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Title: Beside the Side of the Silvery Sea
Fandom: The Mummy films
Genre: humour, family, a little bit of m/m romance
Rating: PG
Summary: Salt, sandcastles, and sunburns: a well-established recipe for a good day at the beach. Tastes even better with the addition of sharks, skipping stones, and (with a lot of luck) secret flirting with good-looking strangers.
Brighton, July 1933
There was something about the proximity of the sea, Jonathan decided, that turned even perfectly well-behaved children into tightly-wound human springs. Or jumping beans. Even Evy hadn’t been immune when they were kids. Naturally Alex, who had inherited her giant heart and passion for learning but also had an occasional mischievous streak a mile wide, was so excited he could hardly sit still on his seat.
“I can see the sea, Uncle Jon!”
“Oh can you?”
“Sure, it’s just behind that hill!”
Unlike his nephew Jonathan knew perfectly well that the English Channel did not, in fact, lie just behind the hill Alex was pointing at. Nevertheless he nodded with the acquired wisdom of the seasoned uncle who had learned by now some humouring was sometimes better than arguing. Especially when at the wheel of a car.
At least looking for glimpses of blue in the distance kept Alex from counting the minutes till they arrived. At six years old, the boy was quick and bright, though easily bored – but, fortunately, equally easily distracted. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge and was always eager to share it. Knowing this, all Jonathan had to do to avoid the dreaded “Are we there yet” was to ask a random question to get an enthusiastic conversation going.
( Uncle and nephew interactions FTW ^^ )
This story came from a prompt on Tumblr with only three words: “Jonathan”, “Alex”, and “seaside”. I set out to write a cute snapshot, probably shorter than a thousand words, with cute uncle and nephew shenanigans; my brain had a different idea. Hope you’ll like it. There’s still plenty of cute uncle and nephew shenanigans, at least.
The title is from the 1907 music hall song “I Do Like to be Beside the Seaside”, which even in the time this story is set would have been very old-fashioned :D
Fun fact! In the words of a friend who lives there and is settled pretty comfortably in the “queer” spectrum, Brighton is and has long been “very gay” too. Having same-sex relationships in the 1930s was just as forbidden as in the 1910s, but you still could use codes to signal your sexuality to like-minded people who might be interested. Plus it was a place where a lot of art people lived (authors, actors, artists), which is still the case today. Also, even though it’s sadly hit by things like drugs and homelessness as badly as other places in the UK, it’s one of its most gay-friendly towns :o) (Also sadly, the West Pier doesn’t exist today; it fell into disrepair in the 1970s, and after storms and arsons it’s mostly a skeletal structure. The Palace Pier, however, is still thriving in the 2020s. There’s an arcade, roller coasters and children’s rides.)
Anyway, it's been a while, huh? I can't believe the last post I made here was before my third nephew was born (bringing the total number to four kids!), before plaguetimes, and before 2020 redefined my meaning of "année de merde". Also before I discovered I not only wanted to but also physically could write smut without self-combusting! Whoo-hoo! For some reason it's all been [canon male character/original male character] and canon male character/original male character/original female character], which means I seem to be unable to write smut more than five people and their cat want to read (when I'm lucky). So I tend to treasure these five people (and cat)'s comments. A LOT.
Since I feel I can only post so much canon character/OMC before it gets weird (or I get too self-conscious, either works), I think I'm going to post the next one here. DW allows "anonymous" comments (ie. from people who don't have an account) and since Pillowfort is down until at least late April, it just belatedly hit me that this is a good place to post, Actually!
So I don't know if I'm going to post the entire One-Step, Two-Step, Waltz series; they're pretty snug on AO3. But. I'll probably post the more recent stuff I wrote:
a) Story 1: uncle and (6-years-old) nephew have a nice day out in 1930s Brighton. Nephew makes a friend, uncle makes (discreetly) A Friend; the two adults agree that while the timing is pretty bad they both want to see more of each other and agree on going on a date;
b) Story 2: the date! Uncle and friend go see the aquarium, visit Brighton, have a pint and a nice time - and also find a discreet hotel where they can safely have A Nice Time. My favourite kind of smut, warm and soft and all about the human connection. Contains a passing reference to our point of view character having had a Not So Nice time in the middle of WW1.
c) Story 3: the Not So Nice time in the middle of WW1. For some reason the idea wouldn't leave me alone till I wrote it. I'm almost done with it; it's sad and dreary but I'm determined to make it end on a hopeful and warmer note. And then hopefully I can come back to writing characters connecting with one another on all sorts of levels and making one another happy ^^
Y'know, I'll be celebrating my 39th birthday in a month and a half. If you had told past me from two years ago that I'd be writing fics with characters taking off their clothes, I would have gone bright red and not believed you in the slightest. But life is full of surprises that way :o)
Quand la vie ne tient qu’à un fil, c’est fou le prix du fil !
(When life hangs by a thread, you won’t believe the price of the thread.)
Daniel Pennac, La Petite Marchande de prose (Write to Kill)
Vigil
August 1944
In the heart of summer, heat is no laughing matter in the Lowlands. Whoever decides to go out on the roads in the dead hour, between one and three in the afternoon, when the air trembles above the ground and you can burn your fingers just picking up a pebble, needs at the very least the protection of a hat if they don’t want to keel over from sunstroke. Going from the cooler houses out into the sun too quickly feels like being on the receiving end of the hottest, most powerful slap in the face you can imagine.
When the sun is at its zenith, everything is painted white: the sky, the roads, and even the grass on the dykes. Thin shiny threads of stagnant water stretch in the bottom of canals whose proportions then look completely excessive to an outsider. Lizards and grass snakes loll on hot stones, birds hide in trees or in the cool of hedges. Everything slows down, everybody waits for the worst to pass. The searing heat makes it hard for anyone to believe that the world hasn’t just stopped and that things, presumably, are still happening somewhere.
And yet.
( Read more... )
Taking a canon detail and developing it being one of my favourite pastimes, I couldn't let it lie. But boy, did it take me time to do it, because as always, I'm terrified of writing maudlin material. Hope I didn't.
Not much news from my side, though, except for a new nephew from the Best Beloved's side, born this August :o) And the fact that this summer I've been more productive in terms of fic that I've been these past three years. I'd say "hope it lasts" if I wasn't afraid of jinxing myself. (
Anyway, new fic! And I'll be putting up the 5th chapter of Between the Mountains and the Plains soon. I'm just waiting a bit to see if I can make some progress on the 6th first. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this little peacetime tale – for a relative value of 'peace', naturally. It's set between – roughly – 1951 and 1957. The little drawing is mine, drawn in the style of Giovannino Guareschi's headers for his stories of Don Camillo and Peppone, as a homage. Check them if you can, they're adorable (and much better than mine, natch). The man was an excellent artist and cartoonist in particular.
Title: The Trumpet of Contention
Fandom: Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo stories
Genre: Humour
Rating: G
Summary: Both Don Camillo and Peppone have a bone to pick with a trumpet player. Music has charms to soothe the savage beast, but what about the priest and the mayor?
Hope you liked :o)
And here's the last snippet already. The way I'm stuck on the next one (and the next two), it's likely to be the last for a very long time... But I haven't lost hope :o) Since it's over 13,000 words long, it's too heavy for LJ, so I'm putting a link to the Dreamwidth post here. If you want to leave a comment (which I would cherish, since that's what I usually do anyway but this chapter is more sensitive than the others for a number of reasons), you can leave it here.
I had fun creating Peppone's little family, even if trying to stick to canon turned out to be something of a headache. None of the kids are named in the books, and even the exact number of siblings is unclear (Guareschi usually wrote "six" at some point); I took my cue from the films, especially the first two, in which we see little Marco, his slightly older brother Beppo (who escapes from his city school in the second film), an older little girl and a taller boy. (Turns out there was a fourth boy in one scene, a tiny mite I hadn't even spotted till now.) And Libero Antonio Camillo Lenin, who's born in the beginning of the first film :D So - just to keep everything straight - in my stories (and headcanon), in early 1944, Tonino is 9, Lucia is 7, Beppo is 4 and Marco is 2. On with the story now.
Giosuè
This is probably my favourite chapter, to tell the truth. I had a sudden inspiration for it as I reached the middle of chapter 2, and I just had to write it right away. I just hope that I did everything justice, and that you like reading it.
Third snippet already! Hopefully by the next one I'll have figured how to post with a cut and get it right in one go. Honestly, it's like I lost every LJ skill I had D: Anyway.
Title: Between the Mountains and the Plains
Fandom: Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo stories
Genre: Humour/drama
Rating: G
Summary: We only ever get hints in the books and films of what Don Camillo's and Peppone's clandestine activities were during the German occupation. Here's my take on the idea.
Chapter: 3. With December come bad news. Hope is not always found at the bottom of a box, but some people may find it there anyway.
A Natale, freddo cordiale.
(At Christmas, the cold is friendly [meaning, it gets colder afterwards].)
Italian proverb.
( December 1943 )Oh goodness, I hope it works this time :-/
Title: Between the Mountains and the Plains
Fandom: Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo stories
Genre: Humour/drama
Rating: G
Summary: We only ever get hints in the books and films of what Don Camillo's and Peppone's clandestine activities were during the German occupation. Here's my take on the idea.
Chapter: 2.In which Don Camillo visits some of his parishioners in exile and comes to a few startling conclusions.
All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thought said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take those things, because they are mine!
I have a duty!
Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men
This is the first of four (so far) vignettes I wrote in late 2015. The tone is mostly neutral leaning on humour, but since it's set during WW2, drama does sneak in.
Chapter: 1. The Nazis didn’t spare sleepy little villages when they invaded Northern Italy. Hard times means hard decisions have to be made.
Una mattina, mi sono svegliato
O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao,
Una mattina, mi sono svegliato
E ho trovato l’invasor
(I woke up one morning
Oh lovely farewell, farewell, farewell
I woke up one morning
And found the invaders on my land…)
Unknown composer/lyricist, Bella Ciao
( September 1943 )I'm still figuring out the formatting - lost the habit of having to tweak it. I hope you like the story!
Still kicking! Also, news
4 Jan 2017 10:43 amThat said, when I do post something (and I will), I'll cross-post it on my mirror Dreamwidth account, belphegor1982.dreamwidth.org, which I created mainly for backup now that the LJ servers have moved to Russia. Not that I'm afraid that my little corner of nonsense will somewhat incur the wrath of the Kremlin, but just in case the LJ owners decide that the non-Russian market is no longer profitable and delete it. Since I don't want to lose the lovely comments and the posts that go with them, I imported all of it on Dreamwidth. Also, there is concern that, considering the Russian government anti-LGBT stance, LGBT blogs might be in danger of being deleted. This sort of bullshit goes against all of my principles and I won't be staying here if that's the case. (More on that here and here.)
In the meantime, I hope everybody's doing well! I'll be back soon with a few Don Camillo vignettes I wrote last year but only posted on Tumblr a few days ago. And who knows, newly-written stuff? I hope I can get my writing muses in gear again this year :o)
Happy new year! (Plus drawings.)
17 Jan 2016 11:37 amI've been drawing a lot these days (and writing, but it's unfinished, so not posting that yet), and here are some of the results! Here's an ink and black marker drawing for a start (on DeviantArt here):
( For spelling and syntax )
I started doodling on a page with the vague intention of drawing my favourite characters… and someone (*glares*) commandeered the entire page. Sigh. I also had the vague intention to try drawing him with his hat and his half-cigar, but my pen wouldn’t agree. (on Tumblr here)
You know, Don Camillo can be devilishly devious and smug as all get-out, and lie egregiously through his teeth (even to the crucified Christ who talks to him, which is frankly an exercise in futility - not that it ever stops him) if he thinks it’s for a good cause. But behind his short temper he has a heart the size of a small continent, and every now and then it shows, plain as day :o)
The last one for the road? It's kind of an adaptation of one of the first stories in the first book (and the second scene in the first movie), and I think it tells a lot about both Don Camillo and Peppone. For the record, this happens in 1946, so there's a lot leftover from the war both in the landscape and people's minds. (On DeviantArt in one file here)
Everybody knows that Peppone and his men kept a few well-furnished weapons caches from when they were partisans (which, in this particular story, means little more than a year ago). You never know what you’re going to need when the proletarian revolution comes. But nobody knows exactly how many “souvenirs” Don Camillo kept... They all agree on at least a .81 mortar (so basically a small cannon), not counting of course his hunting rifle and his old M91 gun from World War One. Then again, considering the atmosphere in Emilia-Romagna in 1946-1948, it’s probably not a bad thing to remind some people that he has that arsenal from time to time...
More "Little World" drawings
3 Sep 2015 11:00 amA few random expressions. I drew Peppone thinking of a scene in a story called "A Poacher's Penance" ("In piedi e seduti", in Italian, meaning "Standing and Sitting"), but I'm not saying why he has that second expression. Spoilers ;) (on DA here)
( I think my black markers are starting to hate me... )
For the next one I tried to draw them a few years older, and for now it's the only drawing where they're smoking their usual Toscano cigar. Don Camillo only seems to smoke half-cigars, but they probably start whole at some point :D (on DA here.)
( To the same tree )
“We’ll let you choose the place where you are to be hanged,” jeered Peppone.
“I can tell you that right now,” retorted Don Camillo. “Right beside you, Comrade...” (from Comrade Don Camillo)
Y'know, for all that those two often promise that the other will be hanged “when we take over”/“when we get rid of you lot”, they couldn’t live without one another. And they know it ;o)
The next one has a long explanation, which I'm also putting under a cut. It's one of my favourite moments in the fourth film (Don Camillo Monsignore... Ma non troppo). Still going for my mental image of Don Camillo rather than Fernandel, although I tried to really get Gino Cervi's expression on "my" Peppone's face. (DA page here.)
( The bell )
In the films, there are two funerals (the old schoolmistress in the first one, and the one I mentioned under the previous cut), and both times, Peppone cries. And it's never presented as ridiculous or unmanly or played for laughs :')
Okay, one last drawing, again from the movies - this time the second one, which is probably my favourite of the bunch (with the first one). (DA version here.)
( Honey from Marxist bees )
“What did you feed your bees this winter, anyway? The works of Karl Marx?”
“I didn’t even need to feed them all winter. I just repeated your last sermon, and then - wham. They slept.”
Don Camillo is laid up with a fever, so naturally Peppone stops by with hot camomile tea and honey from his own bees (and a favour he needs), and gives him the latest news from the village. The dialogue is straight from the film, too, gentle snark and all.
Those two, I swear /:o)
They both fought in WW1 (more or less willingly), went up in the mountains to fight the Germans after the Italian armistice in WW2, and now they fight each other on everything and anything (with fists, words, rifles, sticks - anything they can grab), mostly for political reasons. Each is also probably the other’s closest friend, and they help each other out without even thinking in times of need. Here’s a longer explanation (of sorts) of why I love these two idiots so much.
So I did a couple of pages worth of doodles to "look" for Don Camillo's and Peppone's faces. Here's Peppone's. If the file is too large, it might show up better on my DeviantArt page here.
( Peppone doodles )
Here's Don Camillo's page; I draw him a little leaner now, but on the whole my design hasn't changed. For context, in one of the stories of the first book (some of which made it into the second movie), the little town hosts a boxing match between their local champion and the city champion. The local guy does well until the city champ delivers a dirty blow, which enrages our Comrade Mayor Peppone so much (not that it usually takes a lot to get him riled up anyway) that he jumps on the ring to take on him himself. Now Peppone’s a burly fellow who knows a thing or two about fighting… Except he’s so angry he can’t see straight, so the other guy lays him out pretty quickly. Funnily enough, someone else then jumps on the ring and proceeds to kick the champion’s arse, to the delight of the townspeople :3 (DeviantArt page here.)
( Don Camillo doodle dump )
Now, this is the first drawing I actually published (on my tumblr, the-french-belphegor.tumblr.com); since I spent some time looking for their faces as adults, I thought I'd imagine what they would look like as kids. I think a major part of Giuseppe detto Peppino comes from this drawing :o) (On DeviantArt here)
( Sworn frenemies )
And one last more. I'm putting the explanation/context under the "read more", too, because whoo-hoo this got long... (aaand on DA here.)
( "Little World" vignettes )That's it for now!
Wow, it's been too long since I posted anything here... Well, I'll try to come back more often. Meanwhile, since I have a new story (in a new fandom), I'll post it here too, just in case :o)
Title: Giuseppe detto Peppino
Fandom: Giovanni Guareschi's The Little World of Don Camillo stories
Genre: Mostly comedy with less funny bits and children hitting each other (is that a genre?)
Rating: G
Summary: Giuseppe Bottazzi wasn’t always called Peppone; in fact, when was little, he really was little, and everybody called him Peppino.
Author's notes: “Peppone” and “Peppino” are different forms for “Giuseppe” (Peppone’s actual name, although nobody uses it), respectively augmentative and diminutive. If I had to completely translate “Giuseppe detto Peppino” it would be “Joseph aka Little Joe”, I guess. But it loses a lot in the translation…
I used the term “Lowlands” to translate “la Bassa (padana)”, the low plains of the Po Valley; the French translator used “le bas-pays” and I wanted an expression that had that informal, familiar quality and as far from “exotic” (so to speak) as possible. Also, while there’s a number of mentions to things that have happened or have been alluded to in the books (like Peppone being a holy terror in school as a kid, or the flowers in the tin cup and the Madonnina at the end), most of this is a complete invention of mine. (Y’know, as we fanfic authors do.) I just hope I did right by those characters and their little world.
I called Peppone’s dad Gino because of Gino Cervi, who played him in the movies (the only ones that count I care about); since Don Camillo’s last name is never mentioned (he uses an alias in Comrade Don Camillo, and Peppone even points out it’s a false name), I gave him Giovanni Guareschi’s mother’s maiden name and gave her first name to Peppone’s mum. I hope they don’t mind.
And I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had writing it :o]
( 30 snippets for 30 words. )
"Camera" (4) references a situation in Man's Best Friend is Not His Dog (Carter forgot a camera in the middle of the compound), and the dialogue in "Red" (23) comes from That's No Lady, That's My Spy. I didn't mean to have "Not Enough" (19) and "Orange" (20) deal with essentially the same situation (reactions to something blowing up), but both snippets fit together rather well.
Hope you liked! :o]
30 Days of Hogan's Heroes - Day 30
31 Oct 2013 08:07 pmLast entry, a day late - I can’t believe it’s been a month already. It’s been fun :o)
Day 30 – What is it that you love most about Hogan’s Heroes?
The humour and the friendship and interactions between the characters. The fact that said characters almost always triumph out of guile and cleverness and sheer outrageous audacity. The fact that, even if you know it’s a sitcom with a laugh track and things will turn out all right, the moments of genuine tension are not played for laughs. The very fact that they made a sitcom set in a WW2 POW camp (I mean, seriously, it’s ridiculous when you think about it! :D).
And the fandom. Whenever I hear bad stuff happening in other fandoms I’m grateful to be in one of the nicest, warmest fandoms I know :o)
THE END (?)
30 Days of Hogan's Heroes - Day 29
29 Oct 2013 09:50 amOne of my personal explanations for Kinch’s total absence (even in passing mention) in season 6 is that it’s actually an alternate universe in which he doesn’t exist, and fate/the powers that be/whatever made it so that Baker landed in Stalag 13 instead. I wish the script writers had (taken the?) time to develop this character; since he’s significantly younger than the rest of the cast, I tend to see him as the clever youngest brother who looks up to his older siblings, but is grounded and level-headed enough that he doesn’t feel he has to prove himself (and is absolutely correct) because he knows he brings his very own talents to the team.
Now, in the head canon I use most, both Kinch and Baker are prisoners in Barracks 2; both are radiomen, so they can relay each other. They speak the same jargon, and sometimes their conversations are completely obscure to non-radio geeks.
But now I wonder what Baker would do/have done in situations that relied on Kinch: would he make the same choices? Have the same reactions? And what if the universes collide, and one day Kinch takes Baker’s place, or vice versa? How would the others react?
If you’re wondering, yes, this is a plot bunny I’d love to see adopted :o)
30 Days of Hogan's Heroes - Day 28
28 Oct 2013 12:06 pmDay 28 – What do you think happened to the characters (Allied and German) after the war?
Well, Hogan probably stayed in the military, along with Kinch – and I can’t see Hogan not pulling strings and use his cunning for an integrated army. When I think of the kind of everyday crap Kinch (and the other African-American soldiers, but we’re speaking of the main characters of Hogan’s Heroes here) must have come home to after the war… Makes my blood boil. I can see the team’s Americans taking part in the March on Washington if they weren’t in Vietnam, too.
Carter passed the pharmacy test and took over when the old pharmacist retired. I’m absolutely certain that he volunteered to take care of New Year and 4th of July fireworks, and he turned out so good at it (surprisingly ;o) that he was immediately promoted in charge of every fireworks display in the county. People came over from other places to see his fireworks, he was that good :o)
I have a headcanon of LeBeau going back to Paris and working hard to start a restaurant, which would be difficult in immediate post-war France (rationing only stopped around 1950) – but this is LeBeau we’re talking about: he mastered guerilla cooking with Red Cross parcels, getting a restaurant started wouldn’t be so hard :D I have no idea what Newkirk would be up to, but in my head he came back to Mavis (and a possible brother-in-law) and … I like to think that he went into show business (possibly magic), and ended up at the Palladium, with his name in lights.
Klink was probably detained for a bit right after Germany’s capitulation, but released soon enough, in great part due to Hogan’s statement that, for all his faults, he never committed war crimes – the most he could be charged with was petty embezzlement and an unhealthy amount of grovelling before his superiors. I like to imagine him being a bookkeeper for a while, in a small book store, where he doesn’t have to deal with annoyed generals and annoying Americans – much :P
Schultz rebuilt his toy factory from the ground and gave a job to as many people he could. He made cheap and hardy toys, the kind everyone can afford, because that way more children can play, and children playing makes him happy. LeBeau sent him his strudel recipe one Christmas, and even though Gretchen’s cooking is still not quite to his liking (still, it’s better than the mess hall!), her strudel skills have vastly improved ;o)
Burkhalter stood trial and did some time in a military jail; when he got out, he found it immensely difficult to adjust to the new world dynamics, and never quite fitted in.
Hochstetter was last seen trying to flee the Russian advance on Berlin. He disappeared off the face of the Earth. And that’s all I’m saying about it.
30 Days of Hogan's Heroes - Day 27
27 Oct 2013 12:07 pmDay 27 – Favourite reference (to a real-life WW2 incident/fictional shout-out/anachronistic 1960s random nod)?
I love that they had the bloody cheek to make Klink chief of Staff during D-Day, thus having our Heroes take part (and what a part!) in one of the most important (both in terms of scale and significance) operations of the century. I mean, really XD
