Procrastination Central

i dont know if anyone else noticed this (i'm guessing they didn't), but whenever i went to my DW without being logged into LJ, it would show a big '18+' sign where my doctor/rose picture used to be...

i'm guessing it's because i told LJ that my journal was 18+ in case the russians came for me.

anyway - the result is that i changed my theme on DW to a pretty generic one, which i'd been thinking about doing anyway because my old theme wasn't mobile friendly. (DW has some very ugly generic themes. all you need to do is have boxes with content in them and NOT HORRIBLE colour combos and we can't even do that...) i'll probably change the header image at some point.

for posterity's sake, i'm keeping my LJ the same though. so there we go.

that's a thing that happened. that affected nobody else ;)

this is not the ten favourite fictional characters meme.

agapi42 tagged me on tumblr in this about a week ago, and i’ve been thinking about it for a while, even though it’s not a deep question! it should be fine. i can answer it!!

but firstly i didn’t want to because i was pretty sure that everyone i put on the list would be a dude (i’m the problem. i need to be dealt with), and also i was like - should i put simon and baz on here or what?

there’s an obvious answer, but i was thinking... maybe not, even though that’s really weird, because they’re the characters i want to write about most right now AND i love them both (i’m having a classic reaction to being in a fandom where most people have a favourite - and i feel i’m increasingly leaning towards simon being my fav of the two even though i was initially most attracted to baz) but are they the characters of my heart?? i mean - maybe. but they only have one book... so far, and many of my other favs have hours and hours of television.

so - two reasons why i didn’t want to draw up an actual list. (one - embarrassment, two - what about my ship?? because they are definitely my ship)

but one thing i did think as i was reflecting (yes, i took this too seriously) is that probably the top of the list is ...



arthur is probably my ultimate fav (here depicted by richard harris in ‘camelot’, which is the best filmed arthur IMO, based as is it is based on the best arthur of ‘once and future king fame’).

( lots of thoughts about arthur )

hello friends!

i'm still finding it difficult to write stuff into this forum - i think because i've spread myself too thinly across twitter and tumblr (and i even just set up a medium so i could write some semi interesting things... maybe... about work) and now i have no blog that actually has ... you know, content.

anyway - here's what i got for you today. the first-lines meme was going around on tumblr, so of course i did it because i love that sort of meme.

i'm going to link you to it here rather than copying it out. i had to go back to christmas 2016 to get to 10... but i've almost finished my second fic of the year, and it's only july. so that feels quite good. although i can't do the 10 first lines meme again for a while. not for a few years, anyway.

the point of this post:

x_los has been posted some of her old stuff that she never posted - which prompted me to look into my own folders and see whether there was anything that i'd never posted, even though i was pretty sure that there wasn't, because i don't have many ideas for writing things - for me this is not a cheap commodity that i would just waste. if i have an idea i will damn well write it, and if i've written it, i will post it.

anyway - to my surprise there actually WERE a few things that i hadn't finished IN ADDITION to the ones i posted the last time (2015) i flushed out out my unfinished fics. there's a 'carry on' thing as well, but i think i might write the rest of that, so it's not here.

here's what you've got:

1. one thing i'd started to write for a b7 secret santa right at the very end of my productive time in b7 fandom, which i had completely forgotten about. i remember ... that i wrote it... now ... but i have left myself no notes - and so i have absolutely no idea how it was going to end (or indeed what the middle was), but i don't think anyone has ever seen it - so i've pasted it for you below.

2. i started writing a blake!clone/travis thing, which i feel i should have started about a year before i did because then i might have finished it then, and i think the fandom NEEDS this pairing. alas. there is absolutely no salacious material in either.

erin's finishing hers and re-drafting them when she posts them. that's not for me. if i'd finished them, i would have posted them. this is just for your vague interest.

also, bonus 3. - i've also discovered i've given about 50% of all of my documents different names to the name the fic eventually had, which is now the only name i can remember. so i'm looking at this list - that made perfect sense to me at the time and going... 'wtf even is all this?' so i've pasted in all the doc names as well, in case you like a semi interesting challenge ;) i've shuffled the doc names in alphabetical order to make it harder. and where it's hard - it is hard.

enjoy, i guess?


( b7 secret santa thing, about moondisc wine )

( blake!clone/travis2 )

( doc names for b7 fic )

hey hey - here's some content! it's that BBC archives content i told you i'd post once it came out in 'the way forward'. (i've also told everyone that this is my last year. i'm casting around for good content - next time, i'm pretty sure i'm going to write about one of my favourite tropes - blake-as-president. but then what?)

because there's more space on the internet for pictures... this is a slightly better version than the one published in the APA. well - it has more pictures. (and there are even more on Imgur.)

( The BBC Written Archive )

just realised my last post is about CHRISTMAS. i didn't even come back to say i'd written a thing, although i have. here it is:

Keep Calm (17092 words) by aralias
Chapters: 2/5
Fandom: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch/Simon Snow
Characters: Simon Snow, Tyrannus Basilton "Baz" Pitch, Penelope Bunce, The Mage (Simon Snow), Ebeneza "Ebb" Petty
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Role Reversal, Watford Eighth Year, Baz is a good teacher, Penny and Baz’s not-that-unlikely friendship, Bad Parenting, Teaching
Summary:

The kidnapping attempt fails, but it’s not the Mage’s only scheme. Eighth year begins. Tyrannus Basilton Pitch returns for the start of term – and finds his roommate missing.

i'm alive and stuff.

mostly trying to write the rest of this, because i am very slow at writing. yesterday we went to look after a dog, as well. it's owned by someone i know, not someone the internet hooked me up with so i can have a dog friend. i'm still terrible at walking a dog - i thought it was just a thing that happened, but i guess there's a skill to it and i don't have it.

we're watching 'the dragon prince' on netflix, which is worth doing if you like avatar. also - it is short. so even if you don't like it (and it's definitely not as good as avatar, although better than korra probably) you can watch both seasons in about a day. which is basically what we've done.

i also really liked 'a series of unfortunate events' although i might have watched that before christmas, i can't remember. very pleasing.

i've been reading more YA fantasy, and very much recommend 'the invisible library' (genevieve cogman), also 'the wicked king' (holly black). both great. 'wayward son' is out in september.

still reading my f-list. hope all is well :)

thank you for the GP day wishes! i am now almost as old as blake's clone says he is. (5 minutes)

work continues to be busy, and so i'm spending a lot of time when i'm at home asleep. also - i went to europe. twice! (montpelliar and vienna), giving my current work people the idea that i am an international jet setter. even though i told them i wasn't. try not to think about what the civil service is doing about brexit.

i thought i'd answer thefridayfive since i've seen it on my f-list twice and it's a good prompt to just post something

1. Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas – which one do you use?
i don't think that people in the UK say 'happy holidays' very much, if ever. i tend to say 'happy christmas', which a lot of people tell me is wrong. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

2. Do you own an ugly Christmas sweater?
between us, erin and i own a lot of christmas jumpers. no truly awful ones, though. and none that light up. which is clearly a mistake for future years.

3. Do you celebrate the Winter Solstice?
no. this year i barely celebrated my birthday or GP day, either.

4. Now that you are ‘in the know,’ what would you leave out for St. Nick on the 24th?
i don't think my cats believe in father christmas, so this isn't an issue (yet). while were in vienna, we saw loads of krampus merch - which i had to get erin to explain to me. (why are there chocolate devils and popes everywhere?)

5. Tired of the snow and icky weather yet? For those fortunate folks in the other hemisphere, are you tired of the humidity and hot weather?
no snow, alas. lots of rain - i'm tired of the rain. but our heating is quite good, so don't mind the cold too much.

happy holidays, y'all!

my article for 'the way forward' this quarter

in rich text mode, i'm afraid.

( Writing Roj Blake )

glad that meme's done. now i can go back to not writing things very regularly!

life has been quite busy, though, i guess. biggest news is that we went back to the same cat shelter where we first met anton, and adopted two new cats. this was a mix between lovely (all cats are great! i want to adopt all the cats!) and v sad. we obviously didn't intend to adopt two cats - we already had one cat (sasa), and were looking to get back up to two cats, but the cats we liked the most came as a pair, who loved each other too much to be separated <3

so now we have three cats.

erin's posted lots of pictures and videos of them here and here (among others) but she doesn't have my favourite one (even if it includes a litter box), which is this.

the girl is called makkuro because she looks like a soot gremlin (and we already had a cat called sasa, so we weren't going to call another cat susu) and the boy is called harry sullivan (or hairy sullivan) because he is a gentleman, likely to get his foot stuck in a giant clam, and less interested in adventure than his small female friend.

sasa would prefer to be an only cat still, but it's going mostly ok. he is 6 years older than either of the new arrivals, who (as a collective) we call 'the little cats'.

the little cats (particularly maku) love sasa and want to be his friend, which is absolutely the worst thing they could do if they want to be accepted by him. he just wants to be left alone, and they just want to be with him - he could be their friend! like they are friends with each other!

more on this story as it plays out.

in other news - new work is still hard, but at least now i know a lot more - and i have some things that i'm doing that will make it better. in about a years time, i think it could be genuinely good. but right now - very hard. when people ask i sometimes tell them that i'm not enjoying it, which is true. but it doesn't mean i'm unhappy i took the job. i think it was absolutely the right thing to do. i think i can make a real difference and make it into a job i enjoy - it just is never going to be as fun as a job where i just exclusively hung around with nice people and didn't do that much. but i felt that was a bit of a waste and so it was.

also - i've worked out what my big bang is going to be! (unless i drop out before february, but right now i know). it's probably influenced by me reading a lot of fics where simon and baz hang out in the summer holidays before the book starts, and simon then rescuing baz with the help of baz's wacky tory family (i've got recs if you're interested). but it's NOT that. i don't think other people have written anything like this.

technically the rules of the big bang say i shouldn't say too much about what i'm writing before... february. (or at the earliest, post artist sign-ups, which is like november). but a) no one from the big bang is here, right? b) i'm only saying what it ISN'T.

it's also not my idea where the mage isn't actively evil - he's just dumbledore, the humdrum is a real threat, and baz has to help simon ANYWAY even though it doesn't conveniently align with his political views to do so. the entire fandom fucking hates the mage, though, so i didn't think any artists would want to illustrate this work (this is my genuine thought proceess), or in the unlikely event that they DID, i didn't want to drag them down with me. i should probably still write that, though at some point, if i keep writing 'carry on' stuff.

i also don't have a plot - just a political agenda. whereas i DO have a plot for my other fic.

also, three cats

let's finish this meme, then! let's blitz through. i don't need to over think it. it's saturday morning. time to fake a sense of accomplishment. (does anyone know of any other good memes going round? preferably one that won't take me about 4 months to do.)

27. Want to be one of the characters.

so far i've thought of two answers to this. one is basic af, becuase the answer is harry potter (you'll see a theme emerging in this post, which is why i eventually just grouped them all together and say, hang it).

my other answer looks at the question from a different angle and is like - if i were a character in a book, would i be the actual character, or would i be me? i think i'd find either of these states really awkward. i already don't like interacting with actors-in-character, or even famous actors in signing queues etc, because i don't know what to say to someone who isn't real, but if they WERE real then we'd have the problem that i knew the plot, or i knew they had loads of friends who weren't me and what was i trying to do being friends with them or whatever. (this is the same problem with actors or whatever. there's so much pressure to say something so amazing that they will want to be friends with you, even though that's not a thing). anyway - i guess in a way that's what's good about naming potter because in a way that's just 'the world', rather than being a character.

it is a basic, ill-thought through answer though.


28. Bought at my fave independent bookshop.

i don't have a favourite independent bookshop. i'm the reason that bookshops are going under. i do support my local boardgame cafe, though. a bit. and independent coffee shops.


29. The one I have reread most often.

there's a possibility the answer to this isn't one of the early harry potter books, or 'carry on', but it's a pretty slim possibility. potter regularly over the years, including audio books, 'carry on' repeatedly in a very short space of time because there's not much canon to go around. so if you want to study how the canon feels, you gotta re-read.

maybe some tamora pierce might challenge, or david gemmell's 'legend', but probably not. it's probably philospher's stone.


30. Would save if my house burned down.

i probably wouldn't save any books if my house burned down. i'd be sort of sad that my copies of (wait for it) philospher's stone and prison of azkaban were gone, because i've not only re-read those books a lot, but i read those particular physical objects a lot and they're so tied to what was important to me ten years ago. but they are replaceable.

i really hope my house doesn't burn down, though - let's be clear about that. even if it would mean we didn't have to deal with the bathroom leak any more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯


OK DONE!

( other days )