This will be my last entry to LiveJournal. It's quite a sad thing, but at the same time, long overdue. I've been cross-posting my DreamWidth entries for a long while now, but it seems LJ is no longer willing to live the co-operative life with DW, and DreamWidth is by far a better place to be, so that has for a long time been my primary journal.

There are maybe one or two friends left on LiveJournal who don't have a DreamWidth account. I strongly recommend that you come over! You'll find me as pensnest there, and lots of other people with names you will recognise, too. But if you prefer not to—then goodbye, and my best wishes to you.

I believe #11 was 'interact with someone', and I'm reasonably confident that I have done that.

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The Jinjurly Audiofic Archive is missing a bunch of podficced stories, and would like help in locating them. Check here for more info:
https://squidgestatus.dreamwidth.org/89520.html

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Snowflake Challenge #12

In your own space, tell us who you would recast in a film, tv series or webseries, or maybe someone voicing a cartoon or videogame. Or who would you cast to play a character in a book, comic or maybe even your own fiction!

Hmmmm. Well, I have a few random thoughts.

John Hurt was very good as the "War Doctor" in Doctor Who, but how much more awesome would Helen Mirren have been in the role? 100%, at least. Damn, what a wasted opportunity.

I always thought Hugo Weaving was utterly miscast as Elrond in the LotR trilogy. Edward Petherbridge, who played Lord Peter Wimsey in 1987, would have been much more to my taste. Though to be fair, his Elrond would also have been more of a lore master and less of an aggressive douche and overprotective father. Also more to my taste.

I would *love* to see Serena Williams as a superhero! Wouldn't she make a great Black Panther? At least, I have no idea if she can act, probably not, as most people can't, but yeah. She practically *is* a superhero anyway.

Aral Vorkosigan should absolutely have been played by Andreas Katsulas. Alas that it can never happen.

In my story Wanna Tell Me About It? the character of Paul is played by Paul Sorvino.

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I often have difficulty getting to sleep at night because a song is circulating in my head and won't stop. Usually it's something we have been rehearsing in chorus, or perhaps something we are considering singing in the future.

Last night, it was "Nice one, Cyril."

Just. Shoot. Me. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/724497.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create.

Well, fic is my jam, so here are a select handful of stories spanning several centuries of canon.

A really excellent prequel to 'Much Ado About Nothing', in which Benedick and Beatrice find common ground and then manage to lose it again. There's just a little hint of it in the text of the play, and as far as I'm concerned, I now know what happened between them before Don Pedro brought his men to Messina.

Skirmish and Retreat by El Staplador.

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Another 'Much Ado' fic, this time an alternate path in which Beatrice accepts Don Pedro's proposal. The language is so well chosen, and the progression of emotions is very well done. Also, a much better solution to the problem of Hero being seen in the embrace of a man. Trust Beatrice to sort things out! A very smart fic.

Another for Working Days by SassySnowperson.

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A somewhat more modern source next, namely, Jane Austen's 'Persuasion'. This is the story written for me for Yuletide this year, and it pleases me very much indeed. It's the story of how Anne came to be courted by Charles Musgrove; it makes it very clear why they would not suit; and shows why he proposed to Mary instead. Everyone is beautifully in character, and Anne Elliot has always been one of my favourite heroines.

Before the Deluge by Ione.

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Finally, a couple of recs from a very modern canon, namely, 'Ted Lasso'.

The Cursing Allowance by igrockspock sees a capable teacher find her way through the difficulties of teaching Roy Kent's niece. Phoebe tends to pick up a lot of... language from her uncle. Delightful.

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It would be hard to imagine a version of canon in which Jamie Tartt asks Roy Kent for sex tuition.

I'll pause for a moment to let the concept sink in.

Here, however, it works. It's brilliant. With Roy being perfectly Roy, Jamie being perfectly Jamie, and Keeley being perfectly awesome, somehow they manage to get together in a very hot threesome. OMG.

shout whenever (I'll be there) by mixtapestar.

This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/724470.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

My lovely online knitting group met this evening, and among other things discovered that the Royal Astronomical Society is putting together a Bicentannial Quilt.

https://ras.ac.uk/ras-bicentennial-quilt-100-patchwork-squares

It looks amazing!

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I've just discovered Wordle, and overall do reasonably well, but when the word to be guessed is something like 'aucus' or 'mesic', then, no. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/724008.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

I'm not interested in today's Snowflake Challenge at all, so I'll be skipping it.

Quite a busy day today. Beast woke me with the reminder that I had to take Boy to UEA's medical centre for a blood test, which I had completely forgotten. That accomplished, we were trotting about a bit for various reasons this morning. The plumbers were plumbing and the insulators, outside with the scaffolding, were stapling slabs of insulation to the wall. It looks very smart, in fact.

Both groups finished mid afternoon and went home. The plumbers had run out of radiators and the insulators have to wait for slightly warmer weather before they can go on to the next step. So the house is now quiet, and still warm!

We had a couple of chaps over on Saturday to see about taking away the frame of the hideous polycarbonate greenhouse, and they have basically dismantled it; among other contents was a large rosemary bush, which I have pruned considerably and replanted in the herb bed next to the house. It'll thrive, or it won't. This is my philosophy of gardening.

On which subject, I've had the first draft of a garden design plan back (only three weeks later than promised)... not enough flowers and too much gravel, but I have sent copious feedback and we'll see.

Made Toad in the Hole for lunch. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/723905.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

In your own space, celebrate a personal win from the past year: it can be a list of fanworks you're especially proud of, a gift of your time to the community, a quality or skill you cultivated in yourself, something you generally feel went well.


Um. It wasn't a good year, last year, and for one reason and another I slid mentally slough-wards for quite a lot of it. So finding something to celebrate is quite hard. Here goes.

I became Chair of my mixed barbershop chorus, and got us up and running again once we were able to meet outdoors.

I entered Yuletide for the first time, and won! Received a lovely fic and wrote one that was well-received. In another fic first, I wrote two stories in fandoms I'd never written before—one was my Yuletide story (Lord Peter Wimsey) and the other was a Mad Men story.

And because I have a feeling these things should be celebrated in threes, I also knitted a rather lovely grey and lavender shawl last year (actually finished it in February). It's here, but you may need a Ravelry account to see it. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/723482.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

I don't read Captain Awkward nearly as often these days now there are no comments to the stories, but I had a look through and oh my, I like this page. The absent questions hang horribly in the air like a gamekeeper's rotting gibbet, and the answers are very sound.

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It was Sable's official birthday yesterday. She is.... FIVE! She celebrated with a few morsels of salmon, and sat on my lap in the evening as I knitted.

She was unimpressed on Friday—the day when, hurrah, the drillers departed at last, leaving the back garden brown but flat. Because it was also the day when the plumbers arrived to take stock of the job of replacing the radiators, and indeed embarked upon it, with much noisy drilling and movings of furniture. They made a good start, which is a relief. I *really* hope the plumbing stage won't overrun the way the drilling did.

We also had the scaffolding put up yesterday along the northern wall of the house, so that insulating cladding can be applied, um, soon.

It's quite a relief to have things be happening with reasonable speed! This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/723305.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Beast had put "Tenet" on his wishlist and received it for Christmas, so we watched it this week. It was... clever, I suppose. Not surprised at all by the final revelation, but it was done very well.

Having seen 'The Night Manager' as well, I don't think I'm going to be able to believe Elizabeth Debicki as anything other than the elegant, innocent trophy wife of an arms dealer, whatever else she may play. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/723168.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Yes, skipped #6. Might post it later, depending.

Snowflake Challenge #7
In your own space, tell us about 3 fandom resources, spaces, or communities you use or enjoy. (One or two is fine, especially if you're in a smaller fandom!)

I have only one space/resource/community to recommend, but it's something that has brought me enormous pleasure and which I recommend to other fans, pretty much whatever you may be a fan of.

( Camp Sparkle!Collapse ) This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/722748.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Was it yesterday or the day before that I woke up happy, due to the news on Radio 4 announcing that the Gove creature was stuck in the BBC lift? Heh.

The drilling crew are *still* here, but have at last drilled and filled all the holes, and are now doing the trenches to take the pipes from the holes to the house. My back garden looks like a battleground, but at least there is only one machine there now, the digger. It will all be over.... soon....

I note that Snowflake Challenge #5 was In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / talent / energy to do.

Well. I want a crossover between The Administration and Dante's Cove. I thought about it, after that Camp Sparkle we spent in Brighton, when we watched a disturbing amount of Dante's Cove. Warrick is of course visiting the place in order to discuss installing a sim unit in the local inexplicable red room of sex. There have been complaints from the neighbours. Toreth considers this a grand idea—work for Warrick, sex holiday for Toreth. He sees the parade of man candy and is charmed, noticing with mild surprise that his shirts buttons are already undone. I dare say there would be a number of mostly-gratuitous sex scenes, and then Warrick—who is mostly immune to the shirt-opening effect—is seen in the hot tub with... somebody. Toreth is not pleased.

And so forth.

And if anybody would care to write such a story, I will read it with delight!

This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/722611.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Challenge #4

In your own space, make a list of things that you wish existed in fandom or elsewhere, and/or that you'd like someone to create or do for you.

I'm not keen on this kind of challenge. The most obvious thing to ask for is feedback on my stories here on AO3 or chronologically on my website, but most of the people interested have already given me feedback, and the world is too full of fanfic-of-interest for many fans to have time to read a story about people they just aren't fans *of*. I'd quite like the world—or at least, the Archive—to contain more Lance Bass/Adam Lambert stories that I did not write. I feel it should. This is a pairing of JOY, people! But the time for that, too, has passed. Besides, with the abundance of challenges and gift fic exchanges and suchlike, fans are *busy*. With stuff they actually want to read and write. So it always seems a bit pathetic. I don't particularly like being pathetic.

Overall, I don't think there is very much I could ask for that I could reasonably expect to get. I don't know whether saying that is a sign that I'm not doing very well, or that I'm being realistic. I think, the latter, but I'm not absolutely sure. But I am fortunate enough to have so much in my life that so many people don't have, for one reason or another, that asking for trivialities makes me uncomfortable.

I just thought of something else—a revival of metafandom. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/722404.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Reading other people's answers to the AU question, it seems to me that there are widely divergent ideas on what constitutes an AU.

For me, an AU is a different world setting. Whether it's real-world with Our Heroes working as entrepreneurs/farmers/roller derby professionals, or a fantasy world with peasants, wizards or dragons, or a futuristic world with spaceships or robots, that's surely an AU.

For me, something like magic does not *necessarily* mean an AU. In popslash, I've read plenty of stories in which there is Something Weird, but the story is based in canon, so I don't count it as an AU. If someone becomes invisible, or gains telepathy, or Wakes Up As A Girl, or swaps bodies—no, not an AU. Just* Crack. A setting where all of them are superheroes, or magicians, or have the ability to channel the colour green (I don't know, it's just an example), that's an AU.

But it's sometimes hard to tell where the line is. Is a gender-swapped story in which Character A has *always* been of the opposite sex an AU? I'm inclined to narrow it down more and call it a gender swap, and regard that as a separate category... yet mostly, the genderswaps I've read have been temporary, and usually crack, so maybe a "the world has always been this way" story is properly classified as an AU.

Is a canon-divergent story an AU or an 'Alternate Timeline' or some such? I'm inclined to call it a 'fork in the road' story, because it starts with canon and goes somewhere else, whereas to me, an AU does not start with canon. But there's a case to be made for calling such stories AUs.

Is an A/b/o story an AU or does it get its own category? (My opinion: the latter. So that I can avoid it, and the people who want to read it can find it.) Maybe it's a specific AU-there's a huge list of them on AO3.

A story in which there are vampires but within the canon setting - gets a 'vampires' tag but not an AU tag. To be an AU, the setting would have to be not-canon. If, say, Joey goes vampire hunting late at night while he and the guys are rehearsing for the next tour, that gets a vampire tag. If all the guys are vampires who live in Brooklyn and have elaborate lifestyles which enable them never to see the sun, that's definitely an AU. With a vampire tag. If Lance is impregnated by an alien, that's crack. If Lance and the rest of them are aliens and live on Planet Zooglecrab, it's an AU. Somewhere in between the two there is probably a line.....

Some people label as AUs what I would label as crack. Other lines are harder to define.

Opinions?





* Crack is not "just" at all, it is awesome, but perhaps that'll show up in later prompts. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/722033.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Challenge #3

In your own space, put some favorite characters into an AU, fuse some favorite canons together, talk about your favorite AU/fusion tropes, or tell us why AU/fusions aren’t your cup of tea.

When I was a Star Trek:TNG fan I didn't have any interest in writing AUs. It was the Trek universe that I enjoyed, and the characters as they were that I wanted to know more about, and since my favourite character was Data, it was hard to put him into a different world. However, as I know that the character was one the people with Aspergers/autism identified with (and there are definitely shades of my son there, occasionally), it could be interesting to read a story in which 'Data' was the nickname of an autistic person.... but I don't wanna write it.

I think this would hold true with any other fictional canon. The world is as much a part of the attraction as the characters, and they belong together.

Popslash, though. Popslash canon is Real Life (with provisos), and is amazingly freeing. It would never have occurred to me that RPF would have such scope, but there is so much freedom to do *anything* with the canon. There is magnificent amount of crack, which makes me very happy. There are also many options for AUs, and I have written quite a few of them. (Don't think I've done any bitchy baristas, though.)

By the numbers, the first five years of my popslash writing were very much canon-based. There were AUs, quite a lot of them, the most pleasing (to me) being the one where Clena works in a dragon stable; the one where they all work in a London advertising agency; the 'fuck or die in space' story, the post-apocalyptic one with vampires, and the one where JC rescues a kitten on his way to a blind date.

When I was new to this shiny, awesome fandom, I mostly wanted to read canon-based stories, whether they were digging into tiny details of actual fact or very loosely based on the "well, they're popstars" idea. As the area around canon became rather, er, full, it became easier to look outside it.

Also, the fandom began to die away, and canon receded further into the past, which meant it became less interesting to explore (and possibly harder to find) gaps in canon, and more plausible to write these characters whom by now I knew so well into different worlds. AUs certainly occupied a far larger proportion of my output. I wrote three AUs for my final SeSa exchange challenge... plus one story that was canon-based but actually *in* a different universe... you hadda be there, really.

I do like an AU to reflect reality, if possible. In my advertising agency story, I had fun fitting them to their roles within the company, and they also broke away from the dishonest CEO of the agency and became more successful on their own. In the dragon stable story, Lance was rejected by the powers in charge, but kept by his boys. My Full Monty story was born because the Backstreet Boys fit *so* well into the canon of, actually, the Broadway musical based on the film: one has a kid, one has weight/body image problems, one has a sick relative. Kevin was (I think) actually a dance instructor. Plus there were a few references to dances Backstreet did—which was rewarded most amazingly by my getting a *trailer* for it. A trailer!. Even *reality* got in on the act, as it turned out there is a Hot Metal Bridge in Pittsburgh! That was fun. In Dragon Country, Lance's job reflects on his side gig back in the early Nsync days; Britney and JC have a history (Mickey Mouse Club reference!), and Adam sings a bit of Bohemian Rhapsody (which Lance does not recognise).

In a variation on that kind of reference, I invented a different backstory for the characters in Wanna Tell Me About It?, in which Lance got famous not for being a popstar in Nsync but for being on a TV show called Synchronicity. Adam's background in musical theatre gets a mention, too. It's sorta a reflection of reality, and I enjoy it that way. Not every AU has to 'reflect' canon, but it's cool when it does.

I think it's important that there is a strong justification for the characters being where they are put, in any AU. Making the characters, say, garbage truck operators, simply because that means they work as a team is, well, pushing it, in my opinion, and you'd have to do a bloody good job to make it work. By contrast, Justin and Lance would be *excellent* account execs for an advertising firm, they could both charm their clients into anything, just as JC and Chris would be the crazy creative types and Joey would be a relaxed and cheerful media exec, always being on friendly terms with the people who wanted more copy in their station/magazine/newspaper/whatever. I couldn't have put them into, say, a laboratory setting, about which I know nothing—but I've read a couple of good ones that have enough 'why this is justified' to make me believe it. (Also, I like my AUs to be properly thought out. Know whereof you speak, but if you don't, a modest amount of research will usually suffice.)

I wanted to put a conclusion to this essay of a post, but I can't think of one.

This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/721834.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Challenge #2

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Hmm. Goals don't seem to have got me doing much last year, but perhaps this year will go better.

So.

1. I think something I could very usefully do is to spend less time at my computer, and at the same time make better use of the time I do spend here.

2. Having rediscovered the joy of feedback with my Yuletide story, I really do want to finish certain stories that I still have in my head. I want to write more. I want to get back my former belief that I can write and be paid for it.

3. I want to get back into a positive frame of mind. I think spending a bit more time being creative will be good for me, as I've always described afternoons spent crafting as 'good for the soul'.

4. I want to get my blood sugar back to a reasonable level, which the new medication should help with, as should the end of the Christmas period! No idea what goal is a reasonable one to set for that. I want to get back to the regular exercise timetable, which should help. This should not be too difficult, since Beast feels the same, although there are little snags, like having to make sure lunch is ready for Boy's actual lunchtime, since he is perforce working from home. The hip difficulties are not good, but I suspect strength and fitness will help with the hip, and trying to maintain as much as possible of the slipping flexibility cannot be bad.

This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/721435.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

No actual larks in this post, but I couldn't find a song about blue tits.

The birds are enjoying both the fat balls and the 'house' of birdseed. We get a couple of blue tits, such pretty little birds; there's also a pair of great tits, like blue tits in evening dress with their elegant black heads and thick tummy stripe. There are two robins—though on one memorable occasion there were *three*, which I had never seen before. And a young gentleman blackbird has figured out how to eat the fat balls. I think blackbirds must usually eat from the ground, as I never saw a blackbird partaking all through last year, but this one has found a handy branch to stand on and now noms happily.

There was a frustrated squirrel trying to get the seeds out of the little 'house', but having very little luck. Oh, and I think I even spotted a sparrow tucking in once, though the sparrows generally stay on the ground.

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( Personal stuffCollapse )
In summary, none of my problems has actually gone away, but there does seem to be a better path for dealing with them now.

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Also, I read a book yesterday! This may not seem like a major achievement—and indeed, for someone who used to hurtle through books at a fantastic rate, it doesn't seem like much even to me, but I have not been 'in the mood' to read novels for a dismayingly long time. Yesterday I had stuffed myself with Yuletide fic and needed a break from the computer, and my son was frustrating himself with the PS5 on our telly, so I snuggled into bed with Scalzi's "Red Shirts", which I enjoyed quite a lot.

There are so many books piled up waiting for me, I'd like to think I will get through a few this year. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/721239.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Just a quick post to say I have done the first Snowflake Challenge of the year, and if anybody is curious about who I am in a fannish sense, take a look at my profile here.

This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/720984.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Well, so Yuletide authors are revealed! I wrote a Lord Peter Wimsey story, The Preparation of a Gentleman's Nursery, rubbish title but I was very happy with the story that resulted. And my recipient was happy, too, so all is well! Also, I got more kudos on that story than I probably have in total for other stories on AO3 that I wrote (some are under my name because I podficced), which is weird but kinda gratifying.

I've also been back to the story written for me, Before the Deluge by Ione, and have been exploring the author's other works, among which I am delighted to find several Heyer and Austen-derived stories. If you haven't found them and have a yen for some Regency fic (one way or another), I recommend taking a look.

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It seems like a good moment to remind myself of what else I wrote during 2021, which turns out to be not very much. These were all written for the fandomgiftbox exchange, which to my sorrow seemed to disintegrate into nothingness. I think I might even have written more had there been a bit more modly encouragement. Still, there resulted these:

Sea-Colored Eyes for turps (Popslash, of course)

Pepsi and Chateauneuf du Pape for xslytherclawx (a Mad Men story which just... arrived, much to my surprise)

And two Star Trek: The Next Generation stories: Stuck in the Big Chair, a Riker story for sixbeforelunch, and An Odd State of Flux, a Data story for River_Song.

A total for the year of a little over 11,000 words, which is not fabulous but is a heck of a lot better than I thought i would manage. The previous year's total of around 30,000 words was more, and hard wrung, but written by expanding a story that already existed.

I'd never written either a Mad Men or a Wimsey story before, so I'm quite pleased to have expanded my fannish vocabulary a bit. Yuletide I declare a personal success, so I'll definitely be having another go, and perhaps a more prolific go, in 2022. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/720853.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

I got the most beautiful story for Yuletide: a 'Persuasions' fic, about the years between Anne's broken engagement and her eventual reunion with Wentworth. About how and why Charles Musgrove grew interested in her, and why they would not have worked together, and what she learned from the experience of deciding not to marry him.

It's so well written, and captures the characters perfectly.

When the author is revealed I shall have to see if she has written other Austen stories.

*squeee*

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Before the Deluge

***

A very pleasant Christmas Day in our usual style. I'd made my List the night before—timings for cooking—and got on with it straight after breakfast. Bun was a bit later arriving than I had expected (slight miscommunication) but we had our usual present-opening session mid-morning, and I got a pleasing haul which included a fabulous skein, book soaps (ie soaps inside *beautiful* little boxes that look like books), and 'Scales and Sensibility', which ought to be a fun read.

The roast pork, which I cooked in a slightly different way, was very successful, and pretty well everything worked nicely. It's always gratifying when a roast dinner comes together properly with nothing underdone or cooked to mush.

After lunch we played 'RailRoad', a clever little game with a very simple premise in which everybody gets the same building blocks to play with and yet there is a wide span of points scored. Will play again, possibly today.

When Bun went back home, the rest of us scattered to our separate rooms for some introvert time. I read my awesome Yuletide story! Then I ended up falling asleep on the sofa at about half past eight, so went to bed early. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/720441.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

Oddly enough, it turns out that my main fandom this year has been Star Wars. Not something I would ever have expected. (Note to self: acquire Mandalorian icons.)
( Thoughts on the Star Wars universe. Cut for possible spoilers or meh factorCollapse ) This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/720163.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.

I've started following the random_fandom_meta_feed. I've always enjoyed reading meta — but. BUT.

The most interesting part about meta posts is the discussion that follows in the comments. And most of these are links to Tumblr posts which present a statement with no visible discussion. No doubt those more familiar with Tumblr than I am (ie everybody) will tell me that the discussion is happening, because people reblog and (I assume) add their own thoughts, etc, etc. Indeed, I have found a few which have discussion... no idea how, but they have managed it. Yay. I long ago gave up trying to say anything to a Tumblr post. Yes, I am old.

Dreamwidth however, is an *excellent* place for posting meta, because discussion can happen immediately, in the comments to that very post, and you can even track them if you want to. No need for an account, just find a name you're willing to sign to your posts.

Also noted: 36 is Old, in fandom. Uh huh.

Also also noted: who the heck is 'trying to shut down AO3'??

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What the FUCK, Firefox?

My top-of-page bookmark menu, carefully curated over many years, just disappeared. Bookmarks were locatable but not in their proper places, and Beast could not figure out how to put them back. Slightly to my amazement, restarting Firefox has restored them. But am now deeply suspicious.

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I'm so glad I posted my Yuletide story on the 17th, since it turned out the deadline was nine o'clock in the morning on the 18th, my time. Which is fine, and I should probably have checked sooner, but I'd kinda expected it to be an American time zone which would have meant that posting this morning would have been fine. Phew!

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Was supposed to be having a convivial lunch with some of my fellow chorus members today, in a pub. Quite glad to find it has been cancelled, since spending a couple of hours in the same room as a bunch of pub-goers does not strike me as a good idea. Will be able to attend neighbour's party this afternoon instead—which is being held in the garden. Much more sensible. This entry was also posted at https://pensnest.dreamwidth.org/719993.html. Please comment at Dreamwidth if you can—you don't need an account.