Spy Flyers or Spyflyers? nobody knows

Oct. 24th, 2025 11:12 am
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[personal profile] philomytha
The Spyflyers, WE Johns (available on Faded Page here)
Finally got around to reading this one as other people are requesting it for Yuletide, and it was a fun WW1 spy adventure, and unusually for WEJ, it's a standalone - I was expecting to see Raymond show up to be our spymaster as he seems to in all of WEJ's other series regardless of whether there's any other overlap, but no, we have a different character in that role here. This is one of WEJ's earlier novels, 1933, and it does show - the set-piece scenes are good but the assembly is a bit hit and miss, it's all over the place in structure. You can also see bits WEJ has reused in later books - the entire opening chapter gets a reprise in Biggles in the Baltic - and the whole of it is WEJ trying out ideas that he puts together in a different and far far better way in Biggles Flies East. I don't think Flies East would be anywhere near as good a book if WEJ hadn't written this one first.

The gist of the story, without spoilers, is that our pilot-and-observer duo Rex and Tony are assigned to try to find double agents who are flying around in British aeroplanes causing problems in France in WW1. Rex and Tony are both fluent German speakers and to do this they are assigned a captured German aircraft and some German uniforms and have to land in German-occupied territory and investigate, and soon they encounter the mysterious Captain Fairfax who seems to be in more places than is reasonable for one person - and so we have a wonderful romp of everyone being undercover on the opposite side. And for all that the story is all over the place at the start, by the middle of the story WEJ starts to tighten up the adventure and the ending is great. And I have gone and requested it for Yuletide too now.

Now for spoilers - and I was surprised by several twists in this, so if you think you might read the book, read it first and enjoy the twists unspoiled, and then come back and chat about it with me.


spoilers
Perhaps because I was so primed by Major Sterne, I absolutely did not see Fairfax as a triple agent coming at all. He has all the dashing brilliance of EvS/El Shareef/Major Sterne in Flies East, and I assumed we were just getting WEJ's usual starry-eyed-ness about brilliant villains in all the loving descriptions of how clever he was and how impossible his feats were. So I was both stunned and delighted by the scene when he holds up the entire German mess to rescue Rex and Tony. And likewise, I had my suspicions of Trevor, but again I didn't expect it because WEJ never ever goes there in his other books: Biggles or Gimlet or Worrals or Steeley may meet all kinds of villains and traitors elsewhere, but there is never any question of Raymond being anything other than completely right and reliable. So having a high-level conspiracy and Rex and Tony being deliberately set up to fail by their traitorous commander was also a surprise - and using them as mules for transporting documents to the Germans was a great twist too. I didn't take strongly to either Rex or Tony, though perhaps I might like them more on a reread. I did like that while at the start they are outwitting the enemy entirely by accident, by the end they start doing it on purpose, but overall I felt like they were more reacting to the plot than driving it or making decisions about it. But I am absolutely and predictably taken by Fairfax and his secret identity as the best German spy.

Write Every Day: Day 24

Oct. 24th, 2025 06:14 pm
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[personal profile] china_shop
‘We have to believe in our work; the only thing that lightens the burden of it, sometimes, is the sense that it matters, and that we've committed ourselves to something valuable, so that even if we don't succeed we'll have an honourable failure.

So there was my imagination, and there was my embarrassment whispering, ‘Why work at something you’re going to be ashamed of?’

However, if I know anything about writing stories, it’s this: that you have to do what your imagination wants, not what your fastidious literary taste is inclined towards, not what your finely honed judgment feels comfortable with, not what your desire for the esteem of critics advises you to. Good intentions never wrote a story worth reading: only the imagination can do that.’

– Philip Pullman, Daemon Voices

My day 24: More pairing experimentation: 660 words. Weatherwise, today was a total contrast to yesterday's gale. We went for lunch in the sun at our favourite outdoor cafe and, later on, took a walk along a stream.

The tally
Tally )

Day 22: [personal profile] alightbuthappypen, [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] chanter1944, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cmk418, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora

Day 23: [personal profile] alightbuthappypen, [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] chanter1944, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cmk418, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora

When you check in, please say what day(s) you’re checking in for. You can join in or take a break at any time; you’re always welcome back. And please let me know if I’ve missed you.

Palestine/Gaza

Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:25 pm
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[personal profile] toastykitten posting in [community profile] thisfinecrew
Even though there is ostensibly a ceasefire in place, not enough aid is getting in, Israel is also bombing Lebanon despite the ceasefire they agreed to with the Lebanese, and Israeli settlers beat Palestinian farmers during their olive harvest in the West Bank

So 1 thing I've been doing is joining a weekly Zoom "Power Hours for Palestine" every Thursday at 9am PST. Feel free to join me. Today we called our reps regarding HR 3565, sent a few letters, and were updated on different things going on. It's hosted by Rising Majority

Also a Jews Demand Action letter toolkit, signed by many including Spencer Ackerman, Debra Winger, etc. 

Since last I posted:
Some things to read/watch:Places to donate to:

Daily Happiness

Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:10 pm
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[personal profile] torachan
1. I took a walk after lunch today and while the sun did peek out a few times, it was mostly overcast and made for very pleasant walking. Right now I've been trying to do a midday walk at least twice during the work week, but once we get into cooler weather I'll definitely be upping that, maybe even to daily. I do so much more sitting in one place in this current position than I did as area manager, and it's nice to get out and move around a bit.

2. I finished up another puzzle today. This is our third Disney villains puzzle, but it seems to be a very popular theme, going by the fact that when I was looking at puzzles at Target the other day, there were two other villains ones that were not the same as the ones we have. This one is a 750 piece one (only the second puzzle I've done this large) so it has room for more villains. Of course there's overlap in all the puzzles, but it's always interesting to see which ones they pick. This one has the main baddies on the V and their henchmen/women on the border, which was a fun design.



3. Look at that fluffy fur!

Yuletide 2025 Lettter

Oct. 23rd, 2025 10:00 pm
pendrecarc: Woman holding a hooked hand (Default)
[personal profile] pendrecarc
Have fun, dear creator---I'm really excited by all of these requests! I've included prompts for these fandoms, but they're mostly there to give you an idea of the kind of fanworks I like. Please feel free to go in a different direction.

I am open to treats!

Please note that due to Yuletide admin and real life commitments, I may not have much extended quiet time to read and comment in the first couple of days after reveals. I look forward to reading your work when I can savor it, even if that's a few days into the anon period!

General points:

Things I love:
  • Stories with a sense of motion (plot is great, or anything with characters working to accomplish something or solve problems)
  • Complexity in characterization and relationships, particularly when two characters’ priorities and interests are in agreement at some times and in conflict at others
  • Deep caring and respect between characters, even if they disagree, and even if the caring and respect aren't expressed in so many words
  • Stories where the characters have goals other than romance, even if a romance is included in the fic
  • Ruthless competence (and just competence in general)
  • Genuine moral quandaries
  • Worldbuilding, or plotty fic, or fic that really digs into characters' relationships--or (<3 <3 <3) fic where worldbuilding informs plot or plot informs relationship developments or any combination of those elements!
  • Tropes:
    • Always-a-woman Rule 63 AUs (for literally any canon male character, particularly the ones I've requested; fine if this makes a M/M or F/M pairing F/M or F/F)
    • Canon divergence AUs
    • Hurt/Comfort (my favorite version of this is where an emergency lets you see the cracks in the characters' usual reserve, so you get unusual vulnerability and expressions of emotion that are still in character without extended woobification); and, relatedly...
    • Life-or-death situations leading to unspoken feelings (romantic or platonic) becoming more obvious
    • Casefic, or characters otherwise getting to the bottom of mysteries/intrigue
    • Competence porn
    • Arranged marriage or marriage of convenience
    • Mutual pining (when there are character-based reasons for characters not realizing the other is also in love; or when there's an unspoken understanding that it's mutual but they have logical reasons for not acting on it)
    • Enemies to allies (or friends, or lovers)
Please no:
  • Sexual violence, noncon, dubcon, or underage, unless specifically noted
  • Suicide or suicidal ideation (except when specifically noted)
  • Infidelity (exceptions/ways to handle this listed in the canon-specific sections. In general, open or V-shaped poly relationships are fine, and I don't need a lot of negotiation; also usually fine to handwave canonical relationships. What I don't want, unless otherwise noted, is fic where the characters are obviously cheating on someone with whom they're in a committed, exclusive relationship)
  • Unremitting angst
  • PWP (including sex is fine, especially if the style is in keeping with the tone of the canon, but it’s not a big draw for me without something else going on, too)
  • Exposed genitalia in art (though again, sexual content is fine)
  • AUs (except for canon divergence and genderswap, as mentioned above)
Things that are fine and/or encouraged:
  • Longfic, tight 1k-word fic, any length is fine
  • Gen, f/f, m/f, m/m, and any combination thereof, unless specifically noted
  • Fic that plasy with POV and narrative styles, especially if it’s in keeping with the source material (ex: epistolary fic; nested stories; found materials)
  • Interactive fiction
  • Canon-typical levels of character death and nonsexual violence



The Thorne Chronicles - K. Eason

Characters: Samur | The Regent-Consort (The Thorne Chronicles); Rupert | The Vizier (The Thorne Chronicles)

Okay, asking for two side characters in a fandom that doesn't yet exist on AO3 is probably a long shot, but what else is Yuletide for?

A friend gave me the first of these books, and almost immediately, I found myself absorbed less by our heroine's adventures than by the dynamic between her mother and her mentor. Mutual respect and trust heavily underlaid by unspoken, yet obvious, longing for more? Significant use of names vs titles? Characters who put political goals and other loyalties ahead of their personal desires and the serious conflict that results? Complementary competence? Yes please!

I wish we had gotten so much more of Samur, and of this relationship, in the second book.

I'd love to see any missing scenes between the two of them during or between the books, or maybe a future political situation that throws these characters together again and forces them to work through their disagreement--the second book left off with plenty of opportunity for that. There's also lots of scope for canon divergence AUs, with Samur making different choices in the first book as just one branching off point. I absolutely ship this, but I'm good with anything from canon-typical interactions to the two of them reconciling and finding a way to get together despite the political situation.

I'm really interested in further exploration of everything we don't see about Samur, in particular, both in her backstory and through the events of the books. It's mentioned that combat training is important to people from Kreshti--what does that mean to her? Who was she before her first marriage, other than motivated by duty above all else? Why would someone in her position keep, effectively, a mood ring in a pot on her desk?

Re: my rape and sexual violence DNW, I don't count obligatory sex between participants in political marriages, even if they aren't particularly attracted to one another, as long as they enter into both the marriage and the sex with some degree of personal choice. Basically, feel free to talk about Samur's second marriage

Re: my infidelity DNW--if you write attraction between Samur and Rupert during her first marriage, please make it entirely unspoken and not something either would consider acting on. If you write shipfic during her second marriage, I'd prefer it to occur after an informal separation from her husband or in the context of an open marriage.

I am open to treats!



Merlin Series - Mary Stewart

Characters: Any

These requests are written with the original trilogy in mind, as I'm most familiar with Crystal Cave through The Last Enchantment, but feel free to refer to events in the other books.

I love the setting, the prose, the particularly numinous quality of the magic, the depictions of music, the characters' sense of history, the loyalty and love Merlin has for Ambrosius and Arthur (and Arthur in particular has for Merlin), all the mentor/protegee dynamics, the way Merlin uses both magic and mundane tools (and luck) the beauty and tragedy of the whole thing. Also--these books were terribly good to me in delivering the "I thought you were dead but you're not!" trope, and I absolutely would not say no to more of that.

I'd love some canon divergence for this fandom. Maybe Aurelius doesn't die so young, and he and Emrys have more time to build a kingdom together; or Merlin sees Arthur through to the end of his reign; or Niniane finds a way to achieve Merlin's power without draining him of it all; or a take on Morgause that isn't so harsh to her--what if Merlin had agreed to teach her? (I know these sound like more positive divergences, but I don't need happy endings or positive spins on this fandom! Feel free to go a tragic route.)

If you're into missing scenes, what happened during any of the years we don't see in detail--Emrys on the road before he comes to raise Arthur, or while he's helping to bring the boy up? Or fic set after The Last Enchantment with Niniane/Nimue as Arthur's seer, or during the book as the two of them develop a working relationship and sort out where they each stand with Merlin. I'd also really love to see Arthur's perspective on events leading up to, and after, he becomes High King.

If you're into Rule 63, I'd be particularly interested in seeing a female Merlin and would be curious about how that changes her role before and after she meets her father, with the concept of "women's magic", and with her relationships to all the women in the series.

I'd adore any kind of worldbuilding. More of the mythology and mysticism and magic, please! Or just a story with a strong sense of place and of the history that's led to the events taking place (or the future that will result from them).

I love the way Stewart writes about music, and I'd love to see it incorporated into the story, if that's a theme that interests you.

100% there for the sort of intense gen we get in canon, but I honestly don't have preferences when it comes to shipping or gen for this fandom. Please no parent/child incest, though. (Rumors about Emrys as Aurelius' catamite are fine; Morgause/Arthur is fine; Merlin/Arthur could be really lovely but would prefer it to occur after Arthur's well-established as king, ideally at least 18 or so.)

Re: the infidelity DNW, fine to write about canonical infidelity such as Uther/Ygraine and Bedwyr/Guinevere. If you're into Merlin/Arthur and want to set it during Arthur's marriage after there's an understanding between Bedwyr and the queen, that's fine.

References to canon instance of underage sex are fine, but please nothing on-page.



Shogun (TV 2024)

Characters: Toda Mariko, Yoshii Toranaga
My gift must feature all of my chosen character tags

This was one of my favorite shows of 2024! Atmospheric and visually stunning, twisty politics everywhere, and the personal inextricably caught up in the political in ways that are absolute catnip to me.

I found Mariko's character incredibly compelling and was fascinated by her relationship to Toranaga. I would love to see further exploration of that--not only by seeing the two of them interacting directly (though I wish they'd had more one-on-one scenes and would love to read some) but also by seeing them respond to or affect one another from more of a distance. It would be fine to have a story focused on Mariko's perspective where Toranaga is rarely present on-page, for example, as long as his influence is felt throughout. That could include missing scenes from Mariko's youth, details of her father's death and Mariko coming to understand Toranaga's plans afterward, the development of her loyalty to him and the ways in which that's due to family duty vs. personal inclination. How much of her obedience to him is reluctant, and how much comes from genuine trust?

I love canon divergence AUs, and there could be loads of interesting ones for this fandom with all kinds of domino effects. Mariko's marriage is arranged to someone else, for different advantages--perhaps she becomes consort to the late Taikō instead of Ochiba, and Toranaga finds ways to use this? Or she's even married off to Toranaga himself? Her father isn't the one to kill Lord Nobuhisa?

Ships for this fandom: I'm fine with explorations of Mariko's canonical relationships with her husband and Blackthorne as long as the main focus is on Mariko herself, or how those relationships are useful to Toranaga. I'm also interested in her history with Lady Ochiba and am very very open to Mariko/Ochiba. Other references to canon ships are totally fine.

Re: my DNW of rape, sexual violence, and related threats, references to canon-typical instances are fine in the context of an arranged marriage or a consortship, but please restrict depictions to fade-to-black.

My usual DNWs of infidelity and suicide/suicidal ideation don't apply to this fandom.
[syndicated profile] henryjenkins_feed

Posted by Alex McDowell / Tara Lomax

To celebrate International Production Design Week (IPDW) between October 17th-26th, Pop Junctions presents a range of contributions related to the craft of production design, with particular focus on the art of world-building and the creativity and culture of production design practice. IPDW is an initiative led by the Production Designers Collective and involves a calendar of events that showcase production design around the world.

In this contribution, Tara Lomax asks Production Designer Alex McDowell about world-building, reimagining the production process, and his work across industry and education.

International Production Design WeEK — Event Calander 2025

TL: Alex, thank you for sharing your time and experience in this discussion to celebrate International Production Design Week. I’d like to start by reflecting on the history and transformation of production design in the filmmaking process. Throughout your career, have you experienced much change in production design and the role of the production designer in filmmaking and screen storytelling?

AM: Hi Tara, thanks for your questions! 

There have of course been huge changes in our craft since I started, but not enough to fully integrate Production Design in the opportunities of non-linear production. Rick Carter has one of my favorite quotes for all of us: “the production designer's first job is to design the production”. 

This has always been true, and it's our responsibility as designers to take it on. But the context has changed radically. For over 20 years we’ve been pushing for a change in the relationship between the front end and the back end of production and since the early 2000s we developed an art department workflow that aligned closely to visual effects. But the reality was that the pre-production assets that framed the shoot tended to be discarded and then rebuilt in post. 

With virtual production, non-linear production has kicked in. Now our work is to use the tools we have—and keep them up to date—to design the virtual production. Now we take responsibility to update the production design/art process to drive the full breadth of the production, which means a different make-up of the art department. Increasingly, we are working with illustrators using 3D and game platforms, engineers, designers in Rhino or Maya to drive models informed by photogrammetry scans from drones in a location, reference images to blender or rapid fabrication, etc. At this point, the design development can be distributed to any of the appropriate departments—construction, location, stunts, set dressing, DP, VFX, virtual production—and director.

The art department increasingly needs polymaths. Schools need to teach accordingly, and designers need to hire appropriately. It’s also worth saying that a lot of these processes no longer apply only to mega-productions. The smallest budget can use a drone to scan a location and a single designer to accurately add a set extension. 

Across your career you have worked as a production designer on a range of different projects, including Madonna’s early music videos, The Crow (1994), The Fight Club (1999), Minority Report (2002), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005), Watchman (2009), and Man of Steel (2013). How would you describe your own approach to production design and has this changed across your career?

In addition to the previous response, the only thing to add is obvious: every show has different demands. We learn from every show and apply that learning to the next. The designer probably has to adapt to the nuance and context of a script and direction more fully than almost any other department—materials change, crew skills change, vendors change, tools change, location resources change and your knowledge updates exponentially. 

Minority report (2002)

Man of steel (2013)

Your work has been instrumental in the development of a world-driven approach to storytelling, whereby the world is designed prior to and beyond the boundaries of a script. This seems to enable a stronger relationship between production design and other filmmaking crafts across the storytelling and production process. What do you see to be the role of the screenplay within this approach and how does this redefine story ideation, authorship, and collaboration in screen production?

What we have learnt simply is that non-linear production is possible when storytelling meets narrative design. Every world provides unique context and logic from which any number of story paths can evolve. Ideation, authorship, and collaboration in screen production become a single workspace for development. Production design in this context provides an immersive and adaptive container that much more closely mirrors the conditions of production start to finish for all the makers of a film and evolves accordingly. 

minority report (2002) ‘precogs temple’

World building requires an interdisciplinary approach to storytelling, within filmmaking departments and with experts in other fields like computer science, animation, and culture. This seems to require a reimagining or reorganization of the traditional film development and production process. Do you see evidence of this kind of reorganization happening in the industrial context? And is it possible for traditional filmmaking processes to still embrace world-building principles without a complete restructuring of the production process?

Industrial is the right word. We are finally moving from a 19th century Victorian-industrial linear production process to one of the most agile and effective non-linear practices in the world. I’ve experienced a broad range of industries outside entertainment media, and our industry can compete with any of them. But it absolutely requires a restructuring of the traditional production process. This assumes that the traditional creative skills remain and are still vital, but we all have to work with new tools as we always have. These tools speak to each other in ways that make ideation and creativity more intuitive, closer to our imagination, and we have to adapt to take advantage of that. We are biological, cellular creatures, but we’ve been forced to work with straight lines. It’s fun to see us getting closer to our intuitive selves. 

Your work sits at such an interesting intersection between design, technology, and education and you have been instrumental in promoting the critical role that production design plays in world building and storytelling. Can you discuss some of the work you have been doing as part of the World Building Institute at USC, particularly the Project JUNK consortium? Why has it been so important for you to also work across education and support the development of future world builders? What has been the most rewarding part of working at the interface of industry and education?

Most rewarding and valuable continues to be the demands of the students when they see that the edges of their work are unconstrained, and when they understand that world building demands cross-disciplinary co-creation. I hope we are developing the base for new generations of polymaths, who can work across media, in industries within and outside entertainment, and in fields that do not yet exist. If we are able to focus on the need to break down the silos of disciplines and understand the power of folding together the craft skills and toolsets across media, we need to train generations that can navigate and exploit these changes as they happen. 

The JUNK project is a world building program that we are now teaching globally that originated in a collaboration between USC SCA and Austral University in Buenos Aires. It is not only reaching students in entertainment media but also in trades as wide reaching as engineering, biology, anthropology, architecture and social politics. It’s a true test of how what we are learning through the intersection of the advances in media and world building can change the world. 

Finally, how would you characterize the twenty-first century production designer based on creative and technological developments in screen practice and the film industries?

Our work is to stay on our toes, be aware of every change in tools and resources, interface more deeply with the full breadth of production, and increasingly demand that the technology keeps up with our imagination. 

future world vision – mega city 2070 project

Biographies

Alex McDowell. Designer. Royal Designer for Industry (RDI). Creative director, production designer, professor, world builder. British citizen, US citizen, living in the US since 1986. He has been a production designer and creative director in film, game, animation, theatre and other media for over 30 years. McDowell is an advocate and originator of the narrative design system world building. His practice incorporates design and storytelling across media in education, research, institutions, corporations, and entertainment media. He is co-founder & creative director of Experimental Design, Professor of Cinematic Practice at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts, Director of the USC World Building Institute & World Building Media Lab, USC William Cameron Menzies Endowed Chair in Production Design, founder of the the JUNK Consortium, Associate Professor at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, The Bridge Institute. He’s written and talked a lot about narrative design, for a long time, in many places, to many people.

Tara Lomax is an Associate Editor at Pop Junctions. She has expertise in entertainment franchising, multiplatform storytelling, and contemporary Hollywood entertainment and has published on topics such as transmedia storytelling and world building, creative licensing, seriality, virtual production and visual effects. Her work can be found in publications that include JCMS: Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, Senses of Cinema and Quarterly Review of Film and Video, and the book collections The Screens of Virtual Production (2025), Starring Tom Cruise (2021), The Supervillain Reader (2020), The Superhero Symbol (2020), The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production (2019), and Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling (2017). She is the Discipline Lead of Screen Studies at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and has a PhD in screen studies from The University of Melbourne.

lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
[personal profile] lannamichaels


In my reading of Game Of Thrones fic, I developed an urge for fic where Elia Martell Targaryen (why some married women are only referred to by their maiden names and some are always only referred to by their married names, I do not know) and her kids don't die. It would be interesting to see what it would change!, I thought. Surely it doesn't need to change a huge amount necessarily, but it would great to see it!

And so I went looking and found a bunch and it turns out.

It turns out that when you want fic where legitimate claimants to a throne survive, you get a ton of fic about Targaryen restoration. You get so many fics that are love letters to the Targaryens.

I don't care about Targaryen restoration! I don't like the Targaryens and see no reason why I should! (Except for Aemon, the Targaryen maester who is still alive at the Wall, I allow that he's really intruiging.)

Also I will admit the first time I saw the pairing of Jon Snow/Rhaenys Targaryen, I had a full blown "why? why the fuck?"

But yeah I get it, if Jon Snow is her long lost half-brother, then it's true Targaryen heritage to ship them. I don't see it, I don't even like the ship, and it's interesting how I have no problem whatsoever with Jon Snow/Sansa Stark, who were raised as half-siblings, but my reaction to Jon/Rhaenys is "I'm completely uninterested in reading this". Also I'm not really into Jon/Daenerys.

Maybe it's the whole enforced-incest of the Targaryens? IDK.

But also.

Reading the fic.

Okay so I am never going to read the books, I have long since been warned off from all the grimdark rape, and I am never going to watch the show, ditto.

I did not realize how small the amount of time the Targaryens have actually been ruling in Westeros. They only showed up like 300 years ago???? In a setting where people are like "my family has been ruling in this one spot for 10,000 years" or whatever, the Targaryens are new kids on the block who showed up with dragons, conquered everyone, had several (!) really bad rulers, constantly married each other (in violation of the local religion, and no one else was allowed to copy their behavior because they're special), seemed to do very little marrying out to the locals because who needs to shore up support, dealt with civil war/rebellion, lost their dragons, had a really fucking awful last king, and then, surprise, they were overthrown.

And you want those folks back? You are nostalgic for the wonderful days of the people who showed up five minutes ago and were generally terrible?

Also blowing my mind was, okay, I had been told over and over again that Baratheons all look a certain way since time immemorial and so that's why obviously if you look into it, Cersei's kids can't be Robert's.

But the Baratheons were founded as a new house by a Targaryen bastard. The looks of the Baratheons are the opposite of the Targaryens. Also this is also only like 300 years ago, and Westeros seems to enjoy a society where there are several pathways to ensure that only one or two of your sons are allowed to have children (maesters, the wall, endless wars).

So all this is kind of amusing from a "reading fic without knowing canon" perspective, the slow unfolding of, oh my god, what is going on in this canon. But also the mismatch of people who have actually read/watch this canon and what they want to write (Targaryen restoration, Targaryen incest) vs. me who has not done that, and what I want to read.

But actually what I want to write is a fic where Jon Snow actually is Ned Stark's bastard. Ah, yes, I see here that "Ned Stark is very honorable". Uh-huh. Well, he had an affair with a woman who is a sex worker/laundress/woman who was interested before his marriage and then, because he is so honorable, he took the child in and raised him, rather than leaving Jon Snow to live in poverty.

This explains nothing about why Ned Stark wouldn't tell Jon Snow about this mother but I'm sure we can come up with something (the mother was already married? who cares).

But I'm not writing this, entirely because I have no idea of a plot to go along with this. Oh and also I'm not reading/watching this, but I wrote an MDZS drabble without reading the book/finishing the show.

The Poison Drips

Oct. 23rd, 2025 04:40 pm
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[personal profile] rocky41_7

Turning over in my mind how Astarion and Cazador are mirrors of each other and it's sooo interesting. Like, Astarion when the PC meets him is on a kind of precipice. The PC can either encourage him to continue on the path he's on, resentful that other people might get help when he didn't and willing to do anything to make himself feel safe (might makes right, etc.), or can push him back in the direction of being "good," caring about others and keeping his worse instincts under control.

Astarion spends large chunks of the game castigating Cazador for his senseless cruelty, for his selfishness, for his derangement. Astarion also frets about being or becoming a monster. If the PC tells him during their first meeting that the parasites will turn them into mindflayers, his response is a dejected "Of course it'll turn me into a monster." 

And yet, the moment Astarion grasps that he might seize control of Cazador's ritual of ascension, that he might sacrifice his vampiric "siblings" to obtain the power Cazador sought, he is immediately sorely tempted, even eager. When it becomes clear the ritual necessitates the sacrifice not only of Astarion's six spawn siblings, but also the seven thousand victims Cazador has been collecting in the basement for centuries, many of whom Astarion himself delivered unknowingly to their fate, Astarion hesitates only slightly in his desire to complete the ritual himself.

If Astarion is ascended via Cazador's ritual, he almost immediately follows in his master's footsteps. Some of his first dialogue after ascending is about feeling that every other living thing wants to serve and be controlled by him, the vampire ascendant. If he follows Cazador's path, he becomes Cazador. 

Astarion was tortured for centuries into the person he is in the game. He admits to the PC that he barely remembers his life before being a vampire. The person he was before Cazador entered his life is almost entirely lost to him. After centuries of being on Cazador's leash, Astarion barely has a thought that doesn't revolve around Cazador. Minthara correctly points out that as long as Cazador lives, Astarion will never truly be free, because so much of his mindset continues to center his old master. Whomever Astarion might have been if Cazador had never touched him is a mystery, even to Astarion himself. He is now what Cazador made him, but the PC can encourage him to grow beyond that.

By choosing to ascend, by following in Cazador's wake, Astarion essentially rejects the chance to become something else--he accepts that he is what Cazador created and he will become what Cazador wanted to be. If an ascended Astarion is permitted to leave the Szarr mansion alive (ie. the PC doesn't turn on him with the Gur), he revels in his power and in the Reunion Party scene brags about being the "puppet master" of Baldur's Gate. If the PC is in a romance with him, he may agree to turn them into a vampire spawn, but refuses to make them a full vampire, for vague reasons that almost certainly amount to not wanting to have someone around who might even possibly compete with his power.

Astarion thus shows that he has the capacity to be just like Cazador.

By extrapolation, then, Cazador may have once been like Astarion.

The team learns by exploring the Szarr mansion that Cazador was turned by a vampire named Vellioth, who treated him horrifically. Simply by interrogating Vellioth's skull--which Cazador keeps in his bedroom as a gruesome memento--you can hear about how Vellioth murdered Cazador's friends in front of him when he reached out to them, made him spend eleven years impaled as punishment for a failed attempt to kill Vellioth, and how they both laughed when Cazador finally succeeded in killing his master. Clearly, Cazador is what Vellioth made him, down to the scroll of rules he recieved and then imposed on Astarion and the others, and compared to his old master, he may even view himself as lenient with his own spawn. (Astarion can remark that "even his precious rules" weren't something of Cazador's own invention, which shows how much of Cazador and particularly of his presentation as a vampire is made up of Vellioth. And yet--if romancing an ascended Astarion, he almost inarguably delivers the same set of rules, albeit phrased a little gentler, to the PC. Thank you to corgiteatime for the link!)

Who was Cazador before Vellioth? We don't know, and Astarion doesn't either, but the hints we gather in the Szarr mansion suggest Cazador's journey to his present monstrous state was not very different from Astarion's own path to the climax of his personal quest.

(Pure speculation, but Astarion suggests Cazador took special pleasure in tormenting him among the other spawn, and if Cazador saw something of his own pre-vampiric self in Astarion, I think it tracks that he might then in turn feel particularly hostile towards Astarion, perhaps resenting this reminder that he used to be something else, before Vellioth.)

Astarion lives in perpetual fear. Fear of Cazador, fear of being controlled, fear of being hated and despised by those around him, fear of having to face up to his own actions. His desire to seize on the ritual of ascesion is out of a desire for safety--one of his lines about wanting it is about how no one will ever control him again. Is Cazador's desire for it dissimilar? Rifling through his corresondence in the Szarr mansion shows he is eager to control Baldur's Gate and grow his own power, but of course he wouldn't admit to rival vampires that there is buried in there any desire for his own safety. It is not unbelievable that even centuries after Vellioth's death, even as a true vampire now himself, Cazador is still chasing some sense of safety. It is also a preview, I think, of an ascended Astarion's life: the fear that will never leave him as long as he continues to walk in his master's shadow. Astarion believes that ascending will excise that fear--but I'm sure Cazador believed that becoming a full-fledged vampire would make him feel secure, and here he is chasing the ritual of ascension. 

Astarion and Cazador are two sides of the same coin, two stones in the same path begun by Vellioth (although, truthfully, probably even before him, by Vellioth's master and that vampire's master, and so on). Astarion can continue down that same road, chaneling the abuse he recieved from Cazador into his own cruelties, or he can end that terrible lineage by refusing the ritual, by refusing to become what Cazador wanted to be. Cazador represents the monster Astarion can truly become, the worst of Astarion's impulses and instincts, but when the PC meets him, Astarion is not yet too far gone--he can be turned away from this. For Cazador, it's much too late. 


Ted Lasso Drabble

Oct. 23rd, 2025 06:22 pm
senmut: spooky cat on a jackolantern (General: Halloween 3)
[personal profile] senmut
Costume Party or read at SquidgeWorld (100 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Ted Lasso (TV)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Keeley Jones, Ted Lasso, Rebecca Welton
Additional Tags: Drabble
Summary:

Keeley manages to coordinate them, even if they didn't think to do so






They hadn't coordinated their costumes, to Keeley's intense frustration. A few words whispered into Coach Beard's ear seemed to have done the trick.

Rebecca was going to be washing the hair gel out for days, she thought, but she had to admit that she made a striking bride of Frankenstein. Ted looked like he was appreciating it while she enjoyed the way he brought his quaint charm to Bela Lugosi's classic Dracula.

"A pair of monsters walk into a bar…" Ted quipped, having met her at the pub for the costume party.

"Let's go have a monster mash," she replied.
[syndicated profile] lois_mcmaster_bujold_feed
The 15th Penric & Desdemona novella, “Testimony of Mute Things”, is uploading today. I will add links to each of our five vendors as they emerge. (After uploading, vendor pages can populate at anything from an hour to a week, depending.)

Vendor-page copy:

Testimony of Mute Things

Note: in the internal chronology of the Penric & Desdemona tales, this story falls between “Penric’s Fox” and “Masquerade in Lodi”.

A contentious Temple conclave brings sorcerer Learned Penric and his demon Desdemona, in support of his superior Princess-Archdivine Llewen of Martensbridge, to the disputed Carpagamon border town of Occo. There, the uncanny pair will tangle with dangerous new intrigues and old histories, that will test their magical skills, their wits, and their hearts.

***

Cover art again by my very old buddy Ron Miller – his website is well worth visiting, jammed full of art and other treats. https://www.black-cat-studios.com




As I hope people will construe, this is technically a prequel, but as usual written to also stand alone for any folks who stumble across it ala carte.

Amazon Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FXHBQJM5

Barnes & Noble Nook: TBA

Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/book/testi...

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/test...

Google Play Books: TBA


Updated Penric & Desdemona internal chronology:

“Penric’s Demon”
“Penric and the Shaman”
“Penric’s Fox”
“Testimony of Mute Things”
“Masquerade in Lodi”
“Penric’s Mission”
“Mira’s Last Dance”
“The Prisoner of Limnos”
“The Orphans of Raspay”
“The Physicians of Vilnoc”
The Assassins of Thasalon
“Knot of Shadows”
“Demon Daughter”
“Penric and the Bandit”
“The Adventure of the Demonic Ox”

(“Demon”, “Shaman”, and “Fox” are collected as paper volumes in Penric’s Progress; “Mission”, “Mira” and “Limnos” in Penric’s Travels; and “Lodi”, “Orphans” and “Physicians” are collected in Penric’s Labors.)

Happy reading!

Ta, L.

posted by Lois McMaster Bujold on October, 23

Last Day to Sign Up for 2025

Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:28 pm
[syndicated profile] yuletide_admin_feed

Posted by morbane

There's a new post up on the Yuletide Admin comm regarding Last Day to Sign Up for 2025. Please note that there may have been a delay between that post and this crosspost.

You can go through to DW to check the details:

Dreamwidth Post

If you have follow-up questions, they can be asked in the DW comment section using a DW login, OpenID with another login, or a signed anonymous comment.

yuleswaps 2025 announcement <3

Oct. 23rd, 2025 02:01 pm
kindness_says: (yuletide - swap all the things)
[personal profile] kindness_says posting in [community profile] yuletide
Hello! A few people have been wondering in the Yuletide Discord whether we would have swaps this year... tl;dr it was dicey, but YES!

You may thank [personal profile] morbane (even more than usual ;)) for following up on everyone's behalf; Livi and I had been having an extremely slow/distracted convo about it since early September, but as always, knowing people are waiting on us motivated me LOL. But neither of us will be your primary mod this year! It will be the lovely Helen ([personal profile] patrokla), who started helping out last year. <3

Here is the lil statement I made in Discord, very slightly modified for DW:

Hi everyone! Official announcement (and thank you, Morbane, for playing go-between while we worked things out behind the scenes :)) -- yuleswaps WILL go forward this year, we hope, and we're sorry for the delay!

Indeed I (Kat/Kindness on AO3/[personal profile] kindness_says) had some commitments in Sept/Oct and did not think I'd be able to prioritize swaps this year, and Liviania/[personal profile] anialove is also pretty busy irl atm -- but Helen/[personal profile] patrokla (a great longtime swapper who joined our team last year) is stepping up to give it a shot in spite of their own busyness! We're meeting tomorrow in hopes of getting sign-ups open by the end of this weekend and matches out in early November so as to stay roughly on the usual timeline. Perhaps ambitious, but we will try!

If anybody else was interested in running swaps, Morbane absolutely was speaking for me that we're not offended, and please feel free to DM me comment or email (yuleswaps at gmail) if you're interested in helping out. ESPECIALLY if you are at all code-savvy/great at answering emails efficiently/bursting with ideas for future improvement. <3

You might hear from me again, or you might not! I will def be helping on the backend, for at least this year/as long as I can, and we really appreciate your patience if we're a little slow or clunky this year as we try to sustain/transition. I also apologize to anyone who didn't get fully covered after January (haven't done 2024 cleanup yet... will try if there's time)!

I have LOVED running swaps, well mostly I have anyway ;) for the past 15 (!!) years. Back in the day I did not read coal but was always charmed when friends occasionally sent me screenshots of anons thrilled about swaps, and I similarly really enjoyed skimming like...1-2 years' worth of this discord not long after Morbane emailed me (was very tempted to answer some super old questions but refrained lol). Your enthusiasm has absolutely been the thing to make all the time and headaches worth it.

<3 <3 <3

So that's that!

Love/candy/books/drinks always,
Kat

P.S. For any newer Yuletiders who are interested (or just confused as to what Yuleswaps is), here is last year's sign-ups post, which links to our FAQ, etc. This year's sign-ups post will come soon, if all goes to plan!
oursin: Illustration from medieval manuscript of the female physician Trotula of Salerno holding up a urine flask (trotula)
[personal profile] oursin

(Yogi Tea Bag tags, bringing the woowoo by random bollox generation long before AI started getting in on the act.)

Anyway, are we at all surprised by Millions exploited by ‘menopause gold rush’ amid lack of reliable information.

(Query: how far is lack of reliable information due to its being overwhelmed by menopause quackery, murmurs historian of medicine.)

Millions of women are being exploited by a “menopause gold rush” as companies, celebrities and influencers take advantage of a “dearth” of reliable information on the issue, experts have said. Healthcare companies and content creators saw menopause as a “lucrative market” and were trying to profit from gaps in public knowledge, women’s health academics at University College London (UCL) said. Researchers called for the rollout of a national education programme after finding a significant number of women do not feel well-informed about menopause.

You know what? I think part of this can be put on to the decline in the good old trad women's magazines, which had a) health columns written by pseudonymised health professionals b) agony aunts prepared to Do The Research and having a stack of helpful leaflets written in conjunction with qualified experts.

Brought to you by someone who was devouring her mother's magazines pretty much from the time she became literate and therefore encountered the concept of menopause decades before it became of personal relevance.

And what still gets very little play is what Stella Duffy points out in this piece:

while everyone in my research talked about physiological and emotional difficulties in the transition, once they were out the other side – even while dealing with workplace discrimination and the caring demands of their loved ones – all of them also described postmenopause as time of thriving and growing. We’re not done yet.

Margaret Mead mentioned this, but I'm not sure the 70s feminist discourse around 'croning' did a lot of favours to the idea of what happened after the pause.

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