There's a new official image for Korra out, and she looks amazing:


(source)

She clearly has a lot more training than Aang did - firebending with one hand while waterbending with the other! This is going to be so cool.

There's also a cast list out:

Janet Varney as KORRA
Kiernan Shipka as JINORA
Daniel Dae Kim as HIROSHI SATO
David Faustino as MAKO
Seychelle Gabriel as ASAMI
Lance Henriksen as LIEUTENANT
JK Simmons as TENZIN
(source)

They named a character Mako. ♥ (snf)

Oh, right, February is a sweeps month. That explains a lot. This week has been chock full of great guest stars, all of whom I've had a blast watching.

( Starting with White Collar )

( And then there was Top Chef )

( And finally, Fairly Legal )

Yuletide was a little dicey for me this year in terms of timing, but I wanted something positive to focus on, so stuck it out, and I'm glad I did.

I wound up writing Invisible Man, which led to a whole lot of ep-watching and nostalgia. Man, I love that show.

Paying the Rent (4361 words) by Arduinna
Fandom: Invisible Man (TV 2000)
Rating: General Audiences
Warning: Author Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Bobby Hobbes, Darien Fawkes
Summary:

The Agency has a new landlord, and it's time to pay the rent.

Many, many thanks to the many betas who read this over and cheered me on and prodded where I needed prodding, especially dorinda, who steered me in the right direction when I was flailing.

And as so often happens during Yuletide, I got a story in return! Actually, I got two, which I couldn't be more chuffed about.

My main story was for Crusoe, a wonderful show that got far, far too little fannish attention. (Here, have a vid. See how pretty and fun?) pwincess did something I would not have expected at all, and went for a five-things set of AUs, all centered around Friday and Crusoe and how they connect. <3

Death and Taxes (3426 words) by pwincess
Fandom: Crusoe
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary:

Five ways Crusoe and Friday could have fallen in love and one way they did

The Treat I got was for Night Court, for which there is also far too little fiction, although the lack of fandom makes more sense to me. But I adore Harry and Dan, and was delighted to get a lovely story about them making it over that final hurdle and admitting how they feel about each other. <3

Nothing in My Hat, Nothing Up My Sleeve (2024 words) by Cousin Shelley
Fandom: Night Court
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Dan Fielding/Harry Stone
Characters: Dan Fielding, Harry Stone

Also, man, how much do I love the AO3's automated features? Between the share function to make posts like this easier, and the download button so I can do all of my reading on my Kindle - wow, this is awesome. Yay, designers and coders! <3 <3

My family and I have been occupied with getting ready for my sister's funeral, which was this weekend. In the meantime, therienne did me the huge, huge favor of getting the word out about my sister's three cats, who needed homes. That post went viral in short order, spreading to places that have boggled me, and I'm grateful to everyone who read and signal-boosted her post.

I'm very happy to report that thanks to everyone's efforts to spread the word, two of those cats went to their new home today. mero picked them up this afternoon, and Molly and Katie are all set now. <3



Soon to be snoozing in front of a new window instead, but still together, yay!

We're still looking for a home for Romy (Romeo), the 10-year-old male cat.



He has allergies that require monthly shots and a modified diet, and those allergies have caused him to lick off most of the fur on his belly and hind legs. But he's as sweet as can be, friendly and well-socialized and loving, and beyond the allergies he's healthy and happy. He's very person-oriented, and all he wants is a person to love who'll love him back.

If you know anyone who might want him, please have them drop me a comment; I've got anonymous commenting turned on so they don't even need openID.



And seriously, thank you so, so much to everyone who's helped spread the word about this. My sister made arrangements for the cats this summer when she discovered that her treatment hadn't worked and she wouldn't have long to live, but a few days before she died we found out that those arrangements had unexpectedly fallen through, and we didn't have time to do anything about it at that point.

We couldn't have gotten Molly & Katie into their new home without the help of so many kind people, and my entire family is grateful.

You spend the day obsessively refreshing your mail for your assignment, then when it finally appears, you open the email with a hand over your eyes in abject terror of what it might be.

Happily, mine appears to be one of the fandoms I offered to write! Go figure. *g* Hopefully, my writer has made the same discovery and is not panicking at their assignment.

Also, for anyone who wanted a button to click to default rather than having to send an email, it looks like AO3 offers just that - in the "My Assignments" page, there's a section for "Manage [work]" that lets you click either "default" or "post to fulfill".

I have no idea what happens if you click default, and I'm not going to test it. *g* But it's there!

Now to start reviewing source...

\o/

There are a bunch of things I keep meaning to post about (Venture Bros, omg that second to last ep was so good! Burn Notice is back! [although I haven't watched this week's ep yet so please don't spoil me *g*] Fringe! [also haven't watched this week's ep, so please don't spoil that one either, sorry!] Yuletide signups are almost live! AO3 NOW ALLOWS VID EMBEDS OMG!!! - and, you know, has shinier code in general, and tons more Yuletide stuff, but omg VID EMBEDS! Permanent URLs even if your hosting changes! YAY!!)

But the thing that causes me to actually finish a draft for once is this:

( cut for image )

\o/ GO HEIDI! She looks fabulous, and as Tom and Lorenzo of Project Rungay put it:

"Ahem. As we recall, a certain Ms. Garcia threw down the gauntlet during the Project Runway Season 8 finale judging session with a derisive "I'd like to see you wear that dress, Klum."

Why, kittens. We do believe Miss Heidi Klum just gave Miss Nina Garcia the finger, figuratively (and fashionably) speaking."

HAH!

Now let's see if Nina actually wears Gretchen's godawful knit-granny-panties and hideous shiny green leather jacket combo.

There are more pics at the link - Heidi is totally showing that dress off, and looking very happy about it, too. Yay for Mondo!

(Icon totally aimed at Michael Kors and Nina Garcia, not Heidi. <3)

The short version of this post: I made an AO3 skin! And it is blue! \o/

( longer version cut for rambling and nested screencaps )

And to answer the question I know at least a few people will want to ask, this is how you increase the margins on story text so it's not sprawling across almost your entire browser:

#chapters { margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%; }

Those are the settings from the screencap, to give you an idea of what percentages you want to play with.

Yay for skins!

I found this on my Network - this is awesome. They're having so much fun, and are so good!

I didn't actually intend to make a follow-up post; I didn't think one would be necessary. But I think it is. I mention several people by name in this, because I can't see any other way to have a conversation about concrete things. I hope no one takes this personally; my intent is to look at a trend that caught me very much by surprise, and that I don't think anyone else has noticed, and that I think has real bearing on the current conversation.

So, after making my last post, I started catching up on other posts a little, and came across laurashapiro's announcement that she's going to be warning for common PTSD triggers and common triggers for migraine or epilepsy. She included a list of the vids she's showing at Vividcon this year in various shows, with warnings attached, so people can be prepared when they see them.

I generally skip warnings, because I don't want to know what's in vids before I see them. But I spent hours yesterday watching vids specifically with that trigger list in mind, and when I came across Laura's post I wanted to see if it matched my general experience with those vid discs.

It didn't, at all, and in fact was so different I sat there blinking, because her warnings also didn't match my memory of her vids. So I re-watched them.

I think she got these warnings very wrong in the context of the current discussion. In fact, I'm honestly boggled at how how much my interpretation differed from Laura's. So I went looking to see if it was just her I disagreed wtih.

It's not. My take is different in the vast majority of the cases I found.

Laura linked me to the list of vidder-provided warning posts being gathered by were_duck, so I went through every vid I could. Everyone on this list says they're using that same list of PTSD and physical triggers to provide their warnings.

I'm only going over individual vidders' warnings; I can't speak to how accurate the VJs who are providing warnings for their entire shows are. Also, I'm only including vids I could find online (one of the vidders on were_duck's list had no listed vids online that I could find, so that person isn't included here).

( avendya )

( chagrined )

( china_shop )

( damned_colonial )

( laurashapiro )

( mresundance )

( such_heights )

( thuviaptarth )

( my take on all of that, cut for length )

Maybe what's needed really is a second convention, run by people whose focus is on warnings-based risk-aversion, or at least risk-alleviation, to cater to a crowd that's uncomfortable in the Vividcon environment, with a specific infrastructure in place to help cope with the difficulty of accurately warning for triggers appropriately. I think there's enough passion and dedication being shown to make that possible; maybe some of those passionate folks could be the beginnings of a concom, working in concert to create the sort of con environment they envision, and from the look of the response the idea is getting, this would be a hugely popular con.

That would be fantastic, if you ask me - more vid cons, aimed at different vid audiences! \o/ Vividcon for fans who don't want warnings; the other con for fans who do. Any vidder submitting to either con would know what was expected, and could choose to submit to the con that best suited them (or to both, if they were fine with both methods of distribution).


(edited to cut for length, with apologies!) (eta2: to fix the cut to where it was actually supposed to be *facepalm*

I have signed up for H/C Bingo! (hc_bingo) We shall see how this goes. No rows are leaping out at me on first glance, except for a few "oh dear god, what was I thinking" sort of things. *g*

( card beneath the cut! )