beatrice_otter: Elizabeth Bennet reads (Reading)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Pride and Prejudice
Pairings/Characters: Darcy/Elizabeth, Georgiana, Jane/Bingley
Rating: Teen
Length: 75k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] anghraine 
Theme: siblings, old fandoms, book fandoms, novel length, AU, family,

Summary: Without Lady Catherine's interference, a family catastrophe throws Darcy and Elizabeth down wildly different paths.

Reccer's Notes: This series is very much Darcy/Elizabeth, but they spend a lot of it going down separate paths. And on those separate paths, their closest relationships are with their siblings--Darcy and Georgiana, Jane and Elizabeth. I love the care that is taken with all of the different relationships in this story.

Fanwork Links: The Rich Are Always Respectable
beatrice_otter: Captain America (Captain America)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Marvel
Pairings/Characters: Steve/Bucky
Rating: Gen
Length: 4k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] what_alchemy 
Theme: siblings, AU, family

Summary: Bucky was the eldest of four.

Reccer's Notes: Bucky has four younger siblings, and in 2015 they are elderly, crotchety, and determined to go see Steve Rogers. Getting there is an ordeal, and what they find there is a surprise. I love the way the characters are so well-drawn and realistic, and I love the humor.

Fanwork Links: Geriatric Road Trip, 2015

Content notes: racist and homophobic language
beatrice_otter: All true wealth is biological (Wealth)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Vorkosigan
Pairings/Characters: Kareen Vorbarra, Alys Vorpatril, Gregor Vorbarra, Ivan Vorpatril
Rating: Gen
Length: 13k
Creator Links: [archiveofourown.org profile] lannamichaels 
Theme: siblings, family, secret identity reveal, female characters, old fandoms, book fandoms, AU, female friendship,

Summary: Kareen protects her children.

Reccer's Notes: This is such a fascinating AU about Kareen, Alys, Gregor, Ivan, and what might have happened.

Fanwork Links: The Emperor's Brother

Falling behind

Mar. 17th, 2026 11:19 pm
cornerofmadness: (Default)
[personal profile] cornerofmadness
On commentary again. I see you. I appreciate you. Mid term grades are due tomorrow so I am overwhelmed. And annoyed. And I will be busier and busier as we go. At least 5 of the 7 students who missed the midterm before break showed up today and took their exam (we had like three sports teams out that week) one had a good excuse for coming tomorrow and the other (who happens to be the one who's been cheating) didn't bother to let me know what they're doing so someone is gonna be surprised tomorrow when grades go in


I did want to say a lot of you did respond to my question about those scenes that won't leave you alone. Most do what I do as well, write them out and even if you don't use them, it's out of your head. While I do this I don't do it enough and I think that is because I'm afraid if I do, the whole thing will go quiet. I've had that happen. That's a whole different set of problems.


I'm not feeling St Patrick's day so it is also St Gertrude of Nivelles day, the patroness of cats among other things so let's combine the day with Women's History and here's more about her.
Gertrude of Nivelles


for Fannish 50 let's have a talk.

Sarah Michelle Gellar Reveals The Real Cause Of The 'Buffy' Reboot Cancellation—And Fans Are Livid

I wasn't sure I was thrilled about the reboot but it grew on me the more I learned about it but can we as fans say how fucking tired we are of some exec making foolish choices based on their arrogance and feelings. Bragging how much you hated Buffy and didn't bother with it originally is not a good reason to make this choice.

Three seconds of research would show that 25 years later still has fans churning out a few dozen stories/art/articles practically daily. You're talking a rabid fan base ready for th is, not to mention a whole new generation of fans to woo. So Hulu is losing a ton of profit because of one man's ego. And this is not for the first time. We've seen this time and again, especially with these 25 y.o. male execs who seem to not understand their audiences at all.

The last time I was this infuriated was with Prodigal Son which Fox touted as it's number one show and then 1 episode from the end, cancels it taking everyone including the cast by surprise.

Daily Happiness

Mar. 17th, 2026 08:05 pm
torachan: scott pilgrim pouting (scott pilgrim - pout)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Yesterday morning when I got back from my walk, I somehow lost the top to my airpods' outer case. It had to have fallen out either on the porch or inside the house, because it's very noticeable without it so it could only have been right after I put them back in my pocket after putting them in the case. I looked around a little but had to go to work, and Carla looked some more during the day and didn't find it, so I ordered a new case, which came today and I really love it. For one thing, the top is attached! I really like the variety of colors, so I ordered another one for my backup pair, and for Carla's ones as well. Right after that, Carla found the top to the old case in the living room in a tangle of power cords lol. But these new ones are cheap and I really do prefer the attached top. The one I thought I lost was a Star Wars Pride one from Disneyland, so I'll still use it seasonally (I also have a Mickey Halloween one).

2. I got my haircut today. Carla had an appointment, too, so it took longer than when it's just me and I didn't feel like going to Gardena just for a little bit in the afternoon, so I just worked from home the rest of the day. It was just web meetings in the afternoon anyway.

3. This morning when I got up, my PC would not turn on. The power cord is one of those that has a light showing when it's plugged in, so I could tell it was still getting power and that wasn't the problem. I thought maybe it was stuck in an update or something, so I went for my walk, but when I came back it still wouldn't turn on. I decided to unplug it from the power strip while I ate breakfast and then it finally came back on again! I really should do a backup of my files just in case...

4. Few things are cuter than cats covering their face coyly.

Slay the Spire 2

Mar. 17th, 2026 11:04 pm
sineala: Mac laptop whose Apple logo has no bite (Young Wizards reference); text reads "my other Mac is a manual" (Young Wizards: My Other Mac)
[personal profile] sineala
I have slightly more brain now and maybe enough energy to post more? Let's find out. I'm sure you've missed me posting about random video games.

Anyway, Slay the Spire 2, the sequel to my most favorite roguelike deckbuilder Slay the Spire came out in Early Access two weeks ago, and is apparently stunningly popular -- it had 500,000 concurrent players its first weekend, beating basically everything else on Steam at the time, which no one was really expecting from, you know, an indie card game.

I haven't played it enough to give a full review, because even in EA there is a lot more content -- there are five characters, two of which are brand new, all of which have new cards, and there are all sorts of new mechanics and events I haven't discovered yet. So far I have now beaten what exists of the game with four of the five characters and I know I haven't seen anywhere near everything yet. I think it's currently balanced harder than the original game, but the subreddit is full of people saying it is way too easy, so I guess we will see what happens when the balance patches start coming out.

But the really cool thing about this game is the multiplayer, which we only found out existed in a trailer that they released, like, two weeks before the actual game. It has co-op with up to four players! I only have one friend who plays this game, as far as I know -- [personal profile] gelishan, who actually introduced me to the original game -- and we played a game of it the other night, and I have to say that co-op is absolutely the most fun way to experience the game. It helps to be on voice chat, so you can coordinate things like 'who are we targeting first" or "if you have anything inflicting Vulnerable, please play that first" or "do you need this Strength Potion" or "do you want me to play Piercing Wail this turn so you don't take 35 damage straight to the face" or whatever, but I guess theoretically you could play it in silence and just deal with the fact that everyone is playing their turns simultaneously.

Anyway, that is clearly the way this game has always been meant to be played and I need to do this again at some point. The co-op multiplayer is absolutely amazing! I don't know that I would recommend the game in its current single-player state to people who haven't played the original, just because it is already a hard game and it helps to have some idea of how three of the five characters play, if you're going to play it by yourself. But if you are playing multiplayer, I think you can just go for it and you and your friends can take turns carrying each other through the game.

So, yeah, that's what I've been up to, as I slowly regain some brain. Slaying the Spire anew!

(Also it's really weird to actually talk to someone you have known on the internet for, like, 25 years, but you've never heard their voice before.)

quick hello-I'm-alive post

Mar. 17th, 2026 10:41 pm
asakiyume: (feathers on the line)
[personal profile] asakiyume
It's been more than a week since I posted! Part of that's just life being busy; part is that [personal profile] osprey_archer is here!

Today we went to Bright Water Bog, swung on a swing, ate some cranberries, and saw ice forming. It was sunny, but a cold wind was blowing, and a few flurries of snow came down.



(We also went to the Smith College Botanical Gardens, but this is a drive-by post! So there's only the one photo.)

(no subject)

Mar. 17th, 2026 06:59 pm
ysobel: (Default)
[personal profile] ysobel
Mohs procedure (making sure they remove all the skin cancer) done today. Had to get up hours earlier than normal, before sunrise, in order to get there at 7:45am ... and got back at like 1:50pm. Two hours of that was waiting for pathology.

The procedure was done with local anesthesia but that wore off mid afternoon. Things hurt now. They don't even give good drugs, just suggest alternating Tylenol and ibuprofen, both in otc form.

Am very tired right now.

(no subject)

Mar. 17th, 2026 09:52 pm
watersword: A compass and the words "a compass that doesn't point north" (Pirates of the Caribbean: compass)
[personal profile] watersword

Oh my GOD can it be spring yet, I am SO TIRED OF WINTER. There is a tiny tiny tiny pink nubbin of rhubarb in the garden. No asparagus yet. I cannot wait to get the dopamine hit of seeing my summer clothes for the first time in months.

The NT's production of The Importance of Being Earnest is of course a delight (Sharon D. Clarke deserves a knighthood and Ncuti Gatwa wears clothes, and few clothes, to perfection); [profile] velveteenrabbi and D's Pesach class is as excellent as one might expect; somewhere on this desk is an embroidery needle and I am convinced the gherkin is going to stab herself with it. Wednesday is actually largely unscheduled and I need only survive the conference Thursday, which requires me to leave the house at godawful o'clock.

I am looking forward to the three-hour train ride and the Dessa concert so much. And then I get a weekend in my favorite city! I have been promised brunch and a museum and rainbow cookies and bagels. (Promised by myself and I intend to follow through in every particular.)

home again

Mar. 17th, 2026 08:27 pm
redbird: closeup of me drinking tea, in a friend's kitchen (Default)
[personal profile] redbird
I am back from Montreal. The trip home had some annoying delays while they found us an airplane, or figured out how to tow the one they had, or something, but was otherwise fine.

Rysmiel gave me a back rub last night that did significant good for the tension in my neck and right shoulder. I currently have an unrelated shoulder pain, from spending too much time poking at my phone while spending several hours at the airport, but if I'm somewhat cautious now that I'm home, that should take care of itself in a day or three.

I am catching up on some of the PT exercises I didn't do while traveling because they require elastics, or the foam roller, or weights, but doing all of them tonight would be imprudent.

some good things

Mar. 17th, 2026 11:22 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett
  1. Allotment salad!
  2. Got Things Into The Ground (as well as out of it); I am as ever running massively behind but the weather was lovely and touching soil remains very good.
  3. It was warm enough to have the back door open for a bit.
  4. I am really, really enjoying the self-indulgent Very Expensive Lebkuchen I got from SousChef in the January sale. They make an excellent supper.
  5. Bloods taken today do include a full blood count; alas no ferritin (that's scheduled for... May? April?) but I do get a sneaky extra update on how my estimated haemoglobin is doing.
  6. libgourou continues to Work. I remain very pleased about this.

Journey of a Novel, Part Two

Mar. 17th, 2026 02:19 pm
jreynoldsward: (Default)
[personal profile] jreynoldsward

When I start building a world and the plot of a book, things don’t always go quickly. In some cases I can visualize a whole world and start writing right away. But those instances tend to be rare, simply because these days what I’m working on are often notions that I’ve been thinking about and poking at for a couple of decades or so.

That’s the case for Vortex Worlds. I’ve approached it from several angles and been thinking about it for a very long time. The notion of a time/multiverse refuge in a quasi-Western, nineteenth-kinda century setting has been niggling at me ever since the early twenty-teens, when we were driving through the southern Willamette Valley. I got a flash of native elders confronting a white settler using a forbidden mechanical sickle bar mower—and turning into wicker/wooden forms in that field when the settler refused to comply.

Only then I wasn’t thinking about the time-travel multiverse elements. Those crawled slowly into my story notions as I worked on what eventually became the novella Bearing Witness. And even then, the concept really hasn’t gained flesh until recently.

What happened between now and then?

A lot of research. I also had a notion for an alternate history version of Pacific Northwest settlement by white Europeans that was loosely based on a proposal by Dr. John McLoughlin toward the end of his tenure as the Chief Factor for Fort Vancouver. McLoughlin approached the first US settlers with an idea of establishing an “Oregon Country,” independent from both the US and Great Britain.

Well, we know how that turned out.

However, I kept throwing magic and unicorns and other stuff into the mix, and gave up on it after a few short stories in that world. I…still might do something with it, unconnected to Vortex Worlds, but that makes it maybe next up on the list (we’ll see if Vision of Alliance’s sluggish sales perk up, that might be enough for me to turn to Book Two of that trilogy).

Anyway. Back to Vortex Worlds. One of the theories teasing at my brain has been this “what if Alice Clarissa Whitman had not drowned at age two?” notion. She was the daughter of early missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, born early in their time at Waíilatpu near what later became the city of Walla Walla. Her parents withdrew significantly from their mission after her death, and turned instead to helping US settlers instead of missionizing the local peoples for Christianity. It’s a possible turning point in history because Alice Clarissa was friendly with the Cayuse peoples; loved as the first white child born in their land. She spoke their language as well as English. Would she have suffered the same fate as her parents? Would she have died of measles? Or would she have ended up like a couple of orphaned girls who were adopted by the Whitmans, then orphaned a second time by their deaths, doomed to bouncing between so-called “adoptive” parents who basically treated them like indentured servants, up until they married?

Not that Alice Clarissa became a part of this world until recently. Before then, when I was drafting Bearing Witness, I was thinking more about a different path, where horrific nasty supernatural stuff tied to a multiverse and a battle for the control of the multiverse made the leadup to the US Civil War even bloodier and more awful. I visualized a group of escapees from the mid-nineteenth century bouncing from universe to universe, trying to escape the Soulers who not only killed the body but devoured the soul. Of course, not all of them were in political accord, which led to the opening that provided the foundation for the story of Bearing Witness, which I ended up serializing on Kindle Vella, then releasing as a novella a few years ago.

Even then, though, I buried seeds of a bigger world in Witness. Jesse Pruitt and his wife Tianawis—and Tianawis is head of the Kalosin Council of Women, the native people who control and protect the Kalosin refuge. Jesse is a Wild Colonist, a magician with the ability to manipulate the portals that transport people through the multiverse. Wild Colonists operate separately from the other two sources of magic—Federal Magicians and Preacher Magicians. Wild Colonists are independent wild cards—along with the Kalosin people.

Buried even deeper in Witness is the story of Jesse’s mother Abigail Caine Pruitt, who operates a null site within Kalosin. I don’t delve further into that part of the world in Witness, but I knew that Abigail’s story was significant.

Well, now it’s time for that piece. However, at the same time, I also had Alice Clarissa. I wrote a short story where a clone is substituted for her two-year-old drowned self, and she is raised by aliens and trained to be a Time Corps interpreter. Oh, I sent the story out to a couple of markets, but…it wasn’t that well-received, probably in part because I was still struggling with what this would turn Alice Clarissa into.

I’ve figured that piece out, and am revising that short story into something that’s much better than the original piece. This appears to be one of those books where the worldbuilding foundation ends up resting on assorted short stories, so writing these stories is part of that overall revision. Not sure yet whether these backstory short pieces will become a part of the book or if I’ll end up putting them out as related short stories as teasers/reader magnets.

Interestingly, instead of what I’ve done for worldbuilding in the past, I’m exploring this world through related short stories/outtakes. It’s something I started doing with the Martinieres and—well, for me it’s a sign that the world is starting to come to life. It’s a much slower process than sitting down with an easel and scribbling out notes to myself but—life is chaotic at the moment, so this slower process seems to fit what I’m doing.

Kalosin is a fascinating world, and I have oh-so-much to learn about it yet. Especially given its solitary status in the multiverse of Vortex Worlds. I’m nowhere near ready to start writing a chapter synopsis yet, but…it will happen. Eventually. After over thirty-two books to my credit, I’ve learned to trust the process. Sometimes it comes fast, other times it comes slow.

But the story eventually arrives. And I’m fascinated by this journey.

Right now I’m promoting a bundle on Itch that features several of my women characters with agency. If you haven’t read my work before, it’s a good introduction to several of my series. $18.90 for ten books, or 50% off of individual books. Check it out!

https://itch.io/s/181380/joyces-womens-history-month-special-sampler


mrissa: (Default)
[personal profile] mrissa
 

Review copy provided by the publisher. Also the author is a friend.

This morning I wrote to another friend, "I've finished reading Amal's new collection, and now the only problem is how to write a review that's laudatory enough." "A good problem to have," my friend correctly noted.

Seriously, though. I've read most of these stories before, but when I came to each one, it was a matter of, "Oh, I loved this one!" rather than "Oh yeah, this one." There is a stylistic and thematic inclination to the stories that never rises to sameness. It's such a distillation of why I have been consistently happy to see these stories (and a few poems!) in the venues where they've appeared, for the years they've been appearing.

If you were hoping that this would be a source of new Amal stories, you'll have to keep waiting, this is the kind of collection that's a culmination of previous work rather than a revelation of new. But it's a beautiful slim volume, I'm thrilled to have it, I will press it upon my friends and relations, hurrah. Hurrah.

duskpeterson: The lowercased letters D and P, joined together (Default)
[personal profile] duskpeterson

The original palace of the Chara was built nearly seven hundred years ago (around 300 years after the giving of the law, as the Emorians date it), under the supervision of the Chara William. In the earliest years of Emor, the Chara and his council lived in a small hall, similar to the Royal Residence of the Kings of Koretia. After a time, though, the Chara and his council fell into a terrible civil war. By the end of this war, the Chara had gained so many followers that a larger building was clearly needed.

The original palace was a one-storey building set atop a high hill, though the hill was lower then. Around it gradually grew the capital of Koretia. This palace was intended only for the Chara, not for his recent enemy, the Great Council of Emor. As part of the peace settlement, however, it was agreed that one-third of the new palace should be given over to the Great Council. Another third was retained by the Chara. The exact purpose of the remaining third is not known for certain, but it appears to have been for rites that have since died out in Emorian culture.

Within two hundred and fifty years, Emor had grown into an empire. With the arrival of a vast bureaucracy to deal with imperial matters, it was clearly time to build a new palace. This palace was built atop the original palace, the old palace being buried under soil that heightened the hill. So well hidden is the original palace that, within a hundred years, many visitors to the new palace were unaware that an older palace still existed under the new one. That remains the case to this day, though the present Emorian government makes no effort to hide the existence of the underground rooms.

The palace that began to be built in 568, under the supervision of the Chara Rowland, was not the vast, sprawling palace of today. It covered only the area that had been taken up by the old palace. This second palace would later be dubbed the East Wing, as the palace expanded.

Like the original palace, it was single-storeyed, but it was as high as a two-storey building. This lent it a majestic appearance. Emor's finest architects were brought in to build the palace, aided by the fledgling engineers who were beginning to transform life in the new empire. Arpesh and Marcadia, close to the mainland, were at that time only just establishing relations with Emor; Arpesh, in a gesture of friendship that it later came to regret bitterly, sent down some of its artists to help with the building. The result was what is widely acknowledged to be the most beautiful building in the world, as well as the largest and most impressive. Only the Daxion palace, a full six storeys high, comes close to rivalling the Chara's palace.

The Chara's palace has vastly expanded in the four centuries since then, but the character of the East Wing has not changed in any substantial manner. It remains in appearance and use as it did in the centuries of the Middle Charas.


[Translator's note: The expansive nature of the Chara's palace becomes apparent in Law-Lover.]

Circling back to this guy...

Mar. 17th, 2026 03:53 pm
kiya: (feri)
[personal profile] kiya

Watcher



They say angels
Are genderless
But he refused to come
Unarmed:

He tore an eye
From his feathered wing
And opened its color
To paint his lids

He had not been shaped
To have
A blade
So he made one.

His hands opened
With gifts:

These are your weapons,
Use them.
Become strong
And beautiful.

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