, it’ll be fine.”

“And how are you going to apply the ice with the boot on? Take it off. Now.”

Merrin snorts. Cal levels a glare at her. She heads off into her and Cere’s cabin. Greez hands over the scanner to Cere. He gives Cal a nudge. “There’s no need to turn this into a fight,” he whispers.

It isn’t much of a flashpoint, but it’s one nonetheless and despite all this time together, no one has managed to iron out Cal’s ‘I’ll work through anything’ mentality. On top of that, he’s a young man who clearly wants to spread his wings. Greez gets it, he really does, but sometimes Cal needs a reminder he isn’t immortal. No, it’s simpler than that. Sometimes, he needs reminders that he doesn’t need to be in pain constantly.

With much eye-rolling and amateur dramatics, Cal reaches for his boot. He pulls, and Greez watches him literally go several shades paler. A funny gasp emerges from him, and he grabs the couch cushions, knuckles bleaching white. Greez hears Cere take a breath, ready to lecture, and reaches over to whack her on the arm. The woman really needs to know when to push and when to shut up.

It’s slow and painful (literally for Cal, based on how much he’s sweating), but the boot comes off.

Greez can’t help himself. “That looks broken.”

Cal is silent as Cere scans the obvious problem. Greez grabs an icepack, ready to put on the injury the moment they have confirmation.

“Yes,” Cere says. “Broken. It’s a hairline fracture, so a bone knitter and a few days of rest will fix it right up.” She reaches into the medkit once more and pulls out said knitter. Definitely an essential purchase, one they’d made not long after meeting Cal.

Head shaking, Cal tries to pull away. “I don’t need to rest it, I can manage.”

Certain he knows why Cal thinks he can ‘manage’, Greez slaps the icepack down just hard enough to catch Cal, who hisses and levels a glare at him. “You are resting it. Consider the rest of us at your beck and call.”

Cal pauses, turning the thought around. “Everyone?”

Greez nods. “Merrin!” Cal bellows at the top of his lungs. “You’re at my beck and call! Grab me a drink, please!”

[ernestinee]

Je suis dans ce moment où la lecture était agréable mais trop courte, où j'ai encore envie de l'ambiance qu'elle m'offrait, où j'ai envie de savoir ce qu'ont fait les personnages après ce dernier verre au bar ou après cette conversation nocturne. Du coup j'ai envie de lire, encore et encore mais aucun des livres posés sur cette table ne me fait vraiment envie. Là j'ai le choix entre deux récits fantastiques, l'un dans la magie moyenâgeuse et l'autre dans une société dystopique, un polar, un manga d'horreur, une histoire de transplantation, une histoire familiale et une histoire de samouraï. Il y a aussi 1Q84- livre 2, qui me renverrait au Japon, un récit d'aventure au travers du Sahara et quelques BD.

Comme les événements de la vie, même mineurs, ne sont pas vécus de la même façon qu'on ait 10 ans, 20 ans, 40 ans, 43 ans et demi, il y a un temps pour chaque livre, un moment où l'on se fait écrin du joyau qu'il veut bien nous offrir.

[rown-cheese]

Mes lectures de 2024! ✧⁠◝⁠(⁠⁰⁠▿⁠⁰⁠)⁠◜⁠✧

Quelque chose que j'ai très fort envie de faire pour la nouvelle année, c'est répertorier toutes mes lectures que je ferai cette année (romans, BDs, etc...)! Rien qu'aujourd'hui, j'ai pu lire deux petites BDs et finir un tout petit roman (je n'aurai pas tout le temps ce rythme) mais il est tard, ahah, alors je pense que j'en parlerai demain, parce que ça me permettra de faire tout ça correctement, eheh

Je ne sais pas trop comment parler de mes lectures pour l'année à venir alors si vous avez un conseil, je prends, mais je vais au moins faire mes présentations comme ceci:

Nom du livre et de l'auteurice

Photo du livre

Résumé du livre avec mes mots à moi

Prévention sur les CW/TW potentiels qui m'ont marqué, et si le livre prend la peine de nous prévenir pour ça

Commentaire personnel sur le livre et à quel point je l'ai aimé ou non, et si je le recommande ou non

Aussi! Je me suis mis pour objectif de lire 35 livres cette année, donc un rythme de 2-3 livres par mois alors voyons si j'y arrive!

Et puis, si vous voulez me conseiller un livre, faites donc mais je ne confirme en rien de si/quand je vais l'acheter et de quand je le lirai, ahah :'))

J'espère que je pourrai réussir à vous intéresser avec ma future liste, et peut-être même que je vous donnerai envie de découvrir certains d'entre eux!

(je ne crois pas avoir le savoir infini, bien sûr, et ce n'est pas parce que j'ai un avis sur un livre qu'il est universel, vous pouvez ne pas être d'accord, bien sûr)

[kaechat-3]

Petite BD inspiré de Kaeloo, réalisé par mes soins ^^ Bonne lecture !

[taystrash]

Tay // 22 // Trying this writing thing again

If you’re interested, you can find me here

Previous Blogs:

IOAMB (kpop: bts, monsta x, got7, skz…)

Imagination-of-a-thirsty-weeb (anime: hxh, haiikyuu)

Imagination-of-a-fandom-slut (tv shows: teen wolf, tvd, twd…)

Masterlists, if you would like to see what’s in store:

BTS

Got7

MonstaX

How it started:

I started writing when I was 10, One direction had just debuted and I was in love. They’re how I discovered fanfiction. I never actually wrote for them myself, seeing no shortage of content for members x reader, or members x members, so I looked elsewhere. I started to get into Viners, YouTubers, and Magcon boys and I started writing for them instead. People loved it, I made au gif sets, and I honestly loved the interactions with the fics and between I and my readers. I would write day and night, hurting my shoulders, changing positions, at school thinking of writing, scribbling ideas down here and there. I abandoned that blog for another and that for another and that one to stop writing all together. All my blogs are still up and running, I’d take Teen Wolf requests on one, SKZ on another but I want THIS blog to be a truly multi-fandom blog. I tried to categorize everything, anime into one, kpop into another, I want access to everything all in one. So bear with me! I’m working to get it together! I’m excited to see what the future brings and even more excited to finally get to write again.

REQUESTS

They are open!

I currently am only going to pick back up a few fandoms, SKZ, HxH, and Teen Wolf. I will be writing for new shows such as JJK, AOT, BSD and Demon Slayer.

DISCLAIMER (not to be rude, mean, or mistaken)

I am a smut writer. I like rough, nasty, demeaning, aggressive sex and I will write about it! Please, be warned! Please, do not lecture me about it, you can find fluff, angst, and softer smut elsewhere, OR you can request it and I’ll write that for you and your tastes. I’m not here to judge and I hope no one judges me. I know it can’t be helped but I’m a nasty bitch and I want to be with other nasty bitches :((

Character List:

JJK

Sukuna

Gojo

Geto

Nanami

Shoko

Mei Mei

Toji

Choso

Mohito

Todo

Demon slayer

Giyuu

Rengoku

Muzan

Akaza

Obanai

Gyomei

Sanemi

Tengen

Kokushibo

Doma

Hantengu’s four demons

HxH

Hisoka

Illumi

Razor

The Phantom Troupe

Silva

BDS

Dazai

Fyodor

Akutagawa

Atsushi

Fukuzawa

Ranpo

Poe

Kunikida

Chuuya

Oda

Ango

Francis Scott

Tachihara

Juno

Sigma

Nikolai (clowns are sexy I swear)

Fukuchi

AOT

Eren

Armin

Connie

Jean

Floch

Levi

Erwin

Hange (will be written as they/them, you can decide whether it’s amab or afab.)

Sasha

Mikasa

Reiner

Teen wolf

Stiles

Scott

Parrish

Sheriff Stilinski

Melissa

Liam

Theo

Brett

Derek

Peter

I’ll write for every member of Stray Kids!!

Smut Games:

Feel free to pick a prompt or two to pair with a character/member

Smut Game 1 ( can be found as a link on previous stories but is no longer accessible)

Smut Game 2

Smut Game 3

Smut Game 4

Smut game 5

Happy Slutting <3

[stardustandash]

Last of the claimed febuwhump fics! This one is for @breakfastteatime who requested solitary confinement for Jedi Fallen Order. Hope you enjoy!!

Words: 2,099

Tags: whump, hurt no comfort, pre-Jedi Survivor, Claustrophobia warning

ao3 link

seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty minutes

Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen minutes. That’s how long Cal had been trapped in the little durasteel room. Four thousand, three hundred and fifteen minutes. And sixteen minutes, actually. He wasn’t sure if that was correct, he’d only started counting when he was bored enough, and he’d slept a few short stints somewhere between the counting.

The room itself was small and empty. At Cal’s best guess it was a roughly six foot cube of plain grey durasteel, with no visible door anywhere in the smooth plating and two bright, buzzing lights overhead flush with the durasteel around them. He had no memory of being put in the box. The last thing he remembered was being out in some small spaceport town picking up some supplies for Greez. He had a vague recollection of fighting someone, flashes of running through a street, sending BD-1 for help, but not much else. When he’d woken up it had been with a pounding headache and a very tender spot on the back of his head, but after three days’ worth of minutes he was starting to string his thoughts together in a more organized fashion.

Now Cal was just bored. And worried. What had happened to the others? He can’t quite remember if they were on the ship or out in the town with him. He could remember that Merrin had insisted on making breakfast and it had been something spicy with eggs and sausages and some kind of plant she’d picked up somewhere that Cere and Greez avoided, but he couldn’t picture if she was with him when whatever happened to get him locked in here. He hoped that she wasn’t. Ideally the others were mounting some daring rescue and he just had to wait for them. Too bad he’d never been good at waiting.

Cal paced the room. There was nothing better to do. The only thing he had to avoid in it was the small toilet in the corner of the room. There was no other furniture. He ran one hand along the wall as he went, searching for any kind of crack or crevice that could show signs of an exit. Four thousand, three hundred, and thirty six minutes, and he still couldn’t find anything.

It took him a long time to notice that he could’t feel the Force either. It was around him in the room. He could feel the space of it through the Force, the corners, the sad little toilet, but he couldn’t feel beyond the durasteel perimeter. Once, when he was young and small and impressionable, Master Tapal had sat him down and discussed methods of keeping a Jedi captive.

“Firstly, I must impress upon you that this is all for a worst-case scenario. As long as I, or Commander Gamut, are around we will do our utmost to protect you,” said Master Tapal.

“Then why bother teaching me about it? You hardly let me go on missions anyway,” Cal whined.

“Because knowledge will help you overcome your fear and give you the tools you need to escape.”

Cal huffed. He preferred physical training to the lectures from Master Tapal. This was boring. Besides, Master Tapal almost never let him out into the field so it wasn’t like any lectures on what to do when captured or behind enemy lines was ever going to be useful. He wanted to learn fun things, like how to wield a dual-bladed ‘saber like Master Tapal.

“To begin: when a Jedi is captured, they are likely to be known as a Jedi immediately. We wear our robes, and we have our lightsabers. Both identify us as who we are.”

“Then why don’t we dress like other people? The clones and the other soldiers all have uniforms.”

“Because, Padawan, we stand at the end of a long thread of tradition, and that is not a tradition of war. We are peacekeepers, not soldiers. We must remember that we are trying to end this war, not fight it.”

Cal thought that it felt very much like they were fighting a war. Nobody on the holonet talked about peace or an end, just what battles were going on and what the Hero With No Fear was up to.

“If you are caught, they will take away your lightsaber. This does not disarm you, as you will always have your connection to the Force. But, if they are prepared, they will have special binders on hand to dampen the Force to us, make us as any other person in the galaxy.”

A cold chill shuddered down Cal’s spine. He couldn’t imagine not being able to feel the Force. “Then what do I do?”

“Well, hopefully, I come get you. But if not, Commander Gamut and Sergeant Twitch will show you various methods you can use.” Master Tapal leaned back with a smile. “Though I imagine I will regret this lesson very soon.”

Cal had never heard of Force-dampening walls before, but perhaps either bounty hunters or the Empire had gotten creative sometime in the last six years. He can’t think of anything else it might be. He wished whoever was holding him had just gone for the binders, it would’ve made this whole situation much easier to handle as he could’ve picked them and been on his way.

As Cal paced he could almost hear the accented voices of the clones walking him through the steps to pick the lock on a set of binders. How to turn the locks, the feeling when you knew part of it had sprung. He turned the corner of his tiny prison and saw a flash of yellow and white out of the corner of his eye.

He couldn’t help it. Cal jumped backwards, tripping over his feet and falling into the wall behind him. The tender spot on the back of his head throbbed with a new ache. With a groan he picked himself up and reached back to touch the sore spot. His hand comes back bloody. Just what he needed, an upgrade from probable concussion to definite.

As Cal stared at the blood on his hands he couldn’t help but feel a little foolish. It had been years since he had seen a clone, and more since he’d seen one in 13th Battalion yellow. There was no reason to be afraid of them now, so many years later and with clones phased out of the Imperial army. No, what he should really be afraid of was what could lie beyond the durasteel walls of his prison.

-

Five thousand, seven hundred and sixty minutes. At least, by Cal’s reckoning. He had slept for a while, but unlike the last few times he’s curled up on the hard floor under the harsh lights of his cell, this time when he woke there was no water waiting for him. Maybe they forgot about him, or they were moving him, but Cal didn’t sense any vibrations through the metal that would betray being loaded on some kind of transport. The durasteel was still and unmovable. Yet he could not shake the thought that maybe he had been forgotten. Without water he was going to die in this tiny box. A rather unfitting end for his adventures so far, but maybe not so far off an ending for him, alone and scared and trapped.

“Hello?” called Cal. His voice was dry and cracked. “Hello?”

There was no response.

“Hey! I’m still in here, you know.”

With the lack of an answer it wasn’t hard to picture that his captor had simply decided he wasn’t worth the effort of selling to the highest bidder and was simply waiting for Cal to die in order to dispose of him. Probably decided it was less barbaric or something than just doing things the easy way and shooting Cal in his sleep. Cal would’ve preferred the blaster bolt, thank you very much.

He could feel himself starting to panic. Trying to squash the feeling down, Cal tried to think of what he could do that he hadn’t tried yet and the answer was simple. Trust in the Force. So he stood in front of a wall and put his hand on the cold metal. He took a deep breath in, and as he exhaled he pushed with the Force. Still the wall remained still and unmovable. There must have been something on the other side of the walls or they were thicker than anticipated. He tried again, with a little more Force. Nothing budged.

“Hey! Come on, let me out!” yelled Cal.

Not waiting for an answer he threw a punch at the wall, putting as much of the Force behind it as he could. The durasteel groaned, but didn’t give. With a wordless scream of rage he threw his whole body at the wall shoulder first. His shoulder crunched against the wall and gave an awful wet, popping noise. Biting back a scream Cal slumped down to his knee with his hand clutching his shoulder. Under his fingertips he could tell that it was dislocated, and though Cal had grown up in a scrapyard full of stupid injuries, he didn’t know how to fix his own shoulder.

Five thousand, seven hundred and eighty-four minutes, and at last Cal broke.

A sob built in his chest as hot tears stung at his eyes. He didn’t want to die here. He wanted his friends, his family really. He wanted to listen to Greez ramble about his latest recipe, he wanted to watch as Merrin discovered the secrets of a new planet, he wanted Cere to stay up with him in the middle of the night and tell him about the Jedi, and he wanted to keep on adventuring with BD-1. Yet here he was. Trapped and alone and hurt.

Beneath his fingertips Cal could feel the bone of his shoulder and the awkward angle it sat at. Already his hand was starting to tingle with oncoming numbness. His head still pounded from its meeting with the wall as well. He must look a mess. There was dried, tacky blood in his hair and his hand was purpling across the knuckles where he’d punched the wall. He couldn’t quite see what sort of strange silhouette he made with his dislocated shoulder but he was sure it wasn’t good. He choked a breath down around his sobs. Crying wasn’t going to do him any good. It wasn’t going to magically fix his arm or summon Cere with a medkit in hand. It didn’t do him much good. The deep breaths failed to work. Apparently his body needed to cry itself out, and he was going to let it.

-

Seven thousand, two hundred minutes. Cal had never actually counted this high ever. He’d never had seven thousand credits to his name to count with, and that was the only thing people regularly had that amount of anything in. He idly tapped a finger on his good hand on the ground in one second intervals. There wasn’t much else he could do. His arm was so numb he hadn’t been able to lift it for hours, and his mouth was so dry he swore Jawas were about to move in.

He was going to die here. Somewhere in the last few hundred minutes Cal had calmly accepted that fact. He shouldn’t, but there was no hope of him escaping on his own, especially now with only one good arm and having no food or water in days. He was too weak to do much more than shift a little when his legs started to fall asleep. When he did go, he hoped it wouldn’t be Cere and the others who found him, if anybody ever did. It wouldn’t be pleasant. He’d probably become some kind of misshapen, desiccated, mummy-like body. Definitely not the end Cal had ever envisioned for himself. Most of the time he pictured long uninterrupted falls or scrapping machinery. But he could feel himself getting heavy, like his body was weighed down by stones. For a moment he thought about fighting it, but really, what was the point. Nothing he did would change anything except make him suffer a little longer. He’d had a good run. Six years longer than he thought he’d have after the Purge. He’d even found a family and a home on a luxury yacht, and that wasn’t too bad for a scrapper nobody. No, it was okay. He had done enough.

-

Seven thousand, nine hundred and twenty minutes later, a small hatch in the ceiling dropped open.

[cerulane]

Au pays des contes de fées, la grande élection annuelle de la princesse Étoile se prépare. Toutes les petites princesses, parmi lesquelles Jade et Miranda, participent activement : elles doivent collecter un maximum de « Points sourire » pour remporter le titre convoité. Mais elles voient débarquer une nouvelle concurrente pas comme les autres… Mortelle Adèle. La princesse Adèle est envoyée par ses parents au pays des contes de fées pour apprendre les usages de son rang, mais elle a bien l'intention de n'en faire qu'à sa tête.Avec Adèle dans la compétition, tous les coups bas sont permis !

Ma fille adore Mortelle Adèle, elle les lit et les relit en boucle. Elle en a laissé traîner un dans le salon et j’avais un peu de temps à tuer et je me suis dit « pourquoi pas ? » pour voir ce qu’elle aime.

Et c’est drôle. Adèle est horrible mais elle l’assume. Les autres princesses sont tout aussi horribles mais le cache. Mine de rien, la BD aborde des sujets de sociétés avec un regard enfantin : le sexisme, le diktat des apparences, la téléréalité… Les jeux de mots et les réparties des personnages sont aussi excellents.

C’était donc une très bonne surprise. Je comprends pourquoi Adèle a tant de succès. C’est à destination des enfants mais ça reste sympathique à lire pour les adultes.

[francoisl-artblog]

Art trade with TheCuix on instagram, who's also at Myria Edition !

Cette petite lapine est le personnage principal du livre "Les trésors de Carotte" D'Alexandre Sanchez, l'auteur et TheCuix, le dessinateur, qui sera édité chez Myria Edition ! Et oui, c'est un livre de la même maison qui va aussi sortir , pratiquement en même temps, que "Geraldine & Mona !" et je recommande chaudement ! De part l'héroïne toute mignonne et par les illustrations super douce de l'artiste !  Du coup, je me devais de rendre hommage à ceux qui m'ont laisser cette opportunité de mettre en vente ma BD en dessinant leur personnage. N'hésitez pas à aller voir, il y'a plein de bonne lecture  Aussi, n'hésitez pas à aller voir sa part du trade avec son illustration de Mona directement depuis son compte Insta ^^ !

This little rabbit is the main character of the book "Carrot's treasure" by Alexandre Sanchez, the author, and TheCuix, the artist, which will be published by Myria Edition ! Yes, it's a book from the same house which will also be released, almost at the same time, as "Geraldine & Mona!" and I highly recommend ! Because of the cute heroine and the super sweet illustrations of the artist! So, I had to pay tribute to those who gave me this opportunity to publish my book by drawing their character. Don't hesitate to check it out, there's plenty of good reading Also, don't hesitate to check out his part of the trade with his illustration of Mona directly from his Insta account ^^!

Les Trésors de Carotte (c) Myria Edition Artwork made by me.

[petit-atelier-de-poesie]

NOTE DE LECTURE : Le sculpteur. Scott McCloud. 2015

Voilà encore une BD que j'ai dénichée chez mon bouquiniste préféré, j'y choisis toujours un roman graphique quand il y en a et celui-ci ne pouvait pas me laisser de marbre. Le sculpteur, donc. Un pavé !  J'ai d'abord feuilleté les pages, apprécié les lignes claires, les tonalités d'aquarelle et la mise en page aérée. Et puis je suis rentrée dans la narration. Le sculpteur développe, avec ce qu'il faut de fantastique pour être dans la fiction, des thèmes qui me touchent : la création, l'art, ce qu'on y gagne et ce qu'on y perd, dans ce combat contre soi-même et contre la matière et le réel, le sens de la vie, si fragile et si éphémère, ce qu'il en reste après la mort. Ici le narrateur perd pied, la vie ne l'a pas épargné avec des deuils successifs dans sa famille, alors il rencontre le fantôme d'un vieil oncle, avec qui il passe un pacte, afin de produire enfin son oeuvre, et d'être reconnu en tant qu'artiste. Plus tard, c'est l'amour qu'il rencontre, l'autre comme force et faille de soi-même, et ces deux rencontres vont changer sa perception de son oeuvre, de sa vie, et de la mort plus généralement.  Bref c'est donc une très belle oeuvre, cette BD façon roman graphique, avec un authentique et profond questionnement sur l'amour, l'art et la mort. A chacun d'y trouver ses interprétations et ses réponses.

[lemuel-apologist]

i got another one of those weird shocks today, i guess. i got dragged into playing a video game after i made crepes and cleaned someone's kitchen. im not good at video games, but i was doing fine (yes i was losing. what about it); but, after a point, i had to go, "if i make sure i die this round, can i stop playing? my hand hurts too bad to keep going." i ended up losing anyway because the screen shrank, but my hand hurt so badly I couldn't put on my shoes to leave and i spent the whole ride home just rubbing it.

and when it happened, the people i was with weren't taken aback by it at first, but they examined it again when we were headed out the door-- because, genuinely, something about holding an xbox controller makes my left second metacarpal think i've tried to kill it SPECIFICALLY. and i was standing there, trying to explain, like, no, there's always some middling level of pain in my joints, and it's always really weird when i have to take something for a headache or cramps and i can suddenly move my hands and feet freely again. you're telling me you DON'T have the joints of an old man? this has been happening since we were teenagers. only one person here wasn't there when our BD let me switch to planking instead of situps because my hips wouldn't stop making that noise, and my brother witnessed me have to try to put on a sock four times in his girlfriend's car because my hip would not let me do it. and that's normal. that's normal for me and frankly i think it's normal for you and you're not admitting it.

and we're walking out to the car and my brother's girlfriend goes "you know, my mom would probably lecture you about histamines" NO!! i don't want to know about histaminesssss No!! this is normal and i am functioning normally and i will NOT accept that the fact that my fingers and spine and right ankle are in extreme pain right now! and have been since i was a teen ager! NO!!!!!!

and im going to be like this forever? my joints were this bad at 14/15 and they're this bad at 22 and they will be in the future? and i have to live with that? and with my brain? and with my autonomic system? fuck, man, what the hell. turn me into a dollar coin and chuck me in the river. im GOING to eat my phone.

[breakfastteatime]

Today's fic is for the anon who requested 'I can explain!'

"Hey, Cal."

Greez's voice drags Cal out of his dozy musings. He shifts, stab wound grumbling. His breath catches and he presses a hand to his chest. He is really, really over this. "Greez? What is it?"

"Just checking in, seeing how you're feeling."

"I'm okay," Cal says, even though he's about to figure out the best way to get out of this bed and find another painkiller. His attempts to sleep it off have failed, and he knows he’ll get a lecture if he doesn’t ask for help when he needs it.

"Good, good.” Greez nods. “Yeah, that’s good to hear.”

“Are you okay?” Cal asks, because Greez is being weirder than usual.

“I’m fine. There's something I need to talk to you about."

It’s right then when Cal notices two of Greez’s arms are behind his back, holding something. He reaches out with the Force, senses…

Ohhhhh, shit.

"Actually, Greez, can it wait? I'm not feeling - "

Greez pulls out an egg. A big egg. An egg that can only have one source.

BD scans it immediately, cheerily announcing his findings.

“Ah!” Greez raises a hand. “I don’t wanna hear a peep outta you, BD.”

BD shrinks back.

"Guess what, Cal?" Greez asks, voice dangerously soft. "This ain't the only one. I even saw it wiggle earlier, so what does that tell me?"

Knowing he is totally busted, Cal goes for honesty. “That you should put it back so the mother can properly nurture it.”

“Oh, I will, kid, believe me. I don’t need this thing hatching and then locking onto me and calling me ‘Mama’.”

“Actually, Greez, boglings can’t talk.”

A finger comes out, jabbing in Cal’s direction. BD tells Cal maybe he shouldn’t keep pushing his luck this time.

“How long has it been aboard?” Greez demands.

“A while,” Cal says. He lost track of time ages ago. “She’s harmless, I promise. I can explain! She’s – ”

“Harmless, yeah, uh huh. She’s why I’ve been hearing weird things, smelling gross things, finding food missing…”

“Yeah…”

“What do you think would happen if she nibbled her way through some of the wires, huh? Suddenly we’re falling out of hyperspace at the worst possible moment, reverting in the middle of a star or crashing into a planet, or…”

“But she hasn’t,” Cal says brightly. “And she probably would have by now if she was going to.”

It puts pause to whatever rant Greez was about to go off on.

Because it was not the right thing to say.

BD-1 skitters off down the hall.

“You’re lucky you’re still injured,” Greez says, and for the first time ever, Cal thinks he might be afraid of him. “The second you’re fit and able, we’re going back to Bogano so you can reunite mother and babies with their homeworld. You can fight off any stormtroopers that might come for us too and –”

“Really, Greez? You’d abandon helpless babies on Bogano, a world now on the Empire’s radar?”

“Oh no, don’t you even try it! I won’t have any of your Jedi tricks! They’re going back. I don’t care if the whole planet’s on fire! This is a critter free ship, Cal, and you better remember that.”

“But – ”

“Silence!” Greez bellows.

There’s a skitter of claws from the vent above Cal’s bed. He doesn’t need to look to sense the bogling. Greez looks up with a growl.

The bogling growls back.

“You!” Greez hisses.

The bogling’s parental rage zings through the Force and sinks its teeth into Cal. “Hey, Greez? She really, really wants her egg back.”

The vent rattles. The bogling attempts to break through.

“Hah, like something that small could – ”

The rest of what Greez has to say is lost to a scream as the bogling does indeed break through (with just the teeniest, tiniest application of the Force). Greez (and the egg) rush out of the engine room, the bogling in hot pursuit.

BD-1 returns with Cere, both of them staring after Greez. “Do I want to know?” Cere asks.

“Probably not,” Cal says, settling back against his pillow.