rmc28: (reading)
Rachel Coleman ([personal profile] rmc28) wrote2025-11-04 10:17 pm

To-read pile, 2025, October

Books on pre-order:

  1. Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May 2025)

Books acquired in October:

  • and read:
    1. The Mirror & The Maze (Wrath & the Dawn) by Renée Ahdieh
    2. The Crown & The Arrow (Wrath & the Dawn) by Renée Ahdieh
    3. The Moth & The Flame (Wrath & the Dawn) by Renée Ahdieh
    4. On The Fly (Portland Storm 2) by Catherine Gayle
    5. Taking A Shot (Portland Storm 3) by Catherine Gayle
    6. Light The Lamp (Portland Storm 4) by Catherine Gayle
    7. The O Zone by Kelly Jamieson [7]
    8. Hockey Halloween: A Charity Anthology
  • and unread:
    1. Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells [1]

Books acquired previously and read in October:

  1. The Element of Fire by Martha Wells [Sep]
  2. The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells [Sep]

Borrowed books read in October:

  1. The Perplexing Theft of the Jewel in the Crown (Baby Ganesha 2) by Vaseem Khan [3]
  2. The Strange Disappearance of a Bollywood Star (Baby Ganesha 3) by Vaseem Khan [3]

Much of the month's reading has been alternating between hockey romance and Mumbai private detective stories, along with a complete failure to read my long-awaited pre-order of the latest Martha Wells. (but I did read different new-to-me Martha Wells, so yay?)

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

hilarita: stoat hiding under a log (Default)
hilarita ([personal profile] hilarita) wrote2025-11-01 08:21 pm
Entry tags:

Alphabet fic game

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.

I haven't written fic for a while, so I can recall almost nothing about some of these. Quite a few will end up being HP, written before the author revealed herself to be a bigot who funded hate; I won't link to those. Some of my fic for other fandoms is untitled, or lost.

A: Anticipation
B
C: Charity Boy
D: Days Bought From Death Discworld fic for [personal profile] rmc28
E: The Edge of Doom
F: Fog in the Fens Man from U.N.C.L.E. fic for an exchange
G: Grindelwald: His Aims and Downfall
H
I: Insufferable Bastard
J
K
L: A Letter from Chippenham Georgette Heyer fic, probably for an exchange. 
M: Manifold Directions Pratchett fic, unfinished; or Maedhros and Fingon: A Romance if you prefer a finished Silmarillion fic.
N: The No 1 House-Elves Detection Agency
O: Optimism
P: Pinnacle Dr Who
Q
R: Return to Hogwarts
S: Sitting Target
T: To Change the World HP and Special Operations Executive RPF
U
V
W: Where did all our probes go? Clangers fic.
X
Y: Your MIssion
Z


17/26, 40 total works on AO3.
mark: A photo of Mark kneeling on top of the Taal Volcano in the Philippines. It was a long hike. (Default)
Mark Smith ([staff profile] mark) wrote in [site community profile] dw_maintenance2025-10-25 08:42 am

Database maintenance

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!

ceb: (Default)
ceb ([personal profile] ceb) wrote2025-10-23 06:37 pm
Entry tags:

Dear Yulegoat 2025

Dear Yulegoat,

Thank you for writing for me! I love hand-made presents and I am easy to please. I hope you will find something you enjoy writing here. This is me at AO3.


General likes/dislikes:

I would prefer gen fic for all the fandoms I've nominated, though plot-relevant sex is fine (especially for the Saint of Steel books) if that's where your plot needs to go. I like happy endings and bittersweet endings, and noble tragedy is my catnip.

I like competence and the ability to think things through; I am annoyed by plots where a character does something out-of-character stupid just to advance the plot. I have no problem with in-character mistakes and if written well they can make the story.

I adore experimental and unusual formats (and, apparently, lists). Please, if you want to, tell me a story as a game or a series of drabbles or a shopping list or a puzzle or a 1-line fic with a very large set of intertwined footnotes or a poem or an ASCII map or half of a scribbled note exchange... if there's some crazy thing you've been wanting to try to write forever but aren't sure if it would work or if your recipient would get it, I am the right person to send it to. Take this as a 'HELL YES' opt-in for IF also. If you're not that person and just want to write a story, I will also be delighted, so please play to your strengths and don't feel you need to reach for a weird format if you don't want to.

DNW: No 2025 real-world politics please (e.g., no fascism, no real wars, no TERFery, no disintegrating climate doom).

All my specific suggestions are intended as idea sparks, I don't have my heart set on any of them and I will not be even slightly disappointed if you have a different idea you'd like to pursue. Run with them, or not, as suits your story.

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


Fandom: Glamourist Histories Series - Mary Robinette Kowal
Characters: Worldbuilding

I am completely fascinated by the artistic and technological potential of glamour. We see it change during the series from merely a polite pastime for genteel women to a thing with uses beyond parlour tricks. What might it be used for later in the history of this world? Photography? Does glamour show up on film? Theatre? What might glamour music hall acts look like? Did the Victorians use glamour for educating the masses, like they did with plaster cast galleries and magic lanterns? Movies? Seances? Fashion? Modern art? I would be delighted to be given a guided tour of a glamour art installation from basically any point in time.


Fandom: Powerpuff Girls
Characters: Space Towtruck

I really enjoyed the return of the Powerpuffs after such a long hiatus (in the real world and also in Yuletide :-).I find I desperately need to know more about the girls' new favourite TV show, Space Towtruck. What is Space Towtruck's greatest secret? What other adventures has Space Towtruck encountered? Don't worry too much about canon; I get the feeling this is the kind of show that has multiple reboots, comic versions, etc. Feel free to include the girls if you would like to (maybe they get sucked into a Space Towtruck story via the magic of plot, or have an argument about which is the best Space Towtruck reboot). I like Mojo Jojo too, especially in his wordier incarnation of the earlier series, but find many of the other villains a little irritating.

I can't find full episodes online anywhere but 90% of the existing Space Towtruck canon is in the first half _The Big Sleep_ and the theme song is in _Tiara Trouble_.


Fandom: LEGO Natural History Museum
Characters: Worldbuilding
Fandom: LEGO Botanical Garden
Characters: Worldbuilding

I would love some worldbuilding set in either or both of these lovely sets. Both are packed with details. The botanical garden has lego versions of many real plants (see the build instructions linked below) and the natural history museum's collections include dinosaur skeletons, minerals, historical lego sets, and spaceships. What's it like to curate one of these museums? What do their accession records look like? Who smashed the pot? What do the exhibit labels / interpretational texts say? If you're feeling festive, I'm extremely fond of my local botanic garden's cheery winter light art display, what would that look like in lego?

Natural History Museum (10326)
https://www.newelementary.com/2023/11/lego-icons-set-review-10326-natural.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DX1Uf37xCXE
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/service/building-instructions/10326

Botanical garden (21353)
https://brickarchitect.com/2024/review-21353-the-botanical-garden-lego-ideas/
https://www.brickfanatics.com/lego-ideas-21353-the-botanical-garden-review/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSDN-w7mJic
https://www.lego.com/en-gb/service/building-instructions/21353