waybackexchange | Member Posts

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Is this thing still on?

I fell badly out of the habit of posting here, but I miss it, so this seems like a good way to break the ice.

As usual, I have come up with way too many fandoms with no fic on the archive. Some have tags due to us importing the tagset the first year, but no fic. Some haven't even managed that. It seems like every year I discover a few new fandoms that would have had a fandom if fandom had existed at the time of release the way it does now.

So here is a list in no particular order with no details. If anyone is still reading this, you can give me a number request and I'll write a small blurb. I'm not expecting the fandoms to be recognized except from previous noms of mine, but I'm hoping the act of writing blurbs will help me narrow it down.

ETA: What will probably happen (because it always happens) is that I'll nominate a bunch of fandoms no one knows and end up signing up with half those and half things other people nom, just to make myself matchable (and usually there's something I hadn't even thought of that I would have nominated myself).

Current Mood: determined

ruric

Look at me doing a timely update.

I know lots of people aren't doing great right now and it feels pointless to crack on with the mundane aspects of living when the world seems to be on fire on all fronts. Not sure how everyone else is coping but I'm trying to channel my anger, rage and frustration on other slightly more visible platforms and pointing it at people who might be able to do something. So I'm aiming to keep my DW as a bit of a refuge.

#ORJENISE100 run by the lass on Insta is happening again this month. I'm 3 days behind but have already shifted 114 items. Not sure I'll beat my January total of using, donating or chucking 401 items but I'm well on the way.

HOME: chaos still reigns in my bedroom and living room but my kitchen, hall/stairs and bathroom have been cleaned and tidied. Still need to fix the new airvent in the bathroom but that will be done when I've finished sanding and varnishing the external side of the bathroom - which is why I hope the forecast for a sunny Friday will hold! Also on the docket for external fixes are sanding and painting the front door and front gate before the weather gets too bad. I've also still got winter pots and window boxes to finish planting.

HEALTH: overall pretty good though my arthritic knees are not happy. I took a tumble on site last Monday and despite landing on my padded posterior I apparently wrenched my knees and hit a pipe on the way down which has left a gigantic bruise on my shin. Ouch! For the first time in my life I filled out a proper accident form at work just in case my knees get even worse.

LIFE ADMIN: slowly picking away at long outstanding tasks like a grown ass adult.

GARDENING/ALLOTMENTING: I spent a chunk of last Saturday and Sunday afternoon down on the plot (not this weekend which has been too wet) and harvested courgettes and started the great pre-winter clear up. Still need to pick up windfall apples and harvest the rest when ready. Hoping to get the shed,tidied and sorted if we have a sunny weekend in October!

COOKING/EATING: doing a bit of a pantry/freezer challenge this month and using up items. My storage boxes are staring to look a bit depleted but I really DO NOT need to buy ground coffee or honey for a good few months. The coffee will go down quickly especially if I replace my morning cafe coffee with home made. The honey situation is out of control. I haven't counted how many jars but I estimate around 30. Apparently when I go away or visit a farmers market I buy honey, lots and lots of honey,

READING/LISTENING: Not reading/ listening at the moment - have run out of processing power! Have bought some good books from Bookbub and Bookdrop though and am going to try to get back to reading for 30 mins every evening to wind down.

WATCHING: all my usual weekly shows. Summer feels like it's been a bit quieter for new TV. Having said that I am loving Chief of War and S3 of Foundation and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Very sad that we only have 16 eps of ST: SNW before the show ends.

CREATING/LEARNING: summer has been nuts at work so hardly any time for crochet club or other creative endeavours.

CATS: all good.

VOLUNTEERING: all few committee meetings but no work days and we had to postpone the end of seasons BBQ because of the weather.

SOCIALISING: it's been a busy summer at work so social activities have beens bit limited. At work the allotment group did a show allotment at Hampton Court which was a 5 day build, exhibiting for 7 days and then a 1.5 day take down. They won best allotment and I am very proud of them. I was there for most of the build and take down and helped out on one show day. Tremendous fun. I helped out

gingerpig with Steve Carlson's summer gig, again fun and a chance to catch up with friends, and I went to see Born with Teeth the Marlow & Shakespeare play with Ncuti Gatwa and Edward Bluemel. Which I have many thoughts about but can be summarised as I thought the writing was weak in places but Ncuti and Edward were obviously having heaps of fun with it. I may see if I can pop back at the end of the run.

WORK: Summer has been very stressful and - for the first time - I seriously wondered about quitting or taking retirement. I like the job most of the time, love the people in the Parks team and and the volunteers on the sites but I've taken on triple the amount of work my predecessors did and we're chronically under resourced. All of which led to a bit of a meltdown over the last 10 days. I'm getting too tired to work ridiculous numbers of hours in excess of my contracted hours and I want a life back!

Next week is a busy week too with a potentially challenging meeting on Thursday night but I plan to take Friday off because - as usual - I'll be about a day in hand by then!

marmolita

Hello dreamwidth, it's been a while! I have been reading a lot of books lately, and back when I used to use LJ as my main means of communication with my friends, I used to put all my book reviews there. Well, all those friends have moved on to other platforms and my IRL-linked account no longer has anyone reading it, so I figured I may as well move content here, where perhaps one or two people will see it but at least I'll be able to find it.

I do find it very interesting that what used to be my obscure niche of literary interest is now commonplace, likely along with the rise of fanfic in pop culture and the transition of fic writers to pro writers. It means there are a lot more books out there for me to read, but it also means there are a lot more books in this genre niche that are just...not very good. It's like the difference between a small fandom with mostly good fic and a huge fandom where there's a lot of good fic but you have to wade through the not-so-good fic to find it? Though at least the grammar is generally okay in published books.

I found a post from 2005 where I summarized some features that fantasy books I liked had in common:

some element of queerness (in 2005 I wrote "genderbending or alternative sexuality" but "alternative sexuality" sounds weird and dated 20 years later lol)
focus on character development as much as or more than the plot itself
plot involves some amount of political drama
characters who are spies, thieves, prostitutes, assassins, etc.
good worldbuilding in a way that makes the fantasy world seem more real and less fanciful
some element of romance
female characters who don't suck

I think these days, there's a lot more character-driven fantasy including female characters who are more than just stereotypes and which have romance and queer characters. When I was looking for books like this to read in 2005, the queer characters were few and far between.

In any case, the point of making this post was to write about some books I've read recently, and I will attempt to do so without spoilers. They'll be written in the order I read them.

( A Court of Thorns and Roses series (Sarah J. Maas) + a fic rec that is better )

( Iron Widow (Xiran Jay Zhao) )

( Empire of Sand (Tasha Suri) )

( The Folk of the Air series (Holly Black) )

And I think that is all I have to say about books for the moment. I need a real life book club where I can read these sort of books with other people and then actually have in-person conversations about them, especially because when I look at the discourse online so many people are just plain Wrong.

beatrice_otter

I use the same name everywhere so I am

beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.

I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for over a decade and am usually very happy with my gifts.

The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.

I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.

General Likes and Dislikes

other things to keep in mind:

I like stuff that takes side characters and puts them center-stage, especially when the characters and/or actors are marginalized. I enjoy seeing them come to life.
I don't like it when marginalized characters get relegated to the sidekick/supporting/helper role so that it can be All About The White Dude.
I like it when female characters are more than just the Strong Female Character(tm) or The Nurturer.
I like fluff
I like angst with a happy ending
I like stories that make me think about things in a new way.
I like to know that culture matters to people, and to see how different cultures interact and where the clashes are.
I like unreliable narrators.
I like acknowledgment that different people can have different points of view without either of them being wrong.
I like stories that engage with problematic aspects of the source, and which deal with privilege in one way or another instead of sweeping it under the rug.
Worldbuilding is my jam, I am pretty much always up for explorations of why the world is the way it is. I love hearing about the economics, the politics, the religion, the clothing, the history, the folklore, all of that kind of stuff. And I want to know why it matters--how is all this cultural background stuff affecting the characters, the plot, everything. You don't have to do deep worldbuilding, but I'll enjoy it if you do.
I don't like it when plots hinge on characters being selectively stupid, or selectively unable to communicate. Like, if they are stupid or a himbo or whatever in general, or have problems communicating in general, that's fine! Or if they canonically have a blind spot in that area, again, it's fine. But if it's just "the only way I can think of for this plot to work is if the character spontaneously and temporarily loses half their intelligence and competence," then I'm going to spend the rest of the fic wondering why the character didn't just ____?
I like AUs, but not complete setting AUs (i.e. no highschool or college or coffee shop AUs, and especially not mundane AUs--nothing where you keep characters but drop most of the worldbuilding). I like fork-in-the-road type AUs, where one thing is different and the changes all result from that one thing, and you explore what might have been if such-and-such happened.
I like the concept of sedoretu marriages.
I like historical AUs, but only when the author actually knows the history period in question and does thoughtful worldbuilding to meld actual culture of the time with the canon.
Crackfic is really hit and miss for me, sometimes I love it and sometimes I can't stand it. Basically, if it's the characters we know and love in a ludicrous situation, that's great. If they're OOC or parodied in order to make something funny ... it's not funny to me.

I like plotty, gen stories, and plotty stories in general. I don't care for explicit sex, particularly when it's just thrown in for teh porn. I'm asexual; a lot of the time I don't even bother to read the sex scenes. Romance is awesome (as long as both are in character and the romantic plot doesn't hinge on one or both of them being an idiot). I love it when friendship is held up as important and not secondary to romantic relationships and blood ties.

Please no incest or darkfic. I define "darkfic" as stuff where there's a lot of suffering and no hope even at the end and all the characters are terrible. Angst with a happy ending is fine, I enjoy it, but there's gotta be a payoff. Even an ambiguous ending is fine! But there has to be some note of grace or redemption or hope somewhere, it can't just be "people are awful and the world sucks, the end." I define incest as siblings and/or parents, cousins don't count.

I love outsider perspectives and academic takes on things. In-universe meta (newspaper articles, academic monographs--especially with the sort of snarky feuding common in actual real-world academia, social media feeds in current day or future worlds) is awesome.

Also, I'm picky about European historical clothing details. You don't have to talk about it at all! In fact, if you don't know much about historical clothing, I would prefer if you didn't mention it at all. My pet peeve is corsets: no, they weren't a restrictive tool of the patriarchy, no, they didn't interfere with most women's daily lives, no, most women weren't wearing them so tight they couldn't breathe.

I like religion but I'm picky about it. Basically, Christianity is deeply weird compared to most other religions, and a lot of people whose only experience with religion is living in a culturally-Christian nation assume that what they know about Christianity is some sort of universal principle of What Religion Is Like, and that's just not the case. For example, in Christianity what you believe is more important than what you do. This is not to say we Christians don't teach and practice Christian ethics or have rituals we are very attached to, but rather that if you don't believe in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter what rituals you participate in or what ethical things you do, you are not a Christian (although you may be a "cultural Christian"). Every Christian group has at least a minimal core theology that members must affirm, but participation in ritual is far less rigidly a requirement. Most other religions rank what you do (both ethically and ritually) as more important than what you believe, and it is often quite possible to be a member in good standing if you participate in the practices and rituals even if you believe none of the teachings. Anyway, point is, if you are doing worldbuilding for a fantasy or SF or otherwise non-Christian religion ... unless it is explicitly a Christian-analogue, it should be different from Christianity. Question your assumptions and see where that leads you, and I will be fascinated and thrilled.

( Fandom for Robots )

( Peter Wimsey )

( Rivers of London )

( DS9 )

( TOS )

( TNG )

( Oh, My General )

( Thrawn Trilogy )

( Goblin Emperor )

desertvixen

My general preferences are here.

THE SHORT LIST:

TREATS ARE VERY WELCOME!

I have selected the 1x 10K or 2x 5K options for all requests. Feel free mix and match it up!

I am opting in to remixing if you like that option. Feel free to play with any of the stuff I have for these couples.

This is a sort of supercut letter, so enjoy! One has a lot more, it's just because I've put a lot of thought into it. I love them all.

( Rambles )

( Requests )

ruric

Following a bit of a grey and wet start with an impending chill in the air we've had a few days of sunshine.

Saturday and Sunday were both warm and if not sunny throughout had bursts of sunshine and I was able to spend a chunk of time on both Saturday and Sunday afternoon down on the allotment.

Despite being somewhat neglected over summer there were courgettes to harvest (and a ton of windfall apples which I will be picking up and stewing tomorrow). I got a significant amount of clearing for winter started which made me feel productive. Something about gardening and allotment feeds my soul in a way that few things do.

I also had a bit of a B&Q spree and bought a load more bulbs for the remaining pots at home - which will be planted over the next couple of weeks because gosh darn it I am finally learning to pace myself in the last few days of my 61st year.

I have varnish/stain for the back door and paint for the gate/front door some of which I intend to apply tomorrow as I celebrate the start of my 62nd year riding this burning hunk of rock through space.

doranwen

updated 2025-09-12

This is the post of all the Profiler fics in my database, organized by time (in canon) (and then sorted by length). (For Profiler recs organized by major ship and then author, go here.)

At last, I finally have the Profiler fics added to my database! These are not, of course, the only Profiler fics out there, but I excluded anything too poorly written or that was for a ship I cannot get into no matter what. So you won't see Believer or Skew fic in here (though perhaps some of the Jack/Frances fics you might consider Skewed); any instances of those ships listed are one-sided pining or stalking, respectively. And while I'm a SABER at heart, these fics are not entirely SABER (and a decent number are gen), so there should be something for everyone.

I have included my own fics in this post. I have marked some as favorites (because I do re-read them from time to time!), and others I have not. None of them are marked as exceptionally well-written because I couldn't objectively evaluate my own work that way, even when I particularly like the way I wrote something.

About a third of the fics in the database for this fandom were not found on either AO3 or ff.n due to the age of the fandom. The bulk of those were on LJ, but others were on sites accessible only via the Wayback Machine. I created epubs for any fic that was not on either AO3 or ff.n and can provide those if desired. Note that during the creation process, I cleaned up formatting issues and occasionally corrected punctuation or spelling, so that I could tolerate reading it in the future.

In the process of going through LJ and other sites, I frequently ran across the same fics posted under different names on different sites. Whenever possible, I linked the identities in a single author name, with each individual name separated by a /.

Many of the fics on LJ or other sites did not have summaries included, so there are a large number without summaries. If you are concerned about content, feel free to request a version of this post with all the themes included, so you'll at least have the equivalent of freeform tags to go off of. Otherwise, consider giving them a try; some of those are very well-written and all are enjoyable to at least some extent.

If you know of a well-written fic for one of the ships below (particularly SABER, gen, John/any-woman-but-Sam, or George/Grace), lurking in the murky backwaters of the old 'net (or on the dusty corners of a personal hard drive), please let me know! I went through all the major sites that I'm aware of but some fics weren't archived, and if they were on a personal site not linked up to the others, I might not find it.

A chunk of the "dead" fics are marked as WIPs not because the fics originally were, but because the WBM frequently saved only the first chapter (sometimes two), and the authors cannot be contacted now. I have taken the perspective that part of a fic is better than no fic, and added the ones I liked to my database. If you run across one of them and know how to reach the author or have a full copy of the fic, please let me now!

( Icon guide )

( Explanation of ratings )

( Content warnings and spoilers )

( Ships )

Serious Profiler fans may be aware that the season 2 episodes were aired out of order. This recs post uses the numbers for the more logical original intended order:
2x01 Ambition in the Blood
2x02 Power Corrupts
2x03 Primal Scream
2x04 It Cuts Both Ways
2x05 Second Best

The names of the final two episodes of S4 are also confused somewhat but this follows the numerical sequence order, regardless of which name the episode has.

Below are the recs:

( 1x01 )

( 1x02 )

( 1x05 )

( 1x10 )

( 1x11 )

( 1x13 )

( 1x14 )

( 1x17 )

( 1x19 )

( 2x01 )

( 2x03 )

( 2x04 )

( 2x05 )

( 2x06 )

( 2x08 )

( 2x10 )

( 2x11 )

( 2x12 )

( 2x13 )

( 2x14 )

( 2x15 )

( 2x17 )

( 2x18 )

( 3x02 )

( 3x04 )

( 3x08 )

( 3x11 )

( 3x14 )

( 3x18 )

( 4x01 )

( 4x02 )

( 4x11 )

( 4x12 )

( 4x14 )

( 4x16 )

( 4x19 )

( future )

( indeterminate )

( multi )

( post-series )

( pre-series )

( S1 )

( S2 )

( S3 )

( S4 )

If any of the non-dead links above no longer work, please let me know so I can flag them as "Dead" in my database, thanks!

Enjoy! :)

doranwen

updated 2025-09-12

This is the post of all the Profiler fics in my database, organized by major ships (and then by author). (For Profiler recs organized by time in canon and wordcount instead, go here.)

At last, I finally have the Profiler fics added to my database! These are not, of course, the only Profiler fics out there, but I excluded anything too poorly written or that was for a ship I cannot get into no matter what. So you won't see Believer or Skew fic in here (though perhaps some of the Jack/Frances fics you might consider Skewed); any instances of those ships listed are one-sided pining or stalking, respectively. And while I'm a SABER at heart, these fics are not entirely SABER (and a decent number are gen), so there should be something for everyone.

I have included my own fics in this post. I have marked some as favorites (because I do re-read them from time to time!), and others I have not. None of them are marked as exceptionally well-written because I couldn't objectively evaluate my own work that way, even when I particularly like the way I wrote something.

About a third of the fics in the database for this fandom were not found on either AO3 or ff.n due to the age of the fandom. The bulk of those were on LJ, but others were on sites accessible only via the Wayback Machine (WBM). I created epubs for any fic that was not on either AO3 or ff.n and can provide those if desired. Note that during the creation process, I cleaned up formatting issues and occasionally corrected punctuation or spelling, so that I could tolerate reading it in the future.

In the process of going through LJ and other sites, I frequently ran across the same fics posted under different names on different sites. Whenever possible, I linked the identities in a single author name, with each individual name separated by a /.

Many of the fics on LJ or other sites did not have summaries included, so there are a large number without summaries. If you are concerned about content, feel free to request a version of this post with all the themes included, so you'll at least have the equivalent of freeform tags to go off of. Otherwise, consider giving them a try; some of those are very well-written and all are enjoyable to at least some extent.

If you know of a well-written fic for one of the ships below (particularly SABER, gen, John/any-woman-but-Sam, or George/Grace), lurking in the murky backwaters of the old 'net (or on the dusty corners of a personal hard drive), please let me know! I went through all the major sites that I'm aware of but some fics weren't archived, and if they were on a personal site not linked up to the others, I might not find it.

A chunk of the "dead" fics are marked as WIPs not because the fics originally were, but because the WBM frequently saved only the first chapter (sometimes two), and the authors cannot be contacted now. I have taken the perspective that part of a fic is better than no fic, and added the ones I liked to my database. If you run across one of them and know how to reach the author or have a full copy of the fic, please let me now!

( Icon guide )

( Explanation of ratings )

( Content warnings and spoilers )

( Ships )

Below are the recs:

( Bailey Malone & Chloe Waters, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone & Frances Malone )

( Bailey Malone & Grace Alvarez, George Fraley & Grace Alvarez )

( Bailey Malone & Grace Alvarez, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( Bailey Malone & John Grant )

( Bailey Malone & John Grant, John Grant & Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone & Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone & Samantha Waters, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Chloe Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Ellen Behar, Bailey Malone/OFC, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Ellen Behar, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Janet Malone, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Janet Malone, Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters, Tom Waters/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, John Grant/Angel Brown )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, Tom Waters/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, John Grant & Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters, Tom Waters/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, OFC/OFC )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Paul Sterling/Samantha Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Samantha Waters & Chloe Waters )

( Bailey Malone/Samantha Waters, Walter Anderson & Samantha Waters )

( Frances Malone/OMC, John Grant/Frances Malone )

( George Fraley & Grace Alvarez )

( George Fraley & Grace Alvarez, George Fraley & John Grant )

( George Fraley & Grace Alvarez, George Fraley/Rich Warren, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( George Fraley & John Grant )

( George Fraley & John Grant, George Fraley/Rich Warren )

( George Fraley/Grace Alvarez )

( George Fraley/Grace Alvarez, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( George Fraley/Rich Warren, Morgan Ballard & Rich Warren, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( George Fraley/Rich Warren, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( Grace Alvarez/OMC )

( Jack of All Trades/Frances Malone )

( Jack of All Trades/Janet Malone )

( Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters )

( Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, Jack of All Trades/Sharon Lesher )

( Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters )

( Jack of All Trades/Samantha Waters, Samantha Waters & Chloe Waters )

( Jack of All Trades/Sharon Lesher )

( John Grant & Chloe Waters, Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters )

( John Grant & Grace Alvarez )

( John Grant & Grace Alvarez, John Grant/Kate Wilton )

( John Grant & Nathan Brubaker )

( John Grant & Patrick O'Doyle, John Grant & Samantha Waters )

( John Grant & Patrick O'Doyle, OMC/OFC )

( John Grant & Rachel Burke )

( John Grant & Samantha Waters )

( John Grant & Samantha Waters, John Grant/OFC )

( John Grant/Angel Brown )

( John Grant/Frances Malone )

( John Grant/Frances Malone, John Grant/Kate Wilton )

( John Grant/Frances Malone, John Grant/Rachel Burke )

( John Grant/Michelle Brubaker )

( John Grant/Rachel Burke )

( John Grant/Samantha Waters )

( Morgan Ballard/Grace Alvarez )

( Nathan Brubaker/Michelle Brubaker )

( Nick Cooper/Samantha Waters )

( Samantha Waters & Chloe Waters )

( Samantha Waters/Angel Brown )

( Samantha Waters/Reader's Choice (male character) )

( Tom Waters/Samantha Waters )

( No major ships )

If any of the non-dead links above no longer work, please let me know so I can flag them as "Dead" in my database, thanks!

Enjoy! :)

ride_4ever

The Firewhiskey Fic Challenge Comm on Dreamwidth has been on hiatus for over a year and has now returned! More details will be forthcoming about this "ficcing while in an altered state" challenge, but know that the date has been set for Friday, October 3 as the start and it lasts for 48 hours.

See the current announcement here.

Rules can be found here within the comm's profile page.

Current Mood: enthused
Current Location: near the lake they call Michigan

ruric

I really need to get back into the habit of posting rather than just reading along!

Update Chez Ruric:

I had 2 weeks off at the end of August where I had plans to achieve things but did nothing because I was mentally and physically exhausted. Then I looked back at the end of 2024 and saw a similar kind of entry and things must change in late 2025/26. So I am making adjustments.

#project65days is plodding along - things are very slowly being sorted. I've started tackling my main Gmail account which at the beginning of the year had some 26,000 archived emails. I've had the account for 15 plus years and there's important stuff to keep in there along with everything else. I'm down to 16,500 stored emails and feeling quite proud of my progress! I mentally lighter with every 100 deletions.

Flat - between #project65days and the current round of #orjenise100 which has just started things are improving. I've started chipping away at the chaos in my bedroom, have bought a load of new houseplants as Lidl had large and medium sized pants at good prices which will make things feel greener. The ex is away mid September which means I can commandeer his washing machine and catch up on a backlog of washing.

Front garden - I got my act together last week and tidied the tiny front garden and pruned the roses. And I resolved not to try and do all my autumn window box and basket planting in one hit - which stresses me out and takes all the fun out of it - but rather space it out and do a few things at a time. So far I've planted a pot of pinks, a hanging basket, a window box of pinks for outside the kitchen window, bought and potted a new hebe.

Still to plant - 2 window boxes and 2 pots and sort out the raised bed in the front garden, 3 window boxes for in front of the living room windows, 2 window boxes and 4 large pots for the porch roof.

Winter prep still to do - sand and varnishing the exterior of the stable door into the garden, sand and paint the front gate and front door, touch up the White paint in the porch exterior and interior.

Back garden - so much pruning and sorting to do. Not worrying about that until October!

Allotment - harvesting and winter prep. I'll be down there for what's left of today, all day tomorrow and Tuesday.

Right - off to make coffee and then down to the lottie.

lightbird

I flopped last year. Here's hoping I do better this time, lol.

Episode Tags and Missing Scenes	Wabi / Sabi	Journalist / Chronicler	Midnight	Found Families
Sacrifice / Letting Go	Neutral Colours	Revelations and Concealments	Kinetic Energy	Information is given off the record
Street Food	Truth or Dare	Wild Card	Landscape/Panorama	Superpowers
Ritual Marks and Body Decorations	Slice of Life	Pre- Slash / Femslash / Het	Coffee Shop AU	If only you'd notice me: Yearning and obliviousness
Documentation	Hopelessly Devoted	Epistolary fic: Emails, letters etc.	Loss of Faith	Flesh and Bone

thisbluespirit

Another of the AU_gust ficlets, this one for the prompt "Masquerade Ball" and also for

allbingo Crime Classics square "Foreign Bodies." I put 0 research and accuracy into it and the fandom doesn't have enough fic to warrant an AU, but I was thinking about WML when I saw the prompt. Anyway, less traumatic than the actual incident's end in 1.6, one trusts.

Masquerade Ball (633 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Wish Me Luck (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Colin Beale/Matty Firman
Characters: Colin Beale (Wish Me Luck), Matty Firman
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Regency, Spies & Secret Agents, Ficlet, Community: allbingo, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Alternate Universe - Napoleonic Wars, handwaves accuracy, Matty just being Matty in any time period, Implied Sexual Content
Summary: Matty and Colin get caught in a compromising position.

(I thought I was doing better today but I just failed at the summary sentence ~~three~~ ~~four~~ FIVE times in a row, so I do hope my editing was actually okay. It was only tweaking, so let's hope so.)

doranwen

[Posting this here so that it can be linked to as a master list of everything I archive]

( List of fandoms I archive )

beatrice_otter

... the more often I notice little details that are wrong in movies and books.

Like, most recently, I watched a few minutes of Saving Private Ryan, which included the delivery of the telegram about most of her sons dying to Mrs. Ryan. She is doing dishes in the kitchen when she looks out the window and sees a car driving up. She is wearing an apron. She goes to the door to greet the Official Men who are coming.

Me: ... why isn't she taking off the apron, or replacing it with a clean one, or flipping it around?

I have heard stories from multiple women about their mothers working really hard to always have a perfectly pristine apron whenever unexpected company showed up, the 1930s version of "we can't let anybody know we live here!" So, for example, women who would wear their aprons inside out, so that they could flip it around whenever the doorbell rang, and know the pretty side would be perfectly clean. Or women who would take their aprons off and stuff them in a drawer when they saw a car drive up, and pretend they hadn't been working in the kitchen or scrubbing the floor or whatever. Or run to the kitchen and swap out their everyday apron for the fancy one with the ruffles and embroidery or whatnot. In every case, the idea was for the apron to look like a fashion statement, and not an actual functional garment.

But the thing is, no piece of fiction is ever going to be 100% perfect in its presentation of the past, no matter how much they try for accuracy; if for no other reason than that lots of the past simply gets forgotten about. Nobody can possibly know every detail about what life was like in an era before they were born, even if they've studied it extensively. (And the further back in time you go, the less stuff it is possible to know.) And even if you could be accurate, the accuracy might not fit with the story you're trying to tell; it might distract from an emotional moment, or it might signal something completely different to modern eyes, or it might just not register to modern people unless you took the time to stop and explain what's going on. All of which interfere with telling the story you're trying to tell.

So for me, it's a lot of "they're not wrong to do it that way, that I find it annoying is totally a ME issue and not an objective problem with the story.

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Ficlet: Masquerade Ball (Wish Me Luck)

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