yonmei

elke_tanzer @ 07:58 pm: I'm sitting here in happy tears, because yeah, this is how it feels.
Of all of the things I never, ever, ever expected to say in this lifetime...

Because general_jinjur is amazing, and the OTW is amazing, and the AO3 is amazing, and the Wrangulator is amazing, and because everyone who is uploading stories and tagging them is amazing...

Go read:

forma by general_jinjur. It's Tag Wuzzle Wrangler RPF.

I will apparently be cosplaying myself next Escapade, y'all.

(If there is a fanartist in range of my voice who can draw in the style of Nausicaa Valley of the Wind and is willing to do a commission, please let me know.)

(Heck, if any fanartist wants to do something related to this, let general_jinjur know... she says the Wrangulatorverse is open to sharing according to the open-transform statement on her profile, but I'm sure she'd love to hear if you make any derivative work from it!)

And yes, the tag wrangling team is still looking for more volunteers.

*holds out hand*

This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1016266.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tags: ao3, why fandom works

alixtii @ 07:30 pm: Gakked from the flist.
Pick a paragraph (or any passage less than 700 words) from any fanfic I've written, and comment to this post with that selection. I will then give you a DVD commentary on that snippet: what I was thinking when I wrote it, why I wrote it in the first place, what's going on in the character's heads, why I chose certain words, what this moment means in the context of the rest of the fic (fic series, fic universe), lots of awful puns, and anything else that you'd expect to find on a DVD commentary track.

This entry was originally posted at http://alixtii.dreamwidth.org/315995.html. There are currently comments there. You can comment there, using Open ID (prefered), or here.

spacelogic @ 04:13 pm: computers, laws thereof
Phoenix's Universal Laws of Computing:

1) Your computer is stupid, but completely obedient. It will do exactly what you tell it to do, whether or not that's what you actually want or, indeed, what you thought you were doing.

2) Your computer is out to get you. It hates your guts and wants you dead. You cannot let down your guard even for a moment. Save early, save often, and back up everything regularly.

3) Your computer can tell if you're afraid. It will do everything in its power to keep you that way. You have to show it who's boss, and that had better be you.

Tags: geekery

pepys_diary @ 11:00 pm: Wednesday 21 November 1666

http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/11/21/

Up, with Sir W. Batten to Charing Cross, and thence I to wait on Sir Philip Howard, whom I find dressing himself in his night-gown and turban like a Turke, but one of the finest persons that ever I saw in my life. He had several gentlemen of his owne waiting on him, and one playing finely on the gittar: he discourses as well as ever I heard man, in few words and handsome. He expressed all kindness to Balty, when I told him how sick he is: he says that, before he comes to be mustered again, he must bring a certificate of his swearing the oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy, and having taken the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England. This, I perceive, is imposed on all, and he will be ready to do. I pray God he may have his health again to be able to do it. Being mightily satisfied with his civility, I away to Westminster Hall, and there walked with several people, and all the discourse is about some trouble in Scotland I heard of yesterday, but nobody can tell the truth of it. Here was Betty Michell with her mother. I would have carried her home, but her father intends to go with her, so I lost my hopes. And thence I to the Excise Office about some tallies, and then to the Exchange, where I did much business, and so home to dinner, and then to the office, where busy all the afternoon till night, and then home to supper, and after supper an hour reading to my wife and brother something in Chaucer with great pleasure, and so to bed.

ngaio @ 08:56 pm: Day 21
From soupytwist:

I have been thinking about this topic lately, so I would like to hear if you have any Thortz on ambitions - if you have any, what they might be, how you go about achieving them if so. :)

I'm a little weird with ambitions, because in many ways 'ambition' to me is linked to a lot of bad behaviour, politically motivated actions and relationships and all the stuff I dislike in the workplace. It's stepping over people and on people and being fake. Someone who is 'ambitious' is someone I probably don't like. And I actually know it's not true, Allegra and Dylan have the ambition of being published authors, Lucy an illustrator, another colleague a musician - these are ambitions I wholeheartedly approve of and support.

However, business ambitions aside, having things to aim for is, I think, a fairly necessary part of life. Or at least of mine. If I thought I was going to continue on exactly as I am now for the rest of my life that would be horrendous. Because for me at least growing and stretching myself is very very important, to improve myself in whatever way I can. Because I'm never going to be perfect but I can get better and be a better person. And also I like challenges (I curse 'em, but I like 'em!) and I like using my brain and learning and knowing things.

That's a bit vague isn't it?!

Do I have specific ambitions? No. But I have some waffley ones!

• To raise a happy daughter. Especially given the issues that both Henry and I come with with mental health and intelligence and social (in)ability. I know she will face her own issues and problems because she's human and all people do but I want to be someone who she knows she can come to for support and who she trusts. So that whatever is going on with her she knows she can come to me and I won't condemn her.


• To challenge myself. At the moment I don't have many chances to step outside my comfort zone, but when the opportunities arise I try to remember to take that step. I think it's important to me. I spent a very large amount of my life hiding in my own head and not interacting with people (do you know that I am fascinated with mutism, especially elective mutism? It's something which ... when I find myself thinking of the attraction of not having to speak I know to take my brain and mental health in hand), for a long time the world inside my head was more real than the outside world. Now I balance between the two and every new achievement in the outside world I feel expands and strengthens me. I grow when I do new things.


• To have a job which challenges me and which I enjoy. (OK, this one's been harder the last few months but as I said to my parents today 'there's a light at the end of the tunnel, it may be a train, we don't know right now, but there's a light.') Ideally I want a job where what I do helps people. (Actually in my current post I do help people, kind of, but something a little more direct.) At the same time, while I'm good at customer service (the peril of being someone who's bad at reading people and wants to please people, the life skills transfer over into work skills too!) I'm also good at systems and processes. I don't know the name of what it is I want to do, and I'm not sure how to get there, but whatever it is it involves problem solving and troubleshooting systems to make them work for the people who use them and the customer. And helping people. Recently I've been most interesting in researching posts in the charity sector but without many specific skills or qualifications it's a little tricky. (Living in the small of the back of nowhere doesn't help either.)

I think all of the above add up to - my ambition is 'to be a better person', better in terms of being good, better in terms of being effective, better in terms of ... being a person! Just better.

(PS soupytwist - That probably was absolutely nothing like you were expecting - sorry!)

poisontaster @ 02:59 pm: And Don't Forget to Breathe
I was putting together what new material I have for Appetite and I was really pretty shocked at how little it comes out to be, when assembled. Part of the reason for this is that there are two scenes that I've spent a lot of words on, but it was all writing and rewriting them, trying to find the "right" take for them. So there's verbiage, but most of it is garbage. Or…if not garbage, than discards and it's a real struggle for me to be Zen about this and say that it will come when it comes and accept that with equanimity. There are some stories I can bull my way through. I used to be better at bulling my way through a stubborn story. But now it's a talent that seems to have deserted me and, as usual, I'm not sure how to recover it.

On the other hand, I feel like AKB is going like gangbusters. Which is awesome and I am thankful for that, but, at the same time, it's hard not to feel like my success with AKB and that all my excitement and creativity going toward it is detracting from my other goals. And while a part of me doesn't want it to end, the glimmering of the end on the horizon is also a relief. Of course, it also brings up a certain morbid curiosity about what, exactly, will take its place as the object of my obsession. And, of course, the fear that nothing will.

In my current spate of 'trashy' reading, I'm reading LKH's Skin Trade and I realized a big part of the many, many things that bother me about the Anita Blake books (and their [de]evolution over time) is the distinct lack of femaleness.

( A little more about that. Not specifically spoilery. )

Another thing that I really want to write about, but haven't quite figured out how to talk about it without potentially offending people, is mini_nanowrimo. On the one hand, I understand that it, like anything writing related, is a tool and what people get out of it and how they use it and what it means to them is entirely individual. I can't dispute that. I can't argue with that.

But, at the same time, I confess to a certain (un-modly, personal) frustration when people either miss a day of writing or miss a day of posting and decide to pack it up and give up on the challenge entirely. I mean…I get the disappointment of not meeting the goals that you've set for yourself. Boy howdy, do I get that! And I do understand the impulse that, if you cannot be perfect, you'd rather be nothing at all.

But I also feel like it's a childish impulse, in its way. The older I get (and the theoretically wiser) the more I think less and care less about perfection and care and think more about perseverance.

The way we do one thing is the way we do everything. In this life, we make mistakes, we fail. We fail in so many ways. Some failure is inevitable. And, generally speaking, we don't have the option of packing it in, taking our ball and going home. Generally, we have to stick it out, strap it on and clean up our messes. And I find a certain grace in that. Much more grace, in some ways, than the people who do manage some level of perfection, because it takes guts to faceplant and then get up again and move on. I feel like we spend so much time trying to self-talk ourselves and everyone else into not making any mistakes, to being perfect and we spend none of that time teaching ourselves or each other how to recover from those inevitable failures. Or that a failure doesn't need to be the end of everything. And that a failure in one part doesn't equal complete catastrophe.

( Some more thoughts on the matter. (The opinions within are those of poisontaster, and do not represent the comm as a whole or in part.) )

poisontaster @ 02:59 pm: And Don't Forget to Breathe
I was putting together what new material I have for Appetite and I was really pretty shocked at how little it comes out to be, when assembled. Part of the reason for this is that there are two scenes that I've spent a lot of words on, but it was all writing and rewriting them, trying to find the "right" take for them. So there's verbiage, but most of it is garbage. Or…if not garbage, than discards and it's a real struggle for me to be Zen about this and say that it will come when it comes and accept that with equanimity. There are some stories I can bull my way through. I used to be better at bulling my way through a stubborn story. But now it's a talent that seems to have deserted me and, as usual, I'm not sure how to recover it.

On the other hand, I feel like AKB is going like gangbusters. Which is awesome and I am thankful for that, but, at the same time, it's hard not to feel like my success with AKB and that all my excitement and creativity going toward it is detracting from my other goals. And while a part of me doesn't want it to end, the glimmering of the end on the horizon is also a relief. Of course, it also brings up a certain morbid curiosity about what, exactly, will take its place as the object of my obsession. And, of course, the fear that nothing will.

In my current spate of 'trashy' reading, I'm reading LKH's Skin Trade and I realized a big part of the many, many things that bother me about the Anita Blake books (and their [de]evolution over time) is the distinct lack of femaleness.

( A little more about that. Not specifically spoilery. )

Another thing that I really want to write about, but haven't quite figured out how to talk about it without potentially offending people, is mini_nanowrimo. On the one hand, I understand that it, like anything writing related, is a tool and what people get out of it and how they use it and what it means to them is entirely individual. I can't dispute that. I can't argue with that.

But, at the same time, I confess to a certain (un-modly, personal) frustration when people either miss a day of writing or miss a day of posting and decide to pack it up and give up on the challenge entirely. I mean…I get the disappointment of not meeting the goals that you've set for yourself. Boy howdy, do I get that! And I do understand the impulse that, if you cannot be perfect, you'd rather be nothing at all.

But I also feel like it's a childish impulse, in its way. The older I get (and the theoretically wiser) the more I think less and care less about perfection and care and think more about perseverance.

The way we do one thing is the way we do everything. In this life, we make mistakes, we fail. We fail in so many ways. Some failure is inevitable. And, generally speaking, we don't have the option of packing it in, taking our ball and going home. Generally, we have to stick it out, strap it on and clean up our messes. And I find a certain grace in that. Much more grace, in some ways, than the people who do manage some level of perfection, because it takes guts to faceplant and then get up again and move on. I feel like we spend so much time trying to self-talk ourselves and everyone else into not making any mistakes, to being perfect and we spend none of that time teaching ourselves or each other how to recover from those inevitable failures. Or that a failure doesn't need to be the end of everything. And that a failure in one part doesn't equal complete catastrophe.

( Some more thoughts on the matter. (The opinions within are those of poisontaster, and do not represent the comm as a whole or in part.) )

Tags: book geek, my muse's junkie girlfriend, nano, writing woes

squeaky, posting in announcements @ 02:30 pm: IJ Holiday Sale
We are starting this years InsaneJournal holiday sale. From now until the end of the day Friday, November 27 we are going to be holding a sale on Self-Committed[paid] accounts and Extra Userpics.

The prices are be as follows

Self-Committed[paid]
1 Month -> $5
6 Month -> $15 $10
12 Month -> $25 $18

Extra Userpicx
6 Month -> $10 $5
12 Month -> $20 $15

Then on Friday November 27th from 8am until 4pm (Eastern US time) we will be running a very special sale on Permanently Insane accounts.

elke_tanzer @ 10:38 am: tags to consider using on AO3...
Speaking just as myself, and not in my role as volunteer tag wuzzle wrangler...

my first fanfic
my first explicit fanfic
embarrassing old fic

you don't have to know the canon

one of my best
if you only read one work by me

I think it would be so nifty to be able to see what others choose of their fics for those tags!

This entry was originally posted at http://elke-tanzer.dreamwidth.org/1016047.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

Tags: ao3

yonmei @ 09:22 am: Nibling in utero?
I had a will. (And my previous will included the possibility that my brother might have children, or that my sister might have more children, so technically my newest nibling was covered.)

But, named bequests are better, and this month is Will Aid month, so I looked up the nearest solicitor to me who was participating and this time, helped by the fact that the solicitor was doing it for free and so had no investment in making it more complicated, I had him write me a classically simple will with a small handful of cash bequests, an explicit instruction to my executor to honour any handwritten bequests that had been dated and signed (legal in Scottish law: I don't even have to get a witness), and the main division of residual legacy* to residual heirs, this time including both nephews by name.

But, as the solicitor pointed out (as the last one did) there is the possibility that either my brother or my sister might have more children, and so there's an additional clause adding any other offspring of my brother and my sister as equal heirs with the two named nephews. When the will arrived, these potential niblings were identified as "born or in utero at the time of my death" - and this actually left me wondering - in the kind of way one does speculate about wild improbabilities - what happens if my brother's girlfriend is pregnant at the time of my death, then has a miscarriage afterwards? Would the dead fetus get a share, which would by default be inherited by my brother's girlfriend? The whole thing has a massive improbability score which I am not seriously worried about - not least, because it's not as if I'm actually going to be around to worry about it if it happens - but it's a curious thing to will money to a fetus.

Anyway. I need to get the will witnessed and a copy in store, but once done that should do me for another ten years**. Unless Flow is planning to give newest nephew a sibling. (My sister has already, many times, said emphatically that there are not going to be any more from her.)

Anyway. Making a will is important! Even if you have nothing to leave except twelve books and three sex toys and a kitten, the only reason for not making a will is to cause guaranteed amounts of trouble for whoever is required to deal with your crap after you die.



*My house. When sold.
**Unless I buy another house in the meantime. Or register a civil partnership. Or the world as we know it comes to an end in 2012. Or have a baby. I mention these things in increasing order of wild improbability, but any one of them could invalidate*** my will.
***Not legally. In Scotland nothing invalidates a previous will but a new will, though you and your heirs and executors ought to be identified by name/address, and a spouse can claim a share. And Scottish courts can process Scots law anywhere, so technically it wouldn't matter if the UK was completely drowned by giant tsunamis. Actually having a child would make a will effectively invalid since a child is legally entitled to a specific share in a Scottish will and can contest the will if they don't get it.

Tags: family stuff, someone died, weird stuff, wow i am self-obsessed

lavendertook @ 10:42 pm: Colors and Turtles Across the Lake

The focus isn't very sharp in these pics, but the colors are so vivid I figured I'd show them to you anyway. We started on the east end of the lake, and we're going along the northern shore and are nearing the west end now. Across the lake from this picnic shelter you can sort of make out the opening of the south branch or fork of the lake.
( Following the kaleidoscope on the southern shore . . . )

Tags: greenbelt, nature, trees, water, woods

p_zeitgeist, posting in metafandom @ 11:10 pm: Friday, November 20, 2009

• albumsontheside: I wasn't trying to get you to like me. I was trying to get you to love me. - what makes certain fics popular? - why are some fics so unbelievably popular in certain fandoms, and why do the fans often react so personally to any criticism levied against said fics? -
  
  (tags: fanfic fandom criticism)


• thefrogg: Muses and Fic Nicknames - Am I the only writer who happens to actually...give a personality/name/body/whatever to their muse? -
  
  (tags: writing)

darkrose @ 06:49 pm: Television Without Pity--But Racism is Dandy!
Okay, I should have known better. But I was enjoying the SGU thread on TWoP, with all of the lovely snark. And I appreciated the fact that most of the posters seemed to get why having sex in someone else's body was skeevy, and why it's problematic that the black guy in SGU is yet another Angry Black Man.

( Seriously--I should have known better. )

Tags: failboat, fandom: race and representation, fandom: sga, fen of color

raisedbymoogles @ 09:10 pm: No, really, they're tweets. :D?
- I just typoed 'Phantom of the Opera' as 'Phantom of the Opry.' Interesting AU, that.

- Am marathoning Ouran Host Club - just found out that Haruhi wants to be a lawyer. Guess what I'm crossing it over with now. Go ahead, guess.

- At work I spent half an hour blow-drying a bobcat. The bobcat was unappreciative.

Tags: anime, real life, work

randomsome1 @ 08:40 pm: the best worst movie ever
Today, two young women got dramatically offended because I suggested a book to them that wasn't Twilight.

It seems Twilight means very much to them; so much that it was untoward of me to suggest other reading material.


Dear bleached-blond bottle-tanned Barbie-wanna-be Twitards,

Why so serious?











We're gonna get flamed so hard. It took less than a half hour for us to get our first flame. :D

pepys_diary @ 11:00 pm: Tuesday 20 November 1666

http://www.pepysdiary.com/archive/1666/11/20/

Called up by Mr. Sheply, who is going into the country to-day to Hinchingbroke, I sent my service to my Lady, and in general for newes: that the world do think well of my Lord, and do wish he were here again, but that the publique matters of the State as to the war are in the worst condition that is possible. By and by Sir W. Warren, and with him half an hour discoursing of several businesses, and some I hope will bring me a little profit. He gone, and Sheply, I to the office a little, and then to church, it being thanksgiving-day for the cessation of the plague; but, Lord! how the towne do say that it is hastened before the plague is quite over, there dying some people still,¹ but only to get ground for plays to be publickly acted, which the Bishops would not suffer till the plague was over; and one would thinke so, by the suddenness of the notice given of the day, which was last Sunday, and the little ceremony. The sermon being dull of Mr. Minnes, and people with great indifferency come to hear him. After church home, where I met Mr. Gregory, who I did then agree with to come to teach my wife to play on the Viall, and he being an able and sober man, I am mightily glad of it. He had dined, therefore went away, and I to dinner, and after dinner by coach to Barkeshire-house, and there did get a very great meeting; the Duke of York being there, and much business done, though not in proportion to the greatness of the business, and my Lord Chancellor sleeping and snoring the greater part of the time. Among other things I declared the state of our credit as to tallys to raise money by, and there was an order for payment of 5000l. to Mr. Gawden, out of which I hope to get something against Christmas. Here we sat late, and here I did hear that there are some troubles like to be in Scotland, there being a discontented party already risen, that have seized on the Governor of Dumfreeze and imprisoned him,² but the story is yet very uncertain, and therefore I set no great weight on it. I home by Mr. Gawden in his coach, and so with great pleasure to spend the evening at home upon my Lyra Viall, and then to supper and to bed. With mighty peace of mind and a hearty desire that I had but what I have quietly in the country, but, I fear, I do at this day see the best that either I or the rest of our nation will ever see.

1. According to the Bills of Mortality seven persons died in London of the plague during the week November 20th to 27th; and for some weeks after deaths continued from this cause. ↩
2. William Fielding, writing to Sir Phil. Musgrave from Carlisle on November 15th, says: "Major Baxter, who has arrived from Dumfries, reports that this morning a great number of horse and foot came into that town, with drawn swords and pistols, gallopped up to Sir Jas. Turner's lodgings, seized him in his bed, carried him without clothes to the marketplace, threatened to cut him to pieces, and seized and put into the Tollbooth all the foot soldiers that were with him; they also secured the minister of Dumfries. Many of the party were lairds and county people from Galloway--200 horse well mounted, one minister was with them who had swords and pistols, and 200 or 300 foot, some with clubs, others with scythes." On November 17th Rob. Meine wrote to Williamson: "On the 15th 120 fanatics from the Glenkins, Deray; and neighbouring parishes in Dumfriesshire, none worth 10l. except two mad fellows, the lairds of Barscob and Corsuck, came to Dumfries early in the morning, seized Sir Jas. Turner, commander of a company of men in Dumfriesshire, and carried him, without violence to others, to a strong house in Maxwell town, Galloway, declaring they sought only revenge against the tyrant who had been severe with them for not keeping to church, and had laid their families waste" ("Calendar of State Papers," 1666-67, pp. 262, 268). ↩

the_shoshanna @ 02:54 pm: Supernatural 5.10, "Abandon All Hope..."
( I may harsh your squee, but I may also squee your harsh! I'm just funny that way. )

And having had my say, I can now read the dozen or so reaction posts I have open in background windows! Except that I should really get back to work. Sigh. Maybe I'll go make myself some popcorn!

[a Dreamwidth post! | read comments at Dreamwidth | post a comment at Dreamwidth | How to use OpenID]

anysia @ 03:03 am: From Twitter 11-20-2009

Tweets copied by twittinesis.com

whatho @ 05:25 pm: Cooking in bulk to save time - busted.
I just spent an hour and a quarter making three portions of roasted butternut squash and red pepper soup, one each for my brother and I to have this evening and the other for myself for tomorrow. Only he's gone and eaten two of them in one go. Grrrr.

dragovianknight @ 08:02 am: Christians are filled with such caring and compassion
That they send around "jokes" like this:

( Cut to spare you the desire to kill. )

How fucked up is that?