Title: More Than This Author: verushka70 Fandom (Pairing): Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski Rating: Explicit Word Count: 654 Summary: Fraser can't stop himself, tonight. The more of Ray he gets, the more he wants. Content/Warnings: Alternate Universe - Vampires, Blood Drinking Beta: Unbeta-ed.
Image: A cat/phoniex atop a UFO overlooking an apocalyptic scene where everything is on fire, including a random robot in the distance.
I really love this art, btw, I hope they have t-shirts. b So, yeah, you doing anything this weekend? naomikritzer and I are going to be guests of honor at what may very well be the very last Diversicon, ever. If you're not doing anything and have an extra $55 in your pocket, why don't you consider stopping by? We'd love to see you. There is a programming list online: https://diversicon32.mnstf.org/schedule.html
I picked a hotel based on price and reviews, and I think I picked poorly. Housekeeping was by request only, but they communicated that exactly bloody nowhere. The staff were universally friendly and courteous, but the lack of communication about that vital issue was overwhelming. I had to request housekeeping on Sunday twice, and the second time the person who arrived with fresh towels and to take away the garbage said something peculiar, about having us on the housekeeping list the next morning. I inquired, and learned that it is a lingering Covid safety policy. I would rather have universal masking as the lingering Covid safety policy.
Spicy mango frozen margaritas are delicious. We went to a local brewery, I think on Friday after the parish hall setup for the party. S & Z went for the frozen margarita "flight" and we passed the little goblets around for tasting. I tried the raspberry daiquiri (non frozen) and found it too sour. But I was able to enjoy the hot rim on the mango margarita, to the extent that I looked up recipes and got a bottle of Tajín after we got home. We played Sushi Go (except for Mums) and Wizard (except for me). There was no duckie in the big fishbowl drink as they were out. Alas. Hot Rim is our new band, and all the titles of the songs are double entendres, each followed by a B-side entitled "... Vociferously!"
Pips' partner H came for Saturday and Sunday, and it was very good to meet them. Belovedest has a sticker on their water bottle reading "I'm the enby sheep", and H is another such enby sheep. And Goth. We took to each other immediately.
The anniversary party was a hit. I even convinced Belovedest to dance with me to "I Will Survive", which I named as "our song" — not incorrect, but it's my song from nerd camp, and I believe their song by way of yeeting the evil ex, rather than our song together. Cleanup on site was very swift, and we didn't actually have to stack all the chairs. Afterwards at home (the parental home), V and Mums put away leftovers and sorted the salad (cucumber and tomato separate from the lettuce) while the rest of the kid generation gossiped and played games and I carefully pulled the photos off the science fair board and sorted them back into their ziplock bags.
There was Sunday brunch, and I think we may not go there again — both of us and perhaps more of the party had mild food poisoning symptoms that afternoon. It didn't ruin our days fully, but I was glad to have my fully stocked medical kit on hand.
Squaredle is one of the family preoccupations. It's a NYT game that resembles Boggle, except it's a composed game rather than random, and the boards vary in size and shape. (One recent one was a 5x5 doughnut, with the middlemost letter missing.) There were also games of Boggle.
I did have the new folding power chair for the trip, which saved my strength for the important things. The acquisition is its own story, with the Bastard & Our Lady's own lucks. (This is a distinct entity from the folding scooter, which should arrive later this month.)
Crochet updates: My #10 crochet cotton super Goth beaded choker is finished with the structural crochet work and needs the final outside beading. I'm waiting on more of the beads. The self-striping granny triangle shawl has the first triangle complete, and I could wear it like that if I wanted to. Now that I know how it's sized, I've started the second triangle of three to make it a trapezoid. Secret #10 crochet cotton project with a due date: I need to make a crucial measurement, but I found the perfect button in my collection. Awaiting the first chain. And I am pleased beyond measure to have been commissioned it.
Yellface is extremely glad we're home. She lectured us at length about having left, in tones I've never heard from her before. That was the extent of her displeasure, fortunately.
I experimented, and got us a first class upgrade on our way out. There was almost enough foot room for Belovedest, and enough elbow room for me. I even napped some. There was a cheese plate, and I felt secure enough in my prophylactic meds to partake. The only problem was the combination of my swoopy sleeves with armrest cup holders, so my right sleeve became saturated with ginger ale for a while. Coming back was very crammed, even though we were in the premium seats with some extra foot room.
--Went out last week with allen to see The Who at Fenway for their farewell tour. It was exquisite - because how could it not be? So many people there, all singing together. I scraped my voice to shit during You Better You Bet, I nearly cried during Love, Reign o'er Me. Absolutely magnificent. I want to pack the memory away into my soul.
There were two relatively young dudes in the row ahead of us who had clearly just discovered a platonic life bond of some sort because they were clinging to each other with frantic happiness.
While walking home there was some traditional Shitty Boston Driving and one of the showgoers ended up shouting "use ya blinka!" and "what, are ya from New Jersey?" in the most stereotypical local accent I've ever heard. It delighted me.
--Yesterday hung out at stultiloquentia's place with her housemate and bironic eating extremely fresh and ripe tomatoes and chatting about plants, homeownership, taste in art, bats, whether Batman gives enough to charity, etc.
--This morning I got up at ass o'clock to help my coworker unload her u-haul. Two other coworkers turned up (they're more her friends in a real sense - I'm friendly with people from work but prefer not to develop real friendships) plus her boyfriend, so it really wasn't a bad crew at all. Apparently the load in yesterday took much longer as they dealt with the logistics of how to efficiently fit it all.
I rode shotgun as she went to return the u-haul and let me tell you I now have endless grace for people driving those things. They're a nightmare and the windows are not remotely well-designed for driving amongst any sort of shared traffic whatsoever. She kept apologizing to other drivers and I kept soothingly saying "It's September first, they know anyone in a u-haul has never done this before." (We did not run anyone/anything over! \o/)
--Next weekend is the MCR show and I am Hella Excite. Many friends who have been to other tour dates have raved about how great it was so my anticipation is through the fucking roof.
Creator:delphi Title: Fidelis Fandom: Our Flag Means Death Rating: Teen Word Count: ~5600 Characters/Pairings: Fang/Izzy Hands, Fang's dog Notes/Warnings: Inspired by the ‘Fang’ and ‘Water’ squares of my 2025 Izzy Hands Bingo card. This fic is set in the afterlife; there is major character death referenced, but the characters in question are still present in the story. Also available on AO3. Summary: Izzy has spent the last decade on a small island in the middle of nowhere with only a dog for company. One day, an old friend comes to call.
We've been spending the day on the third floor deck. He purrs when I pet him,
He suddenly groomed a paw and scratched his ear. I offered him some Forbidden Kibble (he's been on the C/D diet for years, and perpetually wants 'Thippe's kibble, which is kept out of his reach), and he ate some! And a little wet food too.
I brought him back in to the spot he's been preferring, and after about ten minutes, he got up, walked across the apartment, and plopped down on the deck. I brought him one of the boxes he likes, and he climbed in.
Some while since I posted about being solicited to attend a dodgy-sounding medical conference ('a boutique-style event that emphasizes depth and interaction. Modest in scale but rich in content, the conference’s intimate setting fosters close communication and meaningful dialogue.').
My dears! they must be quite desperate for me to attend, for I have subsequently received not one, no, but TWO further invitations to 'be an Oral Speaker and/or Session Chair', they 'would be honored' to have my participation.
This may be like that invitation I received to a Virtual Trade Mission to Estonia in the supposition I was person of similar name to mine who had at one time had something to do with the Alpha Chi Omega Fraternity, Inc (I do not know whether it would have been of any relevance to them, either).
Maybe there is an actual OB/GYN person of similar name - further hilarity if they are of a different gender, my first name being liable to confusion - and even more if they get queries asking them to be on podcasts about Queen Victoria's sex life and other saucy topics.
On another prickly paw, this person, who does in fact exist and Know Who I Am, and has been assured my continued existence and (relative) compos mentis state, has quite failed to get back to me. Perchance the tone of my response was just a tad tetchy - I did not say JFGI but even these fallen days I felt that a little poking around on Ye Internettez would have uncovered usable contact details.
It's that time again — for me to pop unexpectedly to say "I aten't dead" — and to host a month of Write Every Day. *Waves*
What is Write Every Day (or as we affectionately type it to save typing, WED?)
Once again copied from previous stints as host:
Write Every Day is an informal writing challenge that moves from journal to journal, hosted by different people instead of on a central comm. It's probably a weird way of doing things, but that's how it's set up and — it's worked so far!
I'm hosting it this month. Every day I'll make a post where people can check in to comment on what they've written that day, whether a single sentence or thousands of words; or to talk about problems, ask questions, and generally cheer each other on.
There are no sign-ups. Anyone is welcome to join at any time. Just comment and voila! You have joined.
What counts as "writing" is fairly relaxed, and can include working on research, plotting, RPG text, free-writing, and the ever-useful "alibi sentence," which is what it sounds like, a single sentence written primarily to count as writing for that day.
The goal is to write every day, but it's not required. A tally is kept of everyone's daily writing check-in, but it's to help people stay on track. It isn't a race.
The challenge is meant to help each other develop a consistent writing habit, keep procrastination at bay, get through difficult times, overcome writer's block, and to just keep at it.
If you have any special goals or plans for the month, feel free to share them! My only plan for the month is to write every day. ;-)
Quote of the Day:
"When you aren’t inspired to work on whatever it is you should be working on, do an exercise, or a series of them. Make up your own exercises. Do them even if you feel dull and unimaginative. Something may come of it, and it is better than doing nothing."
The 2024 revised edition of Fragged Empire: fifteen thousand years in the future, humanity has gone extinct, but eight engineered species rule the wonders that remain.
Back to work was a slog today! That was my last day off until Christmas, and September is looking like being pretty intense as a month. The "be on campus for a week to act as a reserve for visa checks" has morphed into "three and a half days of being a reserve plus two full days of actual checking" (yes, this does add up to more days than exist in the work week; I have refrained from accepting the relevant calendar invites until someone can clarify quite how they expect me to staff two desks at the same time). I've also been voluntold to attend a full-day meeting on campus the previous week, which is not only on a work from home day but also a day with choir in the evening (not to mention choir the office day before it and choir the work from home day after it). I am trying very hard not to think about the number of things which I really ought to be getting completed before the start of term, because my odds are looking extremely poor.
On the other hand, I did get through the 300 system emails, 84 personal emails, and 31 Teams notifications which were waiting this morning, and only have a dozen or so new actions to pick up from them. And I did the first round of monthly reports, including desperately scraping my brain to extract suggestions as to what I did during August (not very much, apparently!!). I left the intimidating email from Legal for tomorrow morning, and then have ambitious plans to make a proper list of what I want to get done this month and try and make some progress on... well, anything. Something. A Task of some kind. Perhaps if I can manage that I will feel less like the human incarnation of the scream emoji.
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.
I want to stress this was not the plan all along. I did in fact have a new home scheduled for this kitten, but then, more or less at the last minute, the people at the new home had a change in circumstances that made receiving a new kitten not possible. Which is fine, sometimes that happens. This gave Athena, who had been angling to keep the black kitten, another chance to plead her case, and by this time both Krissy and I had spent enough time with him to warm to the idea. So the original kitten recipient’s unfortunate loss is our now our gain.
We did, of course, have some concern as to how the other pets might receive to the new kitten, and the short answer is, it’s been mixed, but not disastrously so. Charlie loves and is obsessed with the kitten and follows it wherever it goes, and fortunately the new kitten seems to like Charlie. Smudge was like “oh, I guess there’s a new kitten now,” and doesn’t seem to be overly bothered.
Sugar and Spice, on the other hand, are unpleased:
However, so far their response has been to avoid the new kitten when possible rather than to attempt to murder it, and there already have been instances of the new kitten napping in the same room as one or the other of these two without bloodshed. I so suspect that, as with the arrival of Smudge a few years back, there will be a week or two of adjustment to the new kitten being all up in their space, and then a new “normal” where everyone has their new general territories and life goes on. We’ve had four cats before, and these three cats were part of that living arrangement. I suspect they’ll get used to it again, and quickly.
It’s helpful that the kitten is exceedingly well-tempered, at least so far. He’s not a jerk to the other cats, nor is he afraid of them or of Charlie. He’s very affectionate and curious when it comes to the humans, and overall seems pretty comfortable with his surroundings. He acts like this has always been his home, which is reassuring. He’s still a kitten, mind you, which means getting into a little bit of trouble and being inconveniently underfoot and so on, all the usual kitten stuff. But that’s what makes kittens adorable, and everything suggests that when he’s not a kitten anymore he’ll be an excellent cat.
What we don’t have yet is an official name for the kitten. Earlier, Athena suggested “Shoyu,” which is a type of soy sauce (the kitten’s black fur has a brown sheen in strong light), but it’s not sticking. I’ve offered up “Śuri,” which is an Etruscan volcano god, whose name derives from the Etruscan word for “black,” but this may be too esoteric. I think what we may end up doing is just letting the kitten be around and seeing what name fits him. I will say that I’ve been taking to calling him “Fuzz Butt” as a shorthand, and while I don’t think that’s going to end up being his official name, it’s useful on a temporary basis, and also, entirely truthful. Some official name will present itself in time. Yes, you are allowed to offer suggestions in the comments. Please note we may ignore them entirely. But I know that won’t stop you.
So, please welcome this new kitten, He Who Is Temporarily and Unofficially Known as “Fuzz Butt,” to the Scalzi household, and also as the newest official Scamperbeast. He’s a delight and we look forward to lots of adventures with him. He is an accidental kitten, but then, “accidental kittens” is what we specialize in around here. Our cats have a history of just showing up. We wouldn’t have it any other way.
3/5. Chandrasekera’s first book made a splash, but this one really didn’t. I didn’t know why until I read it, and now I’m pretty sure it’s because no one wants to talk about it and demonstrate that they have no freaking clue what it’s about.
I’m . . . sort of . . . kidding. This is a strange passage of a book. It is ostensibly about two people who are instantiated across many lives over huge spans of time, and how they relate to each other, and how they don’t. It’s also about colonialism and modes of resistance and a sort of cosmic war. Probably?
Mostly, it’s a beautifully written piece with extremely clever intertextual stylings that is disorienting (on purpose, but I suspect he thought he was being much clearer than I think he is) and that does the reader only a few very basic favors in trying to figure out what is what. Or who is who, from chapter to chapter. Read if you like that sort of experience of disorienting fragments stitched together into something that, for me, did not resolve much at all.
Content notes: Many kinds of interpersonal and terroristic violence.
My mother volunteers at the local library, and sometimes I help her process the new books, which is how I discovered Sandra Nickel’s Making Light Bloom: Clara Driscoll and the Tiffany Lamps.
Picture book biographies seem to be having a real moment, which is convenient for me as I’ve apparently got a weakness for them. Most of the current run focus on a lesser-known woman or person of color who did a cool thing, for values of “lesser-known” that vary from “actually I think this person is really pretty famous” to “no one has ever heard of this person.”
Clara Driscoll definitely falls in the latter category. Not only is she not famous now, but she was unknown in her own lifetime, as she did her work under contract in the Tiffany factory. She started out cutting out glass for the famous Tiffany windows, a job that required quite a bit of artistic taste as these windows are famous, among other things, for their gorgeous variegated glass - the cutters had to select the particular part of the big sheet of glass that would look best in the whole window.
Eventually, it occurred to Driscoll that one might also make stained glass lamps. Her design for a dragonfly lamp caught Louis Tiffany’s eye, and the lamp went to the World’s Fair, where it was a big hit. Tiffany gave Driscoll permission to design more lamps, and she went on to design at least sixty, all with beautiful nature themes.
The illustrations by Julie Paschkis are in a striking stained glass style: it was this reason that the cover caught my eye. Like Tiffany windows, the colors vary within one panel, orange drifting into red and green to yellow. A rich and lovely array of colors.
Sometimes you hit the end of a book and immediately think 'I'd like to read that over again' because there's some sort of big twist that you know will make you experience the whole thing differently, and sometimes you hit the end of a book and think 'I'd like to read that over again' not because of any Major Plot Reveals, but because the book is woven together in an interesting enough way that you want the chance to fully appreciate how all the pieces fit now that you've seen the full puzzle.
This second case was my experience with The Fortunate Fall, a cyberpunk novel from 1995 that came back into print last year and that I did not quite manage to read in time for the Readercon book club (so I extremely appreciate kate_nepveu's extensive notes on it including the intertextuality with Moby Dick.)
The book is narrated by Maya Andreyeva, a 'camera' -- a cyborg news-reporter modified to provide not just full sensory experience but also associated memories, context, etc. to the viewing public. When the book begins -- well, when the book begins, it has already ended, as Maya tells us; her whole audience has already experienced all the relevant events through her eyes, and now she's telling it to us again, in a narrative that she can control and that's on her own terms, contextualizing only what she wants to contextualize and hiding what she wants to hide. Which is a very fun way to begin a book, by consciously keying you into its distortions and elisions, and for the most part I think the text lives up to it.
Anyway, when not the book but the story begins, Maya has decided to put together a series commemorating the anniversary of a major [future]-historical tragedy, and has just gotten assigned a new screener for the project -- a sort of editorial figure who sits in between the camera and the audience, filtering out bodily functions and bad words and anything else that could be trouble for the network. Because of the amount of time they spend immersed in the heads of their cameras, screeners tend to become rapidly very enthusiastic and romantic about them! Maya's new screener Keishi is a beautiful and mysterious young woman who is, indeed, very enthusiastic and romantic about her! And definitely not keeping any secrets about her skills, her identity, or her reasons for being there working with Maya, no sir.
In true noir mode, Maya's initially normal-seeming historical research into a tragedy that's as long-ago and terrible and world-shaping for her as the Holocaust is for us ends up leading her increasingly out of the bounds of conventional society down a dangerous rabbithole, at the end of which lies forbidden knowledge about the world, forbidden knowledge about her own past, and forbidden knowledge about a really sad whale. And, following along with her, we as readers gradually start to piece together not only the particular dystopian shape of the world -- the parts that Maya already knows and the parts that Maya doesn't -- but also the shape of the story, the themes that it cares about and that have actually been driving the plot this entire time: embodiment, censorship, the atrocities we commit to end atrocities, and the power and beauty and absolute hard limits of queer love, just to name a few.
I don't know that everything about the book has fully aged well. I understand the well-meaning failure mode in cyberpunk that leads an author to posit a Monolithic Utopian Isolationist Africa when the rest of the world has gone to dystopian shit, but I think it is a failure mode. I also admit that I thought the entire grayspace digital-world sequence was a little bit boring. But for the most part the book is not at all boring, it's interesting in the way that only a book that actually trusts its readers to be doing an equal amount of work as they go is interesting. I did not in fact actually then read the book over again, upon hitting the end, because it was extremely overdue at the library [and I had five more equally overdue books on the pile] but I expect I will do so sometime in the nearer rather than the further future. Maybe I'll have the chance to hit another book club.
I'm at the penultimate episode of Coroner's Diary and there are simply too many cinnamon rolls of the kind who die tragically. I am on melodramatic tenterhooks for the second, third and fourth couples. If it all goes too pear-shaped I am watching A Dream Within A Dream again.
In other news my copy of Hetty McKinnon's latest, Linger, has arrived. Coronation cauliflower and chickpeas is calling to me.
The bbq yesterday was fun! Baby Miss L continues to be a character - she's a little awkward but she manages to get up and down steps now. In fact, she stood on the steps and was like, "Jump! Jump!" and we were like, " um, no, no jumping off the steps!"
Anyway, there were a lot of desserts, but the strawberry cake was enjoyed. It smelled fantastic and tasted good too.
In other news, I did the August recs update earlier:
2012: O2 offers free wifi to multitudes, which I only now realize may be have been referenced in Kingsman, researchers determine that despite a century having passed, the Titanic remains at the bottom of the Atlantic, and in a glorious celebration of the effectiveness of the modern British educational system, doctors warn Britons not to drink liquid nitrogen.
The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers 0 (0.0%)
Embassytown by China Miéville 18 (45.0%)
Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear 6 (15.0%)
Rule 34 by Charles Stross 29 (72.5%)
The Postmortal by Drew Magary 1 (2.5%)
The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper 6 (15.0%)
Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.
Which 2012 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read? The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers Embassytown by China Miéville Hull Zero Three by Greg Bear Rule 34 by Charles Stross The Postmortal by Drew Magary The Waters Rising by Sheri S. Tepper
Alvin Draper of Crime Alley by potofsoup Jason is having a hard time finding Tim Drake, but he's been running into a kid by the name of Alvin Draper in the Alley.
In the meantime, Tim Drake totally has 5-step plan to bring get Jason and Bruce to reconcile! Nothing will go wrong. This is hilarious and amazing!
dolly-verse fics by a_alene gotham city senior dolores patton and the teenaged crime lord she hangs out with sometimes Jason is befriended by a little old lady in Gotham. She teaches him to crochet. <333
Magnets by gender_bender08 On a Tuesday night, Bruce Wayne attends a circus. Halfway through, the trapeze artists are killed, leaving their eight year old son behind, hands wrapped in dancer’s tape and knees bloody with how he falls on them in his anguish. Bruce Wayne watches him for a moment, two, then turns around and leaves.
Sixteen years later, the thing who was once a man named Dick Grayson nurses a bottle of scotch as he stitches the gaping wound in his side from where Batman got him with a batarang. AU where Bruce doesn't take in any of his kids, but they all come together somehow anyway.
Penelope by NerdyGay Tim finds that there are more ways to protect the Bats than just Robin. A little magic never hurt anyone, after all. I enjoyed this!
The Pieces of What's Left by mynameisjessejk When Blockbuster burns down his whole life and Tarantula takes what isn't hers to claim, Dick ditches his life, his name, and his city for an anonymous, quiet life in the Bowery. Just till he can put himself back together.
Jason is doing his best to fix his corner of the city, keep Black Mask out of his business, and arrange a confrontation with Batman, the Joker, and all the water under the bridge. He has no idea what to do with a Dick Grayson who's apparently in hiding and joined his gang by accident.
But it turns out they need each other far more than they could have imagined, and if either of them are going to fix their broken pieces, it's going to have to be together. I enjoyed this! #hoods and birds
r/MaleLivingSpace by Jackedrabbit Stephanie Brown is many things: a vigilante, a gossip, an ally, a ragebaiter, and a friend. But when a blizzard knocks out her apartment's WiFi, she tacks on another label to that list - an uninvited houseguest. And uninvited guests are often most welcome when they leave. Hilarious!
Red Hood's Shelter for Feral Kids by dandelionlily Jason has a plan for his return to Gotham. Steal the clown's old Red Hood identity? Check. Make sure meddling birds know to keep out of his territory? Check. Recruit some homeless youth to keep an ear to the street in exchange for shelter? Check. Take over the Crime Alley drug trade, convince Black Mask to break the clown out of Arkham, murder his Replacement and force Batman to finally avenge him? ...he's still working on it.
His plans are delayed when the homeless kids he's sheltering are joined by a fearful boy with hand-shaped bruises around his neck. Alvin Draper may not want to say who did it, but Red Hood isn't about to let anyone who beats up children go unpunished. This is fun!
Whose Vault Unlocked by myvividreams Jason's war against emotional competency, ft. a concussion, nosy neighbors, superhero RPF, and the local library's writing circle.
...Not that he's winning or anything. Fuck. Oh Jason...this is a lovely look at how Jason begins reconciling with the family.
✭
Crossover
Spiderman/Batman
Fries With That Secret Identity? by N0t_Sketchy This is a fun crossover where Peter goes to Gotham on a photography assignment and runs into Robin. Banter and hijinks ensue.
Saturday breakfast rolls: brown toasted pinenut, strong brown flour, possibly rather too many in the way of pinenuts.
Today's lunch: halibut fillets, panfried (the packet possible exaggerated cooking time), served with samphire sauce; with La Ratte potatoes roasted in goose fat, baked San Marzano tomatoes, and Boston beans roasted in pumpkin seed oil with fennel seeds and splashed with gooseberry vinegar (a bit too al dente, not sure if this was innate or due to inadequate cooking time/temperature).
3/5. A novella in a series about a world where people who are murdered come back to life 999 times out of 1,000, except natural deaths still stick. I was hiding from my library book (shut up, it happens) and let Audible give this to me for free.
I read the second novella first by accident, and had a decent time. It’s one of those stories that I’m never going to really love because it is built around thinking through the implications of a single premise and how that would change society, but there’s no attempt to actually explain anything, and that’s probably for the best because there is no explanation that would be interesting or satisfying. The implications are mildly interesting, though – how do you murder someone under these constraints, for one? So, entertaining enough, but meh.
Then I realized I read the second one first and tried to read the first one and no, please, stop. The tortured infodumping is just so bad, I cannot. Apparently ‘second in a series, we assume you already know how this works’ is the degree of explanation I want for this sort of shallow construct.
Also, Zachary Quinto narrates these (Audible Originals, they do that sort of thing) and he’s . . . aggressively okay at it. Aggressively okay is kind of the whole vibe.
Sometimes I feel like I am the only person in the world who fills up on water, however temporarily.
Right now, I'm sitting at a table with an entire bottle of sparkling water, and I'm not going to manage to drink it all in one sitting.
Singapore has been beautiful, but also tiring and hot. I have mostly stayed in the hotel, where my room has an absolutely ridiculous view. With the exception of today, when I went out to meet a friend and we walked through 30C heat-and-humidity, fit to broil me in sweat. I was sincerely slick across the skin by the time we reached the place we were going to lunch.
I'm happy to report that Singapore isn't entirely given over to the modern, flash, and fancy. In a little street of restaurants and bars, we found a place that doesnt look like it's changed its decor since the eighties. And I don't mean bright and tawdry neon; I mean lino floors, melamine tables, and the old 'Chinese' paintings and ideographs on the walls, framed beneath glass.
Chin-Chin runs a brisk and cheap business with an extremely simple menu - the height of the 'if you're good at it, ride that train all the way down'. That said, most westerners wouldn't dare eat there for fear of food poisoning - it's got that look about it. Although honestly those places generally have the best food. We had a meal for two, it was filling, and it cost about the same as one meal would have cost elsewhere. Which, on this street where the buildings look like they were built during Singapore's early years of colonisation by the British - complete with wooden shutters - probably means they own the shop and space outright. Because the rent on that street would be absolutely RUINOUS.
Granted, to get there, we had to emerge from the modern, flash, and fancy shopping centres that...sincerely? Look like something straight ouf the Australian 00s (possibly the American 90s) - bling and lights and colours and EVERYTHING IS FOR SALE.
UGH.
Anyway, it's been an excellent couple of days. Even if I've been battling this damned virus. That, or the air-conditioners are drying out my throat something ferocious.
Tomorrow, I wake early and fly to Hong Kong where I will be seeing my half-brother and the niecelets.
And dealing with Dad, who I suspect has an "offer" of a business proposition.
And I am busily reminding myself it is not up to children to fulfil their parents' dreams.
Technically, this is a cover of a Van Morrison song, but personally I first encountered it in a version by Bryan Ferry, and if you have listened to both the original and the Ferry cover, this one leans more towards the latter. A cover of a cover! I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.
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...
It’s time to start thinking about Yuletide! Here is our schedule for this year. Please note that the time of some deadlines has changed from last year. This may mean the date in UTC has also changed, or that the date relative to your own time zone may have changed.
2025 Schedule
Monday 15 to Friday 26 September: Nominations (end 9pm UTC 26 September) Tuesday 14 to Friday 24 October: Sign-ups (end 9pm UTC 24 October) Sunday 26 October: Assignments out (may be earlier) Wednesday 10 December: Default deadline (9pm UTC) Wednesday 17 December: Assignment deadline (9pm UTC) Wednesday 24 December: Main collection works reveals (9pm UTC) Thursday 25 December: Madness collection works reveals (9pm UTC) Thursday 1 January: Author reveals, end of event (9pm UTC)
Please check back closer to the time if you want to be sure about deadlines! Deadlines in other timezones may be closer than they appear. If your region has a seasonal time shift during the above dates, your relationship to the deadline will also change. We recommend using timeanddate.com to check when each deadline is for you before it occurs.
New Year's Resolutions
We just sent an email to everyone who took part in Yuletide 2024 and who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution story before signing up again.
We use the email that's associated with your AO3 account. This is a good time to check what that email is! If you have any doubts about whether you received it, you're welcome to check your status with us by emailing yuletideadmin@gmail.com. Please include your AO3 name.
Who needs to complete a New Year's Resolution
If you took part in Yuletide and defaulted after the default deadline, or you submitted an incomplete story at the posting deadline, or you defaulted in Yuletide twice in a row, we generally ask you to complete a New Year’s Resolution story before you sign up again.
If you defaulted in a previous year, we will not have sent you a new reminder. We issued a general amnesty for ordinary defaults before the 2023 round, but if you were told you needed to complete a NYR due to turning in a placeholder story or a similar problem, you are probably still on our NYR list. Please check with us if you aren’t sure!
How to fulfil the requirement
Stories written for the purpose of re-qualifying for Yuletide must be posted to the New Year's Resolutions 2025 collectionbefore you sign up to Yuletide 2025. They must be over 1,000 words, written for a specific person's past Yuletide prompt, and given to that person. You can write for any Yuletide 2024 prompt, or you can choose an older Yuletide prompt as long as the fandom in which you write is small enough to still qualify for Yuletide (that is, there are fewer than 1,000 fics on AO3 that are in English, complete, and over 1,000 words long).
Purpose of New Year's Resolutions
The NYR system exists for several reasons:
It's an incentive to encourage people either to default early, or, to push on through and post something
It works as a warm-up, or as practice, or as a way of proving to yourself you can finish a story to a prompt
It's a contribution to the project of getting more stories written in tiny fandoms
It's a way of ensuring that past prompts don't get entirely forgotten.
If you had to default in a past year, we are aware that this may have been for a carefully-considered reason or in a difficult time. Needing to complete a NYR does not mean we think you're terrible. Even members of the mod team have needed to write NYRs in the past. We hope you use it as an opportunity to write something you enjoy.
People are also welcome to write NYR stories just for fun! The collection will stay open for late fills until Yuletide 2025 sign-ups close (approx Oct 24).
Fandom: Dracula: A Love Tale (2025), Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897 novel)
Characters: Dracula, Mina Murray, Maria, The Priest, Original Character
Relationships: Dracula / Mina / Maria Era: 19th Century
Title: A Quiet Evening at Home
Rating: Mature - As the characters are depicted in a consensual romantic and very cozy ménage à trois.
Please note: There are film spoilers (of a sort), although I have changed details to better suit my story.
Word Count: 1,159
Summary: In my gentle redemptive AU story, I very much diverge from canon. Vlad Dracula and Mina Murray are happily married, and living in the French countryside, with their devoted companion, Maria.
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verushka70
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