bikes and stuff

Sep. 13th, 2025 01:17 am
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
(So much for that daily posting thing - I've already skipped a few without meaning to. /o\)

Today I rode an e-bike for the first time. Useful for the hills, for sure, but it wasn't as much fun as a regular bike, so I don't see myself doing that often.

Last spring I signed up for a local rent-a-bike service, and ever since then I've been riding bikes a lot again, after a break of something like 15 years. (That was about when my bike got stolen, and I didn't buy a new one because I didn't and still don't have a good place to put it.) I still like biking a lot, though I'm glad I no longer have to in the winter, the way I used to when I was still biking to uni. *g*

I've also been walking a lot again this summer, so overall I've been getting a lot more exercise than I used to! Which, alas, did not turn out to be an unmitigated good. (Turns out that more physical activity makes me hungrier - shock, horror! - but not exactly in proportion. I'd really rather keep fitting into my clothes, and also I don't want not be constantly hungry. So less activity might actually be better. Since we're heading into winter and I don't like going out very much when it's wet and/or cold, I guess I'll see!)

words, counted

Sep. 9th, 2025 09:31 pm
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
Today I finally updated my word count spreadsheet, for the first time since March.

Nothing but alibi sentences for most of that time, now all typed up and word-counted. Turns out (not entirely unexpectedly) July and August this year were my second- and third-worst writing months ever since I started documenting my writing ... Time to get out of that slump NOW.

Does anyone have tips for restarting? I think I could use some ...

ETA: Specifically, what I'm struggling with is that I've been writing no more than a sentence or three at a go, for much too long, and now I'm out of the habit and can't seem to go beyond that without a major effort. *grumbles*

Dear FFFX writer

Sep. 8th, 2025 05:35 pm
trobadora: (reader)
[personal profile] trobadora
Dear [community profile] fffx writer,

thank you so much for writing a gift for me! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships or worldbuilding themes I requested. and everything important is in the requests themselves, but if you'd like even more info, general likes etc., here you go.

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms, relationships, worldbuilding

In somewhat alphabetical order - note that one of them is expanded compared to what's in the sign-up form:

Jump directly to:
Christabel/Grimm crossover: Worldbuilding )

绅探 | Detective L: Huo Wensi/Luo Fei )

Grimm/Guardian crossovers:  )

Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

长公主在上 | Eldest Princess On Top: Li Yunzhen/Gu Xuanqing )

Guardian Slo-Mo Rewatch

Sep. 7th, 2025 11:43 pm
trobadora: (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan - broadcast)
[personal profile] trobadora
I don't know where the day went, or the weekend. How is it almost midnight already?!

Anyway: Over at [community profile] sid_guardian we've kicked off another rewatch - a slo-mo one this time, half an episode per week. And since we've already done the "take an epic amount of notes and write epic post" kind of rewatch, this one's going to be a bit more relaxed. *g*

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purply sky with stars. Text reads "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid-guardian.dreamwidth.org."


Here's the first post, episode 1, part 1.

Doctor Who Fic: Mercury Lane

Sep. 7th, 2025 03:17 pm
kat_lair: (GEN - space)
[personal profile] kat_lair
***

Title: Mercury Lane
Author:[personal profile] kat_lair
Fandom: Doctor Who
Pairing: Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), Tenth Doctor & The Master (Simm)
Tags: Gen or Pre-Slash, Ambiguous Relationships, Reunions
Rating: G
Word count: 1,134

Summary: The Doctor finds him without meaning to, in a sprawling no-name city on a backwater planet, where the streets wind and twist like something living, where the people come to get willingly lost. 

Author notes:
Written for a prompt 'exile'. Unbetaed so if you spot a typo/mistake, you should definitely tell me.

Mercury Lane on AO3

Mercury Lane )

***

fests and exchanges

Sep. 5th, 2025 11:36 pm
trobadora: (mightier)
[personal profile] trobadora
After not writing anything more than alibi sentences for ages - my last fic was in May (The Consultant, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan), and the one before that in March (Beyond the Gates, the Mountain, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan) - I'm signing up for a lot of stuff now! Deadlines are usually very effective at making me write, so now that I'm not so busy any more and it's actually possible, that should get me back to where I want to be, writing-wise. I hope. *g*

In order of reveals:
  • There's [community profile] rarepairexchange, which has its deadline a little over two weeks from now, though reveals aren't until October. I've been poking at my assignment, and I have a bunch of things I know I want to be in it, but so far I haven't managed to pull it all together into a coherent narrative. Hopefully once I've conquered this one, things will be flowing again!

  • Then there's [community profile] guardian_wishlist, for which I just finished my sign-up last night - and we've only just posted the first batch of wishlists. (Mine is here; I'm requesting Guardian drama and RPF, as well as Guardian/Grimm and Guardian/Stargate crossovers.) And there are so many tempting prompts already! Reveals are on 6 October, and I hope to make a bunch of stuff before then.

  • Next comes [community profile] ficinabox, with a deadline in October and reveals in November - assignments aren't out yet, but should come soon. I won't seriously tackle that one until after Rarepair Exchange, though. Plenty of time if I brainstorm and have a plan by then!

  • There's also the Guardian Bonus Bingo grace period in November, for which I hope to finish at least some of the things I started and didn't finish so far. *g*

  • Yuletide is of course gearing up again as well, so that's what I'll be working on in December. Can't wait to find out which rare fandom I get to write this time!

  • Then, hopefully [community profile] fandomtrees will also run again this year, and I'll get to make a bunch of stuff for that too! Reveals are genearally early to mid-January.

  • And finally, there's [community profile] fffx which doesn't have its deadline until the second half of January. I still need to finish my sign-up for that (planning on doing that this weekend), but that deadline is so far away, there'd still be plenty of time even if I didn't start thinking about it until after Yuletide ends. (Though I hope to have a plan before then!) Of course, an idea might grab me right away and I might be working on this in parallel to everything else, you never know! *g*

Yeah, I know that's a lot. *g* I hope to make up a bit for all those months of not writing! But everything's nicely spaced out, except for Rarepair Exchange revealing one day before Guardian Wishlist, and the Bingo grace period overlapping with FIAB reveals. So it should be very doable without being too exhausting. *g*

What fests or exchanges is everyone else doing?

Bohemian Rhapsody (Zulu version)

Sep. 4th, 2025 03:09 pm
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
Via [personal profile] brithistorian: the South African Ndlovu Youth Choir has translated Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody into Zulu. It's gorgeous - and after I saw the video, I just had to share it. It's completely stunning:

YULETIDE!!!!

Sep. 3rd, 2025 09:56 pm
trobadora: (Discworld: Hogfather)
[personal profile] trobadora
It's that time of year again!

Yuletide is still my favourite multifannish exchange, and this year's schedule is out - nominations start on the 15th. And they're running an experiment with giving us more nominations and requests this year! Very cool, and I hope it works out well!

What's new this year:
  • The deadline is 12 hours earlier than it was the last few years. (First time in a while that the deadline will be when I'm actually awake, but I'll try not to cut it too close. *g*)

  • Reveals are also 12 hours earlier than they've been the last few years. (First time in a while that I'll be awake when the collection opens!)

  • We get 5 fandom nominations instead of 4. (Woohoo!)

  • We get 8 requests instead of 6! (And again, woohoo! It's so hard to choose between rare fandoms.)

Who else is doing Yuletide? Have you thought about what you're going to nominate/request/offer this year?
trobadora: (Guardian - SID team)
[personal profile] trobadora
I haven't been posting much lately - or rather, in a long while. In March I crashed pretty hard after a writing marathon, and then work got very busy for a very long time, so I spent several months putting almost all my energy into that. Until late May I kept thinking I could do more, fannishly, but after that I gave up on keeping up with anything other than the Guardian novel readalong on [community profile] sid_guardian. August has been (finally) back to normal at work, but the month just flew past before I could get back on my feet, never mind in the saddle. *g*

But this month I'm trying to make that happen. Writing more than alibi sentences: something I need to relearn, LOL.

And I'm trying to post more again here too, finally! My plan for that is twofold:
  1. post something every day of September, and

  2. because I keep feeling like I did literally nothing at all since April other than work, but that's not in fact literally true, I want to remind myself of that by posting about stuff I did do during these months.
Yesterday I got off to a good start by posting about the very last thing I did in August, namely watching Dongji Rescue.

For today, here's another thing I did do recently, together with [personal profile] china_shop: preparing for [community profile] guardian_wishlist! And then sign-ups just opened at the end of August:

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org


I really love this fest. It's our Guardian-and-related-fandoms version of [community profile] fandomtrees (rules), and we're in our fifth year already, wow! I love that this fandom is still going strong. :D

Our schedule for 2025:
  • 28 August: sign-ups open - open now!
  • 5 September: first wishlists posted
  • 15 September: sign-ups close
  • 16 September: final wishlists posted
  • 6 October: gifts revealed
Wishlist reveals are on Reunion Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival, which is late this year. Hopefully I can actually get back in the saddle and write some significant amount of gifts in that time!

We already have 8 sign-ups! I haven't finished mine yet, but soon. Definitely hoping so see some more of you there as well! ♥ ♥ ♥

东极岛 Dongji Rescue

Sep. 1st, 2025 08:23 pm
trobadora: (Zhu Yilong - pirate)
[personal profile] trobadora
Last night I saw 东极岛 Dongji Rescue (IMDB | MyDramaList), Zhu Yilong's new film.

It's based on a historical episode from World War 2 (the sinking of the Lisbon Maru), though it's heavily fictionalised and in no way historically accurate. *g*

(There's a 2024 documentary on the real event, which I'd love to see if anyone knows where to find it!)

Anyway, Dongji Rescue is a really well done, effective film! spoilers below the cut )

Also, watching this movie was a very multilingual experience - the film itself has Chinese, Japanese and English dialogue all aplenty (which you don't see nearly enough of, IMO!), handling the language barriers really well - and then we had German subtitles on top of that. *g* They were good, too, and not as distracting as I might have expected. Since I've generally watched Chinese media with English subtitles, and also learned what Chinese I have with English-language material, all my Chinese is routed through English, and it's usually somewhat disorienting to watch something with German subtitles instead. But the multilingual mix of this film somehow balanced that out, and I didn't have an issue. Though I was happy to have the Chinese subtitles as well as they helped me follow along the Chinese dialogue where I could!

What else?

Sep. 1st, 2025 06:24 am
lunabee34: (stranger things: steve n dustin by misbe)
[personal profile] lunabee34
Stranger Things Recs

boys trip! by crybaby
Steve/Eddie
Omegaverse
BFFs who are put on the spot when Steve goes into heat. Super, super hot.

Pull Not Down Your Hedge by thankyouplease
Steve/Billy, Steve/Eddie
Warnings for domestic violence
Steve and Billy have an awful relationship; Eddie watches and tries to help.

Someone's Bound to Get It by ShortAngryTwinks
Billy/Eddie
Billy clocks Eddie's hanky.

Symbiosis series by teddywesworl
Steve/Eddie
Omegaverse
Steve is abducted by a government black op in the aftermath of Vecna's defeat. When they throw him in a tiny cell with a rutting Eddie Munson, he thinks they'll both go feral and kill each other before they can be rescued—but there's another way out.

kiss your knuckles (before you punch me in the face) by insertsomethingwitty and L_E_D
Steve/Eddie
Eddie decides that if he can't get a hug, he'll settle for a punch.

your cosmic call sign by heartofwinterfell
Steve/Eddie, other minor pairings like Suzie/Dustin
This is one of the best writers in Stranger Things; they are so inventive and creative, and this fic is no exception. It's an AU/fusion where the Upside Down is actually aliens. Writing a successful AU of that sort is so difficult, and heartofwinterfell pulls it off so well. In this fic, Eddie is a teenage radio DJ, and I absolutely love all the parts of the fic that are his radio shtick.

The Rest of Our Lives by inkjette
Steve/Eddie
I'm really reccing this for chapter four in which Jonathan and Steve have a truly fantastic conversation that Eddie then joins.

Code deploy happening shortly

Aug. 31st, 2025 07:37 pm
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
[staff profile] mark posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance

Per the [site community profile] dw_news post regarding the MS/TN blocks, we are doing a small code push shortly in order to get the code live. As per usual, please let us know if you see anything wonky.

There is some code cleanup we've been doing that is going out with this push but I don't think there is any new/reworked functionality, so it should be pretty invisible if all goes well.

denise: Image: Me, facing away from camera, on top of the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome (Default)
[staff profile] denise posting in [site community profile] dw_news

A reminder to everyone that starting tomorrow, we are being forced to block access to any IP address that geolocates to the state of Mississippi for legal reasons while we and Netchoice continue fighting the law in court. People whose IP addresses geolocate to Mississippi will only be able to access a page that explains the issue and lets them know that we'll be back to offer them service as soon as the legal risk to us is less existential.

The block page will include the apology but I'll repeat it here: we don't do geolocation ourselves, so we're limited to the geolocation ability of our network provider. Our anti-spam geolocation blocks have shown us that their geolocation database has a number of mistakes in it. If one of your friends who doesn't live in Mississippi gets the block message, there is nothing we can do on our end to adjust the block, because we don't control it. The only way to fix a mistaken block is to change your IP address to one that doesn't register as being in Mississippi, either by disconnecting your internet connection and reconnecting it (if you don't have a static IP address) or using a VPN.

In related news, the judge in our challenge to Tennessee's social media age verification, parental consent, and parental surveillance law (which we are also part of the fight against!) ruled last month that we had not met the threshold for a temporary injunction preventing the state from enforcing the law while the court case proceeds.

The Tennesee law is less onerous than the Mississippi law and the fines for violating it are slightly less ruinous (slightly), but it's still a risk to us. While the fight goes on, we've decided to prevent any new account signups from anyone under 18 in Tennessee to protect ourselves against risk. We do not need to block access from the whole state: this only applies to new account creation.

Because we don't do any geolocation on our users and our network provider's geolocation services only apply to blocking access to the site entirely, the way we're implementing this is a new mandatory question on the account creation form asking if you live in Tennessee. If you do, you'll be unable to register an account if you're under 18, not just the under 13 restriction mandated by COPPA. Like the restrictions on the state of Mississippi, we absolutely hate having to do this, we're sorry, and we hope we'll be able to undo it as soon as possible.

Finally, I'd like to thank every one of you who's commented with a message of support for this fight or who's bought paid time to help keep us running. The fact we're entirely user-supported and you all genuinely understand why this fight is so important for everyone is a huge part of why we can continue to do this work. I've also sent a lot of your comments to the lawyers who are fighting the actual battles in court, and they find your wholehearted support just as encouraging and motivating as I do. Thank you all once again for being the best users any social media site could ever hope for. You make me proud and even more determined to yell at state attorneys general on your behalf.

MCR Fic: Dribble

Aug. 31st, 2025 11:41 am
kat_lair: (GEN - cunt)
[personal profile] kat_lair
***

Title: Dribble
Author:[personal profile] kat_lair
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Pairing: Gerard/Frank
Tags:
 Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Orgasm Edging, Coming Untouched, Hole Spanking, Filthy 
Rating: E
Word count: 1,142

Summary: “Look at you.” Gerard’s voice is casual, with an almost mocking undertone. “So wet already and I’ve barely touched you.”

Author notes: Sunday porn! Title = prompt. Unbetaed so if you spot a typo or mistake, you should absolutely tell me about it.

Dribble on AO3

Dribble )

***

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