nekare

Okay, I have some specific timestamps to avoid, so I'm going to give last week's episode of Critical Role another chance now that I'm spoiled for some things. I'm still not particularly thrilled with the way they handled a certain storyline, especially since they knowingly don't provide content warnings of any type, but we'll see how it goes on attempt #2.

As with previous posts, it's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation. And it's obviously full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

( Spoilers under the cut. )

Complicated feelings? Check. But I at least made it through the episode.

Oh, hey! My Neopets account has officially turned 25 and 1/2 years old! My profile shield updated yesterday without me noticing!

... on that note, fuck, those are words that I never thought I'd ever say. I feel very, very, very old right now.

The last of the IPHs has been picked up, so yuletide_admin opened up requests for everyone to see earlier today.

I pulled them up in the app and have bookmarked anything and everything that I feel as if I could even potentially try to write a treat for. It's... a lot. Which isn't unexpected considering the ridiculous number of offers I made sight unseen, but still.

Seriously, it's 240. And these are just the ones that I really felt that I could write without trouble. There were definitely more if I'd added the ones that I felt a bit iffy on.

I'm going to do my best to get my assignment(s) posted early so that I can A. pick up some later pinch hits (as the odds are high at least something that I could write will show up) and B. try to pull off some treats. We'll see how that plan plays out. I wrote 10 fics for Yuletide in 2023, and I'd love to try to beat that number.

Ugh. Yesterday was one of the most mondayish Mondays ever. One of those days where a whose string of annoying things happens, each one totally stupid and trivial by itself, but they just keep coming until the whole day becomes one giant annoyance.

It started when I tried to use the Pvolve app to book my exercise classes for the week, only to discover that the studio I've been going to for the past 2+ years has abruptly closed. And I do mean abruptly -- I was there Thursday, and it looked like business as usual, no one said anything, and now, oops, their last day was Sunday. The peppy e-mail they sent out to announce this was all "Let's all gather at our location in Del Mar instead! Yay!" Well, I ain't driving to Del Mar for an exercise class, so no yay from me. And now I have to find another place to exercise so that I don't turn into a giant lump with achy hips.

Then, on my way into the office, I was juggling my laptop bag, my iced coffee and my key card as I tried to enter the building, and ended up spilling coffee all over the brand new white cardigan that I'd only bought the day before and was wearing for the first time. I did manage to wash it out in the bathroom before the stain set, but then I had an unwearable damp cardigan for the rest of the day.

The code that seemed to work fine when I wrote it on Friday suddenly wasn't working fine at all on Monday, so I ended up spending most of my work day wrestling with Javascript and PHP, two programming languages I hate the most, ugh.

Then Amazon claimed that they delivered my order, except what they actually delivered was an empty envelope. Whee. I've always wanted an empty envelope.

Anyhow, I was too annoyed with the universe to do any cooking yesterday, so I'm making it up by leaning into comfort food today. We're having this soup and this bread for dinner tonight, so the universe is forgiven for now.

I managed to get my fic for the Dragon Age Reverse Bang posted by the deadline last night, if just barely. All approximately 12,000 words of it. So, you know, that counts as accomplishing something, I think. It doesn't go live until Friday, so I'm probably going to tweak things a bit here and there throughout the week. It's properly finished, though, so "yay!" for that.

One thing down, a million to go.

I'd originally thought about trying to watch last week's Critical Role after work today now that I have some timestamps to avoid, but I was exhausted by the time I made it back to the hotel. So instead I'm going to try to go to bed early tonight, get a proper night's sleep, and then plan on watching it after work tomorrow. We'll see how it goes?

Yuletide is going to require me to do some fandom re-familiarizing before I start properly writing anything, so I'm going to hold off on starting that until at least the weekend. I have the source(s) at least, so that helps, but finding both the time and the headspace to re-[redacted] everything that I need to re-[redacted] will probably need to wait at least a little while.

Holy forking shirtballs, The Good Place isn't on Netflix anymore! And when I tried to cue it up on Prime, it wouldn't play - I got an error. So I ordered the dvds. I can't be having with this bs anymore. I also need to buy Leverage at some point, and The Expanse. Maybe I will for Christmas this year, as long as I'm not furloughed or anything.

*

I'm bored and there's an AO3 alphabet meme going around, so why the hell not?

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.

A - ampersand (MCU, Steve/Bucky)
B - Boden's Mate (X-Men, Charles/Erik)
C - Celestial Navigation (X-Men, Charles/Erik)
D - a day like today (TOG, Joe/Nicky)
E - Eight Candles (History Boys, Posner/Scripps)
F - Five Lessons Charles Taught (and One He Learned) (X-Men, Charles/Erik)
G - Gravitational Pull (TOG, Joe/Nicky)
H - A Hundred Visions and Revisions (X-Men, Charles/Erik)
I - it's like one of us woke up (X-Men, Charlies/Erik)
J - The Jewels of the Sea (LotR, OCs)
K - Kübler-Ross's Fifth (Torchwood, Ianto & Tosh)
L - Logical Deduction (HP, Remus/Sirius)
M - must be an imaginary love (to start with) (TOG, Joe/Nicky)
N - No Exit (Man from UNCLE, Kuryakin & Solo)
O - The Opposite of People (X-Men, Charlies/Erik)
P - The Pond Continuum (Doctor Who, Amy/Rory)
Q - Queen's Gambit (X-Men, Charlies/Erik)
R - The Rose of Jericho (Torchwood, Jack/Ianto)
S - she's the one that they call old whatsername (Star Trek AOS, Kirk/Spock)
T - though it was not my task to watch (TOG, Joe/Nicky)
U - used & new (Doctor Who, Amy/Sally Sparrow)
V - Valentines (HP, Remus/Sirius)
W - what a way to make a livin' (X-Men, Charlies/Erik)
X -
Y - your love is sunlight (TOG, Joe/Nicky)
Z -

24/26, out of 200 fics on AO3! This was a fun way to look at them. (Arbitrarily sorted by kudos to pull each letter for this, since there are some letters I had quite a lot of fics for.)

Picked up the AO3 alphabet meme from viridian5:

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.

Is this is when I am punished for not having uploaded all my old fic to AO3? Let us find out.

A: As compasses. The Goblin Emperor, Idra & Maia
B: Baresark. due South, Fraser/RayK
C: Contamination. Sherlock, casefic
D: Dry Cell. Highlander, Duncan & Methos
E: Exhalation. Star Trek x The Sentinel, Jim/Blair. Second in a series.
F: From Sweet Fellowship Comes Nectar. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli
G: Gammer Gurton's Garland. Sherlock, Sherlock/John, Eurus.
H: hold fast (hold steady). Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Cody, OC/OC
I: I spread my dreams under your feet. Star Trek 2009, Spock/Uhura.
J: [nothing]
K: Kaiidth. Star Trek 2009, Spock, T'Pring, T'Pau, Stonn
L: Lied: Lay My Heart Naked. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli.
M: Maybe Next Time. The Sentinel, Jim/Blair.
N: Numberless the ways, and imperceptible. LOTR, Legolas/Gimli.
O: Once Upon A Time. Highlander, Methos/Kronos.
P: a picnic planned for you and me. Good Omens TV, Aziraphale/Crowley
Q: [nothing]
R: Roust. Written with basingstoke. due South, Fraser/RayK.
S: ship's night, residential deck, third corridor. MCU, Loki & Thor
T: Tech. Hockey RPF, gen
U: unsuitable. The Bone Key, A Theory of Haunting. Blanche Parrington Crowe, Griselda Parrington, & the unfortunate Kyle Murchison Booth.
V: Valse a deux temps. due South x The Sentinel, Fraser/RayK, Jim/Blair
W: The Wrong Tree. Sherlock, Sherlock/John.
X: [nothing]
Y: [nothing]
Z: [nothing]

21/26. I'm almost certain uploading my old fic would not have helped. What I should stop doing is using so many I and W titles and branch out a little more.

No. 26: “Nothing like a relapse to rehash the kid who was scared.”
Relapse | Drawn Curtains | Power Cut

[TV-verse] Murderbot & Gurathin, 800 wds
Also posted on AO3 as Power Through.

( 800 wds under the cut )

This is another one that's been sitting around in my drafts for a while now, mostly because I was trying to work out Lyta's POV chapter, and whether I was happy with the ending, but I finally decided to tidy it up and post it basically as-is. (Spoilers for everything; mostly gen despite the pairing notes.)

Where You End (And I Begin) (Babylon 5, G'Kar/Londo, Lyta/G'Kar [sort of], 4900 wds)
Lyta, G'Kar, Londo, and lingering vestiges of Dust telepathy. Set about a year after "Objects at Rest."

While I slog my way back from a 9-hour time difference of jet lag, I decided to make characters suffer too.

Organic (Murderbot books, MB & Mensah, 2600 wds)
Murderbot isn't sure what's up with its unreliable systems this time, so it asks Mensah. (Set somewhere after System Collapse.)

This one's pretty definitely bookverse, or at least bookverse-compatible; there's nothing specific to the TV universe.

As seen all around these parts, the AO3 alphabet meme:

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.

A - Another Gravity (Firefly, Mal/Zoe)
B - The Boys of Summer (Hot Corner Rag) (SPN, Sam & Dean)
C - Courtship Rituals of the World's Most Awkward Superheroes (Avengers/Amazing Spider-Man, Steve/Peter)
D - the dream of flight persists (Star Wars/Firefly, Anakin/Kaylee)
E - Eight the Hard Way (Ocean's 8, Amita/Daphne)
F - The Forces Ranged Within Us and Against Us (SPN, Sam/Dean)
G - Girl, You're Like a Weird Vacation (Blue Beetle, Brenda/Paco)
H - The Hubbert Peak (Dark Angel, Max/Alec)
I - The Injurious Internet Meme Incursion (The Middleman, Wendy, MM, & Ida)
J - Joy has he whom she embraces (Amelia Peabody, Peabody/Emerson)
K - Katie, Bar the Door (DCU, Jason, ensemble)
L - A Little Less Conversation, a Little More Action (Ocean's 11, Danny/Rusty)
M - Mother Is the Name for God (Star Wars, Leia & Padme)
N - No Exit (Star Wars; Darth Vader/Ahsoka)
O - Only where love and need are one (L'Engleverse, Adam/Joshua)
P - Paint a thank-you on my palm (Six of Crows, Inej, ensemble)
Q - Quality (LotR, Faramir)
R - Retail Therapy (DCU, Cass, ensemble)
S - Stuck in the Middle with You (Star Wars, Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka)
T - There's Still Time to Change the Road You're On (Star Wars, Anakin, Luke, Leia)
U - Until the Sea Shall Free Them (The Iliad, Achilles/Patroclus)
V - Visiting Hours (DCU, Alfred & Jason)
W - with our way lit only by stars (Earthsea, Ged/Tenar)
X - Xue Bai, Xue Hong (Firefly, Mal/River/Simon)
Y - you and your high top sneakers and your sailor tattoos (Avengers, Steve/Darcy)
Z - The Zombie Love Bug Concatenation (SPN/The Middleman, Dean/Wendy)

26/26, out of 950 stories on AO3. I ignored the ones that start with parentheticals and numbers. I also went mostly on vibes, so it's not a real overview of my stuff, but it is one title for every letter of the alphabet.

*

As did everyone participating, I got my Yuletide assignment this morning, and I'm very interested in seeing how this goes.

I had no idea what to expect, so it caught me a little by surprise, but that's definitely not a bad thing. That's part of why I tend to offer a ridiculous number of fandoms for this exchange so that I have no way of knowing what I'm going to get for my assignment. I managed to trim it down a little from the 111 fandoms that I was originally going to offer, but the number didn't go down all that much.

It's one of the many, many, many fandoms that I threw in my bucket list because knew I'd be able to write almost anything for it but would definitely need a canon review first, as it's been a while. So, you know, it looks like that's going to be something I need to do in the next few weeks.

I made this apple cider doughnut holes recipe today and meh. I didn't even like them enough plain to make the glaze. They just tasted so strongly of nutmeg to me and nothing of apple cider or even cinnamon.

I was also going to make char siu today and then pork buns with the leftovers tomorrow, but I forgot the meat has to marinate overnight so now I will make the ribs tomorrow, freeze the leftovers, and try to make the buns next weekend. Or maybe I'll just make pork fried rice. Idk. I used to always order pork buns but I don't see them on menus anymore (lemon chicken, another Chinese restaurant fave, has also seemed to disappear, at least from the places around here), so it would be fantastic if I could make them myself. It doesn't seem too hard. I mean, the hardest part for me will probably be rolling and sealing them. *hands* Eventually we'll see!

In other news, Baby Miss L has settled on being a witch for Halloween and her costume is ADORABLE. But she also has a secondary costume, as she has quite the busy social schedule, which is a cow, which doubles as pajamas, for those nights where she's out past bedtime. SO CUTE. I also got some pictures of her pumpkin picking while wearing a jack o'lantern t-shirt and she remains the cutest and best dressed kid around. 😍😍😍😍😍😍

*

Asteroid City - I watched this because it looked visually interesting and I couldn't tell what it was about. I can now add that after seeing the whole movie, I still don't know what it was about.

( A little more about that )

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - I've been meaning to see this anyway, and Halloween season felt right for it.

( More on that )

(I also watched the first like ... ten minutes or so of Transformers One and realized I was very much not in the mood for that, although I enjoyed the more classic designs for the characters.)

Good morning, afternoon, and evening!

We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)

I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.

Ta for now!

On the Critical Role front, a friend has sent me some very specific spoilers about last night's episode as well as timestamps to avoid, so I'm going to try to watch it again this weekend but this time going in prepared. When I watch this time, I'm going to very carefully fast-forward through some scenes to try to avoid being set off again like I was when I was watching it live. Because gods only know the last thing I need is another accidental panic attack.

We'll see how it goes?

I've gotta admit, one of the biggest things that annoys me about Critical Role is their refusal to add content warnings of any type even now that they're prerecording. It made sense when they were properly airing live prior to 2020, because that just wasn't possible, but now? It would help a lot of people to at least have an option to know in advance that an episode was going to include common triggers. They gave warnings for the Divergence miniseries, so it's definitely possible for them to do. They just don't do it most of the time.

Let's see...

I finally managed to get my Yuletide sign-up done earlier this afternoon. It took a lot longer than I was expecting, but I got it in a few hours before the deadline so that I still had time to go back and make a few small edits before they closed. So that's a relief at least. I'm having a few regrets about not trimming down my list of offers a bit more than I did, but that happens every year, so it's not exactly something new.

The Dragon Age Reverse Bang's deadline is Sunday, so my artist and I are both hurrying to get everything finished. My brain's a bit mush right now despite me napping after work, because A. I slept like crap and B. I think that I might be coming down with something, so I think that I'm going to go to bed in a bit so that I can plan on getting up early and curling up with my laptop to spend tomorrow writing until I get this ever-growing monster of a fic done.

Just to note: this year's requests include the Gargoyles cartoon, the movie Home Alone (1990), the Hornblower TV movies, the Peacemakers television show (2003), the book Stealing Fire by Jo Graham, the movie Titanic (1997), the movie The Wild Robot (2024), and the webcomic The Witch Wolf.

My AO3 account is Settiai.

Treats are always appreciated but never expected. 💕

---

First of all, relax! I'm far from being picky, and I can pretty much guarantee that I'll love whatever you decide to write me. These are nothing but guidelines for you to take to heart or ignore to your heart's content. Also, hey! You're writing me fic! In a tiny(ish) fandom that I adore! That's automatically a good reason for me to love you, no matter what. So, please, keep that in mind. Trust me, you can pretty much do no wrong. ♥

That said, I thought that I'd elaborate a bit on my eight requests in case, like me, you're the type of person who likes to have something to work with. If you're not that type of person, it's totally fine with me if you skip over anything/everything that I've included in this letter. Feel free to use and/or ignore as much of this as you want.

( General Likes/Dislikes )

( Gargoyles (Cartoon) )

( Home Alone (Movies) )

( Hornblower (TV) )

( Peacemakers (2003) )

( Stealing Fire - Jo Graham )

( Titanic (1997) )

( The Wild Robot (2024) )

( The Witch Wolf (Webcomic) )

No matter what, please don't stress out about writing for me. I'll love whatever you give me, so don't worry. Write what makes you happy, and I can guarantee that I'll be happy in return.