a finished yarn!

Sep. 1st, 2025 12:46 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee






Finished yarn! This one's going to [personal profile] niqaeli. Spun on an Ashford Traveller, plied on an EEW 6.1.

Seasonsofdrabbles summer '25 reveals

Sep. 1st, 2025 10:37 am
brightknightie: Midna, in imp form, and Link grin at each other (Zelda)
[personal profile] brightknightie
[community profile] seasonsofdrabbles has revealed its creators (very short anon period for very short fics). I wrote these two:

"Even the Smallest Possibility"
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
(G, gen, 100 words; Link, Revali; Minish | Picori legend)

"Reasons to Visit the Library"
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
(G, gen, 100 words; Link, Zelda; King Rhoam's secret study)

The folks who wrote so nicely for me, as previously posted, are now known to be [archiveofourown.org profile] kay_obsessive ("Legacy") and [archiveofourown.org profile] samifer ("Refuge"). Many thanks to them! And also thanks to [personal profile] senmut for generously beta-reading for me.

brightknightie: Girl running into the wind with a kite in summer (Enthusiasms)
[personal profile] brightknightie

Here are some recent fannish things I've happened to see and would like to share!

Spotlight: I don't subscribe to Netflix, so I assumed I was going to miss out on K-Pop Demon Hunters. But then they released widely in cinemas for one weekend only and I happily got tipped off in time. I liked it even more than I thought I would! K-Pop isn't my genre, but thoughtful magical-girl adventures? Well, yeah. Imagine that the original Sailor Moon manga and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show had a daughter and appointed High School Musical her fairy godmother. K-Pop Demon Hunters is joyful, hopeful, and deeper than it looks. It's a packed 90 minutes, with nothing missing and nothing to spare. (And I really enjoy "What it Sounds Like.")

Ficathons, fests & communities

  • Create & engage
    • [community profile] trickortreatex, where every gift is a "trick" or a "treat," has nominations through 9/08, sign-ups through 9/18, due 10/24.
    • [community profile] yuletide_admin '25 is underway. Nominations through 9/26; sign-ups through 10/24; due 12/17.
    • [community profile] fandomgiftbasket, a gifting fest a la Fandom Stocking/Trees, has sign-ups through 9/05 and reveals 10/12.
    • [community profile] fandommixtapeex uses songs as exchange prompts. Nominations through 9/09, sign-ups through 9/21, due 11/16.
    • [community profile] fffx, the "Five Figure Fanwork Exchange" (10K+ words), has sign-ups through 9/07; due 1/24.
    • [community profile] aspecex is a fic exchange themed on asexuality/aromanticism. Nominations through 9/17; sign-ups through 9/20; due 10/07.
    • [community profile] no_true_pair's 8-Character Challenge somewhat resembles Into A Bar, but everyone gets matched with everyone via distinct prompts.
    • [community profile] 10itemsorless is for ships with >10 works on the AO3. Sign-up through 9/06; due 10/25.
    • [community profile] 1character is a challenge community in which you claim a character and a prompt set and write 50 one-sentence micro-fics.
    • [tumblr.com profile] fandomwithbenefits is a low-commitment, no deadlines, monthly challenge/interaction community.
    • [community profile] drabbleonficathon is a prompt-meme challenge. Prompts close 10/01; fills open now and indefinitely.
    • [community profile] dreamwars is a community for all Star Wars.
    • [community profile] vampiremedia is a community for all vampire media.
    • [community profile] seasonsofdrabbles has released its summer event and will de-anonymize the works today.
    • [community profile] pinchhits is a forum for pinch-hits in exchanges. For example, [community profile] wipbigbang is seeking pinch hitters.
    • [community profile] whenisitdue tracks many more events than I note here!
  • Enjoy & share

Sidelight: Those who enjoy the ongoing Aurora webcomic by Red of Overly Sarcastic Productions (online | hardcopy) might like to know that Red is currently selling a pack of 4 character pins (Kendall, Alinua, Erin, and Falst). Shop the OSP store. Red's custom pins are always limited time, limited stock (though occasionally some do come back for deals around US Thanksgiving time, I wouldn't depend on that). I plan to put Kendall and Alinua on my work backpack.


Suddenly, in Smallville...

Sep. 1st, 2025 09:12 am
runpunkrun: close-up of kryptonite necklace, text: K is for meteor rock (k is for meteor rock)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
My Smallville fics have been doing modest numbers over at AO3 for weeks now, due to, I can only assume, the new Superman movie. I've never had my old fics gain such sudden and sustained popularity because of a new installment to canon; in fact, this didn't happen with the previous Superman movies. Not that I was paying attention, but didn't Zach Snyder release like three of them? Or the same one three times? IDK you hear things.

Anyway, it's delightful that people are finding and enjoying my Smallville fics even if I have no idea how they're doing it. It's not like they're going to end up at the top of any filter sorted by engagement....or date.
umadoshi: (peaches (girlboheme))
[personal profile] umadoshi
I don't usually have too much trouble falling asleep these years (thanks mainly to a low dose of amitriptyline), although it's never as easy as it seems like it should be, going by frequent evening sleepiness. (No, I still have not sent feelers out about restarting attempts at trying CPAP. >.< I think I'm a bit resistant because as long as I don't try it, there's the hope that it'll help when I do, but what if I do and it doesn't? *sighs*) But last night involved lying awake for well over two hours because my brain would not stop. Ugh.

Firm reminder to self: that used to be the norm. And at least there's no Dayjob today.

We didn't go to the wee local market this weekend, because when we were out with a car on Friday we were able to stop by the stall for a produce place ("place") I love, even though this was only our second time there. It's produce from a variety of farms down in the Valley, and they usually have a lot of different things, but for us it's not super feasible to get to without driving, even though it's not that far.

We came home with a pint of blueberries and three quarts of peaches, encompassing four peach varieties! cut in case you DGAF about peaches )

Back when we lived in Toronto (over twenty years ago now--what even?), of course, we had access to Ontario peaches, which are a glory upon the earth. And because my exposure to popular music (or, y'know, an awful lot of music generally) was even worse then than it is now, a couple decades later, I didn't actually know the "millions of peaches" song other than the "millions of peaches, peaches for me; millions of peaches, peaches for free" bit. Like. At all. But I would go around singing that bit in sheer joy over peaches, and sometimes about other things that I loved. No context.

(The classic example of that last bit is the time or three I was singing about "millions of Quake-chans", because a] the original Quake is one of my lifetime favorite games {am I still ridiculously annoyed both that the name/"franchise" has had absolutely nothing to do with the original game beyond the fucking game engine AND how bad Quake II was? Yes} and b] I had mostly left behind my early-anime-fangirl habit of using fragments of Japanese, but was still blithely appending "-chan" now and then for fun.)

Anyway, the point of this ramble is that (if I'm remembering correctly at this distance) one time Em was visiting and I merrily sang out "millions of kittens" etc. (this was before [personal profile] scruloose and I were married, but we were already in it for the long haul, and at this point I had zero reason to think I would ever be able to have cats again because of their allergies), and when I finished the scrap of the song I knew and stopped, she quite reasonably belted out "KITTENS COME! IN A CAN!", which I had no way of predicting, and I probably didn't literally hit the floor in horror, but it came close.

Then she and [personal profile] scruloose had to explain WTF had just happened and talk me down a bit, I think. ^^;

A little post

Aug. 31st, 2025 10:37 pm
sakana17: zhu yilong looking to one side (zhu-yilong-side)
[personal profile] sakana17
Went to see Dongji Rescue last week. I thought it was good. )

The other day a video or ad crossed my path with George Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" as the background music, and the opening notes made me perk up before I was disappointed that it wasn't the recording of "Rhapsody in Blue" my parents had on vinyl, the one I grew up listening to. I went poking and found it (down to the same LP cover) on YT (00:00-13:48).

One farmboys pic )

Media signal boosts

Aug. 31st, 2025 02:05 pm
umadoshi: (Middleman - Lacey and Wendy (meganbmoore)
[personal profile] umadoshi
Two wildly different media signal boosts:

--The Murderbot & More Humble Bundle is available for almost two more weeks! (I already have all but one ebook in there, so I'm not pouncing personally, but it's a great collection!)

--Via a couple of people, Javier Grillo-Marxuach recently shared on Bluesky that The Middleman is now streaming on Archive.org. (This is probably my definitive answer to the classic "what canceled show would you revive if you could?" question, although at this point it's not really "revive" so much as "magically keep from being canceled in the first place so it could've just carried on". This show deserved so much more--or at the bare minimum, to have had its season 1 finale actually filmed, while in this timeline 12/13 episodes were filmed. Like. Come ON, studios.)

latest spinning WIP

Aug. 31st, 2025 10:57 am
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee


Two singles; will ply them tomorrow, I expect. Assuming no plying/finishing disasters, this will go to [personal profile] niqaeli. ♥
umadoshi: (walking in water)
[personal profile] umadoshi
Reading: [personal profile] scruloose and I finished listening to Rogue Protocol! Here's hoping future installments listened to via Hoopla don't have the weird audio glitches that this one did. I think we're probably going to go with chronological order rather than publication order, and if so, I think that gives us two more novellas before the novel. I suspect I'll lean toward not having an audiobook on the go during the fall crunch at Dayjob, but hopefully we can get at least one novella in before that starts up.

I finished These Burning Stars (Bethany Jacobs) and found it more engrossing than I'd expected at first, but I don't feel a need to rush out and read the second book. (Given how this book was constructed, my guess is that the second will be a fairly different experience? But I don't actually know that.) I also read Stephen Graham Jones' Mongrels, which I liked; there are some things I'm still a bit fuzzy on in terms of the backstory/worldbuilding, but it feels likely that that was a deliberate choice.

Current fiction: The Future of Another Timeline, which I think is my first Annalee Newitz book.

Non-fiction: I've been doing some more cookbook reading, and I'm still reading Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, and I've now also got Goblin Mode: How to Get Cozy, Embrace Imperfection, and Thrive in the Muck (McKayla Coyle) on the go. Given that my non-fiction intake is generally quite low, this is...well, a whole lot. I'm not getting the feeling that I'll actually take much away from Goblin Mode, but it's kinda fun, so I'm pressing on with it.

Meat-puppetry: I got my first A1C test since April, and got a 5.8 result. (After a 5.9 in April and a 5.8 in December.)

I don't know what was different about how the test was administered (it was even the same person who did my last one, I'm 99% sure), but that was a couple of days ago and my fingertip still hurts a bit (it's improving steadily, so I don't think anything is wrong-wrong) and was very faintly bruised. O_o Dunno what's up with that, but hopefully it increases the odds that next time I'll remember to ask them to use the side of a finger, not the pad. I need that!

Weathering: The province overall is still too dry. Our region got a very respectable rainfall early last week (? It's a bit of a blur), but the area with a major wildfire got almost nothing from that weather system. What we got was nowhere near enough to properly refill the water reservoirs, and Halifax Water reports that they've noticed very little change in water consumption since they started asked residents to voluntarily conserve water (I've seen multiple people mention seeing their neighbors out watering their fucking lawns), so it's possible mandatory restrictions will be rolled out. (Unless something's changed drastically overnight; I haven't checked Bluesky yet today, which is where I get nearly all of my local info.) People are allowed in the woods again in this area, though.

>.< Naturally, it appears that golf courses are officially exempt from the "STOP WATERING YOUR GRASS" requests.

Murderbot

Aug. 31st, 2025 12:02 pm
schneefink: River walking among trees, from "Safe" (Default)
[personal profile] schneefink
I'm a big fan of the Murderbot books, so I was looking forward to the show, especially after I started hearing that it was good. The plan was to watch it all at once with L, since season one isn't very long. It took a while to find the time, but it became more urgent when I had a meeting scheduled with a client who I talked about the books with last year and who'd asked me how I liked the series on our first phone call this year ^^
L and I started watching together, but L didn't like it very much so I watched the second half on my own. And after watching the show I reread all of the books, and then I read a lot of fic.

I enjoyed it! I didn't like the very first scene because that wasn't how I'd imagined it somehow (in hindsight, not sure why I had such an immediate averse reaction to that scene in particular); but that somehow helped me immediately separate show-verse from book-verse and then I could accept all the other changes more easily (well. most of them) and overall I had a good time.
I'm very glad I waited to watch until the first season was done, considering how short the episodes were, with very effective cliffhangers too.

TV show spoilers )

I really enjoyed rereading the books afterwards, too. Spoilers up to System Collapse )

The same client - my client, and that word sounds different even in that approximate context now ^^ - recommended I read Project Hail Mary next so that is next on the list - after a bunch more MB fic, most likely, because I'm enjoying those a lot.

Seasonsofdrabbles work reveals

Aug. 30th, 2025 07:14 pm
brightknightie: Midna, in imp form, and Link grin at each other (Zelda)
[personal profile] brightknightie
[community profile] seasonsofdrabbles released its summer game today (356 works in 199 fandoms). I received two The Legend of Zelda works, both thoughtful, exquisitely poignant, and very much to my taste:

The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
"Legacy"
100 words, G, gen; Hero's Shade | Hero of Time | Golden Wolf
The author offers a different, compelling source for the Hero's canonical regrets than fandom often assumes.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
"Refuge"
200 words, G, gen; Malon & Link
The author shows, from Malon's perspective, what her farm and friendship offered Link in his darkest hours.

Dear FIAB creator(s)

Aug. 31st, 2025 02:05 am
trobadora: (Trobadora)
[personal profile] trobadora
Dear [community profile] ficinabox creator(s),

thank you so much for creating a gift for me! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships or worldbuilding themes I requested. Here are all my request details and prompts, as well as general preferences/likes etc.!

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms, relationships, worldbuilding

In somewhat alphabetical order:

Jump directly to:
Christabel/Grimm crossover: Christabel/Geraldine in Grimm )

Grimm: Nick/Renard/Juliette, Worldbuilding )

镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Shen Wei & Ya Qing, Worldbuilding )

Grimm/Guardian crossovers: various combinations of Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing, Sean Renard, Juliette Silverton, Nick Burkhardt )

Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky )

Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty )

山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Worldbuilding )

fiber redux

Aug. 30th, 2025 06:04 pm
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee
Cloud is SO HAPPY with her new nesting material:



Y'all. I'd missed an earlier message (thanks, FaceBook!) but I managed not to pick out sheep fleece (breed unknown). Due to the holiday weekend, this wasn't an in-person transaction, although I hope to return in a bitand be able to talk to the farmer in person!

...I am sitting on a few pounds each of alpaca (definitely huacaya, not sure if one is suri) and angora goat fiber a.k.a. MOHAIR. Mind you, I would have been very happy to work with raw WOOL.

Well, I'll be picking through vegetable matter and sorting this VERY SLOWLY for the rest of 2025 lol. :) I do own hand carders but I think I save my pennies for a drum carder for the holidays...

a cautionary note

Aug. 30th, 2025 06:46 pm
twistedchick: watercolor painting of coffee cup on wood table (Default)
[personal profile] twistedchick
Some years back, I was asked to spin the shed fur from a very fluffy dog so the owner could knit a coat out of it. There was definitely enough -- but the bags of fur she left me had not been washed. I carded them into rolags (outdoors) and gave them back to her, and asked her to find someone else to do it.

But in the process of doing that, I looked online and discovered that it was illegal, in the state I was living in, to sell any object or garment made from fur that could be construed as pet fur.

Why? Because nobody wanted to start having to deal with trapping pets and killing them for their fur. Never mind that it was shed fur and combed off a still-living pet. It was still illegal. I don't remember what the penalties were.

There are already enough dognappers stealing pets from hunting-type breeds to sell as 'trained hunting dogs.' One of my cousins lost a dog that way for a month, until he turned up in a neighboring town after running all the way back from the Adirondacks to Rochester, well over 100 miles. I still don't know how he survived.

So, a suggestion: check the laws in your state about this, if you plan to card and spin and knit something that isn't for yourself from Bowser's or Fifi's fur.

Fandom things

Aug. 30th, 2025 02:40 pm
sholio: aged sepia paper with printed text saying "If undelivered, return to Air Ministry, London" (Biggles-london air ministry)
[personal profile] sholio
My fandom gift basket is up: find it here!

Meanwhile [community profile] caseficexchange revealed and I have received TWO STUNNING GIFTS in two different fandoms, both of which I genuinely could not love more; the authors nailed the feeling of the caseficcier parts of canon in each of these fandoms, and I have had SUCH a good time last night and this morning reading and commenting on them!

The Case of a Forced Landing (Biggles books, 6800 wds, light Biggles/EvS)
Perfectly captures the feeling of the short SAP stories, with Biggles and EvS on an enforced holiday on the countryside with mysterious happenings and rural ambiance. Delightful!

The House Always Wins (Babylon 5, 16K words, Garibaldi & various)
Early season one casefic with Garibaldi investigating a missing artifact that both Londo and G'Kar claim cultural ownership of. Pitch-perfect character voices and canon tone, feels like it could literally be an episode.

Well, that escalated

Aug. 30th, 2025 11:24 am
yhlee: Alto clef and whole note (middle C). (Default)
[personal profile] yhlee


Sheep and alpaca! Raw unprocessed fiber bought directly from a local-ish farmer. I reckon processing this will be my hobby project for the rest of the year.



Fiber animal wonders about her own fate. :) :) I have...10g of catten floof (which is very spinnable!).

ETA: Also, this may have happened /o\

Dear self (and partial to-do list)

Aug. 30th, 2025 09:41 am
china_shop: Guo Changcheng writing in his notebook (Guardian - rookie taking notes)
[personal profile] china_shop
Dear self,
You are not allowed to post any more discussion posts or similar until you've answered the majority of outstanding comments. (Great to see your corner of Dreamwidth being so active, though! Wheee! <3)
Love, me

Partial to-do list:
  1. [community profile] guardian_wishlist signup
  2. outstanding comments on the Guardian readalong, [community profile] fan_writers discussion and intro posts, and Guardian drama polls
  3. a fill for this round of [community profile] fan_flashworks
  4. behind-the-scenes FFW stuff & mod post draft
  5. write to MP and mayoral candidate; submit on All The Things
  6. finish my DNW-kink WIP ASAP
  7. finish my other WIP after that, and prepare for my annual Wishlist writing frenzy *fingers crossed, knock on wood*
  8. close a bunch of tabs, seriously
  9. rest my arms.

(no subject)

Aug. 29th, 2025 11:31 am
sholio: two men on horseback in the desert (Biggles-on a horse)
[personal profile] sholio
State of Whumptober:
7/31 (24 to go)
2 Biggles, 4 Murderbot, 1 Babylon 5

They're definitely not all whump or even h/c; some of them are just using the day's prompt for a general ficlet. Because it's my journal and I say so.

Turns out writing short h/c snippets for Babylon 5 is extraordinarily hard (at least with the characters I want to write about) due to
spoilers.the incredibly short window of everyone being happy and getting along before it all goes to hell. You pretty much either need 20K of fixit beforehand, or somehow fit all your little hurt/comfort tropes into like 4 months of canon. (Obviously this pertains primarily to Londo.)


I also did sign up for Out of Order Flash. (Nominations are still open if the thing you want isn't in there.) I currently have no matches; I don't suppose any Biggles people (or Murderbot! or B5!) are around to be ~tempted~.

In other news, it is definitely early fall. Leaves are turning gold and falling! The air smells like autumn! I love this time of year best of all times of year, and yet .... help.
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
[personal profile] marthawells
If you missed the live recording of the Murderbot interview episode at WorldCon, you can watch it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-JRHSABM24

This includes the special message to me that the show's cast sent, which was awesome.


***


I'm still sick, but getting better bit by bit.
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