doire | Network

fandomtrees pulled through with reveals this weekend! I got an adorable harried spider prepping for the holidays, a lovely crop of Discworld icons from illustrations and movie adaptations, and the cozy Elis & John AU of my dreams.

I left some recs/recipes, but my creative endeavors this time around were limited to this:

sysann requested, among many other fun crossover ideas, a Dragaera/Ghosts UK crossover wherein the Dragaerans find themselves in Button House. Here’s what I wrote:

(If you’re not familiar with Dragaera, all you need to know is that Aliera is a particularly haughty member of a Proud Warrior Race who are en masse extremely touchy about their honor and love to fight duels about it. She is sensitive about her height and levitates to appear taller, and her normally-green eyes turn blue when she’s angry.

If you’re not familiar with Ghosts UK, all you need to know is that Thomas is the ghost of a (bad) Regency era poet, who is an oblivious romantic who died in a duel over a lady’s honor.)

( Dragaera/Ghosts UK, Thomas Thorne, Aliera e’Kieron, terrible poetry )

*

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring an image of a wrapped giftbox with a snowflake on the gift tag. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31.

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works. (Feel free to substitute in theme/motif/cliche if "trope" doesn't resonate with you.)

I think this time around, I’ll just go with the tropes that are making my current reading – To Shape a Dragon’s Breath – such a fun and this-book-was-written-just-for-me reading experience :)

( magic as science, magic school, animal companion, alt history, Sweet Polly Oliver )

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260117.html

Apollo 14's Lunar Module Antares

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260117.html

ysabetwordsmith posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Current Mood: creative

lovelyangel

TWICE performing “I Can’t Stop Me”
TWICE This Is For World Tour
Climate Pledge Arena • Seattle, Washington
January 13, 2026
Sony RX100 VII • Zeiss 24-200mm (35mm equiv) f/2.8-4.5
f/4.5 @ 200mm • 1/800s • ISO 3200

This is a lengthy post written mainly for myself so that I’ll have a record of what actually happened. At my age, memory is the first thing to go.

tl;dr: I went to Seattle to see the TWICE This Is For World Tour Concert at Climate Pledge Arena.

I feel extra fortunate in that I was able to get tickets to two TWICE concerts this month. Of the two concerts, only the first one, in Seattle, was I able to get a fancy VIP Soundcheck reserved seat ticket, which provides:

One premium reserved or general admission ticket to the show
Access to the pre-show TWICE soundcheck
Exclusive VIP gift item
VIP laminate and lanyard
Pre-show tour merchandise shopping opportunity
Early entry to the venue
Designated check-in and on-site VIP event staff

I’ve never had this before and I was eager for the experience.

( A TWICE Adventure, Below This Cut )

china_shop

Life Update

Andrew was discharged today and is currently napping on the couch. \o/!! That was his shortest hospital stay yet.
I have done something terrible to the back of my left knee, argh. At least I don't have to bike on it anymore.

Books & TV Update

On the second Penric & his Demon audiobook by Bujold. I'm not following it super-closely, but it's a pleasant enough tale to accompany me through chores and so on. :-)
Started Kdrama Can This Love Be Translated?, and I like it a lot so far. Kim Sun-ho has come so far from his geeky supporting-cast character in Good Manager (AKA Chief Kim). (Do I want to rewatch Strongest Deliveryman? IIRC, it was a bit weak, but otoh, it had enemy-to-hyung slash potential...)
Looking forward to watching The Pitt s02e02 tonight.

Fandom/Making Stuff

Inbox and tabs are out of control. I've started ruthlessly closing tabs.
I didn't manage to finish any gifts before fandomtrees reveals. The last three days, I've been shuttling back and forth to the hospital for epic Scrabble bouts. I have two fics back from beta that I still hope to finish and post as late treats (both need rewrites), but I haven't had the brain to word. I spent a lot of my spare moments over the last 24 hours icing my knee and trying to draw an art gift, with no success. (Why are faces?? ;-p) So my plan is to finish the fics, and then go back and finish the things I started for Yuletide. And then go back even further and finish the thing I started for guardian_wishlist. ;-p Also, to continue on with *Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain* in the hopes it will make me better at faces.

fandomtrees gifts, yayayay!! I received five deliciously wonderful gifts for fandomtrees!! FIVE!!

Desperately Seeking Susan - delightful post-canon drabble sequence Pillars of Their Community by sanguinity :D
Guardian by Priest (novel) - beautiful little Shen San/Wei & Daqing interlude by facethestrange
Good Manager - hilarious podfic of my Kim Sungryong/Seo Yul crackfic, The Yul3000, ahhh! I've listened to this three times through already.
Good Manager - flirty/sexy kisses drabble sequence by maggie33 <3 <3 <3
Bluey! - adorable timeline-refreshing Bingo fanart by lomelinde_laurea. <3 <3 <3

ETA: What is even the point of Markdown if you can't nest formatting inside lists? ;-p

hannah

Challenge #9

Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

In fic, I'll pretty much always give wingfic, superpowers, and mpreg a try. I rarely turn down outsider POV or post-canon explorations. Fics that peer around the corners of the canon to look at what's lurking there are usually worth checking out. There's not much else that I'll click on pretty much every time I come across it - what I want in Top Gun fic is very different from what I want in Scrubs or Deep Space Nine, and there's certain tropes that I'll deliberately seek out in some fandoms and work to avoid in others.

In terms of general media, some that I always get a kick out of are a bunch of people from very different backgrounds thrown together, which I generally see ensemble casts, but not always - it depends on the circumstances, with less of it in The Wire than MASH. Urban fantasy is something where my tastes are pretty narrow, so I'm willing to check it out fairly regularly in the hopes I've found something new in that narrow range. I enjoy extreme competence and awesome Jews are always welcome.

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: nothing now

sixbeforelunch

Snowflake Challenge: A warmly light quaint street of shops at night with heavy snow falling.

Challenge #9: Talk about your favorite tropes in media or transformative works.

Y'know, there are a lot of tropes that I like in theory, but which have a tendency to fall flat because the idea is cool but the characterization isn't there. I bring it up because my first thought when I read this prompt was "Megastructures! Progenitors! A megastructure built by a progenitor race!" The problem is, too many stories lean on the coolness of the idea and forget to do character and relationship work and so I get bored as soon as the initial "oooh, neat!" factor wears off.

The tropes I really love in practice and not just in theory are the ones that involve jiggling the characters around and seeing what falls out. Some of the ~~cliche~~ common fic tropes like amnesia and body swap are great for that. Seeing two characters trying to handle each other's bodies--especially if there are powers and alien biology involved--or having one character act without the weight of memory while the other is crushed by it, that stuff is gold for playing with character and relationship dynamics.

Time-travel fix-its, where one or a handful of characters wake up in the past and are given the chance to fix something that went wrong in canon, are also a lot of fun, for similar reasons. The time-traveling character knows things that the people around them don't, and usually they have to keep it a secret. Although these sorts of fic are most satisfying when you are specifically mad at something in canon. I was pondering what a TNG time-travel fix-it would look like, and while there are things the characters would like to fix, there is nothing in the show that I as the viewer would specifically want changed ... at least not enough to care about a time-travel fix it. But MCU fix its that undo some of the dumber PTB decisions? DC fix its that fix Bruce's relationship with Jason without heaps of unnecessary angst? Yes please and thank you.

AUs are good--specifically canon-divergence "want of a nail" style AUs where one big thing went differently, or close-canon parallel universes where some things are different, but the setting is broadly recognizable are good for that too. I like them both as self-contained stories, and as stories where two universes meet and compare differences.

I like competency porn, and my definition of competency encompasses emotional intelligence. Give me two people having a hard conversation in good faith and I am there for it. I also like stories that highlight quiet competencies, especially domestic labor, emotional labor, or admin work--basically female coded stuff that'd not even enough respect. It doesn't have to be female characters, though. Anyone doing hard, unglamorous work that's shown to be important will get me, especially if it's respected in story.

I like unconventional heroes, but also conventional ones. Stories where the two team up and actually get along and respect each other are great. I'm thinking of Miss Marple and the police inspectors who know she can run circles around them and listen carefully to her advice, or Jessica Fletcher when the cop of the week is working with her rather than against her.

Ugh. I know the moment I hit post, I'll think of half a dozen more tropes I love, but I've rambled long enough.

Current Mood: accomplished

ismo

It's been a busy few days. My visit to Madame went all right. I brought her coffee and cake. She tried to get out of her chair at one point, and it was very difficult. I do most of the talking now, because she doesn't remember current events well enough to say anything about them. Sometimes I can get her started on events of the distant past, and then she'll tell me some stories. Wednesday night, the Sparrowhawk was getting ready to go to the gym, but Coach canceled it. The snow didn't seem too bad here, but some of the people come from the lakeshore, and it was pretty slick out there. I stayed up a little bit late on Wednesday making the chicken pot pie filling and rolling out six pie crusts. One of the things that made the filling good was to blend it with cream as well as chicken broth, to make the gravy smooth and tasty. The good thing about doing the pie crusts the night before was that they spent the night on the back porch, where it was freezing, so they were well-chilled when I baked them. I think this makes them more flaky.

Thursday morning, I made four loaves of bread before Dragonfly came over. When we went out for lunch, she needed to pick up a couple of things at the store, so I went with her and got my salad fixings. When I got home, I set to and baked the pies and mixed up the salad. It was romaine and boston lettuce with blueberries, slivers of red pepper, and pomegranate seeds. I wanted some of that crumbled goat cheese, but the store didn't have any, so I got some Wensleydale with blueberries in it and chopped it up in the salad. It was well received, especially with some maple balsamic dressing. We also had a tray of plain crunchy carrots, cucumbers, celery, and peppers in case the kids didn't care for cheese in their salad. One of our friends brought an apple cake from Mary Berry's recipe, and it was delicious. We had a lot of fun at dinner, but didn't make too much progress discussing the Paradiso, because we got off on some other topics, and then the parents had to take their kids home because it was a school night.

I thought I'd get up bright and early and get a lot done on Friday, since at last I had no social events. It was not to be. I didn't sleep well, and when day came, I was bushed and unable to motivate myself. I had to take a nap. We were planning to go see the extended version, 25th anniversary FotR on the big screen at 7, but it snowed more and more, and I groaned at the thought of shoveling the car out again, and the Sparrowhawk was very tired and worried about staying up until 11. We mutually agreed to chicken out. I WANTED to want to go, but I didn't. We watched our DVD of the extended version (because of course we have one, darling) instead. I made the last of the popcorn. An added benefit to being at home is that we were able to take a break to FaceTime Aquinas, wish him a happy third birthday, and sing him Happy Birthday. As we were going to bed just before 11 (another good thing about movies at home is that it only takes five minutes from movie to snuggled up in bed) I looked out the window and saw really huge snowflakes floating down. The all-day snow had been that thin, mean, stinging, wind-driven snow, but it turned into the Silent Night variety. I was still glad not to be driving home in it.

Today I went out in the morning and shoveled everything. It was pretty thick. It seemed like 4-6 inches to me, although the official weather report said not. It was bitter cold, too. We had one pot pie left over. I was going to freeze it, but then I got into a text chat with my sisters, and learned that both the Duchess and Dr. Nurse have bad colds, which they probably caught from Bird Baby via preschool. It occurred to me that Dr. Nurse could probably use some comfort food, so Uncle Sparrowhawk took the pie over to them. He reported that the roads were pretty good, so we drove to the theater at 3-ish to see The Two Towers on the big screen. It was a great experience. The landscapes are so gorgeous when they're full size, and every detail is so involving. The theater was packed full of people, many of them wearing elven cloaks and other garb. It was snowing like mad when we emerged. Not quite as bad as the Redhorn pass over Caradhras, but not very nice either. We were glad to get home. I anticipate more shoveling tomorrow . . . .

sovay

I may feel like a dishrag, but if so it's a dishrag who had a wonderful time returning to Arisia after six years, even if the ziggurat on the Charles is still a dreadful place to hold a convention. For the Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes, I performed selections from W. C. Meecham and H. G. Smith's "Effects of Jet Aircraft on Mental Hospital Admissions" (British Journal of Audiology, 1977) with what I hope was an appropriately haggard channeling of my sleepless night and Leonie Cornips' "The semiotic repertoire of dairy cows" (Language in Society, 2024) with what I hope was an appropriately technical rendition of cow noises. I heard papers on the proper techniques of nose-blowing, whether snakes dress to the left or the right, the sexual correlations of apples. It feels impossible, but it must have been my first time onstage since onset of pandemic. Readers who overstayed their allotted two minutes were surrounded by a chorus of bananas.

I had forgotten how much socializing my attendance of conventions used to entail. I turned the corner for registration and immediately spotted a

nineweaving, followed in close succession by a

choco_frosh,

a_reasonable_man, and a

sorcyress. I was talking to the latter in the coat check when Gillian Daniels came in and now I have a zine-printed copy of the second edition of her chapbook Eat the Children (2019/2026). I had not lengthy enough catch-up conversations with

awhyzip and

rinue and am now in possession of a signed copy of Nothing in the Basement (2025). I brought water with me and kept forgetting to duck outside to drink it. Dean gave me a ride home afterward and commented on my tired look, which was fair: six, seven years ago I could sprint through programming even after a night of anaphylaxis or a subluxed jaw and these days there's a lot less tolerance in the system. It seemed to be a common refrain. If I have fun and don't take home any viral infections from this weekend, it'll be a win.

Tomorrow, panels.

Current Music: Wolf Alice, "Midnight Song"

siderea

(h/t

hudebnik)

Two things: this is a thing that has happened, I have a read on what it is that nobody else seems to have come up with.

1) The thing that happened:

2026 Jan 16: NYTimes: "Thousands of Chinese Fishing Boats Quietly Form Vast Sea Barriers" by Chris Buckley, Agnes Chang and Amy Chang Chien

The most interesting thing here is the visualization animations, so if that link doesn't work for you:

2026 Jan 17: TaiwanPlus News [TaiwanPlusNews on YT]: "NYT: China Tests Civilian Fishing Boats in Maritime Military Operations"

Watch on YouTube

2) Take:

“The sight of that many vessels operating in concert is staggering,” said Mark Douglas, an analyst at Starboard, a company with offices in New Zealand and the United States. Mr. Douglas said that he and his colleagues had “never seen a formation of this size and discipline before.”

“The level of coordination to get that many vessels into a formation like this is significant,” he said.

Yeah, so, about that:

Watch on YouTube

It turns out that the world leader in developing systems for coordinating large numbers of semi-autonomous vehicles is China.

The way a drone show works is that the design of the show and the intended positions and trajectories of all the individual drones is calculated and stored on the coordinating computer, from which they are transmitted to the drones during the show. However, drones in the air can be knocked off course by turbulence, so they also have onboard collision avoidance and position resumption algorithms.

The drone show company in question, Shenzhen DAMODA Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd. brags they can control 10,000 drones from a single laptop.

There were only 2,000 ships. Well within what their system could handle.

So what this could be is a test of such a coordination technology deployed to civilian boats.

Perhaps on each of those ships was either a sail-by-wire system that puts them under remote/autonomous control, or a receiver/interface that relayed instructions to the human pilots from a drone-controller that both received orders from command-and-control and managed the specifics of positioning through the same sort of collision-avoidance and repositioning algorithm as light-show drones.

Also, I suspect the way DAMODA manages to control so many devices from a single laptop – I was not able to quickly get a bead on this, and it would be unsurprising if they were less than forthcoming about their secret sauce – is that they have been figuring out ways to offload more and more of the steering logic onto the drones themselves. There comes a point, I suppose, where the logic for collision avoidance and repositioning crosses over into what used to be called (back in the 1980s and 1990s) flocking algorithms. Perhaps this was a test of a flocking algorithm based system for boats.

In any event, this might not be an example of a lot of people doing a thing. This might be an example of a thing being done to a lot of people. I mean, it almost certainly is the latter in that the government of China's modus operandi is to "voluntell" its citizens, and one of the concerning things here is the apparent use of civilians for military maneuvers. I'm saying this might be a test of a system that doesn't rely on acquiescence to government authority.

casemod posting in

caseficexchange

We have great nominations in our tagset already! If you're interested in nominating, please review our nomination guidelines. There's an opportunity to transfer accepted tags from the 2025 tagset to the 2026 tagset.

I'm seeking clarifications on the following nominations. If I could hear back about these in the next 24 hours, that would be appreciated so we can keep our nomination approvals moving.

All Media Types + Related Fandoms
Can the nominator(s) please amend their nominations? We do not accept "All Media Types" and "Related Fandoms" without a case being made.

Star Wars - All Media Types

nomination guidelines

Midsomer Murders - All Media Types

Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types

Crossover Fandom

Crossover Fandom
Peter Parker (MCU) & Percy Jackson (Percy Jackson)

I wanted to flag with the nominator that this nomination is a bit too ambiguous, unless you're fine with receiving any version of these characters. If I accept this as is, I will not be enforcing any DNWs dictating which Peter Parker or Percy Jackson version you want.

If the nominator is after a specific version for Percy Jackson, please amend your disambiguation (i.e. "Percy Jackson (PJO Books)" for the book version). If you're happy to receive the book, TV show or movie version, please let me know and I will accept this as is.

And I apologise for being nitpicky, but as we've had three Peter Parkers in the MCU (Holland, Garfield and Maguire), please amend your nomination if you're after a specific version. "Peter Parker [Holland] (MCU)" is an acceptable way to format it.

Sorted!

Fandom renaming/fixing

Ocean's movies
Danny Ocean & Debbie Ocean (Ocean's)
Danny Ocean & Ocean's 8 (Ocean's)
Lou Miller/Debbie Ocean (Ocean's)

Google tells me Ocean's 8 and Ocean's 11 exist in the same universe, so I wanted to amend the fandom title. Is the nominator against the fandom being renamed to "Ocean's 11 Movie Universe"? Happy for alternate suggestions.

Sorted!

If the Emperor Had a Text-to-Speech Device (Web Series)

Supergirl (TV 2015)

nomination guidelines

Please let me know on any nominations post if you see any duplicates or errors in the tagset. Happy nominating!

wychwood

( 135. Voyage of the Damned - Frances White ) I have actually seen some positive comments about this book, and I'm still baffled by that fact.

( 136. The Cloud Roads - Martha Wells ) This was fun! I'm hoping to read the sequels.

( 137. Death in the Spires - KJ Charles ) Definitely not a romance - but I like mysteries more than I like capital-r Romances, so that worked for me.

( 138. Rivers of London - Ben Aaronovitch ) This is still a cracking series opener. What a banger.

( 139. That Stick - Charlotte Yonge ) A lesser Yonge, but still relatively entertaining.

( 140. The Wicked + The Divine vol 1 - Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie ) I didn't love this, but it started a number of interesting plot threads; I'll have to see where it goes.

( 141. Meddling and Murder - Ovidia Yu ) A decent conclusion (at least so far) to the series! I'm sure she could write sequels if she wanted, but this changes the status quo enough that it feels like a good place to stop.

( 142. Augustine the African - Catherine Conybeare ) This was fascinating; I lent it to our parish priest (who is sort of mentioned in it! as part of the group of Augustinian friars Conybeare meets when visiting Annaba (the city formerly known as Hippo) and he's already told me he's buying his own copy.

( 143. Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - Samin Nosrat ) I had high expectations for this book, so it's probably partly my own fault that I wasn't blown away; it did have some good stuff in it, but I spent a lot more time arguing with the author than I expected.

( 144. Princess Puck - Una Silberrad ) A delightful tale.

( 145. Death of a Dormouse - Reginald Hill ) A really fun character arc; I enjoyed this.

( 146. Murder on the Orient Express - Agatha Christie ) Just fabulous.

( 147. Mona Maclean, Medical Student - Graham Travers ) Not as medical as the title implies, but very charming.

( 148. Blue Machine - Helen Czerski ) An interestingly different perspective on the oceans compared to my usual more animal-focused natural history versions.

( 149. The Fox Wife - Yangsze Choo ) A satisfying read, and interesting as a historical as well as fantasy.

( 150. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation 3 - Mo Xiang Tong Xiu ) The story is moving right along now!

( 151. The Nine Tailors - Dorothy L Sayers ) Excellent reading of a good book.

( 152. Deeds of Wisdom - Elizabeth Moon ) These short-story collections are always enjoyable, even though they don't usually go much beyond that.

( 153. Alien Clay - Adrian Tchaikovsky ) A decent idea, reasonably well done, but Tchaikovsky just fundamentally doesn't do it for me.

( 154. Night Sky Mine - Melissa Scott ) I'm very glad I discovered this in my collection! Scott is always a good time.

( 155. The Curse of Chalion - Lois McMaster Bujold ) An absolute classic which I will re-read many more times yet, if I get the chance.

( 156. The Hero and the Crown and 157. Beauty - Robin McKinley ) THatC is still just such a weird book, and Beauty is so conventional! McKinley what are you even doing.

( 158. The Summer War - Naomi Novik ) Terribly short novella but it still manages to pack a lot in! Excellent siblings.

( 159. Still Life - Sarah Winman ) Endlessly charming even when it gets implausible; I really enjoy this book.

( 160. The Sisters Avramapul - Victoria Goddard ) Goddard is such a compulsive writer! I enjoyed these.

( 161. Heated Rivalry and 162. Tough Guy - Rachel Reid ) Decently-entertaining hockey romances.

staranise

What a week, up and down the whole time. I hope I don't have the flu because I'm supposed to be starting painting classes tomorrow.

I unfortunately have to ask for money again; here's the gofundme campaign.

rocky41_7 posting in

booknook

Mae's Top Reads of 2025!

I wanted to put together a little highlight reel of the year's reads, so here it is!

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson: This series is is all fantasy politics. There's no magic or fairies or prophecies, just Seth Dickinson's invented world and the titanic machinations of Empire. And it is electric...Baru herself is the epitome of ruthlessness. Her goals are noble—her desire to free her home, to end the tyranny of the Masquerade—but she will do anything to achieve those goals. She is a truly fascinating character, calculating, controlled, brilliant—and constantly tormented by the need to weigh her choices and the potential futures ahead.

The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin: Le Guin captures truly great sci-fi because this work is so imbued with curiosity. Le Guin is asking questions at the heart of any great sci-fi work: What defines humanity? What can we achieve, and how is it done, and what does that mean for society? What is society? What does it mean to be alone? What does it mean to be part of a whole? To me, sci-fi can't be truly sci-fi without a measure of philosophy, and The Dispossessed has this in droves.

Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield: Armfield's writing beautifully illustrates this journey, and she does a particularly good job of doling out information a little at a time, so that the reader often share's in Miri's confusion and muddled state of mind.

The Originalism Trap by Madiba K. Dennie: Dennie does a great job making this book accessible to everyone...She doesn't stop at "here's what's wrong" either--she has proposal and suggestions for how to counter the outsized influence of this once-disfavored theory and what we as citizens can do to push back against it.

Anti-Intellectualism in American Life by Richard Hofstadter: The book is obviously well-researched, and Hofstadter does a thorough job of documenting his sources and influences, as well as recommending additional reading on a broad range of topics touched on in his own book. So much of what he establishes here makes perfect sense when looking at modern American society. He so neatly threads the needle between where we started and where we are now that at some moments, it felt like the fog was lifting on something I should have seen ages ago.

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez: Jimenez's writing is beautiful and vivid—for good or for ill, as there are some gruesome events that take place—and really sweeps you up in the events of the story. He also does a wonderful job capturing the emotional mindsets of the characters. In particular, I thought the way he handled the relationship of the two main protagonists, Jun and Keema, was very realistic given who they are, and the emotional payoff of his taking the time to work through that was so worth it.

And for the haters among us, below the cut are my most disappointing reads of 2025.

( Booooo )

trobadora

fandomtrees reveals have happened! I received two excellent sets of cooking/food icons from

holyscream and

peasina and a Zhubai ficlet from

facethestrange. :D

Meanwhile, I'm still trying to finish things myself ...

Today's writing

I wrote a little this afternoon (new, much better beginning for one of the fics), then had a vertigo attack and had to take a break. (Seriously, what's wrong with this week?! I would like a refund!) Planning to write a little more later today, and tomorrow hopefully I'll actually finish something ...

WED Question of the Day

In honour of my icon:

Poll #34092

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 21

View Respondents

My first complete draft is usually ...

View Answers

very close to the final draft
6 (30.0%)

a bit sparse, but otherwise close to the final draft
4 (20.0%)

a bit wordy, but otherwise close to the final draft
5 (25.0%)

structurally messy, but otherwise close to the final draft
1 (5.0%)

messy overall, but with the important pieces in place
3 (15.0%)

so different it bears little resemblance to the final draft
0 (0.0%)

something else entirely (see comments)
1 (5.0%)

My first complete draft is sometimes ...

View Answers

very close to the final draft
12 (57.1%)

a bit sparse, but otherwise close to the final draft
8 (38.1%)

a bit wordy, but otherwise close to the final draft
5 (23.8%)

structurally messy, but otherwise close to the final draft
7 (33.3%)

messy overall, but with the important pieces in place
6 (28.6%)

so different it bears little resemblance to the final draft
2 (9.5%)

something else entirely (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Tickyboxes ...

View Answers

need no hindsight
7 (41.2%)

make it easy to change your mind fifty times
9 (52.9%)

know no such thing as overkill
12 (70.6%)

Tally

( Days 1-15 )

Day 16:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 17:

trobadora,

ysilme

Let me know if I missed anyone! And remember you can drop in or out at any time. :)

luzula

OMG. I have FINISHED my current longfic! About a third of this was written after November 2024, which is when my writing slowed down a lot because of, well, emotional competition from other things in my life. I am VERY proud nevertheless to have finished it, and honestly I can't tell the difference in quality between my writing before and after (my beta said the same). It just took a longer time. And speaking of beta reading, I am very grateful to

garonne, as always. <3

Far Frae the Bonny Hills and Dales (108912 words) by Luzula
Chapters: 22/22
Fandom: Flight of the Heron - D. K. Broster
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Ewen Cameron/Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron/Alison Grant
Characters: Keith Windham, Ewen Cameron, Alison Grant (Jacobite Trilogy), Lachlan MacMartin, Margaret Cameron, Lord Aveling (Jacobite Trilogy), Earl of Stowe (Jacobite Trilogy)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Character Death Fix, Grief/Mourning, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Penal Transportation, Slow Burn
Summary: Ewen is brought to trial in Carlisle and convicted, but sentenced to another fate than the scaffold.

writtenwordsaloud posting in

fandomcalendar

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

kaffy_r

Music Meme, Day 19

A song to drive to:

Years ago, Bob and I, and Drs. Bob and Gonzo (respectively the husband of Dr. Gonzo, and his wife, our 300-pound Samoan Attorney*) went on a legendary road trip from Chicago up through Toronto and east through Quebec, New Brunswick, and down to Nova Scotia to visit my mother, thence over to Maine and down to New York to visit Dr. Bob and Gonzo's families. After that, we headed west back to Chicago.

It was a hell of a ride, and we ruined Bob and Gonzo's poor little 4-goat-power Ford Escort. But oh, the memories! Gonzo and I being mistaken for Times Square working girls by a NYPD patrol officer while the two Bobs were behind us in a porn shop, perusing available material ... introducing the doctors to the Bay of Fundy in Halls Harbor and other small harbors, introducing them to my beloved mum and my amazing brother ... dealing with Gonzo's mother, who we learned to llove despite everything ....

And driving. Driving on the flat land between Chicago and Toronto, stopping at an open bar in Toronto for breakfast after driving all night. Dr. Gonzo discovering how much fun it was to drive 80 mph (she'd worried about that, until we were passed by an RCMP car going even faster). Dr. Bob discovering how much he loved driving up and down hills in Maine, shouting "Banzai!" as he did.

Going up and down small hills, then longer hills, higher hills. The hills everywhere on our trip were part of the fun.

My first big hill came accompanied by this song; heading down faster and faster, while the Boss told us about the girl he's in hopeless love with, while the bass and keyboards anchored the song that threatens to go off the rails with his longing, with the multi-part ending not letting go until absolutely necessary.

To this day, I remember the joy of going faster and faster to this song. It's probably lucky that I don't have easy access to it while driving these days.

Here's the original from his breakout album.

Watch on YouTube

Here are links to the previous days of this meme. Day 17, and Day 16 cover the waterfront.

* Ed Sunden gave our beloved bass playing lawyer the sobriquet Dr. Gonzo, naming her in honor of Hunter Thompson's sidekick from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, the amazing Oscar, Zeta Acosta, an attorney, writer and activist in his own right.

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: the home office
Current Music: Bruce Springsteen "She's the One"