the universe of what-happened-next

I finally watched The Favourite last night which was exactly as wonderful as I‘d hoped and also much more whimsical than I expected.
For those of you who don‘t know, this is the film that won Olivia Colman (of Broadchurch fame) an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe, deservedly.
I had a lot of fun watching the three main characters Queen Anne (Colman), Lady Sarah Churchill, yes ancestor of Winston, (Rachel Weisz) and Abigail (Emma Stone) navigate the English court, be pleasant and bitchy and brutal towards each other, be vulnerable and strong and clever, and have sex. I also learned about Queen Anne who hadn‘t been on my radar at all so far. Even though a lot of the film is funny in various ways, there are some genuinely dark moments to balance those out. Queen Anne could have been a purely comic figure (and sometimes is) but the script and the actress managed to make her genuinely sympathetic at times. The costumes were gorgeous (and a mix of period and modern) and I was pleasantly surprised by Nicholas Hoult as a courtier and Mark Gatiss as Sarah Churchill‘s husband. That said, men play only minor parts in this, though it is always clear how much Sarah has had to work for her power in court, or how precarious Abigail‘s initial position as a maid is.

Art in progress

I am very slowly working at colouring my piece for the current drawesome challenge, which is to rework an older piece of art. I finished the lineart and then noticed that while I did a lot of watercolour pieces last year, I have almost no experience at doing landscapes. So I went to Jenny Dolfen‘s website and looked at some of her watercolour tutorials which will hopefully enable me to muddle through such a greenery-heavy background.
Do you have any tutorials to share?

Some fic recs

From my recent reading in various fandoms:

Midheaven, Nirvana in Fire, Jingyan/Lin Shu, E by Cerch

Two best friends in summertime, taming horses, going skinny dipping and discovering their mutual attraction.

What then is love but mourning, by Zdenka, Nirvana in Fire, a 300 word drabble about yeti!Nie Feng pining for his wife Xia Dong from afar. Short but poignant.

Come back to haunt me by ZairaA, Nirvana in Fire, AU in which the ghost of Xiao Shu haunts Jinling, sort of a fix-it and wonderfully satisfying.

Bait and Switch by galwednesday, Marvel, a Stucky AU with non-powered Steve, the Winter Soldier working with the Avengers, and the team finding out the ex-assassin has a personal life. Very funny.

Meet Death Sitting by bomberqueen17 (who I‘ve been following forever), The Witcher, a WIP that I started because I loved her Marvel fics and was curious how she‘d write in this fandom. Excellently written and updating regularly so far. Jaskier POV. Also, my first ever Witcher fanfic.