Because Becky Mahoney and I know each other, I boosted a Bluesky giveaway for her upcoming vampire novel Thrall (coming out next month!) in the spirit of friendship and then was somewhat surprised to discover that I had in fact won the giveaway -- surprised but delighted, obviously, since I've loved all of her previous books even when they weren't LUCY CENTRIC DRACULA RIFFS!! focused around a COLLEGE PIRATE RADIO STATION!!!
The central character of Thrall is Lucy Easting, who has just transferred into beautiful, isolated, mountainside Rollins University from community college, in a bid to get away from her stressed and depressed mother and live a life she's excited about for a change.
Alas! her first college party results in a couple of neck puncture marks, a marked tendency to experience severe migraines in sunlight, and a tragic susceptibility to the ominous vampire voice in her head that occasionally takes over her consciousness and directs her towards uncharacteristic action.
Fortunately! the college is full of prospective allies who are willing to take a chance on Lucy despite her regrettable thrall situation, including but not limited to the host of the local college late-night radio show, who has been a target of the vampire since her sophomore year and has been using the airwaves to try and fight back; Lucy's RA, a determined young woman with very nice arms, who came to the school to investigate after a terrible fate befell her high school ex-boyfriend Jonathan; and the very nice, normal party host who has no previous vampire experience but feels just terrible about the whole situation and is not about to relinquish responsibility for sorting the situation out! it was her party!!
It's a really charming book on a number of levels, but my favorite thing about it as a Dracula riff specifically is how much it's thematically invested in Lucy as a side character -- the narrative is consistently very clear that the vampire is not particularly interested in Lucy; he's obsessed with Athena the radio show host and everything else he's doing is part of his elaborate cat-and-mouse game with her, including incidentally overturning Lucy's life as a by-the-by -- and how Lucy makes the book her own story anyway by sheer force of determination not to be cut out of it. Lucy's energy really drives the book: she wants to live, and she wants to live a life on her own terms, and she's not about to let one horrible encounter take that away from her.
I got up at 11:30 and had coffee, showered and dressed, and puttered on the computer a little. I packed the documents for the DMV in the computer bag, and left my backpack with my pajamas and clothes and stuff at mashfanficchick's. Then I left for the DMV with my computer about 1:40.
I just missed a subway, and had to wait longer than usual because the E was running with delays. I got to Jamaica and found the 6 bus pretty easily, but again I just missed one. I was worried about getting to my 3:00 appointment, and worried about finding the DMV after I got to the right stop, But it worked out, though I made the appointment by a hair.
Almost immediately I was called for them to take a new picture for the new ID. I'm sure I was a mess, but that's traditional for DMV pictures. Then I went back to a seat and filled out the application.
I waited awhile, I didn't time it, and eventually they called me to the counter. I handed over the application and my documents.
Unfortunately after all the trouble I went to finding the lease, it was no good because the renewal was two years ago and it has to be less than one. Which it does not say in the online information. So that was a problem but the man let me sign an affidavit that I live here. So that was OK.
Then I paid the $36.50 for the renewal and upgrade to enhanced ID, and that was all. Very simple, very fast.
I packed everything away and walked down to the McDonald's that I passed on the way and got a celebratory lunch. Something called the Big Arch Meal. Very tasty in a fast food kinda' way.
Then I went to the bus stop and took the 6 back to Jamaica. Rather than take the subway again I just took the 44 bus all the way home.
Got here around 6:00. Said hello to Oreo who was happy to see me! Put everything away, set up the computer and put in a Shipt order.
Then at 7:00 I Teamed the FWiB. We talked until 8:00 when I went to my D&D game.
Sadly, there was still trouble with Discord. Particularly in audio. I did most of the game on my phone.
But it was a good game, we killed a minotaur.
Then after the game I fed the pets, had a little something myself, called the Kid who didn't answer, and started here.
Fandom: 陈情令 | The Untamed Pairings/Characters: Jiang Cheng & Wei Wuxian & Jiang Yanli, Jiang Cheng/Nie Huaisang (background), Wei Wuxian/Lan Wangji (background), Lan Xichen, Jin Zixuan, Meng Yao, Wen Zhuliu Rating: R for Graphic Depictions of Violence and Major Character Death Length: 133,987 words Creator Link:meyari Themes: Siblings, Time Travel Fix-It, Women Being Awesome, Trauma & Recovery
Summary: As the Jianghu collapses around Jiang Cheng's ears, his borrowed core begins to fail. Wei Wuxian has one final trick up his sleeve, though the only person who can use it is the one person who has no core of his own: Jiang Cheng. Time travel may be impossible for everyone else, but Jiang Cheng has one slender, delicate chance to save the entire world. Of course he has to take it no matter what the cost might be.
Reccer's Notes: As soon as I saw this month's theme, I thought of this story. While time travel fix-its and core reveal fix-its are both common in the fandom, this story handles both tropes in ways I haven't seen any other story do. It also features amazing original characters, including several badass women of the Meishan Yu sect, and gives Jiang Yanli one of the best storylines I've ever seen. The rating is because there's still a war, and some characters still die, but it's a far different war, and they are far different deaths.
I do feel like I have to provide a caveat that this could use a serious line edit, by which I mean there is a grammatical or spelling error in nearly every sentence. It really says something that, despite this, I couldn't put the story down, and devoured all 100K+ words of it in the space of two nights.
Fanwork Links:Moments of Revelation (please note that this is archive-locked to AO3-registered users)
Hello again! With Tumblr's latest brush with implosion, it seems the tutorial writing bug has bitten me again. Today, I'm finally going to talk about uploading and sharing images on Dreamwidth!
Dreamwidth has given all users a certain amount of image storage to use: Free users get 500 MB, Paid users get 1.5 GB, and Premium Paid users get 3 GB.
There's two ways to upload images directly to Dreamwidth.
The first option has a fair number of steps, but it's the one I know the most about and the one I'm best able to help with.
The second option is to post an image by email, which I have to admit I haven't tried myself yet.
For Option Two, the first thing you need to know here is that it's possible to post to Dreamwidth by email; IIRC, it was silvercat17 who made the tutorial I used to get that set up, but I can't seem to locate it at the moment 😩 I'll edit this post to add in a link if that changes, though! In the mean time, you can check out Dreamwidth's official FAQ entries about how to get it set up over here. If you post an entry by email, you can attach an image as a file to the email, and it will automatically be uploaded to Dreamwidth and included in the post! It won't necessarily have any particular title or description included, though, so you may want to visit Manage Images to edit that.
And those are the basics of uploading images to Dreamwidth! Culturally, Dreamwidth users tend to either share larger images as a thumbnail, or to put them under a cut (Dreamwidth's "Read More"), but otherwise this should cover what you need to know.
But maybe I'm wrong about that! Feel free to ask any questions in the comments of this post, and I'll do my best to clear things up (and then edit the post to include the information). You can also check Dreamwidth's official Media FAQ and see if your question is answered there.
Due: March 29th, 10pm EDT Minimum: 10k or 10 page/25 panel comic To claim, please comment on the pinch hit post: Here
PH 1 - [SAFETY] Visionaries: Knights of the Magical Light, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Crossover Fandom, Chalion Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold, Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon), Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV)
PH 2 - Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes (Granada TV 1984), Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened (Video Game), [SAFETY] A Study in Emerald - Neil Gaiman, [SAFETY] Art in the Blood - Brian Stableford, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Dark Shadows (1966)
PH 6 - [SAFETY] Bullet Train (2022), [SAFETY] Kraven the Hunter (2024), The Fall Guy (2024), Gladiator (Movies - Scott)
PH 12 - Crossover Fandom, 崩坏：星穹铁道 | Honkai: Star Rail (Video Game), 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game), [SAFETY] Original Work, [SAFETY] 恋をするつもりはなかった | Koi wo Suru Tsumori wa Nakatta | I Didn't Mean to Fall in Love (Manga), 网恋翻车指南 - 酱子贝 | Guide on How to Fail at Online Dating - Jiàng Zǐ Bèi, The Handsome Salesman At Work Is An Ideal Master, ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon
PH 14 - [SAFETY] When the Angels Left The Old Country - Sacha Lamb, The Fairyland Series - Catherynne M. Valente, [SAFETY] Wind Will Rove - Sarah Pinsker, [SAFETY] Into the Woods - Sondheim/Lapine, [SAFETY] The Forbidden Book - Sacha Lamb
PH 15 - 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised - Geunseo, 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong, 괴담에 떨어져도 출근을 해야 하는구나 - 백덕수 | Even If I Fall Into a Ghost Story I Still Have to Go to Work - Baek Deoksoo, 내가 키운 S급들 | The S-Classes That I Raised (Webcomic), [SAFETY] Original Work, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer, 恋与深空 | Love and Deepspace (Video Game), Crossover Fandom, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
PH 16 - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Manga), [SAFETY] BCV: Battle Construction Vehicles (Video Game)
PH 18 - [SAFETY] Point Break (1991), [SAFETY] The Collector Series (Movies), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Video Games), [SAFETY] A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms (TV)
I would like to have more high-protein snacks on hand, and the usual suggestions don't work for my digestive system (nuts, soy, dairy, beans). Does anyone have recipes to recommend? I'm thinking something like mini-frittatas made in muffin cups. Some kind of meatballs would be an option, but I'd prefer something that was less fuss to make. Thanks!
It was quite pleasant on Inspiration Trail this morning thanks to a nice breeze. I had a rocky start but was on the rise before the sun came up. Also after the sun came up. As I said.:) Anyway, once I actually got started I had a reasonably productive morning. Finally Wilson's Warblers! and a Western Flycatcher. There were Blue-gray Gnatcatchers where they were four days ago, and still a White-crowned Sparrow singing near the parking lot, but either he changed songs or it's a different individual. Biggest surprise was a Varied Thrush in the dense trees towards the top of the trail. ( The list: )
There are usually a few American White Pelicans on San Pablo Reservoir, but this morning a large flock, thirty-five or so, was gathered near the far shore. I don't know where they went, but when I next looked they were gone.
I got home Tuesday night, finally, just before midnight. Denise picked me up at the airport, I drove home. (She really doesn't like driving in the dark.)
One last story from the trip.
Our 5:50 pm flight out of Milwaukee loaded a little late, but not too badly. Completely full flight, of course, making up for the previous day's cancellations. I was in seat 16B, next to the left wing; my neighbor in the window seat was a teenage girl who was a very fearful flyer. Are we supposed to feel vibrations? Yes, that's normal. Are the wings broken? No, those are flaps; they control the plane. What's happening now? We're taxiing to our runway--just driving along the ground. As we approached take-off, she asked, Do you mind if I hold your hand?
Not at all, I said. Would you like to borrow my bear?
We flew all the way to Denver with her right hand clutching my forearm, my hand over hers, and her left hand cradling Umberto.
Due at the same time as the regular assignments: Sun 5 Apr 17:00 CEST (in your timezone | countdown). To claim, comment on this post with your AO3 username and the pinch hit you want to claim.
On the plus side, I slept well, food is made and caffeine at hand, and it turns out that yes, the new(ish) vacuum is good enough to pick up instant coffee. On the minus side, this is probably a migraine because I'm trying to get all the things done, at the same time, and yes, while trying to get caffeine, I dropped the bottle of instant espresso.
It's cleaned up, I'm eating and have taped the top of that bottle back together, and no glass on the floor: good enough.
Man, I do not miss menses, but I don't know that migraines was a great trade, here.
Sign-ups are still open for the 520 Day Guardian Reverse Exchange, a multimedia exchange covering the Guardian drama, the novel and RPF.!
This is a reverse exchange with a two-part sign-up process: first you make your offer, and then you choose from everyone else's anonymised offers to make your requests.
And if you're on Discord, Twitter, Bluesky, Tumblr or elsewhere for fandom, please help get the word out by promoting the exchange there. We have a tumblr post you can reblog, a promo graphic and text on the General info post, or you can make your own.
EDITED TO ADD: The GoFundMe to support MinoanMiss/RubyNye's burial/memorial costs is here.
books A Murderous Relation (Veronica Speedwell #5) by Deanna Raybourn. 2020. Kinky London again. An Unexpected Peril (Veronica Speedwell #6). 2021. Mountaineering. An Impossible Impostor (Veronica Speedwell #7). 2022. Return of Martin Guerre. Too much romance by far. A Sinister Revenge (Veronica Speedwell #8). 2023. Dinosaur house party. Too much romance, still. A Grave Robbery (Veronica Speedwell #9). 2024. Evil lesbian Dr Frankenstein. *sigh* currently reading: A Ghastly Catastrophe (Veronica Speedwell #10). 2026. Dracula.
yarning Sold a snek, a turkey leg, and 2 mushrooms. Got the carrots and kickbunny to KA in the mail (and worked out Click-n-Ship after USPS disabled my old login info). Didn't go to yarn group, even though I was dressed and ready. A strong cold front was on the verge of coming in and I just felt bad. So that's five in a row that I've missed, doh. I did post some pics to the group chat, so they know I'm still involved.
healthcrap I finally called to renew my healthcare coverage, and there are delays on their end, thanks to their new system. Had to reschedule botox for migraines until next month.
#resist + Check locally for anti-war protests. I'm finding Reddit and Instagram to be fairly good sources if you check often. + March 28: #50501 No Kings Protest #3
astrology Mercury Retrograde ends on the 20th, the same day as the Equinox (yay SPRING)! OTOH, the last time that all the outer planets were in their current positions, we were in the US Civil War. That doesn't mean we're headed into a new civil war by any means, obvsly, but it's a pretty dreadful interesting time in the skies.
Hi, guys! We haven't had a challenge in a long time here. :D
Fandom/s: BBC Merlin Theme: Make icons from the BBC show Merlin. There are 10 themes in total but you are not obliged to enter icons for all 10. Even if you are interested in making 1 icon to participate, that is welcome. I have provided links where you can find screencaps under the cut. Total number of icons: 1+ Suggested amount of time to finish the battle: 4 weeks. Deadline: 15th April, 2026 How to sign up: Sign up with your username. Submission: Submit your icons here using the template in the textbox. Status: OPEN
It's not-quite-spring; therefore, my life is focused on dirt and its many problems. Weeds, grasses mostly, are on the eradication list. The wet winter, which I am already starting to miss, sprouted every. single. grass seed. Also, the dirt needs to be fed and, in some cases, fluffed. All tedious, but necessary, jobs.
Other than gardening, life centers on birding. Hard to explain the attraction to people who aren't into it. Birding gets me outside, hiking around, and taking photos of birds, some of which are nice and sharp.
Which leads me to my current great sadness. My beloved camera has issues. All the SLRs and the first DSLR had no problems, and they were all treated the same way I treat all of my gear, which means they got dropped, banged into things, and ignored for months on end. This one started draining batteries in hours. For a long pelagic birding trip, I usually take two batteries, the heir and a spare. Then, I took three, which wasn't that much of a surprise as the R5 is notorious for its power consumption. I drew the line at four, especially as the camera was noticeably warmer than it ought to have been. It's now somewhere in SoCal for repairs. Canon's support was very, very good. Between email and chat, they walked me through a lot of ways to check what's going on before it was clear the camera had to take a trip. While I await more information, I'm obsessively refreshing the update screen.
Currently reading: The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan The text is a little tedious, which is offset by her beautiful drawings. Movie rec: Nuremberg on Netflix. Russel Crowe is fantastic as Goering. Series rec: Tehran, a very gray espionage series about Mossad inside Tehran. AppleTV
I'm writing a 5 + 1 fic for Devil's Minion, and I figured I'd share it here 🥰
Please mind the tags 🙏
Submerging in your Glow (2832 words) by AngrilyBubbles Chapters: 1/6 Fandom: Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022) Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Armand/Daniel Molloy Characters: Armand (Vampire Chronicles), Daniel Molloy Additional Tags: Young Daniel Molloy, Eventual Old Daniel Molloy, Sub Daniel Molloy, Dom Armand (Vampire Chronicles), Dom Armand/Sub Daniel Molloy, Dubious Consent, I mean it's Devil's Minion if there isn't Dubcon are we really doing it right?, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, it doesn't go all the way but Armand isn't exactly nice at the beginning of this, Minor Armand/Louis de Pointe du Lac, Near Death Experiences, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Drug Addiction, I will not being making Daniel overdose I promise, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, no beta we die like riccardo Summary:
"Okay, you wanted a snack and found an easy target in an asshole that robs junkies, but you didn't leave me there."
"It was a poor way to die."
Daniel blinks, then blinks again. Nothing since he had woken up in this motel room had been what he was expecting, but this somehow was the most off-putting thing the monster had said so far. "You care about how I die?"
"You are not so special that you are the factor that matters. Death is my domain, and I have standards to the execution of it."
A laugh escapes from Daniel, high-pitched with hysteria. "You took me out of the gutter, bought a swanky motel room, and washed my clothes while I was passed out on the bed, because you thought I was dying wrong ?"
or
5 + 1 ways Armand disapproved of how Daniel found himself on the brink of death, and had to Dom Daniel back to himself.
For some reason I’m not sure about I watched “Scarpetta” - the whole series.
I still have no clue what was happening most of the time. I actually prefer “Silent Witness” and that show is beginning to annoy me.
Now, I have read about half of Patricia Cornwell’s books, and I don’t remember any of them being as gloopy as the TV series. Nor do I remember them as being quite so full of horrible characters. Kay’s sister in particular I wanted to die a death. Kay herself was annoying and Lucy nearly as much. The only character I liked was the dead wife.
I also struggled with telling current events from flashbacks. They could at least have given Kay different hairstyles.
I was fascinated to read Jo Walton's post on How to read sixteen books at once at all times, because I have recently - and somewhat inadvertently - set up something similar for myself.
In mid-February I got fed up of all the half-read things in my ebook reader, so I went through and tagged a bunch of them - things I wanted to read, things I meant to get around to, etc - in a special collection, and then said "OK now you can only read things from this collection". I started out with 25 books, but added a few more either because a) they were new Dick Francis books that I wanted to read (2 books), or b) they were for a book group meeting that I had suddenly realised was approaching (2 books). Since then I have read only one ebook not in that collection (another book group! but a chapter-by-chapter one, so I don't want to read the whole thing yet), one paper book (oh look for a different book group), and a few chapters of other paper books, and the collection is down to 12.
In conclusion, it's been great for my reading but terrible for my booklog, which is sadly behind even though I've been working on it reasonably regularly.
This Flash game by Argentine developer Daniel Benmergui presents a scene with a woman in a rowboat looking up at a man sitting on the moon. As the player you can snap photos of different portions of the scene and move them around, leading to different resolutions of the scenario. Is this some sort of romantic game that I'm too aro to understand? I do remember this game making the rounds in the late 2000s and being held up as evidence on the pro side of the burgeoning "can video games be art?" debate. Personally I have always found this debate tedious and misguided, proving nothing except that "art" is a poorly defined term which is used to arbitrarily judge elements of culture as worthy or unworthy. So that's probably why I never clicked any of the links to I Wish I Were the Moon.
Coming to it now, my strongest impression is that it doesn't demonstrate anything about art, but it does demonstrate (yet again) that I am extremely aromantic. The game is supposed to be a representation of a love triangle; I do know that. But it makes my brain do the thing that it's been doing my entire life, which is to interpret romantic scenarios that I don't understand as anything other than what they are intended to be. (My brain does this especially with songs, which tend to be worded vaguely enough that it's easy to do. This breakup song could be about a friendship turning sour! This passionate love ballad could be about any kind of love and it doesn't even have to be about a person! It could be about a city or a fandom or a celestial body!!)
So what is the moon in this game? It's something the man loves which is separating him from the woman in the rowboat. Who says it has to be a person? It could be his career or his faith or his family or just about anything! I guess you could argue that one of the essential qualities of art is that it's open to interpretation, but let's not and say we did.
The 2008 version of I Wish I Were the Moon is playable in a Flash emulator here. In 2022 the developer also offered a free remaster on his itch.io page here, but I have to say I think it lacks some of the charm of the original.
Just finished: Indigenous Ingenuity: A Celebration of Traditional North American Knowledge by Deidre Havrelock and Edward Kay. This is worth a read but also I wanted it to be better than it was. My main issue was the tone of condescension cloaked in breathless wonderment towards its young audience and precolonial Indigenous peoples, which I honestly do not think is intentional on the part of the writers and more a factor of how people think that children ought to be spoken to. My second issue had to do with the ending, which focused on ecological technologies and suddenly jumped forward to present day Indigenous Nations working with governments to create sustainable ecosystems. Very cool, but because of the book's structure and emphasis on precolonial technologies, it made it seem like Indigenous societies today are only working in that field. (This is not remotely true! If the section on communication technology had, for example, included a jump forward to discuss the Skobot, I'd have been fine with this aspect.) But also, it described things like carbon trading fairly uncritically, when in fact while carbon trading is better than carbonmaxxing like our current overlords are doing, it's a fairly useless system that greenwashes the omnicidal criminal corporations turning our world into a burning hellscape. So if the book is inaccurate about this, what else is it inaccurate about?
Beowulf translated by Francis B. Gummere. It's Beowulf. This is the less fun translation, albeit the one I'm more familiar with, because my hold on the Headley one didn't come in on time. We can discuss whether or not it's the most metal of all historical epics.
Currently reading: To Ride a Rising Storm by Moniquill Blackgoose. Speaking of Scandinavian-influenced epics. This is the sequel to To Shape a Dragon's Breath, which as you might recall broke all the way through my general dislike of YA to be one of my favourite books of the year. So far I am binging this and it's excellent. Our heroine, Anequs, wants nothing more than to get through her time at Kuiper's Academy, get licensed to ride her dragon, and return to her people on Masquapaug permanently, preferably with her two love interests, Theod and Liberty. But now the Anglish have set up a presence on the island and she's increasingly being drawn into shitty white-people politics that she wants nothing to do with.
This introduces a whack of new characters and factions. There's a Jewish character, Jadzia (Blackgoose, you fuckin' nerd lol), who I adore, and a secret society called the Disorder of the Grinning Teeth, which is the name of my new black metal band. There's also a new teacher whose name escapes me but who provides an interesting contrast in pedagogy from the first book. I should add that this is very much a magical boarding school story and not a residential school story, so it's very cool to see the idea of colonial educational institutions that could, theoretically, be reformed and democratized rather than needing to be closed and having the people who run them thrown in Forever Jail.
I'm still living on youtube with a small amount of Netflix cartoons (Sailor Moon Crystal, Kamisama Kiss, Capitan Tsubasa). One day I will watch other things! Very excited about One Piece season 2 but we haven't started it yet because it's hard to both feel like watching an hour of tv late in the day (yawn, old people)
I started the Witch Hat Atelier manga, and I really loved the first one. It's so pretty! I have the second one but I haven't started it yet.
I started watching a different streamer play Supermarket Simulator a while back and ended up finally buying the game (lol) and it's pretty fun but omg does my computer hate it. How is it harder on my computer than the sims?? Very goofy. And then the week after I got influenced by youtube shorts and started a four corners farm in Stardew. I'm in winter y1 and the urge has died down again :P I'm free again (maybe)
Music (gasp) a new album by Kwiat Jabłoni (Przesilenie), with orchestra backing. I am such a sucker for an album with orchestra (last month was Rosalía's Lux, which I finally got around to). Also Lor also just put out a new album (pele-mele), so I'm excited about that, but I've only listened to it once so far. Anyway, this song opens the album--
I’m a 21-year-old college student living in a house with five other students. There are three women and three men. We’re having an issue keeping our kitchen clean, and I am the only one who consistently cleans. I keep the floors and counters clean, wash the piles of dishes in the sink, wash dish towels, etc. Anytime I’ve asked people to chip in, they never follow through. I’ve tried not doing the cleaning, but then the kitchen gets disgusting and I end up caving.
I’m not completely innocent when it comes to not always washing my dishes immediately and being messy, but I feel like I clean more often than anyone else. A general chore chart doesn’t work, and I am tired of feeling like my roommate’s mother. How can I get them to take some initiative and do more of the heavy lifting that always falls on me?
Title:Shane's Tattoo on AO3 Artist:mific Rating: Gen Fandom: Heated Rivalry Characters/Pairings: Ilya Rozanov Notes: Made in Procreate for the tattoo-style challenge. The second in this pair.
Anyone is free to join, even those who have never listened before! Although if that is you, I'd recommend checking out the project's Soundcloud, Bandcamp, and Youtube to get acquainted :D
Discussion on the community will include, but is not limited to, avourite songs/albums/album artwork, physical media, how you discovered the music, recommendations for similar music, etc.
The current rules are pretty standard: no harassment/discrimination against any other Dreamwidth users; no NSFW/explicit content unless it's directly connected to the community's theme; and please keep any posts/comments on topic as much as possible. Anything else can be decided on in the future.
I (oceangrey) am the current only moderator/admin, but if anyone else wants a similar role just message me or comment on the community's pinned post!
Wordcount: ~114,000 Rated: Teen for swearing and violence No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary:
They saved the ship. Now everyone wants them dead.
Jacks Harrison and chief engineer Antony Watts avoided a catastrophic collision between their generation ship Peace and their three sister ships that would have killed every human in the fleet. But saving their people came with a cost, and now Jacks and Antony are wanted by the rebellious factions that overthrew Peace’s corrupt governor.
With Peace’s two cities in shambles and neighbor turning against neighbor, Jacks and Antony must fight their way to safety only to find that the people on Peace are still in terrible danger: the ship’s water system is bleeding out, and it’s up to them to figure out how stop it.
Along the way, Jacks must reckon with the violence she finds herself too comfortable with and Antony must confront his past complicity in the corrupt regime. Because Peace doesn’t hand out easy answers, and they both have to decide how far they’re willing to go to ensure they survive.
It's company meeting day! (Yes, we have these every month now. No, we're still not getting any more information than we used to.)
Important Company People are going to be in the office today for a different meeting, and it's been very funny (to me) to read all the notices and emails and signs Politely Informing us of this fact. (It's basically many variations of 'of course no one would act unprofessionally on any day, but maybe especially don't act unprofessionally on this specific day, just a suggestion, thanks, please don't make us look bad.')
Things I'm looking forward to:
*free coffee *free lunch *not being required to answer emails while the meeting is happening
withnailandi is a community for everything related to Withnail & I (1987). Fanworks/recommendations, meta/discussions, whatever, all are welcome here! Another related community is withnailandinsfw, for any more explicit fanworks/discussions.
Although not entirely new (made in October 2025) both communities are unused as of yet, due to most of the fandom being on other platforms. Feel free to join whether you're a casual fan, or if it's your favourite film of all time, or if you're somewhere in between!
withnailandi is open for anyone to join, and withnailandinsfw is set to administrator-approved due to the community's content.
... resulting from making that vid this past week.
One thing that I was thinking about is the sheer challenge of costuming this show, because most of the costumes are directly patterned after their manga/anime looks. So whereas most of the time in most shows, you can probably source the characters' everyday wear from basic mass-produced clothes or even vintage or secondhand shops, aside from really specific superhero costumes or whatever, this is more like a historical production in that everything has to be made from scratch. (Only, if possible, worse, because unless you're doing an unusual time period, normally you could probably go to the warehouses of Elizabethan or Regency costumes or Roman togas that no doubt exist.)
Here, even the relatively normal clothes are directly echoing something specific, like the patterns on season 2 character'sTashigi's distinctive shirt, or another season 2 character'sMiss Valentine's lemon-patterned dress.
Anyway, it's just interesting to think about. Even the simplest costumes are more complicated than they seem, because it's not just an unusual shirt that the costume people found at a vintage shop; they're having to explicitly pattern-match or color-match or style-match items from the manga and anime.
In the week leading up to and week of my moontime I mistakenly thought I'd relapsed into depression, because my PMS symptoms were that bad. The day after I finished bleeding, I wrote the rest of Dollshops & Deathmages, in a dramatic restoration of my spirits and creativity. I don't want to be miserable and listless for half a month, even if I'm in a creative flow for the other half. In quite the synchronicity, The Cozy Creative posted a video about how her menstrual cycle affects her creativity.
It made me feel better, knowing that I'm not alone in having to plan my writing work around moontime, but I really wish my symptoms would be limited to the week of moontime because two weeks is a lot of time lost.
Now to wait for the other authors participating in the cozy fantasy anthology to finish their stories. I've also talked to my cover designer about a cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, because after the anthology has run its course the participating authors will release their stories individually as they see fit. I'm hoping to make Dollshops & Deathmages an evergreen prequel novella and occasional reader magnet for the subsequent cozy books I have planned, so it needs its own cover.
Back when I was employed, I saved up and got myself covers for a couple of the cozy books I'm writing (Dragons & Debutantes and Pumpkin Jack Proposes) since covers are the biggest authorial expense. Dollshops & Deathmages wasn't planned for because I didn't know I was going to participate in a cozy anthology until the opportunity came up, and I crafted this story specifically for this anthology. So I have had to commission the cover for this now, not in advance like the others.
My parents are decently supportive about this indie author project and funded the cover for Dollshops & Deathmages, but I'm not decently grateful because I wanted their support long before this and didn't get it. If I'd gotten their support before this I would've had a job and would've been able to pay for my own covers. Their opposition to me taking that job was very gendered, so I don't feel privileged at all. Even though I am.
I'm bitter and prideful whenever I have to ask them for money, and when they sweetly tell me I have only to ask them, I'm overwhelmed by anger because they could have been supportive all along but only chose to be after I was driven into a corner and had no options left.
I think the contrast between them happily giving me handouts vs. their crashout when I wanted to work at the bookstore is probably because they like me being at home and dependent. I mean it makes no sense that they're supportive about this, but weren't supportive about the stable salaried thing.
goreswap is a multifandom exchange for fic and art, featuring gore. Assignments must be at least 500 words or a sketch on unlined paper, and contain significant gore content.
For details or to claim, see the pinch hit post above. These assignments are due April 12 at 11:59 PM EDT.
Pinch Hit #1: Art, Fic - The Starving Saints - Caitlin Starling, Trigun (Anime & Manga 1995-2008), Blue Eye Samurai (Cartoon), Dredge (Video Game), The Luminous Dead - Caitlin Starling
Pinch Hit #5: Fic - Night Prince - Jeaniene Frost, グノーシア | Gnosia (Visual Novel), Dracula Rising (Cartoon)
Pinch Hit #8: Art, Fic - Ice Nine Kills (Band), Resident Evil (Movies - Anderson), Cardinal (TV 2017), Shall We Date?: Obey Me! (Video Game), Harrow (TV), 9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020), Tracker (TV 2024), Murder Drones (Web Series), Original Work
Pinch Hit #9: Fic - Anne Rice's Talamasca: The Secret Order (TV 2025), Interview with the Vampire (TV 2022), Loki (TV 2021), The Night Manager (TV 2016), D.Gray-man (Anime & Manga), Merlin (TV)
Pinch Hit #10: Art, Fic - Undertale (Video Game), Deltarune (Video Game), The Owl House (Cartoon)
So this is apparently the latest installment in an accidental series about gardens. This is based off some bits in hauntinghouses's lovely post-canon fixit Out of the Woods (not necessary to read before this one, but you should read if you like Londo & G'Kar stuff; it's lovely, with some neat Narn worldbuilding), which was in turn inspired by one of my older ones. This is not meant to be in direct continuity with either hauntinghouses' fic or the other fic it was inspired by; it's off happily living its best life in its own AU 'verse.
Green Growing Things (Londo & G'Kar, 2800 wds) It is post-canon, and there are gardens.
Hopefully, at least. Got up this morning at 11:00 and had coffee. At 12:00 I tossed on clothes an mashfanficchick and I went down to Cobblestones and got corned beef and cabbage and potatoes to go.
We came back and ate, waiting for HP to call back, which they were supposed to do at 2:00. They didn't, so at 2:20 I called them. And we worked on the computer.
They created the reboot flash drive, and then tried to use that. There was not enough disc space. So she stripped out as much from the computer as possible and rebooted it internally. Or something. I don't understand it, but we restored it.
And so far it seems to be working better. I have reinstalled some of the programs we took off, but it's working much better.
Anyway, we finished that somewhat before 6:00. At 7:00 I used it to Team the FWiB. Had a little trouble, but I think it was the app, not the computer.
Then at 8:00 I had my Al-anon meeting by Zoom. That worked too.
After that I puttered a bit while mashfanficchick napped. Then we had dinner, salad and cold chicken, and then watched tonight's episode of Will Trent which ze had dvr-ed.
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice Pairings/Characters: Darcy/Elizabeth, Georgiana, Jane/Bingley Rating: Teen Length: 75k Creator Links: anghraine Theme: siblings, old fandoms, book fandoms, novel length, AU, family,
Summary: Without Lady Catherine's interference, a family catastrophe throws Darcy and Elizabeth down wildly different paths.
Reccer's Notes: This series is very much Darcy/Elizabeth, but they spend a lot of it going down separate paths. And on those separate paths, their closest relationships are with their siblings--Darcy and Georgiana, Jane and Elizabeth. I love the care that is taken with all of the different relationships in this story.
Fandom: Marvel Pairings/Characters: Steve/Bucky Rating: Gen Length: 4k Creator Links:what_alchemy Theme: siblings, AU, family
Summary: Bucky was the eldest of four.
Reccer's Notes: Bucky has four younger siblings, and in 2015 they are elderly, crotchety, and determined to go see Steve Rogers. Getting there is an ordeal, and what they find there is a surprise. I love the way the characters are so well-drawn and realistic, and I love the humor.
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skygiants
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meyari
I got home Tuesday night, finally, just before midnight. Denise picked me up at the airport, I drove home. (She really doesn't like driving in the dark.)
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