communi_kate: (Default)
 So I've been reading the Thieftaker series by DB Jackson and really enjoying it. There are two books so far: Thieftaker and Thieves' Quarry, and the series is a historical fantasy set in a magical pre-Revolutionary Boston. The prose is spare but flowing, and the characters are engaging. An entertaining read for anyone who enjoyed AC4, although there are no Native and few black characters; it's well worth picking up. And it's by 'an award-winning author of thirteen fantasy novels' who I'm guessing is a pseudonym* as I've never heard of him before. 

*DB Jackson is a pseudonym for Us fantasy author David B. Coe-who I've never heard of either.

Link to the English amazon page here
communi_kate: (Default)
So I finished AC3 and boy, that was a downer. I confess I had forgotten just how much Ubisoft likes to screw over their protagonists. And I'm not talking about Desmond. Of course, fic followed.

Title
: Land of the Free
Fandom: Assassin's Creed 3
Spoilers: Post-game
Warnings: A mild ship, if you squint.
Summary: Ellen comforts Connor, post-game. Intended to be porn, this degenerated quickly into a conversation about shirts. Shirts and grief.

My father was a traitor to this country, but at least he did not have to live with the choices he had made. )
communi_kate: (Default)
Waiting to post a couple of longer fics; this leads to ficbits!.

The Assassin's Guild (AC/Pratchett crossover)

I don't know why there isn't more Pratchett/AC fic, but there should be. Set during Jingo.

In a mountain fortress far from Al-Khali, two men bent over a map, and argued.

Each was noteworthy in his own way. Altair ibn La'Ahad, Grand Master of the Klatchian Assassin's guild; a man so talented that he wore robes white as snow yet had more kills to his name than any other Assassin in living history, frowned as he surveyed the map. Malik Al-Sayf, the man whose job was to stop Altaïr from doing something so unbelievably stupid again without thinking about it first, shook his head.

"If we are to stop this," he said, pointing to the map with his single hand, "we must be fast and merciless. Let me take ten men to Gebra to kill this Sir Samuel Vimes, and we'll finish this war before it starts-"

The Grand Master shook his head. "No."

"Why not?"

"There's no point."

"There are many points," snarled Malik, "and they are all pointing straight at the heart of this empire! Why not?"

"Because I have seen what will be in the orb," Altaïr said, "and that is not what happens."

"Not what happens? Then how will this end? Next thing you will be telling me that the island will sink beneath the sea!"

"Well," said Altair, "Stranger things have happened."

"No," Malik said. "They haven't."

 

So Take Your Fast Car (and keep on driving) (Fast and the Furious Six)

Because I like cars. And sure, Diesel's getting a little old to pull off the skin tight t-shirt look but FF6 is just...fun. Insert obligatory joke about eleven-speed gearboxes and never-ending runways here.

Domenic Toretto is just a guy who likes to drive fast cars.

So when he stands alone in the hold of an old Russian cargo plane that can't take off because it's got three muscle cars anchored to its fuselage and watches the tarmac race by through the open hatch that just swallowed the English super-villain's flailing body, he wonders how he got into this situation again.

 The plane, he realises, appears to be on fire.

But his Charger is on the ramp, hood pointed firmly towards the plane's nose cone.

The keys are in the ignition.

And Dom Toretto has always liked fast cars.

 

Provenance (AC)

So I was playing AC3, and got pissed off by Haytham's 'Men like you have no need for books' comment in the opening chapters. Books are for everyone.

"Men like you have no need for books," says the sayyid, and holds out his hand.

Malik curses his bad luck. The sayyid would never have noticed him if Malik hadn't stumbled and dropped the book directly under his nose. Now the book's fine leather cover is stained and Malik is in a situation he would far rather have avoided.

The sayyid won't catch Malik if he decides to run, but he will have to leave the book behind to have any chance at climbing. He could unseam the man with a stroke, but he will need his arm free.

"Let's have it," the sayyid says sharply.

Malik realises that his hesitation is ruining his cover. A true shopkeeper would hand over the text; trading a small loss now for the hope of greater profit later.

But Malik is not a shopkeeper, no matter how much he pretends.

"Plague," he says.

The sayyid takes a step back, his hand still extended. "Pardon?"

"The book. It carries plague. From a plague house. You know that the disease can be passed upon skins?"

The sayyid gazes at the book's fine tooled leather binding, snorts and turns away, flicking the memory of Malik off like dust from his shoe. Malik smiles, tucks the book beneath his arm, and walks on.

He has always been good at hiding in plain sight.

 

Discoveries (AC3)

Ziio, why?

"I expected more," he says.

Ziio wishes that Haytham had found whatever it was that he sought in the cave. She tells him the story of Iottsitison to console him, and then she slips her small hand into his larger one and wonders how their bodies will fit together.

Haytham gazes at her with an expression that looks like love but isn't, in the same way that the paintings on the cave wall look like people but do not breathe or move or speak. There is darkness within Haytham, but Ziio has a darkness all of her own, and she knows herself a match for him.

They make a new bargain, and do together what men and women do. 

communi_kate: (monkey)
I got an email from my sister regarding her Assassin's Creed adventures that went like this.

"Still making progress on AC3. Went to Martinique last night and had a gunship battle with a man of war. However am starting to think main character has not yet thought through his roaring rampage of revenge. For example; your character's main motivation is to save his Mohawk village and land, yet as soon as he is given an estate, he starts filling it with European settlers with sawmills and breweries and stuff and doing matchmaking missions to encourage them to increase and multiply.
I wonder how long it will take before they go all manifest destiny on his arse?
Also foiled George Washington assassination attempt last night."

In other news, we moved to New Zealand last week, so updates could be scarce (r) for a while D.
communi_kate: (Default)
"The game describes each animal with different hunting tactics and skills, but in practice it's easiest to run aimlessly through the woods until you see something, chase it until it runs into a tree and stab it when it doubles back towards you. Works up to and including elk. The only thing I felt guilty about killing was beavers because they're really slow and make a crying noise when you kill them, but they are so easy to hunt if you are level grinding"

-My sister on AC3. 

Also, back in the 1900s in Hastings (a small English seaside town I visited this weekend) there was once a winkle club. Members had to carry a winkle (a small seashell containing an edible mollusc) at all times and present it whenever they were challenged. If you could not produce your winkle on demand you had to pay a fine. Also, one guy had a suit made covered in silver-painted winkles. True story. 

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