Check-In Post - Oct 28th 2025

28 October 2025 08:21 pm
badly_knitted: (Get Knitted)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question (courtesy of [personal profile] cora): What was your last project that got put into "time out" and why?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



Tuesday, 28th October 2025

28 October 2025 03:02 pm
beck_liz: The TARDIS in space (DW - TARDIS in Space)
[personal profile] beck_liz posting in [community profile] doctor_who_sonic
Editor's Note: If your item was not linked, it's because the header lacked the information that we like to give our readers. Please at least give the title, rating, and pairing or characters, and please include the header in the storypost itself, not just in the linking post. For an example of what a "good" fanfic header is, see the user info. Spoiler warnings are also greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Off-Dreamwidth Links
BBC: BBC confirms future of Doctor Who and a new Christmas Special in 2026
Deadline.com: Disney+ Officially Exiting ‘Doctor Who’ Partnership With BBC After Two Seasons
Doctor Who News: Doctor Who Returns Christmas 2026
Blogtor Who: Doctor Who Will Return in 2026
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who: The Horns of Nimon, 1979
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Doctor Who: The Doctor Dances, 2005
Blogtor Who: Video of the Day – Comic-Con Scotland, 2025

(News from [syndicated profile] doctorwhonews_feed and [syndicated profile] blogtorwho_feed, among others.)

Fanfiction
Complete
Wait and Watch by [personal profile] badly_knitted (PG | Fifteenth Doctor, Ruby Sunday)


If you were not linked, and would like to be, contact us in the comments with further information and your link.

A very belated watching post

28 October 2025 06:34 pm
thisbluespirit: (TV)
[personal profile] thisbluespirit
I see the last time I properly did some little write-ups of anything I'd been watching was about June, and that was a catch up one, so I'm forever out of date, but I'll see if I can do better now!


Suspected Person (1942) - a UK B-movie thriller, which I recorded off TPTV because it featured Clifford Evans, Patricia Roc and William Hartnell, and indeed, generally, the only thing worth saying about it was that I did enjoy watching Patricia Roc and Clifford Evans play brother and sister, and William Hartnell did his best to try and steal the film in his scenes, but everything else was very meh and run of the mill. Fine if you want a bonus bit of Hartnell! Or CE & PR, but not of any note for anything else, really. I only wrote this here, because it does prove I still have judgment and therefore my comments on the rest might be worth more.


Death Valley (BBC TV 2025) This was one of the many cosy detective shows I watched over the summer, and it was pretty good! A bit uneven, in that the two main characters were great & so was their odd friendship, but quite a few of the mysteries were very so-so, even for this kind of thing, although they did get better. Gwyneth Keyworth as Janie Mallowan, socially awkward detective with issues, and Timothy Spall as John Chapel, reclusive actor who used to play Maigret/Poirot her favourite TV detective Caesar, were very good together, though & I enjoyed them a lot.


Stephen Poliakoff's The Tribe (BBC 1998), only available via somebody's VHS recording on YT, unless you live in R1, where you might be able to snag a DVD, but the BBC somehow didn't even include it on their Poliakoff at the BBC set. (Why, yes, I AM annoyed that I cannot have a DVD of the Stephen Poliakoff that stars Jeremy Northam, even if it seems reasonable even on small acquaintance with Poliakoff to suggest that it is second tier Poliakoff. Is that not what completist DVD sets for significant playwrghts are for?) It stars Jeremy Northam, Joely Richardson, Anna Friel, Trevor Eve & Laura Fraser, plus Jonathan Rhys Meyers & Julian Rhind-Tutt & is all about a very 90s collection of concerns, to be fair - creating different kinds of living spaces and the hypocrisy of those who grew up in the 60s having the sexual freedom of expression and creativity that they refuse to allow the 90s to have.

More details about The Tribe ) Anyway, it and its themes still linger in my head, so I'm very grateful to the YT uploader.


The Halfway House (1944), starring Mervyn & Glynis Johns and Esmond Knight. This is another film I recorded off TPTV because it's summary was "a bunch of strangers get stranded together." For WWII moralising and ghosts )

Anyway, I have no regrets over every film I've recorded off TPTV because of the summary being "bunch of random mid-century Brits get stranded somewhere," and I will continue to snag any others I see - if there are any more!
yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_admin
All Yuletide requests are now visible:
-at karanguni's app
-at the Yuletide 2025 collection on AO3
-in a spreadsheet
-in a text doc

Please check back later for pinch hitter prompts.

Enjoy!

Both the main Yuletide 2025 collection and the Yuletide Madness 2025 collection are open for posting works. Before posting your assignment, or posting a treat to either collection, please read the notes below.

Posting, and to Which Collection )



Bonus!! Decoy questions/author questionsA few weeks ago, we made a post about the questions we send to recipients when authors need to clarify something about their recipients' preferences.

As a result of that poll, in a situation where an author has a fandom-specific question, we will now send questions for at least 3 fandoms in a person's requests, but will not generally make up extra/decoy questions for their full set of fandoms.

You suggested that curious authors could make up (some of) their own extra questions. While that could be helpful - if you want to - we ask you to keep the following things in mind.

  1. Clear questions are the best questions. Several times in the past we've received extremely confusing questions and it turned out a participant thought they needed to disguise what they were asking from the mods. Please do not.

  2. Avoid excessive detail, especially about plots you don't plan to write. Don't ask your recipient "Would you be interested in a story where they time-travel to meet five different generations of their ancestors, and also there are capybara zombies?" unless you are contemplating such a plot (and maybe not even then) - because you may make your recipient hopeful about something that won't arrive.

  3. Avoid being disingenuous about things that are actually clear to you. Try to ask about points of reasonable ambiguity. If you ask your recipient things like "You said you don't want any mention of hospitals, but is it okay if a character has a headache?" you could stress them out by making them wonder if they need to re-write their DNWs, or by making them wonder if you have wildly misinterpreted other parts of their requests. Decoy questions require a little creativity… but not too much. Save most of your creativity for the actual writing.


And again - you are not obliged to provide decoy questions! If you need to ask your recipient something, all we need from you is: 1) what information you need, and 2) who you are. That's great! We can take care of the rest.



Schedule, Rules, & Collection | Contact Mods | Participant DW | Participant LJ | Pinch Hits on DW | Discord | Tag set | Tag set app

Please either comment logged-in or sign a name. Unsigned anonymous comments will be left screened.

runpunkrun: Dana Scully reading Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' in the style of a poster you'd find in your school library, text: Read. (reading)
[personal profile] runpunkrun
It's 1993 and Kimberly Keiko Cameron (aka "Skim" because she's not [idk, the reference doesn't really land for me—like skim milk? so, not skinny? not white?]) is sixteen and goes to an all girls school in Canada. She's learning to practice Wicca, has a cast on her dominant arm, a crush on her drama teacher, and doesn't seem to like her best friend very much.

Ah, teen angst. Rendered here in a flat, sketchy greyscale with a lot of attention to faces and hair, which makes the main characters easy to identify, especially as the smooth, delicate rendering of Skim's face evokes ukiyo-e, a style of Japanese art popular during the Edo period (1615–1868). It makes her stand out and even seem out of place, like something from another era. It's an interesting contrast to the swoopy bangs and hoop earrings of her peers, all of whom appear to be white.

The story's pretty low key for its content—an inappropriate flirtation, the suicide of a popular girl's ex-boyfriend, the tension between Kim's divorced parents, a growing realization of what it means to be queer—and the central interest is the conflict between Kim and her best friend, though it's not clear if they're growing apart or were never really suited for each other, and being in love in a way that makes it feel like it might destroy you. It's clear it's slowly destroying the teacher, even as Kim seems blissfully unaware of this, a disparity that's handled with skill and that hints at the full size of the adult world while simultaneously rendering the hyper-specific compressed world of a teenager, allowing both to be true.

Contains: f/f; teacher/student romance; frequent references to suicide (including jokes) following one off screen; use of gay slurs.

[10 out of 20] BTS: gen

28 October 2025 12:12 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: pumpkin (pumpkin)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi posting in [community profile] sweetandshort
Title: More pumpkin carving
Fandom: BTS
Pairing: RM & Jin
Length: 100
Rating: Gen
Prompt: parade
Summary: Namjin are still carving pumpkins.

Read more... )

Title: Wash-n-wear wolf
Fandom: BTS
Pairing: RM & Jin
Length: 100
Rating: Gen
Prompt: replacement
Summary: No one gets the joke. Doesn't matter.

Read more... )

Five Random Things makes a Post

28 October 2025 09:46 am
brickhousewench: oh look a chicken (chicken)
[personal profile] brickhousewench
I don’t know how British Petroleum stays in business, they’re always the most expensive gas stations in the area. Gas in Lowell is well under $3.00 a gallon and has been for a while now. The local Gulf station was at $2.77 the last time I drove by. But when I was in Methuen on Saturday one BP station was at $3.33 and the other was at $3.69! Almost a dollar more than in Lowell!

*****

DiGiorno seems to have decided that they can save money by putting one less slice of pepperoni on their personal supreme pizzas. The last two I have bought have had only four pepperoni instead of the usual five slices. *sad face*

*****

I finally caved in and turned on the heat Saturday night. The house was down to 62 degrees, and we aren’t supposed to get temps above 60F at all this week. So I figured it was just going to get colder (we got down into the low 30s Saturday night). So time to turn the heat on.

*****

My sister was visiting my parents last week, and she sent me a bunch of pictures of my little brother Benne the Bengal cat. He’s so freaking cute. I just wish he was a little more cuddly with my parents. They both would love for him to be a lap cat. But he’s not. =(

*****

I had a fifth thing in mind when I was going to bed last night. Can I think of it this morning? No.
As you can see, not a whole lot post-worthy going on right now. Well, that’s not true, I have a couple of recent road trips and adventures to write up. But that’s going to have to wait until I have more time to write. =P Anywhoo, here’s a short post, as proof of life.

UK Boys' Boarding Schools circa 1914

27 October 2025 10:39 pm
dragonbat2006: Canon Error (Default)
[personal profile] dragonbat2006 posting in [community profile] little_details
 I tried Googling and got general info on curriculum, specific schools, and alumnae pages, but not the specific details I'm looking for.

My main character is an upper class 13-year-old boy who, due to long-term illness/frailty was educated by tutors at home, but is now being sent away to school. (Probably England, but since he lives in Yorkshire, I'm not completely opposed to it being Scotland if it turns out that there are significant differences in school experiences between the two countries and Scotland would work better for my character.)

1. Would most pupils begin classes in the fall term as is typical today? As in, would it be realistic for him to begin in September? Or was it more of a rolling admissions thing?

2. How far in advance would his father need to contact the school to enrol/register him? Would there normally be an entrance exam, or would it normally be, 'We accept anyone who can pay the fee, provided there's space'?

3. When it comes to letters to and from home, would there be any reasonable expectation of privacy, or would it be common for staff to read each piece of correspondence? Specifically, the boy has a female cousin of the same age with whom he's quite close. Would he get into any sort of trouble for writing to her or would her letters to him be delivered?

4. If she were in the vicinity of the school, would it be possible for them to meet under the auspices of a chaperone, or would that be totally unheard of?

5. How much would the outbreak of WWI impact him? I would guess that some of the younger teachers would have enlisted over the summer and some of the older boys talking about hoping it won't be over before they get a chance to get in it. Would that mean larger than expected classes? 

Thanks so much!
sovay: (Lord Peter Wimsey: passion)
[personal profile] sovay
As part of my birthday month, [personal profile] spatch just presented me with a little black cat bag containing the Criterion flash sale fruits of Orson Welles' The Immortal Story (1968), which I had loved at the start of this month.



I just want an extra week in the month to do nothing but sleep instead of talking to doctors and bureaucracies. I can't believe we are almost out of October. It should be an inexhaustible resource.
sixbeforelunch: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson from the Grenada adaptation (holmes and watson 3)
[personal profile] sixbeforelunch
It annoyed me that that meme was missing J of all letters. I asked [personal profile] kingstoken for a prompt and she gave me "jelly beans". I looked them up on Wikipedia and learned something new about early 20th century slang. And then I wrote a thing.

Jelly-bean McQueen

Sherlock's American informant was knowledgeable, but Watson found his dialect quite unintelligible at times. "I've heard him called Jelly-bean McQueen," the informant said, "And by golly it fits. That boy's a Jelly-bean if ever there was one."

"A what?" Watson asked.

"A Jelly-bean," Sherlock said.

"I am familiar with the confectionary, but what has it to do with our suspect?"

Sherlock tutted. "Really, Watson, you must keep up with the slang of the modern times. A Jelly-bean is young man made of more flash and style than substance, and generally quite idle. A fop. A dandy. Naturally."

"Oh, yes. Naturally."

---

(Per Wikipedia this slang came into use in the 1910s and 1920s, so it just fits the timeline of ACD-era Holmes.)


Also on AO3

AO3 Alphabet Meme

27 October 2025 04:10 pm
beatrice_otter: This looks like a good day for World Domination (World Domination)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
All the cool kids are doing it, so I guess I will too:

How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

A. Anatomy of a Secret--Jadzia Dax in the Reboot universe.
B. the bells are going to chime--My Fair Lady, Eliza/Colonel Pickering post-movie
C. Currency--Star Wars/Babylon 5, Han and Chewie take a job carrying cargo to a place so far out in Wild Space they've never even heard of the Empire. Or the Jedi.
D. The Desert Between--Reboot, Spock/Uhura, and vulcan worldbuilding
E. Essential To Your Own--TNG, Data/Geordi
F. Family Matters (The Things Inside Remix)--BSG, Dee is on Pegasus, finding her place. A Six is on New Caprica, learning what she doesn't know. Lee Adama is a Cylon prisoner, but this is not his story. A New Caprica AU.
G. The Genetics Factory--Criminal Minds/Stargate, In Detroit, homeless addicts are turning up dead. But there's more to the case than meets the eye, and the BAU finds themselves looking for something they don't understand. For Derek, it gets personal.
H. The Heart's Desire--Rivers of London, Abigail has earned her right to become a practitioner of magic. Now, the training begins.
I. Interview with the Robot--Fandom for Robots
J. Just Like Old Times--Stargate SG-1, Teal'c and Daniel, on an adventure.
K. Kitty and Georgy (The Healing Old Hurts Remix)--Pride and Prejudice, Kitty is often ill, but she is determined to live her best life anyway.
L. Little Ship Lost--TNG, On a routine mission, a wormhole opens up near Enterprise, and a ship pops out. It's challenging to rescue people who don't trust you.
M. Matters of Perspective--TNG, Picard and Guinan post Time's Arrow
N. Not Place, But People--Enterprise, The older Enterprise wasn't destroyed after all. When it limps back to Earth, Trip finds Lorian and invites him home to meet the family.
O. The Offer--Vorkosiverse, An AU where Aral didn't survive Mad Yuri's Massacre, but his sister did.
P. Pale Battalions--SG-1, Teal'c goes home after a glorious battle in Apophis' name.
Q. 
R. Revenge of the Zillo Beast--Star Wars, Mace and Anakin have killed the Zillo Beast every way they can think of in different time loops. Maybe killing the Beast won't solve the problem?
S. Schoolwork--DS9, Jake misses his dad, now he's with the Prophets, but he still has his friends, his family, and his career.
T. Third Chance--Star Trek, AU, This isn't the first time Ro has had to start her life over, nor the first time she's had to deal with people who don't like or trust her.
U. Undiscovered Stars--Star Wars/Star Trek, Just how far out in the Unknown Regions was he, Lando wondered, that they didn't use hyperdrives?
V. Vast Beyond Knowing (The Details Remix)--Star Wars. Anakin, Luke, Rey. The desert taught them much. But not everything.
W. Wachet Auf--Rivers of London, In 1940, Nightingale has to catch a Nazi spy armed with a magical device. In 2016, Nightingale and others fall into a magical coma, and Peter Grant must figure out why it happened and how to end it.
X. X is for Xenophobia--SG-1, Little Jake Carter knew all about people who Weren't Like Us.
Y.
Z.

22/26, not bad. Interesting that I have X but not Y; from looking at other peoples' lists, it's usually the other way around. (If I'd done more Stargate Alphabet Soups, I might have filled in the missing letters.) I have, by the way, written 264 fics in approximately 110 fandoms over the course of almost 20 years. (Some fandoms are squishy, and it depends how you count them.)

yuletidemods: A hippo lounges with laptop in hand, peering at the screen through a pair of pince-nez and smiling. A text bubble with a heart emerges from the screen. The hippo dangles a computer mouse from one toe. By Oro. (Default)
[personal profile] yuletidemods posting in [community profile] yuletide_pinch_hits
This post is a round-up of remaining pinch hits from those posted earlier. These pinch hits are due at the main assignment deadline of Wednesday 17 December at 9pm UTC.

Comments are turned off for this community. To claim a pinch hit, please email the mods at yuletideadmin@gmail.com and:
  • Include the pinch hit number in the subject line
  • Include the recipient’s AO3 name in the subject line
  • Include your AO3 username in the body of the email

For example, if your AO3 username is yuletidehippo and you want to claim Pinch Hit #42 for AwsomRecip, you might email us with the subject line “PH 42 for AwsomRecip” and “I’m yuletidehippo on AO3” in the body of the email. As was the case previously, if you don’t receive a reply you did not get the pinch hit.

Thanks to everyone who has claimed pinch hits so far!

CLAIMED - PH #1: The Children Act - Ian McEwan, On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong, Wraeththu - Storm Constantine
Request 1 by 5_Paragraph_Essay
The Children Act - Ian McEwan
Characters: Fiona Maye (Children Act), Adam Henry (Children Act)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

Aww, Adam loves Fiona so much! I adore the tenderness of their age-gap relationship as well as its inherent eroticism. Go there, PLEASE! Dive deeper into their feelings for one another, perhaps focus on Adam’s elaborate sexual fantasies of Fiona (he’s a teenage boy; even though he’s ill he must have them) and/or Fiona daring to imagine what it would be like with a much younger man. Alternatively, make them earn that happily-ever-after for real.

No letter

Request 2 by 5_Paragraph_Essay
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong
Characters: Trevor (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong), Little Dog (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - Ocean Vuong)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

This book and its elegiac prose moved me so much. I just want more of this tender first-love relationship! Outtakes from the farm, the barn, whatever. Even its bad ending, if you want to go there. I’m fine with treatment of drug addiction or excrement during anal sex, assuming that any of these more outré canon elements move you.

No letter

Request 3 by 5_Paragraph_Essay
Wraeththu - Storm Constantine
Characters: Abrimel (Wraeththu), Ponclast (Wraeththu)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

Ponclast has one of the biggest character arcs of anyone in this mythos, from early Uigenna, to militaristic overlord for the Varr, to black widow mother of monsters, to … a kind of redemption on another planet/dimension? And I love how Abrimel intervenes in Ponclast’s journey, first to be manipulated for strategic gain, later love and be loved in return. I’d love more of their darkly tender relationship, perhaps more about their reunion, after the author leaves them to get on.

No letter


CLAIMED - PH #13: ジュエルペット ハッピネス | Jewelpet Happiness (Anime), うらら迷路帖 | Urara Meirochou (Anime), アイカツ! アイドルカツドウ! | Aikatsu!
This pinch hit has been claimed, but you're welcome to write a treat!

Request 1 by Fircoal
ジュエルペット ハッピネス | Jewelpet Happiness (Anime)
Characters: Sapphie (JewelPet), Lapis (JewelPet), Sango (Jewelpet)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

Prefer to see Sapphie and Lapis together, but in general I'm fine with stuff focusing on any of them I love them all. Would like them to be in character. Reading the few fics of them (mostly ones I wrote) might give an idea of what they're like. x3 I like fluff and silly stuff!
DNW: Gore, Character Death, Anything dark or too painful. Bits of angst is fine but not too much.

No letter

Request 2 by Fircoal
うらら迷路帖 | Urara Meirochou (Anime)
Characters: Chiya (Urara Meirochou), Tatsumi Kon
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

Would like to see the two of them together and focusing on their bond. Prefer fluffy and silly stuff!
DNW: Gore, Character Death, Anything dark or too painful. Bits of angst is fine but not too much.

No letter

Request 3 by Fircoal
アイカツ! アイドルカツドウ! | Aikatsu!
Characters: Saotome Ako, Hanazono Kirara
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

Would like to see the two of them together and focusing on their bond. Prefer fluffy and silly stuff!
DNW: Gore, Character Death, Anything dark or too painful. Bits of angst is fine but not too much.

No letter


CLAIMED - PH #22: Psychic Force, ジャイアント・ロボ - 地球が静止する日 | Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still (Anime), Phantom Brave, Fatal Fury

Request 1 by MarsDragon
Psychic Force
Characters: Burn Griffith, Richard Wong, Keith Evans, Regina Belfrond
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

I've asked for this all before. Here's a link to previous letters: https://marsdragon.dreamwidth.org/ and to previous requests: https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/username/MarsDragon

No letter

Request 2 by MarsDragon
ジャイアント・ロボ - 地球が静止する日 | Giant Robo: The Day the Earth Stood Still (Anime)
Characters: Alberto (Giant Robo), Cervantes (Giant Robo), Genya (Giant Robo), Worldbuilding (Giant Robo)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

I've asked for this all before. Here's a link to previous letters: https://marsdragon.dreamwidth.org/ and to previous requests: https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/username/MarsDragon

No letter

Request 3 by MarsDragon
Phantom Brave
Characters: Ash (Phantom Brave), Marona (Phantom Brave), Walnut (Phantom Brave), Worldbuilding (Phantom Brave)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

I've asked for this all before. Here's a link to previous letters: https://marsdragon.dreamwidth.org/ and to previous requests: https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/username/MarsDragon
I haven't played The Lost Hero yet, do with that information what you will.

No letter

Request 4 by MarsDragon
Fatal Fury
Characters: Terry Bogard, Billy Kane, Kain R. Heinlein (Fatal Fury), Rock Howard (Fatal Fury)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

I've asked for this all before. Here's a link to previous letters: https://marsdragon.dreamwidth.org/ and to previous requests: https://autoao3app.firebaseapp.com/#/everything/username/MarsDragon

No letter

Canon promos/links: Psychic force: a post on DW, a post on LJ

CLAIMED - PH #38: The Philosophers Series - Tom Miller, Bluestone 42 (TV), The Snopes Trilogy - William Faulkner
Request 1 by Zabbers
The Philosophers Series - Tom Miller
Characters: Sarah E. Stewart (Philosophers Series), Janet Brock (Philosophers Series), Hortense "Teeny" Millen (Philosophers Series), Worldbuilding (Philosophers Series)
My gift must feature one or more of my chosen character tags (giver's choice)

There's so much fun worldbuilding in these books and many specific possibilities for more worldbuilding, with hints of other spheres of expertise and future and past developments not fully described. There's something about systematized, empirical magic-making that's so satisfying; I enjoy the organized, institutional, even hierarchical touches in this universe. I liked the in-universe quotes from books, and reading about how specific sigils are done and were standardized, and learning about how women discovered and developed magic first as a folk practice and then brought it into the public sphere, and how it complements (and to a light extent even how it clashes with) parallel technological and cultural developments over its history. (The worldbuilding aspect I'm not as interested in is the political, whether that's Washington politics, Trenchers, or coups.)
Some things I'd like to see explored: how hovering develops in the future of the books side by side with conventional aviation (especially post-WWII); traditions and history of the United States Sigilry Corps; the immediately post-canon, pre-WWII lives of the characters nominated; Empirical Philosophy academia and texts and home instruction; County Philosophers and other jobs for sigilrists; Eupheus-powered travel; the General's Cup endurance flight; fiction about sigilry; camaraderie, sisterhood, and love (whether romantic or platonic) between empirical philosophers.
Other characters beyond my request who I also like are Robert Weekes, Gloxinia 'Jake' Jacobi, Edith Rubinski, Missy Pitcairn, Lennox Murchison, Bertie Synge, Emmaline Weekes, Brian Mayweather.
Feel free to diverge from the future hinted at in the books if you have a different idea for how the future of sigilry could go. I'd love it if in the latter half of the 20th century, empirical philosophy is 'allowed' back into legitimate use in the States, or an AU in which its practitioners never go into exile works too. In fact, feel free to diverge from the events in the books if you'd like, as long as you keep the physical way it works and the sense of scientific inquiry and traditions of the Corps and the schools and the many types of work women do with their philosophical skill.
Outside of canon-divergence, I also opt in to any fusion or crossover in which John Sheppard from Stargate Atlantis gets to use the hover sigil (please make him at least eventually as good at it as early Robert, anyone who can make her living at it, or any of the other Threes). I'm signed up for the Two for One sub-challenge. I welcome treats.
(click for) DNWs:- Trencher violence; smokecarving as chemical or biological warfare; bonekill
- Danielle Hardin/Robert Weekes as endgame
- 21st-century politics and events; apocalypse, genocide, mass social and civil unrest, epidemics; physical disasters people can't escape; "crapsack world" dystopias; child/domestic/institutional abuse
- harm to civilian bystanders
- accidents with current-day civilian vehicles (e.g. private and for-hire automobiles; passenger planes, rail, buses, ferries)
- nuclear explosions (or threat of annihilation by nuclear explosion); doomsday devices/weapons of mass destruction; radiation sickness
- burns/fire: burns beyond 1st degree, including hot fluid/chemical (scars from past events ok, but no details of its being a burn-type experience); charred/on fire bodies/parts alive or dead (food ok, not people); out-of-control fire or aftermath (e.g. campfire ok); ashes from bodies or destructive fire; description of heat damage to materiel or being trapped with burning heat
- accidental discharge of chemical projectile weapon
- decapitation
- pregnancy, childbirth, related complications; parent-child relationships/issues, childrearing
- intergenerational incest
- de-aging to childhood/adolescence (flashbacks/memory of actual childhood ok)
- major character death
- major illness
- death of grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, cousins
- funerary rites and objects; corpses
- negative 'ugh'; the words 'gross' or 'yuck' for non-physical disgust ("Sticky! Yuck!" ok, "I find that reprehensible. Yuck" no); the words 'daddy', 'mommy', 'titty', or 'niche' in any context
- intragroup social status struggle (power struggles not based on manipulating social opinion ok)
- weddings
- fungus, tumors, disordered organic growth
- readerfic
- smut
- if there is Stargate, DNW: onscreen Keller, Michael, Jackson, or Kavanagh; Atlantis' secession; the term 'AR-1'


Letter:
https://zabbers.dreamwidth.org/5221.html

Request 2 by Zabbers
Bluestone 42 (TV)
Characters: Nick Medhurst (Bluestone 42), Philip Smith (Bluestone 42)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

I just love this show, this unlikely comedy, with its clever humor in the face of very trying, high-tension circumstances, the rough and tumble camaraderie (bad jokes and terrible games to let off steam but also at the end of the day caring about and for each other's hurts and stresses in their awkward way), the fact that they actually are quite reasonably competent and responsible and professional (while acting like they're not) and well-trained even though you can really only be so prepared for something so difficult (and their weaknesses can get in the way), the jargon and protocols, the zippy and irreverent tone, the foibles and the insecurities and the quirks (you might say caricatures) and the way they face their fears.
I like to see them thrive, and for Bluestone 42 and the military in general to be somewhere that works pretty well for them each in their own way, somewhere they belong. They can be irreverent and jaded, but at the end of the day, it's a way of life they've all chosen. (Basically, I'm not looking for a critique or wider political picture beyond the tone of the show.)
This year, I especially have a hankering for Nick and the Colonel, their shared background that they know very well puts them kind of out of touch as much as out of reach, but that defines them for better and worse like any other culture, and they admit it and work with it; and the mentorship, which reflects that and also their personalities (wry and irreverent? perfectly willing to be self-serving sometimes and having to figure out how to turn that off when it's serious and the others' well-being becomes very important to them? reluctant to directly talk about things?). I love the mentorship, and the roundabout way it happens.
Other favorites include Mac, Rocket, and Bird.
I'm also always open to a Stargate Atlantis crossover in which the Bluestone 42 characters get deployed to the Pegasus Galaxy, or John Sheppard is seconded to Helmand, or these characters just know or meet each other. I'm signed up for the Two for One sub-challenge. I welcome treats.
(click for) DNWs:- post-canon politics and events; apocalypse, genocide, mass social and civil unrest, epidemics; physical disasters people can't escape; "crapsack world" dystopias; non-canonical child/domestic/institutional abuse
- vehicular accidents involving current-world civilian vehicles (military vehicles ok, historical vehicles that still exist today but are uncommon, such as horse carts ok)
- nuclear explosions (or threat of annihilation by nuclear explosion); doomsday devices/weapons of mass destruction; radiation sickness
- burns/fire: burns beyond 1st degree, including hot fluid/chemical (scars from past events ok; but no detailing of its being a burn-type experience); charred/on fire bodies/parts alive or dead (food ok, not people); out-of-control fire or aftermath (e.g. campfire ok); ashes from bodies or destructive fire; description of heat damage to materiel or being trapped with burning heat
- accidental discharge of chemical projectile weapon, unless it's pointed away from any people
- decapitation
- pregnancy, childbirth, related complications; parent-child relationships/issues, childrearing
- intergenerational incest
- de-aging to childhood/adolescence (flashbacks/memory of actual childhood ok)
- non-canonical major character death
- major illness
- death of grandparents parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, cousins
- funerary rites and objects; corpses
- negative 'ugh'; the words 'gross' or 'yuck' for non-physical disgust ("Sticky! Yuck!" ok, "I find that reprehensible. Yuck" no); the words 'daddy', 'mommy', 'titty', or 'niche' in any context
- intragroup social status struggle (power struggles not based on manipulating social opinion ok)
- weddings
- fungus, tumors, disordered organic growth
- readerfic
- smut
- if there is Stargate, DNW: onscreen Keller, Michael, Jackson, or Kavanagh; Atlantis' secession; the term 'AR-1'


Letter:
https://zabbers.dreamwidth.org/5221.html

Request 3 by Zabbers
The Snopes Trilogy - William Faulkner
Characters: Jack Houston (Snopes - Faulkner)
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags (if 0: any from tag set)

He's a side character, a device for what happens with Mink and ultimately Flem Snopes, but he's so vivid, both in small behavioral details during the main narrative that convey his personality and in the extensive digression into the side story of his life. I have a weakness for his kind of taciturn, uncompromising, stern, prickly, suffers-no-fools, island-like, stoic-yet-deep-feeling character. The sense that what happens with him is kind of inevitable and has a momentum as quietly forceful as he is, and that he knows it and tries to escape it, but can't, is really compelling to me. I especially liked him in the horse-shoeing scene, the way he accepts no nonsense and instead just does what needs to be done himself, but without making a fuss about it or nor any concessions to social lubrication.
I'd just like more of him! Whether in his school years, his years away from home, or after he comes back; if you'd like to see what happens in a canon-divergence AU or somehow extract him from the difficult context of Yoknapatawpha County into an AU or fusion/crossover that's far-flung but preserves what he's like at the core (while exploring the differences the historical and cultural context--and maybe personal history--makes or doesn't make), that'd be very interesting to me too. I'm signed up for the Two for One sub-challenge, though I don't have any specific suggestions for fandoms to pair with. I welcome treats.
(click for) DNWs:- 21st-century politics and events; apocalypse, genocide, mass social and civil unrest, epidemics; physical disasters people can't escape; "crapsack world" dystopias; child/domestic/institutional abuse
- accidents with current-day civilian vehicles (e.g. private and for-hire automobiles; passenger planes, rail, buses, ferries)
- nuclear explosions (or threat of annihilation by nuclear explosion); doomsday devices/weapons of mass destruction; radiation sickness
- burns/fire: burns beyond 1st degree, including hot fluid/chemical (scars from past events ok, but no details of its being a burn-type experience); charred/on fire bodies/parts alive or dead (food ok, not people); out-of-control fire or aftermath (e.g. campfire ok); ashes from bodies or destructive fire; description of heat damage to materiel or being trapped with burning heat
- accidental discharge of chemical projectile weapon
- decapitation
- pregnancy, childbirth, related complications; focus on parent-child relationships/issues, childrearing
- intergenerational incest
- de-aging to childhood/adolescence (flashbacks/memory of actual childhood ok)
- major illness
- death of grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts/uncles, cousins (ok that some of these people did die at some point to allow current situations to happen, but please don't address it in your text)
- funerary rites and objects; corpses
- negative 'ugh'; the words 'gross' or 'yuck' for non-physical disgust ("Sticky! Yuck!" ok, "I find that reprehensible. Yuck" no); the words 'daddy', 'mommy', 'titty', or 'niche' in any context
- intragroup social status struggle (power struggles not based on manipulating social opinion ok)
- weddings
- fungus, tumors, disordered organic growth
- readerfic
- smut


Letter:
https://zabbers.dreamwidth.org/5221.html

Canon promotion: The Philosophers Series

Trying my best to arrive

27 October 2025 12:19 pm
sovay: (Sydney Carton)
[personal profile] sovay
This morning was marked by construction on a loudly adjacent street, a constant window-juddering for hours from which I finally managed to fall asleep just in time to wake up for my doctor's apppointment. The amount of sleep on which I have run this last week is not sufficient to sustain intelligence. This meme I stole from [personal profile] foxmoth might still have required thought to complete: the seven deadly sins of reading.

1. Lust, books I want to read for their cover.

None at the moment, but the mysterious attractiveness of cover art has in the past memorably led me to check out P. C. Hodgell's God Stalk (1982), Larry Niven's The Integral Trees (1984), and Tanith Lee's The Book of the Damned (1988).

2. Pride, challenging books I've finished.

In terms of personal time put in, Alasdair Gray's Lanark: A Life in Four Books (1981), Robert Serber's The Los Alamos Primer: The First Lectures on How to Build an Atomic Bomb (1992), and Yiannis (Anastasios Ioannis) Metaxas' Μετά όμως, μετά . . . (2017).

3. Gluttony, books I've read more than once.

I don't even keep track! Elizabeth Goudge's The Valley of Song (1951), Mary Renault's The Mask of Apollo (1966), Ursula K. Le Guin's The Complete Orsinia (2016).

4. Sloth, books on my to-read list the longest.

I don't keep a to-read list. I have failed to get around to whole chunks of the Western canon in English.

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

Not counting books that had to be re-bought specifically because their original editions were perishing through use, Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita (1967), Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master (1976–79), and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast (1946–59).

6. Wrath, books I despised.

Books I disliked seem to slip from my mind more easily than the other kind, but I bounced definitely off Josephine Tey's The Franchise Affair (1948), Alan Moore's Watchmen (1987), and A. S. Byatt's The Children's Book (2009).

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

I do not want to live in most of the books I read for a variety of reasons, but from elementary through high school the answer would have been hands-down, one-way, Anne McCaffrey's Pern. These days I would take a study abroad in Greer Gilman's Cloud. Lloyd Alexander's Prydain remains the site of my sole official, never-written self-insert.

Appropriately enough to wind up a book meme, I have just been given two poetry collections in modern Greek by the friend of the family who has the olive groves outside Sparti. I remain amateur in the language and the Nikos Kavvadias looks incredibly maritime.

That A-Z Meme

27 October 2025 06:56 pm
purplecat: An open book with a quill pen and a lamp. (General:Academia)
[personal profile] purplecat
Goodness it is ages since I did a meme and, I suspect, even longer since I actually managed to write any fanfic, however the A-Z meme got me curious so without more ado.

Check-In Post - Oct 27th 2025

27 October 2025 06:27 pm
badly_knitted: (Get Knitted)
[personal profile] badly_knitted posting in [community profile] get_knitted

Hello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.

Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?

There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.


This Week's Question (courtesy of [personal profile] cora): What was your last project that got put into "time out" and why?


If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.

I now declare this Check-In OPEN!



Alphabetical fic meme

27 October 2025 03:26 pm
john_amend_all: (zoebel)
[personal profile] john_amend_all
Memed from [personal profile] thisbluespirit and [personal profile] pedanther:
Rules: How many letters of the alphabet have you used for starting a fic title? One fic per line, ‘A’ and 'The’ do not count for 'a’ and ’t’. Post your score out of 26 at the end, along with your total fic count.

Total score: 25/26, from 354 works on AO3.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't have any trouble with Z, and in the end I didn't even need to venture out of AO3 to exhume Zoë Heriot and the Elf-Knight to get there. If I ever do take up my keyboard again I'll have to consider what can be done with X, though.

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