On the D&D front...
Sep. 18th, 2025 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
settiaiSo, yes, I posted my usual summary last night, but the events of the game itself deserve their own post.
( More about the utter chaos of extremely lucky wild magic rolls under the cut. )
( More about the utter chaos of extremely lucky wild magic rolls under the cut. )
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Sep. 17th, 2025 10:49 pmmarycatelli in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
booksJeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
Another Jeeves novel. Spoilers ahead for the earlier ones.
( Read more... )
Another Jeeves novel. Spoilers ahead for the earlier ones.
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Sep. 17th, 2025 11:00 pmbeccaelizabethI keep on running a plot bunny around in my head
and then concluding that the original canon version of the story
is the strongest
which is frustrating
because I want to get my teeth into it and,
I don't know,
shake like it's one of those dog toys with the smaller tougher toy inside
and am being frustrated by the overall quality of construction.
and then concluding that the original canon version of the story
is the strongest
which is frustrating
because I want to get my teeth into it and,
I don't know,
shake like it's one of those dog toys with the smaller tougher toy inside
and am being frustrated by the overall quality of construction.
Critical Role
Sep. 17th, 2025 05:30 pmsettiaiTwo fandom-related posts in a row? Really? I can't even remember the last time that happened.
Critical Role has its fourth campaign starting in just over two weeks, and they posted the first artwork of the new characters earlier this week. They haven't released any other details like classes and such, but I'm very, very, very curious about several of them. Especially since they posted a video earlier today about character vibes, some of which sound kinda amazing.
The fandom is definitely ramping up again, which is helping with forcing my brain to get through watching as many of the specials that I've missed as I can before CR4 starts. I've missed having a proper weekly fandom, and I really want to try to get back in the habit of napping after work on Thursdays so that I can stay up late watching the new episodes live.
Critical Role has its fourth campaign starting in just over two weeks, and they posted the first artwork of the new characters earlier this week. They haven't released any other details like classes and such, but I'm very, very, very curious about several of them. Especially since they posted a video earlier today about character vibes, some of which sound kinda amazing.
The fandom is definitely ramping up again, which is helping with forcing my brain to get through watching as many of the specials that I've missed as I can before CR4 starts. I've missed having a proper weekly fandom, and I really want to try to get back in the habit of napping after work on Thursdays so that I can stay up late watching the new episodes live.
Is this me rewriting my own memories? Very probably. But...
Sep. 17th, 2025 07:52 pmbeccaelizabethI saw a very old tumblr post complaining about how
'the fandom' were okay with Owen and Toshiko dying
so I am going to complain about it on a totally different platform.
I don't think 'the fandom' were? I recall fixit fics. Ways to get Owen out of the nuclear station, with varying degrees of angst, and ways to get Toshiko actual medical attention, or cryo etc.
The thing is Children of Earth landed in five days. Which, I know that dropping a season for binge watching has become normal, but you didn't *get* five day event television on your sci fi tv show then. Episodes happened once a week and then you argued about them, it took months to chew them all over, you got unexpected twists and went wow all week until you saw them resolved. Which I feel like Dreamwidth users remember but a lot of younger fans need explained? So it landed in five days, and you got a sort of concentrated reaction bomb, critical mass as a season's worth of arguments tried to happen overnight. Compare that to anything before or since and you've take essential ingredients out of the boom.
So the experience of watching Torchwood was...
( Read more... )
The tumblr post pretty much seemed to think that the main difference between Ianto and Toshiko dying is the racism.
Can't say there's none of that in the mix. We don't get the same sort of stories about endless grief about Toshiko, and someone decided that. Feedback loop with the shrine, probably, but still.
Also after so much new Big Finish since the TV gave up on them my perspective is informed by new canon that only a tiny fraction of television viewers would be familiar with.
But the context just on the television at the time of first broadcast was so *hugely* different... Owen and Toshiko die and while that did pretty emphatically end a story arc you don't know for sure what the rules are and their return would be very precedented, you kind of think there's going to be another season and then there's that Event instead, and all the rules get changed up, in the process destroying the template and contents of the show we had been watching.
Comparing the reactions is like comparing the fuse fizz to the bang.
And there was still quite a lot of earlier bang.
I could go reread my own journal to see how much of this is me retconning myself
but I just realised I haven't ate since midnight
and it is 9pm.
Bit not good, shall go deal with being a biological entity now.
So maybe this is all made up retroactive justification
but really
the reaction to Ianto's death was an absolute one off
so
compare contrasting isn't going to work out.
'the fandom' were okay with Owen and Toshiko dying
so I am going to complain about it on a totally different platform.
I don't think 'the fandom' were? I recall fixit fics. Ways to get Owen out of the nuclear station, with varying degrees of angst, and ways to get Toshiko actual medical attention, or cryo etc.
The thing is Children of Earth landed in five days. Which, I know that dropping a season for binge watching has become normal, but you didn't *get* five day event television on your sci fi tv show then. Episodes happened once a week and then you argued about them, it took months to chew them all over, you got unexpected twists and went wow all week until you saw them resolved. Which I feel like Dreamwidth users remember but a lot of younger fans need explained? So it landed in five days, and you got a sort of concentrated reaction bomb, critical mass as a season's worth of arguments tried to happen overnight. Compare that to anything before or since and you've take essential ingredients out of the boom.
So the experience of watching Torchwood was...
( Read more... )
The tumblr post pretty much seemed to think that the main difference between Ianto and Toshiko dying is the racism.
Can't say there's none of that in the mix. We don't get the same sort of stories about endless grief about Toshiko, and someone decided that. Feedback loop with the shrine, probably, but still.
Also after so much new Big Finish since the TV gave up on them my perspective is informed by new canon that only a tiny fraction of television viewers would be familiar with.
But the context just on the television at the time of first broadcast was so *hugely* different... Owen and Toshiko die and while that did pretty emphatically end a story arc you don't know for sure what the rules are and their return would be very precedented, you kind of think there's going to be another season and then there's that Event instead, and all the rules get changed up, in the process destroying the template and contents of the show we had been watching.
Comparing the reactions is like comparing the fuse fizz to the bang.
And there was still quite a lot of earlier bang.
I could go reread my own journal to see how much of this is me retconning myself
but I just realised I haven't ate since midnight
and it is 9pm.
Bit not good, shall go deal with being a biological entity now.
So maybe this is all made up retroactive justification
but really
the reaction to Ianto's death was an absolute one off
so
compare contrasting isn't going to work out.
Recent Reading: The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet
Sep. 17th, 2025 12:15 pmrocky41_7 in booksLast night I finished Becky Chambers' The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, a sci-fi book about a motley crew of spacefarers who "drill" wormholes to enable rapid travel across space for the diverse galactic alliance known as the GC. At the start of the book, they are offered a bid on a particularly difficult, lucrative job, and can't resist taking the bait.
This should be (another) lesson to me in not going all-in on a creator because I've enjoyed one of their works. I loved Chambers' To Be Taught, if Fortunate, and I've heard plenty of internet praise for The Long Way, so when I saw it at the bookstore recently, I dropped $20 on it readily. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it.
First - if you picked up this book looking for the femslash, it's barely there, and it's a lot more friends-with-benefits than romance. The other two romances in the book get a lot more attention. This isn't a complaint from me, but if what you really want is F/F romance, it's not really here.
This is a character-driven book with barely a plot, which wouldn't be a problem if the characters were interesting. As it is, they are functionally interchangeable: a crew of people who are all optimistic, friendly, emotionally open, painstakingly polite, and obsessively well-intentioned (except for the one guy who's a Jerk, who exists to be a jerk whenever the scene calls for someone who needs to be less-than-fanatically-polite or there's a chance for Chambers to squeeze in another instance of his being a jerk, even when he's technically right). There is no character growth to speak of; none of these characters changes at all between the start of the book and the end. There's no complexity to anyone.
( Read more... )
This should be (another) lesson to me in not going all-in on a creator because I've enjoyed one of their works. I loved Chambers' To Be Taught, if Fortunate, and I've heard plenty of internet praise for The Long Way, so when I saw it at the bookstore recently, I dropped $20 on it readily. If I hadn't, I probably wouldn't have bothered finishing it.
First - if you picked up this book looking for the femslash, it's barely there, and it's a lot more friends-with-benefits than romance. The other two romances in the book get a lot more attention. This isn't a complaint from me, but if what you really want is F/F romance, it's not really here.
This is a character-driven book with barely a plot, which wouldn't be a problem if the characters were interesting. As it is, they are functionally interchangeable: a crew of people who are all optimistic, friendly, emotionally open, painstakingly polite, and obsessively well-intentioned (except for the one guy who's a Jerk, who exists to be a jerk whenever the scene calls for someone who needs to be less-than-fanatically-polite or there's a chance for Chambers to squeeze in another instance of his being a jerk, even when he's technically right). There is no character growth to speak of; none of these characters changes at all between the start of the book and the end. There's no complexity to anyone.
( Read more... )
Yuletide!
Sep. 17th, 2025 12:28 pmsettiaiYuletide nominations are officially open, which means I have to get my ass in gear and actually figure out what I want to request and nominate this year.
A couple of my usual requests are almost always nominated by other people, so I can hopefully scratch those off the list. That doesn't help narrow it down a lot, though, because I've written down a frankly ridiculous number of fandoms this year that I've been considering requesting.
Right now, I'm leaning towards the following for my nominations:
Black Ships - Jo Graham OR Hand of Isis - Jo Graham OR Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Home Alone (Movies) (mainly because of this post)
Hornblower (TV)
Peacemakers (2003)
The Witch Wolf (Webcomic)
My other requests will depend on what does or doesn't get nominated, but some of my ideas for fandoms that tend to show up in the tag set regularly are:
Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)
Justice League International
The Martian (2015)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)
Titanic (1997)
Treasure Planet
Of course, there's always a chance that I'll see something in the tag set that I wasn't expecting that calls to me. That's definitely happened before, and it'll probably happen again.
A couple of my usual requests are almost always nominated by other people, so I can hopefully scratch those off the list. That doesn't help narrow it down a lot, though, because I've written down a frankly ridiculous number of fandoms this year that I've been considering requesting.
Right now, I'm leaning towards the following for my nominations:
Black Ships - Jo Graham OR Hand of Isis - Jo Graham OR Stealing Fire - Jo Graham
Home Alone (Movies) (mainly because of this post)
Hornblower (TV)
Peacemakers (2003)
The Witch Wolf (Webcomic)
My other requests will depend on what does or doesn't get nominated, but some of my ideas for fandoms that tend to show up in the tag set regularly are:
Gargoyles (Cartoon)
Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies)
Justice League International
The Martian (2015)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1982)
Titanic (1997)
Treasure Planet
Of course, there's always a chance that I'll see something in the tag set that I wasn't expecting that calls to me. That's definitely happened before, and it'll probably happen again.
Announcement: Small Fandoms Bang Open for Author Sign-Ups!
Sep. 17th, 2025 07:40 amspikedluv in bigbangindexRound Fifteen of smallfandombang | Small Fandoms Bang, the big bang for small fandoms, is open for Author Sign-Ups!
All small fandoms (once they have been verified as small) qualify, and there is no requirement that you have to have written a long fic before you sign up. The minimum word count is only 10,000 words and we give you plenty of time to get your fic written. All ratings, pairings, and genres are welcome, as are AUs, and crossovers/fusions between small fandoms. Check out the Author Sign-Up post for more information.
A 10,000-word big bang for small fandoms!
FAQ | Rules | Author Sign-Up | Beta/Cheerleader Sign-Up | Affiliate
(Author sign-ups are open now through October 31; Artist sign-ups open November 1st.)
If you love small fandoms, come check us out!
smallfandombang | Small Fandoms Bang, the big bang for small fandoms, is open for Author Sign-Ups!All small fandoms (once they have been verified as small) qualify, and there is no requirement that you have to have written a long fic before you sign up. The minimum word count is only 10,000 words and we give you plenty of time to get your fic written. All ratings, pairings, and genres are welcome, as are AUs, and crossovers/fusions between small fandoms. Check out the Author Sign-Up post for more information.
A 10,000-word big bang for small fandoms!
FAQ | Rules | Author Sign-Up | Beta/Cheerleader Sign-Up | Affiliate
(Author sign-ups are open now through October 31; Artist sign-ups open November 1st.)
If you love small fandoms, come check us out!
poem at Strange Horizons!
Sep. 16th, 2025 11:29 amgwynnegaMy poem "the jacarandas are unimpressed by your show of force" is up at Strange Horizons. It isn't the first jacaranda poem I've written, and likely won't be the last. This one (with a nod to Dylan Thomas) was inspired by the confluence of jacaranda season and...everything else happening in Los Angeles and this country. I am so happy it found a home at Strange Horizons.