netgirl_y2k | Reading

It is midnight my time, but there's a baseball game I'm watching that doesn't end until around 1 AM, and I decided to just go ahead and post my

unconventionalcourtship fic to the comm already.

Title: Fugitive Pilot
Author:

merryghoul
Fandom: Doctor Who (2005)
Pairing/Characters: Heather ("The Pilot")/Bill Potts, River Song
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 3338
Summary:

THE BEST WOMAN...IN EVERY WAY

Watching her potential girlfriend constantly ask about leaving her surroundings is Bill Potts’ worst nightmare...until she and the would-be girlfriend are kidnapped by River Song. River knows a sentient creature wants Heather Carew out of the picture. Until River can get them all to safety, all that stands between Heather and fusion is canteen assistant Bill.

Moments away from unintentionally fusing with a sentient creature, Heather's life is turned upside down. Now the woman she's always considered her new friend has transformed into some kind of sexy special agent. Bill is prepared to do anything to stop the creature and secure Heather’s safety. But who's keeping Heather’s heart safe from Bill?

(Summary modified from Fugitive Bride by Paula Graves.)

Notes: Longer notes on AO3, but in short, this is a canon divergence AU set during "The Pilot."

Link: AO3

Crossposts: http://merryghoul.livejournal.com/363868.html

newredshoes

Social media and the news (plus a number of other stressors) are making me tachycardia city all day, every day. I am going to try and just... stay off all screens this weekend, if possible. Maybe email me, maybe text me, but like... the world is just not working right now.

♥

fyrdrakken

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Current Mood: artistic
Crossposts: http://fyrdrakken.livejournal.com/980448.html

settiai

There's an exchange called Spectre Requisitions, which is for rarer 'ships in the Mass Effect fandom. It's a lot of fun, and I've participated in it the last two years.

Anyway, I seriously lucked out on my gifts this year, so I need to flail about them a little. I know that I have some Mass Effect fans over here on DW, so maybe some of you will of interest.

First, for a treat, I received a lovely piece of artwork. ♥ I absolutely adore F!Shepard/Garrus/Tali (to the point that 15% of the works on the AO3 about that relationship are fics by me), so I was absolutely thrilled to get the notification for that.

But my actual gift really wins everything. Because someone wrote me 22k words of Ashley/F!Shepard/Kaidan, based on a prompt that I've included in various exchanges for something like three or four years now. It's amazing, and you should totally go read it if you're even remotely intrigued by the idea of that relationship.

Current Mood: bouncy

shaggydogstail

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Crossposts: http://shaggydogstail.livejournal.com/404411.html

umadoshi

There are only four days left in Sparkler Magazine's Year 5 Kickstarter, and at this point they're still only about halfway to the goal. Please do check it out if you haven't, if the thought of a wide variety of female gaze-centered comics and prose appeals to you. There's a ton of info on the Kickstarter page, including a link to a starter bundle you can download for free.

Fannish/Geeky Things

"Michael Sheen, David Tennant to Star in Neil Gaiman’s ‘Good Omens’ at Amazon". Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens, people, FFS. >.<

"Dream Daddy, a Queer Dating Sim, Might Be the Gaming Miracle of the Year". (I haven't played the game; please don't comment with spoilers.)

"Suits season 7 finale will be a backdoor pilot for Gina Torres spin-off".

"N.K. Jemisin’s ‘The Fifth Season’ Book To Be Developed As TV Series At TNT".

Social Justice

Great Twitter thread by

SmartAssJen, beginning with "To my 'good' white folks scared to speak out about race: no, you won't be 'perfect', you will stumble, but silence is complicity. Speak up."

"Fat-Positive Activists Explain What It's Really Like to Be Fat: Here's how you can be an ally".

"The Recent History of Fat Stigma".

At The Establishment:

--"How To Stop, Drop, And Roll In Mental Crisis".

--"Young Adult Fiction Writers Are (Finally) Ready To Talk About Sex". [January 2016]

--"Your Global Mansplaining Dictionary In 34 Languages".

--"What Happens When Your Biggest Fear Is Something Inevitable?" [Sarah Kurchak] "Sarah, I know your parents are wonderful people, but maybe you can help me understand this,” my therapist asked during a session that happened at some point after the death of my grandmother and the loss of my childhood home but before the death of my dog and the notification that my building’s owners have applied for a demolition permit. “Why did they feel the need to explain the impermanence of the universe to you at such a young age?”"

Miscellaneous

"As a female sex worker, I'd like to propose my own Google-style gender equality manifesto".

"IKEA Releases Instructions How To Make ‘Game Of Thrones’ Cape After Costumer Reveals Actors Wore IKEA Rugs".

"This Brazilian Tattoo Artist Is Horrible At Drawing, But People Still Pay Her To Get Inked".

"Philly company digitizes 25,000 old records and they're free to download".

"Being the Crazy Friend, 101". [Mishell Baker] ["Content warning: blunt descriptions of negative emotions and disturbed thoughts."]

"Story Time: 10 Times Our Favorite Authors Told the Best Stories on Twitter". [Book Riot] (Includes both Seanan McGuire's story about the guy with the lizard in his leg and Ryan North's live tweets when he got stuck in a hole, as is only right and proper.)

"Monkeys, Mermaids and the Evil Eye. Medieval Stone Sculpture at Kilkea Castle and Graveyard". [Pilgrimage In Medieval Ireland]

Via

dine, "Forget Tough Passwords: New Guidelines Make It Simple". [NPR] And via

hannah, xkcd's take.

Current Mood: tired

spiralsheep

- If your idea of ~love~ involves submitting me to violence then that's abuse not love. I'm not here for privileged people insisting that disprivileged people should ~love~ violent abusers such as racists and fascists.

- My crisps claim they were cooked by Andre7. I'm now trying to work out if there are likely to be seven people called Andre working in a regional English crisp factory, or whether Andre7 is some sort of clone or android who needs rescuing. /Seven of Nine

- Reading, books 2017: 82. I've now reached all my unwritten reading goals for 2017 except my total goal which escalates, 26 to 52 to 104. Novels, adult: 26 (+2 short story collections). Poetry: 13. Books given away: 52.

78. Letters From Klara, by Tove Jansson (translated by Thomas Teal), 1991 (this translation 2017), short stories. Warning for an oblique reference to the Holocaust in the story My Friend Karin, while at least three other stories evoke mental health problems and/or suicidal thoughts. I personally found the stories in Letters From Klara generally life affirming, always insightful, and often wryly amusing, but I'm aware that many readers seem to find Ms Jansson's adult short stories bleak and disturbing: I suspect this depends on the mental state brought by the reader. (5/5, goodreads = 54 ratings / 8 reviews 3.5/5)

• Goodbye: They said their goodbyes in the front hall, with an affection that was perfectly genuine but that committed them to nothing.

• Weathering: By morning the storm had passed.
His jeans had dried. One day he'll find the boatbuilder's address in his back pocket.

• Something nasty in the woodshed... literally: Since the summer is over tomorrow, I've nailed shut the door to the woodshed. Sometimes it's good to make a decision. But I'm going to show the murals to my daughter.

• On returning from a sneaky smoke break while staying with one's overly religious and puritanical extended family, lol: When I got back, I stopped in the doorway and burst out, "How nice it smells here - just like home!"
Aunt Elsa said, "It's denatured alcohol. We're washing the windows."

• Hattitude: They began their trip by boat. Their friends stood on the quay and waved. Up on deck, Mama was clearly visible with her white hair and her large light grey hat, broad-brimmed, strict, with a low crown - the very epitome of hatness. She hadn't changed her headgear since 1912.

adafrog

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blueswan

What I'm Reading:

Spider Robinson's Mindkiller. One of the reasons I like Robinson's work is that despite some flaws, at it's core, his work skews toward humanism and empathy. Mindkiller originated as the short story "God is an Iron". This is a re-read for me, the first since I originally purchased the book in 1982. Here's hoping it goes well.

What I've Read:

Deadly Virtues (Gabriel Ash and Hazel Best #1)by Jo Bannister. I really enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down. First book in a long while that I finished in one day. I am looking forward to reading more in this mystery series feature Hazel Best, a newish cop and Gabriel Ash. I was uncomfortable with the instant dismissal of Gabriel as a reliable source because he is recovering from a deeply traumatic loss, and receiving counselling as a result. This is written so that the reader relates more with Gabriel and views the prejudice against someone with mental health issues as unfair even as Gabriel seems to accept it as reasonable. The writing is excellent, the mystery pretty straight-forward and the characters engaging. I am very intested in following this series. Recommended.

A Game for All the Family by Sophie Hannah. An odd story, I'm honestly not sure I liked it, but I didn't not like it. I ran hot and cold on it, the entire time I was reading it. One of the weirdest reactions I've had to a book. I ended up giving the book two stars because I was less than enthused on the ending.

The Ashes of Eden and The Return by William Shatner. Capable writing, imaginative plot and true to form for the characters.

Telempath by Spider Robinson. First book by the author. The first third of the novel was originally published as "By Any Other Name", which won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in 1977 tied with James Tiptree's "Houston, Houson Do You Read?". It's dated and to be honest it was when it was first released. It has Spider's stamp all over it, his unique voice and style,and I am very fond of this book for just that reason.

The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower #1) by Stephen King. Classic fantasy. I'd forgotten about Michael Whalen's great artwork.

Rose Madder by Stephen King Rosie McClendon is one of King's rare strong women who is not mentally ill or flat out evil. She is any woman. She suffers, she endures and she adapts and changes. It starts off with an abused woman who finally after fourteen years leaves her abusive cop husband. It's as mainstream a novel as it can be until King introduces a painting - and then things get much more Stephen King-like. I liked it a lot.

The Postman by David Brin. Post apocalyse book set about 15 years after The End. The struggle to survive sets the population of the late great US back to times when life was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short". In short, everything is really shitty and awful until our hero Gordon comes up with a crazy personal survival plan when he finds a dead postee with his mail truck. Things escalate, and suddenly Norman is trying to save the Willamette Valley from the successors of the survivalist movement.

Captain American vol 2 by Ed Brubaker. Okay, all my knowlege of Capt America is based on Chris Evan's movie version. So this was an experiment and it was really different from what I expected. Pretty though.

What's Next?

I have River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey that I plan on reading next. Probably.

umadoshi

(I tried to make this post more cohesive than it is. I really did! Pretend it worked?)

At last, I know what a childhood of X-Men reading prepared me for: coping with the severe cognitive dissonance when different components of/perspectives on a fictional world are staggeringly different from each other in tone.

Except that, where X-Men (and similar) comics have passed through countless creative teams over several decades (and are a big enough thing to have all kinds of quirky sideline projects), in this case, said staggeringly-different aspects are written by the same person.

I'm now mostly caught up on K.B. Spangler's work in the A Girl and Her Fed (AGAHF) universe, which consists of the ongoing A Girl and Her Fed webcomic and five novels (so far), one of which is Not Like The Others. Oh, and the first of a planned series of novellas cheerfully (and accurately) codenamed "Joshsmut".

I came at this world...out of order, I guess, in that I started with the novels. I'd heard of the AGAHF comic and had been meaning to read it, but I do better with novels...and I didn't really realize how intertwined the projects are. Here's an io9 review of Digital Divide, the first Rachel Peng novel. (Four of the five novels currently available focus on Rachel.)

(Note: I'd heard of A Girl and Her Fed off and on for at least a few years, and had it on my to-read list before I mentally connected it to the Rachel books, but I never really looked into what it is...even though I always tripped, and still trip, over the title because I always parse it wrong. My instinct is still to read the "fed" as a conjugation of "feed", not as "federal agent", which makes no sense at all. How am I STILL DOING THAT?)

So Rachel was my gateway. Rachel as we meet her is a smart, driven, ex-military federal employee who's working as the liaison between the D.C. police force and her own federal agency, OACET, which is made up entirely of a large group of cyborgs. More specifically, a large group of cyborgs created in a catastrophically flawed project that took some of the best and brightest young civil servants from across the federal government, put chips in their heads, and left them collectively traumatized and disturbingly overpowered.

Emphasis on the "collectively". The (functionally nonexistent) "So You're A Cyborg" manual didn't have a chapter for "Welcome to Your New Hivemind! (Please stop screaming! Everyone can hear you!)"

Rachel's books start several years after all that, and several months after she's joined the above-mentioned police force, for the express purpose of helping to ease the public into the idea that Cyborgs Are People Too!, and super-useful to boot! And guys, I love Rachel dearly, so she was a great gateway for me. I kept going with her books until I discovered that the sole (so far) Hope Blackwell novel is set before Rachel's fourth book, so I opted to both read that book and finally backtrack to read AGAHF...

And it turns out that my X-Men experience is only barely up to this whole experience. ( cut for length; there's about as much text under here as there is above )

Two things of note:

1) Spangler is in the process of redrawing the first chunk of AGAHF. I don't know when she started doing that, or how quickly it's progressing, but the result is that the first 90-100 strips or so have been redrawn (each one linking to its original version) and have had some dialogue tightened and some plot holes smoothed out, but then you run out of redrawn art and get dropped into the original art style for a while, and it's...well, it's pretty jarring. (Here is the current/redrawn first comic; here is the original version. So you see.)

2) I'm not great at picking up things that call for content notes/warnings, unless they're pretty obvious. But one thing that bothered me, and recurred often enough that I feel like I ought to mention it, is the frequent use of "psychopath" (plus some instances of "sociopath") as a descriptor. ( briefly expanding on that; not very spoilery )

Current Mood: geeky

hibernate

I heard a rumour that there's a meme where you find out what's your five most and least kudosed fic on AO3 and ponder about it. So I'm obv doing that. Get ready for a blast from the past!

( Kudosing )

Current Mood: refreshed

goodbyebird

* Zavvi is currently selling their previous threads boxes, two for the price of one. So if you're in Britain you can get two books and two t-shirts for 10£. Ending up with an Aliens and a Fury Road t-shirt, plus Charlie Jane Anders' All the Birds in the Sky (

renay is vomiting rainbows in the reviews, so I'm guessing it's an alright book hehe), and another book that looks ok.

*

musesfool is running an OPI Summer Challenge, and that is pretty much the funnest premise ever. So many good potential prompts to choose from.

* If I ever attempt to give the third season of Twin Peaks a fourth chance, somebody please come punch me in the mouth.

* Found out the next episode of Game of Thrones was leaked, but alas, I'd already been spoiled. Thanks, twitter.

* I really need to finish Mass Effect Andromeda when I'm home, but I haven't even looked at my Playstation the past two weeks *sigh*

* Of course, dumb me just started another game on my laptop, plus a couple of playthroughs on youtube, because why do anything that makes sense ever. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice looks all kinds of intense, and I'm holding off watching more than the first play video since I do want to play it myself. But I'd need headphones I can use, hmmm... Meanwhile, I did make some icons.

(it really does look - and sound - amazing)

Watch on YouTube

* Also, a vid rec list should be forthcoming shortly.

Current Mood: 12 hour naps? suuure
Current Music: Goldfrapp - Ocean

hibernate

Hello,

femslashex creator!

I am nuts about all the fandoms, characters, and ships I've requested, so you really can't go wrong here. Feel free to disregard everything in this letter if you have other ideas. I hope you'll have fun!

( Likes & dislikes )

Current Mood: excited

rachelmanija

Full letter with prompts to come ASAP. The letter below is incomplete.

ETA: I changed my sign-up since I posted this, so if you looked early on, look again if you're interested - I added a fandom and switched out some of the Original Work ships.

Dear FemslashEx Writer or Artist,

Thank you so much for writing for me! This is my first time doing FemslashEx, so I'm really excited.

(I only requested art for one fandom; however, if anyone is moved to do an art treat for me in any of them, I would absolutely love that.)

Loves, DNWs, and notes/prompts for my fandoms (Aliens, Carrie, Original Work, Star Trek: Classic Timeline, X-Men comics (Marvel 616) and X/1999 below cut). ( Read more... )

saturnofthemoon

Hello to everyone that I met at

tv_talk.

What are you currently reading?

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

Well, I can add this to my mental list of classics that are more famous for their concepts then the actual writing. I like it well enough when the uneven tone doesn't make me want to pull my hair out? However, this is a dystopia that I could do without given current events. Good thing it's only 300 pages.

The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire by Susan P. Mattern

Interesting, for a biography of an antiquity era privileged white man. (Actually, I take the white part back. There were plenty of non-white people in high ranking positions in the Roman world. We just know that Galen was born in Greece.) Galen had an ego the size of the solar system. Also contains descriptions of the sanitary conditions in Rome that are as disturbing as they are fascinating.

What did you just finish reading?

A Dance With Dragons by George R. R. Martin

This book further proves my point that the series hit its peak with A Storm of Swords. I mean, it was good, but could have been so much better if GRRM had used an editor. And what is it with his obsession with missing fingers? More to come if I ever make that giant post about ASOIAF.

What do you think you'll read next?

Definitely Anansi Boys. I also plan to continue Kushiel's Legacy. I regret giving away my copy of Kushiel's Dart, as I could use it for worldbuilding reference.

I've been itching to read a good urban fantasy novel...or epic fantasy...or sci-fi that isn't depressing. My kindle is full of such material. I've decided that I will quit buying books after my birthday in October, until I've read at least half of the content on my Kindle. Things have gotten ridiculous.

There's a job interview tomorrow morning that I'm trying and failing not to be pessimistic about.

I miss Persephone. Should probably stop saying that.

Current Mood: sad

settiai

Just to note: my requests include Critical Role, Doctor Who, Dragon Age, Hunger Games, Mass Effect, and Crossovers.

First of all, relax! I'm far from being picky, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll love whatever you decide to draw or write for me. These are nothing but guidelines, for you to take to heart or ignore to your heart's content. Also, hey! You're drawing and/or writing me femslash! What's not to love? ♥

That said, I thought that I'd elaborate a bit on my requests in case, like me, you're the type of person who likes to have something to work with. Feel free to use and/or ignore as much of this as you want. I've tried to include a mix of vague prompts as well as more detailed ones, to hopefully make things as helpful as possible whether you're drawing art or writing fic.

( More details under the cut. )

( Requests under the cut. )

Current Mood: curious

imogeneherdman posting in

fancake

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imogeneherdman posting in

fancake

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havocthecat

More 'Miss Fisher' Coming in 2018, As Movie Trilogy Gears Up For Filming

Here's to hoping that this is for real! Also that Dot and Mac are in it! Miss Fisher isn't the same without Dot and Mac (or Bert and Cec and Mr. Butler and Jane, but Dot and Mac are my favorites).