dwfiction | Member Posts

( 26th – 30th )

Rushing towards the deadline ...

Today's writing

I have once again reached the "should I just scrap all of this and start over?" point. I tell myself to just keep writing for now; I can still start over and write a whole new story after the deadline. For now, I need to finish this draft so I can post it.

So I keep writing. For now.

Tally

( Days 1-25 )

Day 26:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 27:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 28:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

china_shop,

chanter1944,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 29:

badly_knitted,

chanter1944,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 30:

china_shop,

trobadora

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

shivver

My last post was about a comment on my latest story that sounded sarcastic, or at least insincere, and I postulated that it was written by AI.

Well, I was on the AO3 sub last night and people were talking about a new trend where someone leaves a comment on your fic and then when you engage with them by replying with a thank-you, they follow up with "I really want to do some art of your fic. Contact me on Discord so we can hash out the details." In other words, a new type of art spammer. People are especially outraged by this new thing, because they get the excitement of receiving positive feedback and then find out it was a lie, and that the commenter is just trying to manipulate them.

No idea if this is what this was, as I'm not going to reply to them, but I wouldn't be surprised, especially since they left the "omg this is wonderful" comment but weren't impressed enough to leave a kudo.

mekare

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

badly_knitted

Title: Spooky Sight
Fandom: FAKE
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Bikky.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 724
Setting: Vol. 2, Act 5.
Summary: How dare Ryo accuse Dee of making up stories to scare Bikky!
Written For: The prompt ‘any, any, a trick of the light’, at

threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.

( Spooky Sight... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

badly_knitted

Title: Her Friend
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Tosh, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 535
Spoilers: Nada.
Summary: Tosh hasn’t had a lot of friends in her life, but the one she has now makes up for that.
Written For:

raisedbymoogles’ prompt ‘any, any, friend-shaped,’ at

threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

( Her Friend... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

donutsweeper

Quick post because I wanted to get these recs posted while it's still Threshold day. In the past two weeks I finished two rugs (pictured below) and am about half of the way through a third. Rugs:

21.5"x14.75"ish rug made from sheets

23"x13"ish rug made from three t-shirts (one white, two tie-dye)

Assorted tumblr recs (Batman/DC, Doctor Who, Heated Rivalry, MDZS/Untamed, Merlin, The Mummy, and ST:Voyager)

Batman/DC comics:
- Red Hood (amazing digital art of Jason)

Doctor Who:
- Nine (love his expression, perfectly him)

Heated Rivalry
- ilya destroying that plate of spaghetti right before this sweet moment is so fucking funny (adorable comic version of the e6 spaghetti scene)

MDZS/The Untamed
- Personal time with their little radish/little bunny (adorable WWX & A-Yuan and then LWJ & A-Yuan)

Merlin
- I have absolutely no time to draw, but I have the silly little ones in the silly little costumes (adorable Merlin and Arthur doodle)
- Not your type? I'm everyone's type! (hilarious Methur comic)
- The power couple they would have been… (gorgeous)

The Mummy
- I am a librarian! (gorgeous)

Star Trek Voyager: (assortment of arts celebrating today which is the 30th anniversary of Threshold Day)
- you know how it goes (doodle of cute threshold baby wearing a party hat)
- Happy Threshold Day! Animal Crossing Threshold Baby design. (wearing a cute little starfleet outfit)
- Happy 30th Birthday to the Threshold babies! (neat take on a character card)
- This is a new blend. I’m calling it Paris Delight. It’s in honour of you. (Janeway and a threshold baby, drinking coffee - adorable)
- Janeway is off doing Captain things and Tom is left to babysit the kiddos :3 (adorable #1 dad 'photo')
- Good morning and happy birthday babies🥰🥰 this years threshold craft is embroidery! (love the embroidery, the lizard babies and the quote chosen)

Oh, and nearly forgot to mention, but I managed to rec something every week again last year, that means over 4.5 years of weekly recs! No idea how long I'll be able to continue that but still, quite the achievement!

kingstoken

Snowflake Challenge: A flatlay of a snowflake shaped shortbread cake, a mug with coffee, and a string of holiday lights on top of a rustic napkin.

Challenge #15

How Did the Fandom Snowflake Challenge Go?

I can't believe it's over already! I will say this year didn't go as well as past years, I didn't complete every challenge, but I did complete most of them. I think the ones I bounced off the most were the "talk about yourself" ones, I just wasn't in the right head space for them. I find those types of questions awkward anyways, I never know what to say. Like if you asked me to talk about my writing, or shows I like, etc, I can always find something to talk about, but stuff like "what do you like about yourself?" and my mind goes blank. I do like myself, I'm just not good about selling myself. I also, I made very few recs this year, in past years it felt like most of my posts were recs.

Anyways, I enjoyed myself and will probably be back again next year.

merryghoul

Humble Bumble has on their site a Big Finish Doctor Who audio bundle for sale for the next ~20 days. The full bundle costs US $493 but can be obtained in full if you donate a minimum of US $18. The audios available in this bundle:

The Sontarans (minimum US $1 donation)
The Auntie Matter (minimum US $1 donation)
The Black Hole (minimum US $10 donation)
The Third Doctor Adventures Vol. 1 (minimum US $10 donation)
Night of the Vashta Nerada (minimum US $10 donation)
Empire of the Racnoss (minimum US $10 donation)
The Carrionite Curse (minimum US $10 donation)
Day of the Vashta Nerada (minimum US $10 donation)
Ravagers (minimum US $18 donation)
Infernal Devices (minimum US $18 donation)
The Eleventh Doctor Chronicles Vol. 1 (minimum US $18 donation)
Ravenous 1 (minimum US $18 donation)
The Diary of River Song Series Three (minimum US $18 donation)
UNIT: Silenced (minimum US $18 donation)
Theater of War (minimum US $18 donation)
Expiry Dating (minimum US $18 donation)
The Elite (minimum US $18 donation)

All proceeds go to BBC Children in Need.

shewhostaples

two log cabins with snow on the roofs in a wintery forest the text snowflake challenge january 1 - 31 in white cursive text

Create a promo and/or rec list for someone new to a fandom

Well, I was enthusing about The Count of Monte Cristo the other day, so I shall expand on that a bit. (Also see 2019 post here.

It's a French novel (original title: Le Comte de Monte Cristo) by Alexandre Dumas (père), first published in serial form from 1844-46 and then as a complete novel in 1846. (There were two Alexandre Dumas, father and son. The father is most famous for The Three Musketeers and the son is most famous for The Lady of the Camellias.)

The first part of the book stars too-good-to-be-true sailor Edmond Dantès, who is framed for a crime of which he is, obviously, innocent, and imprisoned in an island prison just outside Marseille. There he encounters the Abbé Faria, who knows where to find some hidden treasure on another island, tiny Monte Cristo, if only he could get free... Well, he can't, but Edmond is younger and stronger and has a much better chance.

The rest of the book follows the consequences - for Edmond (who has restyled himself as Count of Monte Cristo), and for the three men who stitched him up, and for their nearest and dearest. (Edmond has been in prison for a while, and they've all done rather well for themselves - implausibly so, in some cases.) They take a while to work themselves out, but they're very satisfying even as they're somewhat horrifying. It's revenge with an unlimited budget, and then having to come to terms with what that does to a person. (If absolute power corrupts absolutely, then unlimited revenge... erm. Anyway.)

I love the melodrama. I love the Gothic vibe. I love the canon lesbians (Eugénie, the daughter of one of the three villains and an impoverished friend who sings opera with her) who get a happy ending under their own author's nose. I love the background detail, Parisian society, the faint odour of decadence.

Warnings: the dodgy opinions you'd expect for 1846. Alexandre Dumas was in fact Black, but this doesn't stop him going unfortunately Orientalist in places.

Also note that it's very long - about 1200 pages in my edition. This is a plus for me: I read it in difficult times and by the time I get to the end something will have changed somewhere. It's worth being careful about the translation, as some of the older ones are also bowdlerisations and lose vital Eugénie bits. Which is a travesty.

trobadora

Turns out I do have a cold! But my next exchange deadline is on Saturday.

Today's writing

Writing! Wrangling! All of that. I'll get there ...

Tally

( Days 1-25 )

Day 26:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 27:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

shadaras,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 28:

badly_knitted,

brithistorian,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

goddess47,

luzula,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 29:

trobadora

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

mekare

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

shivver

So that story I just posted yesterday. It was okay, right? I mean, nothing amazing, nothing groundbreaking, not even anything moving. Just a couple thousand words connecting the real-life colorful belt from the Byzantine era to the Doctor's scarf.

Well, I got this comment on it:

( Read more... )

And I have to ask, to anyone who cares to voice an opinion: Is this sarcasm? Are they saying it really was rubbish without making it look like a bash?

Because it's so excessive -- especially for such an average, vanilla story -- that I can't take it at face value. I mean, really, who gets emotional about a description of a city being loud and colorful? Not to mention, I didn't even describe the city at all. I just had Victoria say it was noisy and the Doctor point at the church.

And they want "the next update immediately"? This is so obviously a one-shot. Sorry about your hands and knees.

I feel like the person fed ChatGPT my story and asked it to write the most over-the-top emotional comment it could come up with.

I'm torn between answering nicely and deleting it entirely, but I'm starting to lean towards the delete.

erinptah

At long last, after a year’s worth of internal discussion and a few more months of preparing for the rollout, AMTs are back on the menu.

Two of my requests have already been approved! His Dark Materials & Related Fandoms and 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ | Puella Magi Madoka Magica & Related Fandoms are the metatags on a couple of shiny new tag trees!

Official AO3 announcement post is here. The number of “I’m so happy to see this, it’ll make my fandom browsing so much easier” comments are a joy to see. (The comments about “well, geez, took you long enough” are…valid, honestly.)

A lot of specific tag trees are still works-in-progress, especially if it’s a big complicated franchise. So don’t worry too much if a fandom you love doesn’t have one yet — the wranglers might still be working on it. Honestly, I’m still working on investigating all the Madoka Magica fandom syns, which is why most of the spinoffs still don’t have their own separate fandom tags. We’ll get there, I promise.

Fun little twist that’s only a problem for me: this means “more fandoms” listed on my wrangling page. The amount of work is objectively exactly the same! It’s the same amount of fic, just spread across slightly more fandom tags! But the recently-added limit is on the number of fandoms, not the amount of fanworks those fandoms get.

Current number of fandoms on my list: 1142.

Current number that have any tag-wrangling to do: 28. (Not the same 28 as the last time I posted. There’s some overlap — a fandom like Sailor Moon has new tags every week — but the others rotate, especially the “just got new tags from its first fic posted in 2 years” type of fandoms.)

badly_knitted

Title: Just A Bruise
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Varian, Fred, Jonathan Willaway, Scott.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the series.
Summary: Varian gets on the wrong end of someone else’s fist. Again.
Written For: Challenge 495: Amnesty 82 at

fan_flashworks, using Challenge 55: Bruise.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Quadruple drabble.

( Just A Bruise... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

badly_knitted

Title: Without Jack
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Ianto, Jack, Team.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 764
Spoilers: Just after End of Days.
Summary: Jack has left them, and Ianto isn’t sure he can carry on without the support of the man who has held him together since Lisa’s death.
Written For:

ravenlilyrose’s prompt ‘any, any, I try to carry on, to be strong / How can I when you carried me all along?’ at

threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.

( Without Jack... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

ljgeoff

A sudden stratospheric warming has caused the polar vortex to collapse, sending a mass of cold air over the mid-latitudes.

Just like this time last year, 2026 is today lowest extent in the 47-8 year satellite record with volume also around record lows and temperatures remaining high. If it chases 2025's trajectory toward another record low maximum I guess that might indicate a possible structural shift in the freezing season in that winter 'recovery' may be weakening for the long term with a potential new baseline for the winter freeze? I guess we'll know the decadal trend for certain in another 0.5–1 decades.

Zeug Gezeugt, (pseudonym), Arctic Ice Forum

erinptah

Continued liveblog as I read Seven Seas’ new print edition of PSOH, and make sporadic comparisons to the original Tokyopop translation.

I’m posting the individual reactions on Mastodon and Bluesky, then rounding them up in the blog. Previous roundups in my PSOH fandom tag. You can pick up the books with my affiliate links here. (I now have Collector’s Edition 1-4 on my shelf!)

Only 2 chapters this post. I got a little long-winded. It’ll probably happen again.

Cover art of D with a dragon-embroidered cheongsam and white flowers

( D invites Leon back to the shop for tea, then has a little internal monologue of his own, while looking sadly at the moon )

unfeathered

This evening I finally got round to watching the live action version of Disney's Aladdin, which I rather enjoyed despite the somewhat lacklustre performances. Will Smith as the Genie was as engaging as always but I wasn't impressed by his singing, and Mena Massoud as Aladdin was sweet but didn't blow me away, but I found myself captivated by Naomi Scott as Princess Jasmine. I don't think I've ever seen her in anything but I thought she was lovely, and all the way through she kept reminding me of SMG as Buffy. That wide-eyed, shocked, almost-about-to-start-crying look. She was really, really lovely.

So afterwards I decided to watch OMWF, for the first time in forever. I've barely watched any Buffy or Angel in the last decade or so, except a couple of episodes when I was role-playing Giles. I found myself feeling too grown up (finally!) for the rather childish behaviour of all the characters, and hesitated over whether to watch OMWF again in case I'd finally fallen out of love with what used to be my absolute favourite episode of any television ever.

It still is. Still as perfect as ever. One hell of a piece of storytelling, with gorgeous music that carries the story along brilliantly, incredible performances from the whole cast and inspired direction and camera angles, and just something that it way, way more than the sum of its parts.

P.S. I posted about some of the things I love about OMWF here in 2018 (which may well have been the last time I watched it)

P.P.S. Yes, I know this icon isn't from OMWF. Turns out I don't actually have one that is.

trobadora

Many thanks to sakana17 for offering to host WED in February! We'll continue next month over at sakanawords. :D

This morning I had the plumber in to have my my gas boiler serviced and the flue replaced. "Oh no, you don't need to remove the stuff under it, it'll be fine," they said. - Never mind the stuff directly under the boiler, the entire room ended up covered in dirt.