dragonlady7 | Reading

After a couple of years of really struggling with mood and creativity, between burnout and family issues and god knows what (and I know I've been hard to deal with in fandom, at times), things are suddenly ... good! I can write again, I'm signing up for exchanges, whatever has been blocking me has gotten a whole lot better.

July is my birthday month, therefore Best Month, obviously, and I would really like to try to do some kind of "post a short fic every day" thing if I can make it work. Unfortunately I'm suffering a dearth of appropriate challenges, because of course now that I want one and have the mental bandwidth to do something with one, daily month-long prompt challenges and/or bingo card challenges for July are nowhere in sight. The closest thing is July Break Bingo, but I've asked for cards for this before, and I just ... never really do anything with them; I appreciate that it exists, but I think I need more of a - I don't know, social element to it, I guess? Less open-ended, more directed? Their cards just don't really click with me somehow. And I can't find a Tumblr prompt/whump/whatever themed promptfest thing for July.

So I'm kicking around a few different ideas. Why not throw it out to a completely nonbinding poll?

Poll #33243

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 6

View Respondents

What should I do for July?

View Answers

A custom bingo card/prompt list created (by me) from all my favorite tropes
4 (66.7%)

A personal challenge to finish older inbox prompts/unwritten prompts from past fests
2 (33.3%)

Find a prompt list from a previous (non-July) fest that I didn't do at the time, and use that
2 (33.3%)

Ask my flist for new prompts until I get 31 of them for fresh inspiration
3 (50.0%)

Run a comment fest over at the Biggles comm
3 (50.0%)

Something else that I will suggest in comments
0 (0.0%)

esteefee

I only own 3 pairs of shoes: my slippers, my daily sneaks, and my dress shoes. it's time for some new sneaks!

but don't come at me with shoes that curl upward at the toes unless they're a) cowboy boots; or b) khussas. and while we're at it, when are they going to bring back those sneakers with the big ass toe box? those were so comfy and fun.

shoes, people! so important.

dine

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siria

( Crooked House )

( Martin Eden )

petra

Make an ass out of u and me (1431 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Depa Billaba/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Shaak Ti/Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura & Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, Shaak Ti, Depa Billaba
Additional Tags: A+ Jedi Pedagogy, Polyamory, POV Outsider
Summary:

Anakin has the most boringly perfect master in the entire Jedi Order. Some masters go on interesting missions; Obi-Wan does diplomatic missions where he sits at a table and says, "Hm, well…" a lot till he gets his way. Some masters have showy, dangerous lightsaber styles; Obi-Wan does Soresu, which is as purely defensive as anything anyone has ever devised. Some masters are fully-rounded people who drink and laugh and dance; Obi-Wan stays in with his three best friends and talks about philosophy all night, because he is a perfect Jedi, and so are they.

Current Mood: Alive, Dead, & Bloody Furious
Current Music: And your friends are my friends

mrkinch

It was overcast and surprisingly windy for a morning, and I didn't start my list tile 9:45. I was only out about two hours, walking out Loop Road an a shorter way up Laurel Canyon than usual, but just about everyone I expected was there. I got a great view of a gorgeous male Purple Finch; I usually only hear them. I feared Northern House Wren was going to be a no show, but I heard them on the way back. The Lesser Goldfinches were eating thistle seed, I heard all the woodpeckers, even a Downy, and the big flycatchers were calling. Walking up Laurel Canyon Road I found another Red-breasted Nuthatch nest hole. I heard the chatter and found a bird on a snag, watched it go in and out of a hole with a perfect overhang, and eventually drop a fecal sac.:) Nesting is definitely ongoing. ( The list: )

I also heard a Western Tanager in about the same place we had them last week. He didn't call very long but those loud, short, burry phrases are distinctive, not to say electrifying. Wish I could have recorded since in June they are considered unusual, it but it was too far away.

musesfool

ZOMG what a day!!!

I was in a training this morning when around 10:30 am, my internet went out and didn't come back in 30 seconds the way it usually does. And my cable was out also. But Spectrum said there was no outage in my area, so it was a me problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

And so I was in the middle of texting with a Spectrum chatbot (or maybe it was a real person?) when the cleaning ladies showed up but the bell wasn't working and then they called me and I didn't respond because I was in the middle of chatting with Spectrum (doing all the things I had already done, i.e., unplugging and re-plugging in the modem and router) with no success, but luckily I realized who was calling so I went and opened the door and they began their work and I went back to chatting with Spectrum.

The CSR/bot told me they would schedule the next open appointment and I was like sure, while thinking, "am I going to have to into the office for my meetings tomorrow? I need to be here when the tech comes but it probably won't be until Friday or Monday?" and then they texted me the appointment and it was for TODAY at NOON so of course I was like, YES, I WILL. TAKE IT. And then he showed up at 11:55 am!!! And told me there was a major outage in my area, so it was unlikely that he could do anything, but I was getting texts saying that the outage should be fixed by 1 pm. No, we mean 1:30 pm. No, we mean 2 pm. (It came back for me around 1 pm.) And finally at 4:05 pm a text saying the outage was over.

Meanwhile, yesterday, we were supposed to be sending materials out for a meeting tomorrow, but I hadn't received them by 5 pm yesterday, and I hadn't received them by 9 am this morning, and while I was in training and then offline, my boss was poking the CFO who was like, "we don't have them, should we cancel?" so my boss was texting me like, "We should cancel!!!" and I was like, that's fine but we can't reschedule for next week since the board members are not available, and then the board meeting is the week after, so we would need to get approval by unanimous written consent. But then the CFO is like, "I'm calling you!" and I'm like, "I have no internet, I can't get into any files, please don't!" But she was already calling, so I spoke with her and she was like, "We got the documents! I'm reviewing them! I will let you know when it's ok to send!" and I was like ok.

A little while after that, my service had returned and I discovered another committee member had sent out an invite to a meeting on Friday with incorrect information while trying to accept the correct invite for Friday's meeting? I don't even know, but it didn't replace the correct invite on anyone's calendars, so I just declined it. Then she emailed saying she was now getting all these RSVPs and I was like, "can you cancel it? It shouldn't affect the correct invitation, which I will then forward to you." So she cancelled it, but it looked to other people like the meeting was cancelled, even though the correct invitation remained on their calendars. So I had to send a teams message internally and an email externally to explain to everyone that the meeting was not cancelled, it was just a technological glitch of some sort. Idek.

I ate breakfast after the cable guy left, so I didn't eat lunch, and at around 3:30 I was like, "the CFO still hasn't given me the go-ahead to send this out - they are going to complain about getting a complicated set of documents less than 24 hours ahead of the meeting!" to my boss and then the email telling me the materials were good to go dropped into my inbox, so I was able to send them out.

Then while I was trying to catch up on email, a nasty looking bee (hornet? wasp?) started hovering around my window, and as you may recall, I had problems with them somehow getting into my apartment last summer, so I immediately slammed down the window and put the AC on, even though it was comfortable enough with the fan with the window open. I appreciate bees, but not in my living room! Especially not ones that look mean.

And then I read that Brian Wilson died. And Sly Stone died earlier this week. And I thought that was sad. #legends only #RIP

*

Current Mood: exhausted
Current Music: Mets vs Nats on tv

elf

I have been reading the TTRPG space on bluesky.

1) Everything is commercial. Soooo much "buy my thing." You might think there'd be a mix of "buy my thing" and "hey come watch/listen to our playthroughs" but no. It's all "buy my thing."

2) It's really, really hard to avoid D&D and Pathfinder.

3) I had managed to forget how wank in TTRPG spaces goes down. It's never just "D&D has taken over the hobby and that sucks." It has to include "people who play D&D are stupid/cowards/wimps/conformist shills." Possibly with a side of, "if people were paying attention to what's good, they would buy my thing..."

(I do not like D&D. I do not play D&D. I have thought many negative things about D&D, and about D&D evangelists. I have never thought the only reason people play D&D was because they were too stupid to look at other game systems. I am damn well aware there is a ton of inertia involved, plus the hassle of convincing your entire gaming group to try something different.)

4) We don't have any shared vocabulary and this is a problem. Or rather: We have some words - crunchy, rules-lite, narrative game, OSR, "role-play vs roll-play," meta-gaming, RAW, probably a few more - but we have zero agreement on what they actually mean, on which games or play styles fall under which term.

5) Unlike the fanfic communities, there has been no serious meta looking into what's changed when a former on-paper hobby went digital. There are blog posts and such, but they're scattered as hell. And 2/3 of the discussion is weird hand-wringing about what people will or won't buy, not about how the hobby itself changes when the rules are on a screen rather than paper.

+1) If there are discussion groups about TTRPGs-as-a-fandom, I can't find them. Dammit.

+2) Don't get me started on the gleeblor.

lydamorehouse

Yesterday, we decided to do our usual attempt to see moose at Moose Viewing Trail. We are past moose season, really. I mean, moose are out here in the woods. It’s possible to see one. But, tourists, like ourselves, are more likely to see moose during calving, which is earlier in the year--in May.

Moose are sometimes more active in the early morning hours, so to sweeten the “how about we get up at the crack of dawn?” deal for our late risers in the house (namely Mason), we decided that once we have attempted to moose view, we would hit the new nearby coffee shop called Loon’s Rest.

We did not see any moose at Moose Viewing as expected.

The Moose Viewing view

Image: Moose Viewing view (Note: No Moose.)

The other funky thing about Moose Viewing trail is the fact that as you turn in to the official Moose Viewing platform, there is a myserious abandoned car. There are a lot of questions about this car. How did it get here? When did it get here? How did the boulder get on top of it?

Image: car in woods?

We ran into a couple of well-equipped hikers from Oklahoma who were perhaps a little too eager for moose. We gave our best advice, which was hang out as long as you can and be quiet—and, you know? Maybe they got lucky. I hope they did.

The Loon’s Nest was entirely full of old, white men (but one can sort of say that generally about the Gunflint Trail.) The espresso was perfectly adequate as were the croissant, egg, and sausage patties.

I did not attempt a big walk yesterday, since I wanted to save my strength for canoeing. Mason and I had yet to get out in the lake. When we did, it was the first time in a long time that Mason was in charge of steering. It took us a little time to figure out our rhythm, but once we got going we were amazing. We canoed out past the point to a part of Bearskin that Shawn and I call “capsize cove” thanks to a certain incident several years ago. There is a lovely beaver dam out in the cove. We fought the wind coming back, but it was actually fairly energizing.

An absolutely lovely day all told.

And, now…. More wildflowers for identification!

A purple wildflower of some kind!

false lily of the valley

False lily-of-the-valley?

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: calm

just_ann_now

Partly sunny and warm; not quite summer weather yet but working up to it!

What I Just Finished Reading

Adrift in Currents Clean and Clear, by Seanan McGuire. I'm not a fan of McGuire's writing (though I enjoyed reading her LJ, back in the day) but when I saw the cover of this I knew I could save it for a "Chosen for Its Cover" prompt, and I did! This was for Read Broader.

Written on the Dark, by Guy Gavriel Kay. Character-driven, lovely prose, loosely based on historical events of which I knew little, a very enjoyable weekend read. For A to Z Authors.

Cold, by Drew Hayden Taylor. I know that Stephen Graham Jones is pretty much the king of Indigenous Horror right now, but I've noped right of his books, so for this subgenre it's Taylor for me. Well told story, great characters. For A to Z Authors.

Making Amends by Nisi Shawl. This is another one of these novels composed of related short stories, difficult to do well. An introduction explaining how it all ties together didn't really help me. For Read Broader - Woman Author.

Hijab Butch Blues, by Lamya H. Ok, this is where Read Broader really shines - I do read pretty broadly, but let's be honest, there's little reason for a 71-year-old white cishet woman to pick up this book. But I did, and I'm so glad. Lamya H wrote so movingly about her faith and how it relates to her daily life, fear of coming out in an unsupportive culture, the search for meaningful relationships. Definitely one of the best books I've read this year. For Read Broader - LGBTQIA+ Author. (And now I'm fearful for Lamya H's safety; I haven't found anything recent about her, but it's added to my list of things to worry about.)

What I Am Currently Reading

Everything I read last week was pretty weighty, so I'm taking a break with a cozy mystery, The Retired Assassin's Guide to Country Gardening, by Naomi Cuttner. It's like Murderbot (or Owlet's Bucky) retiring to a small town and meeting up with the Thursday Murder Club. I wasn't going to apply it to any challenge, but I just discovered that it can go in A to Z Titles, so there it is. Much fun!

What I Am Reading Next

Yet another Adrian Tchaikovsky coming out tomorrow! Bee Speaker. (I keep hoping against hope he'll write the origin of the Bug People, some of my favorite books of all time. I guess the yoga is helping my
flexibility in keeping every crossed *grin*

Question of the Day: What's blooming? Many things, but my favorite right now is larkspur, from a packet of mixed wildflower seed. It seeds itself, comes in multiple colors, and is just so joyful out there:

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: worried

sabotabby

Just finished: Dakwäkãda Warriors by Cole Pauls, I don't have tons to say about this comic—it'll take you maybe an hour to read if that, and it's really cute and fun, and then you read the context around it and it's quite moving and beautiful as well. It's basically a language revitalization project wrapped up in a pew-pew-pew space opera story. It's cool that this exists and I want there to be more of it.

Withered by A.G.A. Wilmot. Listen, cozy horror and other cozy authors! I will make you a deal. You get one (1) scene where the asexual protagonist comes out to their appropriately diverse love interest and they talk about their sexuality and consent in a mature, healthy way, infused with Tumblr therapyspeak, and agree to just hold hands or whatever. In exchange, I want y'all to try excise or subvert toxic tropes like having your main human antagonist being a woman who is haunted by a ghost no one else can see and locked up in a mental institution for 25 years, who has no agency at all, and who at the end realizes the error of her ways and is...cut loose to just be homeless and wander forever, I guess????

Like, aesthetically, I hate cozy. I fucking hate it. I try really hard to not judge the taste of people who like it, because intellectually I get the appeal and there's nothing wrong with liking what you like, but it's very much not for me. And when I have to read and rate a cozy book, I try to keep the ideal reader in mind, not me, a grim and cynical person who likes messy characters and tension in my storytelling. I think there are some cozy, or cozy-adjacent books that are done well (Regency and Regency+magic does low-stakes, mostly good characters in ways that I enjoy, for example) and I don't want to judge the entire subgenre either.

But I do think that there's a tendency for specifically cozy fiction to use didactic storytelling (casts include one of everyone and/or a lot of twofer characters, but these identities tend to be very shallowly written except for where they reflect the author's, conflicts are easily resolved by talking things out, good behaviour is rewarded and bad behaviour is punished or reformed, discussions about emotion or sexuality are always direct and never in conflict). So if you are going to write a book that includes, for example, instructions for the reader on how to navigate a relationship with an ace person, or how to approach therapy for a mental illness, I'm going to also need you to examine your work for unintentional messaging in a way that I wouldn't necessarily do if you're writing, say, Gothic horror where the protagonist can't decide whether she wants the vampire to eat her or fuck her.

Which is to say that in a world where we get to see multiple Zoom therapy sessions, I do not buy that a mental institution merely drugs a character and does not attempt to help her heal at all. I think that sets up a dichotomy between Good Mental Illness (you know, the kind that makes you pretty and kinda tragic) and Bad Mental Illness (where you get your mess all over other people/try to burn down the family house) that is not good or wholesome at all.

Also, the climactic battle at the end was a huge WTF.

If you, like me, would like to join in on Cozy Horror Discourse multiple years after it was live, here are some links I appreciated:

The Material Basis of Cozy Horror by Moreau Vazh
In Praise of Discomfort by Simon O'Neill

Currently reading: Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This one starts with a robot valet murdering his master and not knowing why he did it, so, promising beginning. Humanity increasingly relies on robots to do everything, and as a result, is dying out. Charles, the valet in question, doesn't know what to do without explicit orders, and so he reports to Diagnostics, only to find that robot repairs are backed up due to funding cuts that have eliminated the entire human staff. Also he may have developed a Protagonist Virus that gives him agency and self-awareness, which he very much doesn't want.

The voice in this is great—the first two chapters are basically the robots navigating their way through the murder without being able to deviate from their programming, and it's bitingly satirical and very funny. I'm rather enjoying this.

conuly

As always, Evil!Janeway is hot, though less so than the Living Witness version. It's the eyes - our main characters all have huge eyes, so the somewhat more realistically animated adult human characters look slightly uncanny valley, even though their eyes ought to make sense.

Also, damn, Chakotay has got some arms! Is this true IRL? I don't remember ever seeing the live actor ever without sleeves....

Also also, I honestly love every time Gwen gets a moment of happiness, no matter how small. She really has had a miserable life. Every second chasing replicated pie over the ship, or squirting whipped cream into her mouth, or, one hopes, finally spending some time playing goofy holodeck games, is a second worth living. And so, I will say, I appreciate that the animators took the time to let her smirk a little when Evil!Chakotay proposed starting his torture session with "the cute one", aka Murf the Indestructible. You gotta find those moments of joy when you can, sweetie!

(Question: Are mirror tribbles... nice? What about their new team pet, Bribble? Would Bribble have a goatee and be evil in the mirror verse? How sapient is that thing, anyway?)

********************

( Read more... )

sholio

whumpex revealed tonight! (And H/C-ex is supposed to in a few days, if it's not delayed. All the hurtcomfort all the time.)

I got:

Staying Power (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 4200 wds)

I asked for (among other things) Londo reacting to something bad happening to Vir, or Vir taking a hit for him, and my Mysterious Gifter took me up on it most delightfully!

As usual, there is a fic or two of mine running around loose in the collection as well.

conuly

I don't want this getting lost in the links: A Journey Through the Dystopiaverse (some of those poems hit hard)

In personal news, how many nos is one expected to get before they get a yes?

********************

( I managed to find some non-doom-and-gloom links to shove in here as well )

dine

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conuly

Watch on YouTube

frith

Day 2 it was pony moving and walking, Day 4 it was pony trotting and walking and now for Day 5 it's sprinting and running for their lives. The record is skipping, skipping, skipping. 9_9 But... Running for their lives? That's Iron Maiden, 1982! Run to the hills, run for your lives. This appeals to my inner rage at genocide and my annoyance at getting asked for the same thing three times out of five. So there you are, album art from Iron Maiden, Run To The Hills. Run for your lives!

lannamichaels

Title: And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him.
Author:

lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Pairing: Ges Vorrutyer/Aral Vorkosigan, Ges Vorrutyer/Serg Vorbarra
Rating: R
A/N: The title is from New Rules, sung by Dua Lipa, written by Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren, and Ian Kirkpatrick.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Ges Vorrutyer has ex-boyfriend problems.

( This has languished in Scrivener since 2019... )

Profile

dragonlady7

January 2024

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Page Summary

sholio - Contemplating July activities
esteefee - shoes!
dine - the failure mode of 'clever' is 'asshole'
siria - 2514 / Crooked House; Martin Eden
petra - Make an ass out of u and me - Star Wars story on the theme of "Obi-Wan: Virgin and/or Whore"
mrkinch - 6/11/2025 Loop Road and Laurel Canyon
musesfool - he's in the middle of taking off right now
elf - Five Things Make a Post, TTRPG edition
lydamorehouse - Just Another Day in Paradise (Tuesday)
minoanmiss - Kitties
just_ann_now - What Am I Reading Wednesday, June 11, 2025
princessofgeeks - signal boost
sabotabby - Reading Wednesday
conuly - Oooh! Prodigy has a Mirror Universe episode!
sholio - Whumpex reveals!
conuly - Why do things always go from bad to worse? Why can't they go from bad to somewhat less bad?
dine - our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter
conuly - (no subject)
frith - NATG XV prompt set 5, Run To The Hills
lannamichaels - "And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him." (Vorkosigan Saga) R

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