Reading

Oooh! Prodigy has a Mirror Universe episode!

As always, Evil!Janeway is hot, though less so than the Living Witness version. It's the eyes - our main characters all have huge eyes, so the somewhat more realistically animated adult human characters look slightly uncanny valley, even though their eyes ought to make sense.

Also, damn, Chakotay has got some arms! Is this true IRL? I don't remember ever seeing the live actor ever without sleeves....

Also also, I honestly love every time Gwen gets a moment of happiness, no matter how small. She really has had a miserable life. Every second chasing replicated pie over the ship, or squirting whipped cream into her mouth, or, one hopes, finally spending some time playing goofy holodeck games, is a second worth living. And so, I will say, I appreciate that the animators took the time to let her smirk a little when Evil!Chakotay proposed starting his torture session with "the cute one", aka Murf the Indestructible. You gotta find those moments of joy when you can, sweetie!

(Question: Are mirror tribbles... nice? What about their new team pet, Bribble? Would Bribble have a goatee and be evil in the mirror verse? How sapient is that thing, anyway?)

********************

( Read more... )

Why do things always go from bad to worse? Why can't they go from bad to somewhat less bad?

I don't want this getting lost in the links: A Journey Through the Dystopiaverse (some of those poems hit hard)

In personal news, how many nos is one expected to get before they get a yes?

********************

( I managed to find some non-doom-and-gloom links to shove in here as well )

(no subject)

Watch on YouTube

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Here I Am - Bryan Adams

Entry tags:

High in the Clean Blue Air - Chapter Thirty One

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Maglor, Elrond, Maedhros, various others
Warnings: References to torture and trauma
Summary: Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him.
Note: This fic is a sequel to Clear Pebbles of the Rain, which is itself a sequel to Unhappy Into Woe.

Prologue / Previous Chapter

( Read more... )

(no subject)

I'm back from the funeral. Mostly I'm exhausted and angry, primarily about an arcane theological thing. My grandmum was very speciic about her funera plans, and they centered on a Catholic eucharistic mass. About half her family, mine included, aren't practicing Catholic so can't take communion. There are ways to structure things to downplay the eucharist things, like you could have a memorial without a eucharist or have the priest invite non-Catholics to come up for a blessing, say. She didn't do that and the impact was most of the family in atteendance couldn't participate.

Which was very excluding and pulled up a lot of old pain: she wanted her whole family to be Catholic, very much so, to the point I always felt like all the hard and serious work I've done to make my peace with God was just discounted and not taken seriously because I don't don the right label. Which is bizarre because, with everything I've gone through with religion and life generally, it's a minor miracle (if you'll pardon the pun) I've not gone full atheist.

I don't doubt I'm reading into this in a big way. Funerals have a way of opening up old wounds, and there are some things I'd rather do most anything than think about those parts of our relationship. I wish I could think less generally, just now.

Anyway. Long day. I'm sure things will seem less sharp-edged in a few days, or even once I've slept in my own bed. Thanks for all the sympathy, and the space to think out loud. It really is hugely appreciated.

Prodigy

( Read more... )

Current Mood: contemplative

Entry tags:

Beta edit preps: COMPLETE

...Just the preps, I haven't started on the actual edits yet XD But I have a roadmap and an extensive list of actionable steps, and I'm glad I do. Working offline using Pomodoro, like I mentioned the other day was super effective.

A disadvantage, I suppose, is that I can't have conversations back-and-forth in GoogleDoc comments, which is something I dearly enjoy doing with fanfic (either as beta-reader or beta-readee!). I think maybe it's just too much, on a turnaround of 40k words at once. Also because I needed to let it rest, folks might not be so interested in a reply 6 months later on a reaction they don't remember having about a story they fuzzily recall 😅 Having said that, I did write to folks after chopping their feedback into the roadmap, to thank them again and share a general reaction to their reactions :D

( Stuff to ponder )

It took me 17h41 to go through all 7 beta-readers' feedback. (Thanks again everyone for offering, I am so grateful :D). I'm going to have a brief interlude now (well, brief is the plan XD). Ideally, I'd like to use that time to write something original but SHORTER so I can bask in the self-indulgence of inventing fun worldbuilding, which I loooove doing. But on the other hand, Wind Breaker Volume 22 just came out and drove me insane with the OT5 vibes so I may have to write something for that instead XD

I 100% intend to break down the work and take regular breaks when I start actually following the roadmap, if only to make the structural changes then giving it a bit of space so I can make sure the major changes didn't break something else important. I expect overall it'll likely take longer than the 17h41 prep time, so I better pace myself! I think I should learn very interesting things throughout the process. I'm already thinking about what to be careful about in the Soul Thief story, when I get back to it.

Birdsong of Shaker Way by Ann-Margaret Lim

Every day is perfect, if
when you wake, you hear birds
in the garden, in the yard. Birds

up and down, ushering in one more day
in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds
on telephone lines, light posts. Birds

twit, twittering on trees
hailing fellow birds
with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;

top-hatted, streamertail
tuxedoed, doctor bird—
busy-bodied hummingbird

tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras
punch-drunk in love. Birds
preening for, chatting up other birds—

the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song
on the lawn, in a dance of birds
an all-day-long conference of bird;

red-headed woodpecker
—drummer boy, or girl bird
in this daily symphony of birds

—an orchestra on Shaker Way
in serenade of each perfect day with birds—
from the very first mockingbird

heralding, in solo warble
one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:

precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.

Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.

***********

_Link

Trying to rapidly finish Prodigy, on Season 2

Rok continues to be the best at everything, and deserves all the hugs. Though I remain baffled how ST thinks they can on one hand have post-scarcity nearly everywhere (including, one presumes, in places just outside of the Federation where they can easily abscond with probable Federation citizens) and also have seedy underbellies everywhere as well. The problem is that they never actually worked out how it all works, and I think the only solution is to ditch the idea that even the Federation really has no currency and is totally post-scarcity. Everybody has their basic needs met, I'll agree is supported by the writing. Anything past that, no.

Anyway, Rok's friend in her tragic backstory was clearly no more able to leave that situation than she was and though I can see there's too much plot for that to happen in canon I really hope they could rescue him.

Speaking of tragic backstories, I cannot believe a. that Dal tried to say his was the worst and b. his version of being "the worst" absolutely skips past the part where ( Read more... ) But seriously, dude, you grew up as a slave on a mine full of child slaves. It's not a situation people get into because their life was just so great beforehand. If everything was hunky-dory, none of you would've been targeted in the first damn place. You all have a terrible backstory, you don't need to prove it!

Moving on, Murf continues to also be the best, but ffs, can somebody get him an AAC? Or a whiteboard, at least? Teach him sign language? This is a solved problem even in the real world, surely Starfleet can figure it out!

Nothing to say about Jankom, he's just there. *shrug* And I feel kinda ditto about Zero, tbh. I mean, I like them, but....

Ma'Jel, between her cool hair and her increasingly consternated expression as the turbolift got more and more crowded, is clearly not one of the most unemotional Vulcans out there. (I don't care what Vulcans say, the opposite of "logical" is not "emotional", it's just "illogical".) I feel like she and our darling T'Lyn would have a lot to talk about.

The adults on the ship - this show is clearly trying to walk a fine line between keeping them competent and allowing the kids to run circles around them. I'm not sure it always works, but I appreciate the effort, and also I appreciate how they were careful to make it clear that the adults, whether they're being strict or a bit Too Much, are only acting the way they do because they're sympathetic. (Frankly, all the kids could stand to appreciate their new situation a bit more - except Rok, she already gets it - but I understand why they're struggling a bit.)

( Gets a bit spoilery )

**************

( Ugh, the news )

(no subject)

I'm down at my grandmum's house. Funeral is Tuesday. I wanted to come down to be around and so I didn't have to hit the road so early today. Being here, things are starting to sink in a bit more, which is hard. We were sitting in her sitting room, and theres the corner where the Christmas tree used to stand. Knowing we won't ever use it again sits heavily on me. Never mind we haven't done Christmas Eves there for years, and never mind that my childhood Christmases weren't always happy. But the finality is hard.

Real is good, though. I've mostly felt very fuzzy and depressed. I was kind of tapped out before. It's been a hard six months.

I can do this though. It does feel good to be strong, even to feel strong. All things told, it feels powerful.

Hope you're all doing well !

Well, I read the news

Or, anyway, I glanced at the headlines and oh fuck no. Can I just go back to bed, and somebody wake me when things improve?

Washes compost off hands.

Saturday and Sunday were spent in Martinez judging. While there I started to get sick. Slept about 10 hours Sat night, on my non-functioning camping pad. Need to fix air leak. Came back and slept for almost 3 days. While I was undoubtedly "under-the-weather" it is difficult to tease out how much given that there was also caffine deprivation and I quit taking an otherwise almost daily dose of Sudafed at the same time. I've given up and gone back to 1/2 mug of coffee (dark, strong and black) plus Sudafed (12 hr) as needed. So that knocked out almost a week of activities. Sigh. I'm hiring a guy to weed whack for me tomorrow so I can get the electric fence on. Cows are due around the house tomorrow. I did more than half of the work around the house, but the horse pasture boundary still needs to be done.

Small jobs are finally getting done in the garden. There is drip irrigation in the back of the garden; two small barrels and in the 6' bed. Still need to do the new 8' bed in the walkway. In Room 1 the east ends of beds 2 & 3 are now empty of bolting lettuce and garlic. Tonight I'll plant them. Those beds already have drip. YAY more little plants out of their tiny containers. On a much sadder note, several of the zinnias under the white rose had their lower stems munched on by pill bugs (AKA rolly-pollys). At least 5 zinnias are dead and will need to be replanted. I'll add pill bugs (members of the crustacean family) to my list of nasty bugs to check for daily.

The garden has been completely overwhelmed by beetles. One is a tiny black beetle that seems to be native. The other is cucumber beetle. There are far fewer cucumber beetles than there were last year, but. For the past week I've been walking around with a really big yoghurt container (60 oz?) partly filled with soapy water and knocking beetles into it. This works better in the early morning when the beetles are a little cold and slow. The first couple of days I got hundreds of beetles. Now I'm getting 50 or so. I assume that is partly the cyclical nature of bugs, and I'll have another hatch to deal with soon, but it is encouraging. Both beetles feed extensively on callendula flowers. It is pretty easy to knock them out of the flower and into the water. The black beetles especially like onion flower heads, burrowing in among the unopened, tender flower clusters. Very satisfying to clean out. They also love the yellow hollyhock. Only a few have actually tried to chew on the cucumbers or squash. My goal is to reduce the population by hand and then spray nematodes again to help with any larva in the soil.

My friend Phoebe left some very large, self watering, pots of plants with me. The hole into the reservoir is big enough to stick the hose through and have plenty of room around it. Here is what I wrote to her:
I was just filling the reservoir on your red pot, and 1/2 way through decided to turn it 180. As I bent over to resume filling it, out squeezed a very large toad! It took him at least three wiggles to get out. I apologized profusely for disturbing him, though it is unclear if he understood.

Entry tags:

FIC: Interlude (MCU)

Title: Interlude
Creator: alexcat
Universe: MCU
Pairing(s): Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Rating: Explicit
Word Count: 1281
Summary: The last person Steve expected to see in Berlin was Stark....
Author's Notes: From this prompt. I have no idea the source::
First time seeing each other after years ( for whatever reason, civil war, someone was in space etc..) they did not part on the best terms but neither expected to go this long without seeing the other

JFC what is it about Greeks?

A shocking number of people will blithely tell us all about the book they read, in English, on an English-language subreddit, and never tell us that they didn't read it in English. I can only catch so many of them - if they don't say "English isn't my first language" or make any obvious foreign language errors then I'll never know. (Some of them say "I read this in my own language" and then don't tell us what that language was.)

Most of these people, if prompted, will tell you what language they read it in. Three times now, I've had to ask twice because they refused to answer the question in a useful way, and every time that person has been Greek.

I thought it was a little funny the second time, but three times is the start of a worrying pattern, especially as it's not at all the most popular not-English language posted there. Maybe there's something going badly wrong with their school system?

(And, sidenote, even if you're certain it was translated from English you still ought to tell us the language it was written in. At least in theory this can help us weed out false positives, although I may be expecting too much of fellow commenters to that subreddit.)

***************

( Read more... )

Link spam: Enjoying problematic works/authors

Starting to process my backlog of links. Originally, I started collecting this particular list when the allegations about Neil Gaiman surfaced last year (if you've been lucky enough to miss that, but want to learn more, muccamukk's round-up post is still an excellent overview).

It's always hard when stories, songs, shows, etc that made a difference to you turn out to be created by someone who's done or is doing horrible things. I always find it hard when it's followed by a demand to just stop liking whatever it was, as if that's as easy as snapping your fingers to remove the impact of sometimes formative stories from one's life.

Here are a few links that helped me navigate this, whenever it happens, since it happens often. If you only have energy for one link, I'd recommend making that the first one. It's nuanced and practical.

Dealing with Authors Who are Jerks, Bastards, or Downright Evil in Real Life by writinginthedarktw. "But how should we react when a writer we admire, or who we have a personal relationship with, turns out to be a not-so-good person? The short answer, of course, is you can react any damn way you wish. There’s no right way. But I can share with you how I attempt to navigate these rough waters."

( 4 more links: 1 for library workers, 2 on how putting people on a pedestal does no one any good, 1 on a specific fandom )

Absolutely the worst, most insulting sort of shrinkflation

has got to be shrinkflation of dumb phone games.

**********************

( Read more... )

Current Mood: calm
Current Music: Rivers - Teddy Swims

Entry tags:

High in the Clean Blue Air - Chapter Thirty

( Read more... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Some Nights - fun.

Entry tags:

High in the Clean Blue Air - Chapter Twenty Nine

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

fandom50_2025

#1 - Has fandom changed?

Fandom 50

Kind of late for a first entry but here is one.

Has fandom changed or have I?

I was never in a fandom until the 2000’s. I did not know what a ‘zine was. I did not know what a con was. I never heard of fanfiction. I was a Star Wars fan from way back.

I got into the LOTR fandom right after the first movie came out. It was quite hostile, to be honest. There were wars between character writers and real person writers, between shippers of different pairings, between hetters and slashers. It was ugly. There was gatekeeping then, too.

I decided early on that I came into this not to fight but to enjoy and I did. I had my own website and ran a Yahoo group that hosted at least 100 stories a week in its heyday. I welcomed all. It wasn’t perfect but it was good.

Is today different?

I think so. I think we have a reflection of our divisive society in fandom. There are things we’re not ‘allowed’ to write now because they might upset someone. There are people who want to police Ao3 to make sure it doesn’t hurt their feelings and that it does reflect their ‘moral’ codes. An example is someone once complained because characters were eating meat and I did not warn for it.

Ao3 was born to combat gatekeeping and censorship in fandom. Other sites caved. Fanfic dot com made their site completely shite when they kicked all the adult stories out. I never bothered with them again. Livejournal was sold once then again to some Russian oligarch who decided to purge all adult anything, because there were rumblings of kiddie porn, and by that, I mean stories with underage fictional characters. Ao3 was born out of frustration over these events and others like them.

So what do you do about these things?

As of today, we do still have freedom of speech here in the US, where Ao3 is based. I say let people write what they will, as long as they are not inciting specific violence. Writers write violence, rape, child abuse out of a need for catharsis many times. Or maybe they are angry and rather than take it out on a real person, they write something violent. Let it be. We write for our own reasons and we don’t owe any explanations of those to anyone.

Oddly enough, the young seem to be the ones who want to gatekeep. Life is hard, kids. If you don’t want to read certain kinds of fiction, then DON’T CLICK ON IT. It’s that simple.

Fandom has changed but not that much. There will always be those who want more rules and to control others. That’s life. We must guard against that and keep fandom and fans free to express themselves.

*Crossposted at

fandom50challenge

Entry tags:

Getting started on beta edits/beta preps

I am 57% into my beta edit preps – not the edits themselves based on the actual beta feedback yet, but the list of action items I intend to go through. I'm more or less following the plan I had set out, though I ended up using Scrivener comments a lot instead of a separate file as I had expected. So I have 3 files/file types:

Structural comments, which I'll address first. I think this will be the most difficult and most painful part. Will try to do this in a way that has as few consequences as possible to limit the amount of rewriting (I think that's feasible as long as I'm careful, for this particular story).
Overall comments, for stuff that'll need small changes in every chapter. I plan to re-read this before and after every chapter edit, so I keep it in mind as I edit and potentially find new areas to include these elements. It's about things like certain characters feeling too one-dimensional and/or too unsympathetic (so more options for interactions, flashbacks/memories, and other elements to flesh them out more), worldbuilding elements that still weren't highlighted enough and feel like a surprise when they come up later, etc.
One file per chapter for more generic notes, though so far I'm not really using that much. Scrivener comments are doing the job. And it's very satisfying when several people bring up the same thing and I can edit an existing comment, like, wow! This sure was a confusing paragraph for everyone, huh!

Having said that, I still had massive, massive, massive issues with getting started. Like, I had built this all up into such a huge thing in my head, and it's in the first time I handle feedback on an entire manuscript at once, and from several people... Below the cut is a list of things I did to finally make myself Just Do It (tm). Maybe there'll be a piece of inspiration for someone else, though mainly I want my future self to remember to check here next time I'm stuck! In my case, it was definitely a process problem, like, just not knowing where to start or what to do.

( vriddy's weirdo productivity tips on actually getting started )

In general, I am tremendously enjoying working offline. I got the feedback back in 3 formats: GoogleDocs, Ellipsus, and LibreOffice with tracked changes. I am loving the LibreOffice one, so much that I downloaded all the GDocs too (thankfully the comments are included!) and work like this for everything. Ellipsus didn't work for me for reasons I mentioned earlier, and as a note doesn't seem to allow exporting with comments either, as far as I could see.

Making progress feels nice! Once I have a system, it's easier for me to let momentum carry me. We'll see if that continues to work when it's time to do the actual beta changes! I do intend to take a short break before jumping in.