nomadicwriter | Reading

I had a highly distracting morning and some friends made sure I wasn't stuck in my head all afternoon. I've also been doing that "1 like = 1 thing I love" meme, which is very positive. :) Except like 37 people have liked it. AHHH. I should have listed my entire family individually or something!

Going home in a few minutes and I have one call planned and a couple more I can make if I need to. I'm also going to try and write my indulgence fic for Yuletide and watch my Coursera class videos so I can continue to get these assignments done - NaNo is coming, I need these out of the way.

Note to self: a) don't spend too much time on Twitter except in your mentions, you don't have the emotional strength for the world on fire right now. b) don't call your dad, he means well but has no idea how to help. c) NO RACHEL. sorry, boo.

selenak

1.05: In which the first TOS character other than Sarek shows up, the spotlight of the episode is shared by Saru and Lorca, and we finally get on screen canon m/m which is not limited to a few silent seconds.

( Read more... )

1.06: In which it's time for another round of everyone's favourite dysfunctional Vulcan family saga. Luckily for me, since I eat this stuff up with a spoon.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Munich

fignewton

Today is supposed to be the day for serving Quantum Mirror Alphabet Soup: twenty-six different gen fics featuring the Quantum Mirror. And for those of you who are actually ready, Teal'c offers a raised eyebrow, a gracious nod, and a regal "Indeed."

For the rest of us, though... :)

Instead of having all stories posted at once, we're doing it a little differently this time: starting now, Quantum Mirror Alphabet Soup will run until the end of November. Any author may post a story between now and November 30th. Leave a link to your story in the comments below and e-mail me a copy of your fic and your filled-out template for the table of contents.

As there are still letters left to claim, authors may take a second letter once their first story is up. Please go to this entry to claim a second letter, or even your first if you haven't yet chosen to participate!

I look forward to reading all the new gen fic... and ~cough~ finishing my own. ;)

celli

You'll all be happy to know that my apartment is now clean and my laundry done - unless you require, UFYH-style, that laundry be put away to be done. In which case you'll be happy to know that my apartment is clean. :P

Fic report time!

Done:
* Coursera Character week 3 story (706/700-1000)
* Coursera Character week 4 story (929/~1000)

New:
* PODSA White House AU (474/whatever)
* PODSA taxfic (0/whatever)

Progress:
* Yuletide treat #1 (1118/1000+)

Other:
* Yuletide story (0/1000+)
* PODSA mpreg (2264/whatever)
* Star Wars auction fic (713/1000+)
* PODSA Victory Eve sequel (110/whatever)
* AIRPF AU with

rajkumari905 (3316/whatever)
* AIRPF auction fic (0/1000+)

Not mentioned: the many many pre-planning NaNo emails.

jenab

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marcelo

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celli

I folded and spindled my budget to add a cleaning person for three hours once a month for various physical and mental reasons. Of course, there's some decluttering etc that needs to get done before she gets here in two hours:

* load dishwasher
* declutter kitchen counter
* toss nonfunctional cat feeder
* garbage/recycling off windowsill
* empty cat food cans in recycling
* declutter misc surfaces
* hang up hoodies
* get dressed

Optional:
* clothes on bed to be done while she's here
* wipe down sink (it's a little embarrassing)
* garbage & recycling out
* hit a nearby ATM for tip and laundry money

Totes doable, right?

selenak

Buchmesse 2017 photo 2017_1015Buchmesse0070_zpsvqqgdgqu.jpg

Two thoroughly exhausting (but mostly in a good way) weeks are behind me; first the Frankfurt Book Fair, then a workshop (in a splendid environment, but still, it was work from morning till night). Hence no posts; I could only get online very briefly.

( Macron, Merkel, Rushdie, Atwood et all under the cut )

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Location: Munich

isis

Author reveals have just happened for

femslashex and were yesterday for

crossovering, so I can cop to the fics I wrote. The discerning reader will notice similarities. :-)

Footsteps in the Sea (5926 words) by Isis
Fandom: Black Sails
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Captain Flint/Thomas Hamilton
Characters: Captain Flint (Black Sails), Thomas Hamilton
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Rivers of London Fusion, Supernatural Elements, Post-Canon, Genius Loci, Crossovering Exchange
Summary: James and Thomas escape from the plantation, find passage to the islands, are caught in a storm at sea, and make a bargain with Neptune.

When I saw

linndechir's crossovering prompt for Ocean God Flint, I knew I wanted to write that. I didn't actually game the system, but there were only two people I could write for, and so I was delighted to get this assignment. My favorite part of the Rivers of London series is the existence of the Rivers themselves, the idea of genius loci who rule over their small parts of the natural world. Plus I had always wanted to tackle James and Thomas's immediate post-canon story.

The beach on which Thomas and James find themselves after escaping the plantation, by the way, is where the Bull River empties into Wassaw Sound. The beach where Thomas awakens after the shipwreck is in the Berry Islands of the Bahamas.

The Pirate and the Mermaid (8628 words) by Isis
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Pirate/Mermaid
Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Mermaids, Pirates, Supernatural Elements, Cultural Differences, Shipwrecks
Summary: "Of course," said Charlie pettishly. As if she was just a stupid kid, asking stupid questions. "How was I supposed to know? You're the first mermaid I've ever met."

"Well, you're the first woman-with-legs I've ever met!" snapped the mermaid.

Oh, man, this was the most fun thing to write ever. I kind of ignored

elstaplador's specific prompts and just keyed off the idea of a (female) pirate and a mermaid, and although I had the (general) ending in mind from the beginning, the story went there in its own way. As I said to

sovay it ended up being sort of YA femslash, more of a story about two young women from different cultures hanging out and discovering commonalities than anything sexy or overtly supernatural. It's mostly mermaid worldbuilding, really, and I had a kick doing that. (I actually had a whole sexytimes idea in my head - more worldbuilding, from the physical POV - but that ended up not fitting into the story!)

In other writing news, I've been cheerfully writing lots of little stories and ficlets for

trickortreatex, but it's about time to turn my keyboard to

yuletide.

Crossposts: https://isiscolo.livejournal.com/646692.html

neonhummingbird

I had PT on Thursday, not Wednesday, as I discovered after a PITA trip (thank you, CTA :P) up there and a deeply apologetic look from the vv sweet receptionist. < sigh > But PT last night was excellent; I can lift my arm sideways all the way over my head with only a tiny bit of stick assistance at the transition point, and J promises that next week will be the last time I have to do the finger ladder, woot! (Sadly, it has been replaced by the hand bike. Gah.)

We are not discussing the Cubs, except that I hate being right. Still, we made it all the way to the NLCS, and there is no shame in being beaten by the 2017 Dodgers. I just wish it hadn't been so thorough.

Sleeping back in my own bed is going pretty well; the cats are confused and Jack is taking the opportunity to try to push boundaries, but we're dealing. My wake-up light didn't work the first morning, but I left it unplugged all day and it reset, so I'm good and have my little simulated sunrise every morning again. But one thing sleeping in the living room has done is confirm that nothing (non-feline) with a brain is ever allowed to be resident in my bedroom. The temptation to talk to Alexa when I should be trying to go to sleep is just too much to resist, and the way she occasionally responds to weird things with no prompting is too weird to risk happening in the middle of the night. Nope. Alexa stays outside. Honestly, I don't even bring my cell phone or tablet in unless I'm trying to sleep off a nasty headache and need something soothing like GBBO to distract me.

My tablet, by the way, is going back to Asus, and will hopefully be reborn as an identical, probably refurbished, replacement. Happily, it's still under warranty; I just have to fill out the RMA and get it mailed. Until it returns, I'm stuck with my Kindle Fire, which I only use for backup for a reason. The screen is too small, the home screen is annoying and uncustomizeable, and the limits Kindle places on the environment are way too frustrating. (Example: I can't log into Samsung Smart Things app, because it uses the default browser, which on the Fire is Silk. Which the Samsung website is not compatible with. No way to change the default browser. At all.) < sigh > Anyway, I shall suffer through it.

happydork

So, I have a (totally fine, not at all at all cancer-y) lump in my breast, and I’m going to talk about it here because:

1) Personalisation is a really important public health tool — it’s a good idea for those of us with breasts to check them regularly for lumps, and my talking about finding a lump will make many of you, the people who care about and relate to me, more likely to do so.

2) I think there’s a lot that’s scary and unknown about finding a lump, and I’d like to do a tiny bit to reduce that — I can’t make it not scary and not unknown, but I can tell you about my non-scary experience, and give you (especially those of you in the UK health system) an idea about what to expect from the process.

3) When I was thinking about writing something about this, I realised that when I speak/write publicly about my own health, it’s often (always?) with the aim of tackling stigma. So for me, it’s an interesting exercise to write about something that isn’t at all stigmatised, and I’m interested to see what I learn through doing so.

I also want to emphasise that not only is everything totally fine, not at all cancer-y, but also I’m fine. This can be a very difficult experience for people who have the exact same outcome as me, but for me, not so much.

All of which leads us to:

( Cut for not-cancer )

marcelo

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Crossposts: https://users.livejournal.com/--marcelo/1050283.html

isis

What I've recently finished reading:

Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo, which is the sequel to Six of Crows, but really it's the second half of the brick it would have been if published together. I loved the additional character revelations and development, but I think that unlike nearly everyone else, I liked the first book a bit more. This book felt as though there was too much shoved into it, particularly in the last third; I found myself getting bored and wanting it to just be over, already, which is not how you want to feel while reading something you otherwise enjoy a lot! Also, it seemed to me that the narrative depended, even more than the first, on holding back information from the reader (as opposed to from the characters), which is fine once or twice but gets tiresome when repeated constantly, especially when there's an air of "look how clever the characters are! Look how clever the author is!" and I got a bit annoyed with this device.

There are some interesting and appealing relationships, both m/f and m/m, but as I mentioned last week, I also ship the noncanonical but subtextual Nina/Inej. But in general I really liked all the main characters, and I liked all the canonical relationships to some degree. Also I am in need of a crossover with Gentleman Bastards or Old Theradane.

What I'm reading now:

The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard, #3) by Rick Riordan, YAY! And it's delightful. Though a little odd to be reading with my eyeballs, since I listened to the others as audiobook, especially with Norse terms that are spelled a bit differently than they are pronounced. I was pleased to see my favorite crackship finally making an appearance (skip) Riptide's a babe, apparently! And Jack, true to form, is smitten! Pen/Pendant is best sword ship!! Also, having a Norse name misheard as "Bigly" made me choke laughing.

I read another couple of chapters of Fly By Night but it's mostly on hold until I finish the Magnus Chase.

I'm still listening to Airborn by Kenneth Oppel while pool-running, and I think I might be getting close to the Thrilling Climax, though the waterproof mp3 player I have makes it impossible to tell how far I am into the book. It's very much Boys' Own Adventure (with plucky heroine friend) in Alternate Steampunkish World, a little silly, but entertaining.

What I'm reading next:

Might try to get hold of Provenance by Ann Leckie. I just looked at my to-read list and, gah. So much to read! I still haven't read the currently-last Expanse book.

What I'm watching now:

We have two episodes left of Westworld, which for Reasons we will likely watch tonight and tomorrow night. It's a weird and unsettling show, and I hope that the threads will start tying themselves together next season, because there are so many fascinating ideas and I will be disappointed if they don't GO somewhere.

What I'm watching next:

I am going to be on my own for up to 10 days beginning Friday afternoon, so maybe I should watch something that B wouldn't care for. If you've got a rec for something on Amazon Prime or Crunchyroll (or other free method) that I might get fannish about, I'm open to suggestions. Though...

What I'm playing now:

Still Dragon Age: Origins. I'm a bit put out because I apparently started my romance too late to trigger a necessary conversation in order to make it work right. Also I'm always too full up with inventory. I got bored for a while and only picked at the game. On the other hand, I really enjoyed the quest involving escaping prison, so I'm more excited now, and since as I said I'm going to have a lot of free time next week, I will probably play a lot.

What I'm playing next:

If I lose interest in DA and all the DLC quests I have available, I might fire up Witcher 2 and see how that goes. At least I'll finally be able to understand the half of the fandom that's based on characters from it!

Crossposts: https://isiscolo.livejournal.com/646565.html

fignewton

First of all, my apologies for the long absence when there's an Alphabet Soup simmering on the back burner. I have been dealing with multiple connectivity issues lately and I still can't access LJ at all. Or AO3. I hope this will clear up soon, sigh.

Meanwhile, we have Quantum Alphabet Soup scheduled to go live next week. Since I haven't been around to cheerfully remind the cooks to keep stirring, and there are still several unclaimed letters, I am considering one of two possibilities:

1. Announcing an extension of 2-3 weeks, to give everyone time to write and hopefully get more people to sign up. This isn't very fair to those who have been working, and I know that one cook has finished her story already (although I haven't seen it yet).

2. Revising the usual schedule of "everyone post on the same day" to "everyone post within a certain time frame" which would likely stretch for 3 weeks or so.

I welcome your thoughts. And if you haven't signed up yet to write at least 100 words of gen Quantum Mirror fic, you may go here. And if you've already written your fic and want a second letter, I certainly won't stop you. :)

celli

#ptsd #sexualassault #Weinstein

( cut for the above )

isis

I haven't read everything in Crossovering and Femslashex, but I think I've read everything in fandoms I know and the original works with tropes that appeal to me.

In Crossovering, I want to mention that

sovay said that my gift fic Frank & the Phoenix is perfectly readable without knowing David Blaize (it's a crossover with Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Frank Maddox/Newt Scamander) and actually, I think that as long as you are familiar with the Harry Potter-verse, it should be fine. Other Crossovering stories I particularly liked:

And Bide the Danger (6764 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Amelia Bones/Susan Pevensie, Amelia Bones & Edgar Bones, Aslan & Susan Pevensie, Amelia Bones & Alastor Moody, Edgar Bones/Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, The Problem of Susan, Temporal Paradox, Department of Mysteries, Dark Character, Deus Ex Machina, Investigations
Summary: Susan Pevensie: former Unspeakable, legendary beauty, possible Dark witch. A young Amelia Bones, eager to make her mark on MLE, has just been assigned to track her down. But the further Amelia proceeds with her investigation, the more questions she uncovers - especially once she meets Susan herself.

The Start of a Long Summer (1676 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender, Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Azula (Avatar), Tumnus
Additional Tags: Crossover, Attempted Kidnapping
Summary: Azula steps through a wardrobe to find a kidnapping faun and a wintry kingdom ripe for regime change.

There are also two lovely artworks for due South/Lost Girl, and although I'm not familiar with Lost Girl I certainly can recognize the dS characters in Bob Pays a Visit to the Travelers and Kenzi Meets Diefenbaker. ETA Lost Girl, not Lost! Shows how much I know about either canon...

In the Femslashex collection, I particularly liked these:

The Part of Her Hair (10596 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mary Bennet/Original Female Character
Characters: Mary Bennet, Original Female Character, Lydia Bennet, Kitty Bennet
Additional Tags: Falling In Love, Family Bonding
Summary: Miss Gibson said, “In the spirit of truthful admission, Miss Bennet, I intend to spend some time devising the right question for you. If I may see you again?”

Why did that sound strange? But she always sounded strange to people herself. And it was a familiar kind of strangeness, as if it were something she had heard before, only not like this.

Mary, constrained by the principles of truth, could only admit that she would enjoy that very much.

A Golden Thread Between Hearts (1633 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Seasons of Glass and Iron - Amal El-Mohtar
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tabitha/Amira
Characters: Tabitha (Seasons of Glass and Iron), Amira (Seasons of Glass and Iron)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, First Kiss
Summary: Tabitha and Amira travel, and grow, and love.

(The canon for the second is a freely-available short story I recced before: Seasons of Glass and Iron by Amal El-Mohtar, which is f/f fairytale fantasy with an edge of grimdark.)

There are actually many other excellent stories in both collections, and I encourage you to browse!

Crossposts: https://isiscolo.livejournal.com/646182.html

neonhummingbird

I have been wearing my sling a minimal amount for the last four days (commuting and when I'm doing something physical like laundry or buying stuff at Target) and it's going very well. I'm a little sore today, but I think that's mostly due to the couch no longer being a good sleeping solution (more on that in a moment). PT is going extremely well; I have a lot of assisted flexibility (especially for only 5 weeks out), and yesterday, I was allowed to lay on my back and raise my arm over my head under its own power for a set of 20. :) Which sounds very simple, but is five weeks' worth of work paying off.

I am about to stop sleeping on the couch; I've stopped sleeping in my sling, and I think it was doing something to keep me in a comfortable position, because I soon as I stopped, I started waking up with heinous positional migraines from laying with my head in a non-optimal position. So, I'm going to try to go back to my comfy bed that is long enough, with its heated mattress cover and my wake-up light and a door between me and The Dreadful Duo (Jack and Chloe) getting the rips at 2am. Woe. :) (My only worry is rolling over on my arm, but hopefully, I've been subconsciously trained out of that by now.)

Also met with the neurosurgeon yesterday -- the Thing In My Head has not grown again, and we're going to let it ride until it does. I would also like to give Dr M massive kudos -- I have never, ever known a specialist who is not only on time for his last appointment of the day, but is actually a few minutes early. His nurse was like, "I KNOW, but he always manages it!" He was somewhat appalled to find out what my shoulder pain had resulted in, but in a very concerned and semi-adorable way. I got out so fast, I was able to hit my favorite thrift store a few blocks away and still be home in time for kitty cuddles before PT.

Heading for the shelter and a quick hit at Trader Joe's tonight; still not up to actually lifting anything with my right arm, so no animal handling, so no official shifts. But I can pet the h*ck out of Kevin and Tiny...

(Oh, and for unknown reasons, I watched Independence Day 2 on Saturday. Dudes, I could feel myself getting stupider as the movie went on; by 40 minutes in, I thought I could feel my brain trickling out my ears. I kept watching, because I figured surely it would get better? But it didn't. Ever. Now, I don't object to dumb sf (see my affection for such cinematic gems as Volcano, Battle: Los Angeles, and the first Transformers), but they know what kind of movie they're making. This crew thought they were making something good (possibly excepting Brent Spiner, who always seems delighted just to be getting paid for this ridiculous crap), and it made everything So Much Worse. Not even the presence of His Holiness Jeff Goldblum could make this movie not dreadful beyond watching. Wow.)

marcelo

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Crossposts: https://users.livejournal.com/--marcelo/1050027.html

ffutures

This is a horror game I don't know much about, set in Victorian Britain and drawing on the Jack the Ripper mythos and a lot of other sources:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Rippers

"Rippers is the high-action horror campaign of Victorian-era monster-hunting for the Savage Worlds rules system from Pinnacle Entertainment. In the First Edition Rippers setting, an evil Cabal led by the monstrous Jack the Ripper brought the Victorian world of 1895 to its knees, until a team of heroes led by Johann Van Helsing fought back using implanted Rippertech torn from the creatures of hell. Ultimately that storyline revealed that the use of Rippertech damned the hero's soul to eternal torment, and even strengthened the enemy. But the new Second Edition, Rippers Resurrected, removes that unfortunate drawback. Now, with the Cabal in retreat, the Rippers hunt supernatural horrors across the globe in a struggle to take back the night.

Fog-filled horror in the gothic style the Penny Dreadful TV series and the 2004 film Van Helsing, Rippers Resurrected emerged into the gaslight in a triumphant October 2015 Kickstarter campaign. Now this offer, part of the Bundle site's annual "October Horrors" sequence, presents almost the entire Rippers and Rippers Resurrected lines, plus the complete Savage Worlds Deluxe rulebook AND the Horror Companion, cheaper than a few silver bullets for a Gatling pistol. It's everything you need for a complete campaign of abomination-stomping across the Earth.

We provide each ebook complete in .PDF (Portable Document Format). Like all Bundle of Holding titles, these books have NO DRM (Digital Restrictions Management), and our customers are entitled to move them freely among all their ereaders.

Ten percent of each purchase (after gateway fees) goes to this offer's designated charity, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The total retail value of the titles in this offer at launch is US$93. Customers who pay just US$7.95 get all five titles in our Player's Collection (retail value $37) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the Rippers Resurrected Player's Guide, Archetypes, and the Deluxe Character and Campaign Journal, plus the complete Savage Worlds Deluxe Edition rulebook and its Horror Companion (both presented in several past offers).

Those who pay more than the threshold (average) price, which is set at $17.95 to start, also get our entire Game Master's Collection with nine more titles worth an additional $56, , including the Game Master's Handbook and the Frightful Expeditions worldbook; the Plot Point campaign Lord of the Underworld; five Combat Maps of tombs, castles, and other spooky battlegrounds; and The Lost Library, a huge archive of the entire First Edition Rippers line (2005-2008), with adventures, characters, Figure Flats, and the Horror Wars miniatures game.

At least one more title will be added after launch. When a title is added after launch, ALL customers who previously purchased the bundle automatically receive the newly added title, REGARDLESS of whether or not they paid more than average. This is their reward for buying early.

OK, I might as well admit that I'm not a huge fan of the Savage Worlds system, it doesn't seem to offer much that other games don't. This particular iteration has a problem I've seen in other Victorian horror RPGs - it tries to simplify and Americanise everything, while piling in steampunk-style gadgets and general "everything but the kitchen sink" Victorian-ish fictional archetypes. We get Dracula and Van Helsing and Jack the Ripper and Sherlock Holmes and... well, you get the idea. There's also the "everything is connected to everything else in a horrible conspiracy" trope in full flower.

Having said that, if you get in early enough it's pretty cheap, and you get quite a lot for your money. It isn't actively offensive, but I'd STRONGLY recommend that GMs who want to use it take on some additional sources for Victorian everyday life and real-world events, since politics, historical events, social issues etc. etc. get very little attention.

Crossposts: https://ffutures.livejournal.com/1301296.html

ffutures

Didn't get out to the market etc. on Friday and Saturday, for various reasons, but rather a good haul from Sunday's first car boot sale:

A Nikon e-series 50mm f1.8 - for a fiver! And a Nikon EM body with 28mm f2.8 Sigma and some sort of small flash for a tenner - haven't tested the camera yet because I don't have the right ~~lenses~~ dohhhh - batteries, not lenses. The lenses are very nice, and are already on eBay.

And something I arranged to buy last week and collected today - a Holga 60mm f8 Lomography lens in Nikon fitting. It's crap, but I didn't pay much for it and I want to have a play with it and see just how bad it is before I sell it on. Except that with the stormy weather that's coming in it was too dark to try it today, and I suspect tomorrow won't be much better...