Progress on the vidding catchup project on AO3
Mar. 7th, 2026 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sholioWaking Up in Vegas (Greatest American Hero) from 2021 - original DW post with a brief show manifesto as well. (I don't think the Youtube links still work, however.)
Landsailor (Star Wars OT) from 2015 - original DW post from when I made this right after the new movie came out.
Odds Are (Lethal Weapon movies) from Festivids 2015 - original DW post and original Festivids post from back when the exchange was anonymously posted on DW by the mods rather than run through AO3.
I've been checking the embeds and download links as I go, but let me know if you notice anything not working.
Projects and Bunnies
Mar. 7th, 2026 10:10 pmsenmut![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
10trueloves - 5/10 posted / 6/10 written~
~
~ Likewise for the RexSoka time travel that steps into the RotS plot about the time of the Opera.
~ No True Pairs
~ Unsent Letters
~ FTH 2026, 2 fics minimum
Keep mending broken lines
Mar. 7th, 2026 09:33 pmsovay
We Welcome a Shadow
Mar. 7th, 2026 07:51 pmjesse_the_kA dozen days ago we brought home Shadow from Underdog Pet Rescue (where we found Bella ten years ago).
Shadow’s had a hard life: not only was he abandoned by his family to live in the street, he got heartworm. Underdog has been treating him, and we have to continue to enforce rest for another 5 weeks. We must walk him on leash even for quick potty trips in the back yard.
He's a skinny minnie — around 40 pounds. He's got super-sleek short shiny black fur — unlike our previous dogs, he's single-coated. He's got maybe 47 white hairs at various spots around his body. There’s a clumpy stripe of white on his chest, but he hasn’t felt comfortable enough to show us his belly yet. Between his ears he’s got the wide head of a pitty, but his nose is long and thin.
We're looking forward to buoying Shadow with the love he needs, and grateful that retirement offers the time. For the first few days his muscles were always tense, and when we moved a hand anywhere within ten feet he'd flinch. He's beginning to unclench, and we've even seen his tail wag a couple times. While we're all bored without romping and long walks, it's a good time to shower him with stinky treats for learning his name and beginning to trust us. He walks pretty well on lead and already knows leave it, ignoring a treat sitting in the middle of my flat palm 6 inches from his nose.
His triangular ears have floppy tips — the left one is always down. His back has two shaved bare squares where the vets injected the second and third doses of arsenic to kill the heartworm parasites. His soulful eyes were so tight in the first week we saw nothing but deep brown iris. Today when Shadow and I were hiding from The Evil Vacuum Cleaner in my bedroom, I finally saw some white in his gaze.
( click for pics )
(no subject)
Mar. 7th, 2026 04:20 pmolivermoss* Newest squid is NCAA path and minored in theater? He did contemporary dance to round out his minor? Huh, we might only have him until the end of the season, but he could be interesting if he sticks around.
McCann is claiming they are putting McMann next to him in the locker room and are also putting them on the same line. We are trying to figure out if he is kidding. He doesn't typically kid, he showed an emotion in front of the press once in Vancouver over a decade ago and is still paying for it. But also McMann being a first liner is not what people are expecting. We'll see in a few days.
The problem with cats
Mar. 8th, 2026 11:45 ammab_browneTabby Little is not so keen on stalking birds. Good.
She's caught two mice. Excellent
My garden contains flowers. Flowers attract pollinators. Tabby Little has brought in four monarch butterflies this summer. Very much not so good.
*sigh*
Inspiration for Wayne Manor
Mar. 7th, 2026 01:38 pmbeatrice_otter
Details: built between 1903 and 1907. Three stories, 75 rooms, 50k square feet, on 12.5 acres. Of those 75 rooms, 21 are bedrooms, and 29 are bathrooms. When it was built, there were a lot of other buildings on the estate: greenhouses, barns, stables, a dairy, gatehouse, garage, workshops, and bathhouses on the river. There were nine single houses and four duplexes for employees, and a two-story house for the head gardener. I think most of those other buildings have either been torn down or sold off--the estate was originally around 1k acres, and now you can tell there are a lot of other buildings around.
( Pics of the interior )
BTS bag charm freebie, V3
Mar. 7th, 2026 03:55 pmcodyneI decided the wires weren't working, and bought a bunch of beadable keychain blanks, which were nice and sturdy, but they were 2mm diameter bars and all my beads were the smaller 8mm beads with 1mm holes. So I ended up buying a whole new set of large-hole beads in ARIRANG album colors (100 each of 7 colors), which arrived today.
The beads are gorgeous! I'm very happy with my selections. But now I'm trying to decide whether I want to add an additional dangle to the keychains (which was my original intention), or just leave them a single bar of beads.
This is the beads without any additional dangle.
Keychain/bag charm with a longer dangle of red and white beads and a purple heart charm.
Keychain/bag charm with a shorter dangle and a whale charm.
(I also tried it with a dangle of letter beads spelling out "ARIRANG", but I didn't like it.)
Right now I'm kind of leaning toward the shorter dangle, I think it lets the big beads stand out more. (But I need to get more of the smaller red beads, dang it. I ordered two more bags but the ones they sent were dark red, almost burgundy, and I need bright red ones. I ordered the exact same ones I ordered last time, expecting them to be the same, but this is what I got. Oh well, order cheap beads from China on Amazon and this is what you get. They won't go to waste, I can use them for other bracelets.) But I would welcome any opinions on the matter! I've fiddled around so much with these things, nothing looks good to me.
Two longish Babylon 5 fic recs
Mar. 6th, 2026 09:39 pmsholioThese are a couple of longer fics that I marked for later on my initial sweep through the archive and finally remembered to go back and read. One season one genfic, one late-season explicit fic in which I'm sure the main pairing will surprise no one.
( Two recs )
Pokémon Legends Z-A
Mar. 6th, 2026 11:24 pmsoc_puppetI'm not very far in yet; only made it to my first advancement match. I'm liking the story and the characters so far, but the gameplay... Look, I like turn-based gameplay. I'll probably at least try to knuckle through to the end of this, but I do miss that from the other games. Add to it the fact that the 3D camera is making me kinda dizzy, and, well.
Honestly, a replay of Fire Red and/or Leaf Green and watching the cut scenes/a Let's Play on YouTube is looking pretty appealing by comparison.
some movies
Mar. 6th, 2026 09:04 pmsnickficThis is a surrealist late-80s comedy meditating on death and also games and numbers of various kinds, which is to say it feels very much of a piece with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, except for having no Shakespeare and being more focused on female characters. It's all nonsense; nobody is really a real person here, and that's fine. It's also pretty horny in various ways, and in fact Madgett proposes to each of the Cissies in turn. You kind of want him to succeed with one or possibly all of them.
If you want a sense of what you're in for with this movie, Madgett's introduction gives you a pretty good one.
--
The Bride! (2026). Maggie Gyllenhaal directs this riff on the Frankenstein mythos, this time a sometime-musical Bonnie and Clyde story about Frankenstein's creature Frank (Christian Bale), still alive in the 1930s, and the bride (Jessie Buckley) that he talks a mad scientist into "reinvigorating" for him. The dead woman thus invigorated was a mobster's call girl, but she doesn't remember any of that anymore. Sometimes Mary Shelley talks to her for some reason.
If you get the sense from this description that this movie has a lot going on, you are correct. I would say this movie is less than the sum of its parts, but I really enjoy several of those parts. Buckley is fantastic, and Annette Bening as Doctor Euphronius is delightful. The big dance number is fun. The movie has a lot of style and is sometimes cheekily anachronistic.
The various pieces don't ever really cohere; there are too many of them. And some of the pieces I enjoyed less, like the Overboard-style plot where our revived gal thinks she's still alive and was already married to Frank before her "accident." The subplot of her being occasionally literally possessed by Mary Shelley was just baffling to me. I get that it was supposed to be thematic, but: why. But, the movie tackles all its various tones and themes with a lot of energy and verve, and overall I found a lot to enjoy.
--
Send Help (2026). A frumpy woman who dreams of competing on Survivor crashlands on an island with her horrible boss.
This is a psychological thriller by Sam Raimi, and it took me a long time to go see it because ~suspense movies about people chasing each other around trying to kill each other aren't usually my thing. (See also: every home invasion movie except You're Next.) But! We don't really get that until the end, and in the meantime, Rachel McAdams is delightful as Linda Little, who's competent and helpful to a fault until she's finally pushed too far. I love how much of a glow-up Linda gets the longer they stay on the island. There were also some late developments that I really liked.
It's not breaking any new ground, but it's fun and well-executed. If you support women's wrongs(tm), I think you'll enjoy this.
(no subject)
Mar. 7th, 2026 12:33 pmtropicsbearLink nabbed from goodbyebird!
Botswana shows how smarter cattle herding can save lions, reopen ancient wildlife pathways
More than a decade later, the situation is radically different. The lion population has rebounded. Cub survival rate is up. And cattle losses are dramatically down. It’s the result of years of hard work: restoring traditional herding practices, collaring and tracking lions, and, most recently, establishing a market for ‘wildlife-friendly beef.’ This serves as a model, wildlife advocates say, for other parts of southern Africa where modern grazing practices have collided with big cats’ appetites.
This bit about naming the lions also got a laugh from me which I know I shouldn't have 😅 but it's very in line with my spiteful tendencies: As conflict persisted, some people gave them rough names like Kufakuduze, which means, ‘If you come for my cattle, I will find you.’
I hope Kufakuduze is alive and well.
Not breaking news, but still...
Mar. 6th, 2026 08:27 pmolivermoss* Also Jacob Tierney Gets Netflix Series Order For Alexander The Great & Aristotle Drama based on The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon
handy Dreamwidth tricks
Mar. 6th, 2026 07:37 pmsnickfic- via elasticella: If you'd like to filter by multiple tags, add them via comma with ?mode=all at the end. For example, all my recs posts also tagged with Oasis: https://snickfic.dreamwidth.org/tag/fandom:+oasis,entry:+recs?mode=all
- If you're a paid user, DW allows you to filter out specific tags by other users (for example, my "topic: politics" tag). It's just not easy to find. First you need to make an access filter and put the person on that filter, and then once they are in the filter, click on their name and all their tags will pop up.
One suggestion would be to make a filter with your entire circle in it, and then just take out the tags you don't want. Then that could be your default view of your circle.
How Did I Get Here?
Mar. 6th, 2026 07:52 pmyourlibrarian2) Had a nice piece of luck as well. The grocery was running a $10 coupon for $100 or more of purchases. I had to drop my partner off at work this morning because he had an all-day thing, and in the rush forgot to take the grocery list. So as I was putting stuff in the trunk I remembered I'd forgotten his celery. Went back and decided to pick up a few more things since I had the $10 coupon now. Got to the register and realized someone had left that same coupon sitting in the machine when they left! So I got the $10 off and still have my coupon for next week.
It amazes me how people don't bother taking their coupons. It's usually for things they're buying anyway and a free item is not unusual. And this was literally $10 in cash sitting there, when groceries are so expensive! I didn't even know what it was at first, just saw that someone hadn't taken their coupon and figured I'd look to see if it was something I could use.
3) Also on the grocery front, I have recently become addicted to Sumo oranges. Came across them during a sale, and got just one bag because they're pricey. Came back home with 3 the following week.
Oranges have never been my favorite, even though we had incredibly good ones growing in our backyard growing up. These are the closest I've gotten to those. I never end up eating only one.
3) As part of
marchmetamatterschallenge, I have been going through my tv_talk comments in case I discussed much about a show (mostly, no). However it was a good reminder about a great many shows I watched which I liked and would recommend, but might not think of if someone asked me.Some of these were strong throughout, and some long running ones have some weaker seasons but still worth watching. In no particular order, just as they came up on my entries: ( Read more... )
4) One of the things reviewing all these past posts made me aware of is how much more TV I'm watching, but overall with less enjoyment. Every so often I hit a show I would really recommend, but usually they fall into the "ok" category or I just nope out of it a few episodes in.
I think the changes in TV have a lot to do with this. ( Read more... )
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5
Want to leave a Kudos?
Mind of My Mind by Octavia E. Butler (1977)
Mar. 6th, 2026 08:46 pmpauraquespoilery thoughts
As I think about this book, a thought keeps arising: This book has no good guys. Mary is not a good guy. She is positioned as the protagonist because she opposes Doro, and in the world of the books Doro is, if not literally the worst person on Earth, at least the person with the most power to do the most harm over the longest period of time. He is a merciless sociopath who will not stop until he is the absolute ruler of humanity. Being a better person than him is a low, low bar.To be fair, Mary never intended to bring others under her control and she doesn't know how to stop it, and she at least has some conception of using her power to help others, even if only other telepaths. And yes, most telepaths were dying or succumbing to mental breakdowns before she set up a plan to help them. But she has no qualms about enslaving the mutes (non-telepaths) and using them as an underclass to serve her and the Patternists. Some characters voice concerns, but by that time it's basically too late, she's already consolidated her power and there's no going back.
Doro's downfall has the shape of classical tragedy, as his obsession with controlling others spectacularly backfires and rebounds on him. Everything he's been working towards points inevitably to this outcome, as he creates people with stronger and stronger powers while believing he would somehow remain in control of them. But he can't have it both ways. He's made Mary everything she is, and while she lacks his immortality, she has something he doesn't: followers who see her as a savior, who love her because she's made their lives better, not just because they're scared of her.
No reader is ever going to be sad about Doro finally being defeated, but his defeat means the triumph of a society where an enslaved majority serve a privileged minority. The best you can say for it is that power is shared with a sizeable elite rather than concentrated in one absolute despot. It's the victory of the lesser of two evils—emphasis on the evil. (And again, I am reminded of Kindred's chilling examination of "less bad" enslavers in real world history.)
There actually is one good guy in the book, though. Anyanwu (here called Emma) is a tertiary character. Of course, this was written before her character had been fully revealed in Wild Seed; I wonder how much Butler already knew about her? I'm not sure what I would have thought of her if this book were all I knew. This reading order emphasizes that the best Anyanwu could ever do was to fight Doro to a stalemate, and suggests that she could never defeat him in part because she wasn't ruthless enough. Unlike Mary, she wasn't born into his twisted world, and she has a moral code that goes beyond mere self-preservation. No wonder Mary can't stand her.
With this book I felt more of a sense of it being backstory to an existing work, setting up for what's to come. Which is exactly what it is—it was written as a prequel to the first-published book in the series. And Wild Seed was in turn a prequel to Mind of My Mind, but I got more of a stand-alone vibe from that one. I still do not actually know what eventually becomes of Doro and Mary's descendants, but I am guessing it doesn't go super great for humanity!
Recs for nice things + Cat News
Mar. 6th, 2026 08:18 pmerinptahSome recs:
Preorders are open for this comics anthology by Iranian cartoonists. Already got mine.
A long and thorough Megatokyo breakdown from an ex-fan. (“I think I hate it better than anyone else.”) The criticisms are well-founded and well-explained, so even though I have some nostalgic fondness for Megatokyo and I’m not on board with every criticism, I liked reading it anyway.
The Skyjacks podcast, an original fantasy actual-play series, was on my “to try” list for a while. Recently, I opened the RSS feed, scrolled to the bottom, downloaded the first few episodes…and was confused to realize that it was (a) picking up from an existing story and (b) set in the Star Wars universe?
Yeah, the same group of players did an extensive Star Wars fangame first, spinning off from a short Star Wars adventure in a different feed, then moved on to their own series and kept adding that to the same feed. It’s a good jumping-on point, though. I’m 11 episodes in and not stopping.
Got caught up with Sporadic Phantoms, which was the last new podcast I mentioned starting. It continues to be very good. There’s a big pivot in season 2, but I think they handled it well. And…the season isn’t finished, so now I’m on a cliffhanger. Fingers crossed they stick the landing.
Also watched season 2 of the Ranma 1/2 reboot. It had a lot more of the madcap Jenga-tower-of-connected-gags pacing that I was missing while watching s1, where the personalities are wildly pinballing off each other and if you look away for 30 seconds you’ll miss something great. My “they couldn’t fully do this in s1 because they were too busy establishing the characters” theory is panning out.
And I did end up rewatching Cosmic Princess Kaguya. Turns out it absolutely rewards a second watch. There’s one character who knows about The Reveal from the start, and the amount of “oh that’s what you meant, I see what you did there” is amazing.
Cat news: Vet checkup for Fiddlesticks the other day.
When she had dental problems last May, they said she was down from 7-ish pounds to 6-ish, and theorized “maybe she’s eating less because it hurts her teeth.” But the current visit said she’s 7-ish pounds…and said that she was already back to 7-ish pounds last July (the visit where she had the bad teeth out).
Wonder if their scale in May was just having problems.
She developed these two Mystery Bumps since the last visit — you can’t really see them, they’re pea-sized at most and have normal fur growing over them, it’s just something you can feel when petting her. Official vet analysis on those is “probably just cysts, could develop problems in the future, but as long as she isn’t messing with them, we won’t mess with them.”
And she’s not messing with them! Doesn’t seem to notice them at all.
Good job not having cancer, kitty.
Wednesday Reading Meme on a Friday - March 6 2026
Mar. 6th, 2026 07:06 pmkitewithfishWhat I’ve Read
And Other Poison Devils by Twig (https://archiveofourown.org/works/77727411) This one requires a little explanation.
So, last October, AMC did a new show in the Anne Rice cinematic universe that they’ve been building with Interview with the Vampire and The Mayfair Witches called, in full, Anne Rice's Talamasca: The Secret Order. I don’t recommend it – the show is weirdly heterosexual for a Rice-inspired tale, and for a spy story. They really do not delve deeply into the implication of having an untrained telepath as our main character. The show is so generic they literally named the main character Guy.
But! To you, dear reader, I am kinder than to myseI am a completionist and also a Bill Fichtner fan, so I watched Anne Rice's Talamasca: The Secret Order. It’s not great. It spends a great deal of time setting up Guy, and then all the payoff is for other characters who were introduced somewhat haphazardly. However, the extremely specific Guy has some great slashy scenes with The Vampire Jasper – it’s classic handsy male actors making intense eye contact from four inches apart, and it appealed to enough people that there is a little fandom built up about it, myself included. THIS FIC is fantastic – it picks up a number of threads the show dropped and weaves them into a compelling personal narrative of a young vulnerable man who falls into the hands of a powerful older man and dedicates himself to his cause – and of course, unlike the canon, it’s well written and they fuck. Great work, Highly recommend as well Twig’s shorter work, The Hunter and the Gun (https://archiveofourown.org/works/75005866) which is closer to canon and also deeply fun.
The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik – The final book in the Scholomance series, about how the main character takes down magic capitalism from the inside. It’s wonderful payoff on the world building of the series, and good character work, and my god, Maw Mouths are just so much more horrible on the re-read than they are the first
What I’m Reading
Sword Heart by T Kingfisher - an excellent fantasy romance. What if Geralt of Rivia was assigned to protect a busty older woman with shitty relatives?
Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die by Greer Stothers -Static
What I’ll Read Next
My Real Children Jo Walton
Sunshine Robin McKinley
Work in Progress
I finished my Sock Madness qualifier socks after the deadline, but with enough done to be a cheerleader. I think I'll call it a win!
Music Friday
Mar. 6th, 2026 02:49 pmmuccamukkI guess the joint tour is going well. This is the most wholesome fucking shit I've ever seen.
New fan's first trade deadline
Mar. 6th, 2026 02:40 pmolivermossWe now have a McMann in addition to our McCann, and Ryden Evers in addition to our Ryker Evans? Front office, what did our announcers do to deserve this? I mean, outside of all the things they have done. KHN is a bit chaotic.
To think when the season started I was excited over the idea of a Nikke Kokko call up so we'd have a Nikke Kokko and a Kaapo Kakko in the same game. Still hasn't happened! Kokko is a strong goalie prospect so he will get some NHL ice time coming up, but calling up a goalie is very different from calling up a skater.
Also, people telling us to not worry over who McMann might be edging out, he's a bottom sixer... probably on our fourth line... Dear god, y'all do not understand how Kraken fans feel about our fourth line.
* Our fourth liners are mostly our own, home grown draft picks developed on our own farm. We are a baby team. We don't have many developed in house yet.
* Our team's very streaky runs this year map *very* tightly to whether our fourth line is in order or we've lost key members to injury or roster moves.
* Our fourth line has Melanson. The team, our broadcast team, and the fandom... which of these three groups is actually more into Melly? Eddie Olczyk, former player NHL player and also former Pens coach, is on our broadcast team and he's yelled that we should field him every game more than I have
I get that this is baffling to fans of... pretty much every team. Rangers just found out how we feel about our home grown fourth liners when they grabbed Kartye on waivers, our undrafted sometimes-call-up.
Also, if he clicks with us, it sounds like he'd be more of a middle sixer? We also haven't announced re-signings of most of our pending UFAs and RFAs. McMann is also a pending UFA, but if someone doesn't re-sign we could look at him as a replacement. We've got the cap space for where he's expected to sign in free agency. Kraken's big announcement today was posting the re-signing of our team captain for two more years, full NTC, which means he's probably retiring here. That and most of who is staying and not is likely already set, just not announced/recorded yet.
[FFXIV Fic] Harsh Light, Chapter 9: Of Your Friend's Deliverance
Mar. 6th, 2026 10:46 amanneapocalypse
Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Haurchefant Greystone/Warrior of Light, Alphinaud Leveilleur & Warrior of Light, Unrequited Minfilia Warde/Warrior of Light, Unrequited Aymeric de Borel/Warrior of Light, Pre-Urianger Augurelt/Warrior of Light, Alisaie Leveilleur & Warrior of Light, Warrior of Light & Thancred Waters, Y'shtola Rhul & Warrior of Light, Midgardsormr & Warrior of Light, Hydaelyn & Warrior of Light, Urianger Augurelt & Warrior of Light, Minfilia Warde & Warrior of Light, Ardbert & Warrior of Light
Characters: Warrior of Light, Haurchefant Greystone, Alphinaud Leveilleur, Urianger Augurelt, Y'shtola Rhul, Thancred Waters, Emmanellain de Fortemps, Artoirel de Fortemps, Edmont de Fortemps, Alisaie Leveilleur, Minfilia Warde, Midgardsormr (Final Fantasy XIV), Tataru Taru, Ardbert (Final Fantasy XIV), Warriors of Darkness (Final Fantasy XIV), Scions of the Seventh Dawn, Unukalhai (Final Fantasy XIV)
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Survivor Guilt, Elezen Warrior of Light, Female Warrior of Light, Healer Warrior of Ligh, Angst, Suicidal Thoughts, Religious Angst, Depression, Patch 3.0: Heavensward Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Patch 3.4: Soul Surrender Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Canon-Typical Violence
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 44,229/ 82,000
Chapter: 9/15
Summary:
A heartbroken Warrior of Light struggles to come to terms with loss, and the world she has been left to save.
Notes:
If you're new here, please start with Chapter 1!
Final Fantasy XIV is owned by Square Enix. This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction.
( Read on AO3 )
( ...or below! )
Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Divining Destiny: Flight of Freedom
Mar. 5th, 2026 08:21 pmsenmutChapters: 3/3
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Ensemble
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, Fratricide, Murder, flashfic, Cross-Posted from Archive Of Our Own (AO3), Time Travel
Summary:
Vierna is Betrayed
Divining Destiny: Flight for Freedom
Vierna came alert from the dream with a chill on her spine. Things had been going so well ever since she had managed to give Drizzt a chance to live elsewhere.
Her Lord was the only reason she dreamed at all, which meant the dream was a portent that she had to divine the meaning of quickly. With a flicker of her will, she sent her current messenger spider, one of the line from her father's gift to her so long ago, to fetch him to her. While she did that, she cleared her mind to take up the spells of hiding that she had lived under, ever since the Masked God chose her as His priestess.
Zaknafein was waiting when she came up from the prayers, sitting calmly opposite her — and a barrier to anything else that would have dared enter the Matron's chambers.
"Something has shifted, and we are now in danger," Vierna signed to him. "Invite your lover to take those of our people he wishes. You and I, any you trust explicitly, will use the gathering paths to leave this city."
"You are certain?"
Vierna's mouth set in a grim line for a long moment. "Only that the hiding spell is known to me from childhood allowed me to take it, I think. She is seeking His influence in the city now."
"Be at the portal by the time for evening meal; I will have all things in motion," Zak told her firmly.
For better or worse, House Do'Urden in Menzoberranzan would be abandoned to the Spider Queen, but personal survival was prized above all else, for most drow, and Vierna was typical in that regard.
Dinin sat in the safe house of Bregan D'Aerthe with his head in his hands, still mulling over everything. He was grateful to the Weapon Master for making this opportunity appear, but he was at a loss for what would be expected now that he was without a House.
Jarlaxle, leader of the mercenary company, sat beside him, uncovered eye surveying those few men he had chosen to bring into the band. He wasn't very pleased; Vierna Do'Urden had been opening avenues to the cunning man for years now.
"It is done."
"She — they did make it out, yes?" Dinin asked, looking over.
"That actually matters to you," Jarlaxle said, and he looked pleased with that awareness. "Yes, they did. And to spare the rest, their meal was laced with poison, courtesy of my sense of mercy."
Dinin pondered that. When the Matrons of the ruling council moved to end the heresy, they would have tortured the commoners to learn all they could. The loyalty of the fighters would have pushed them to fight even without knowing where their matron was. The changes that Vierna had brought about in the House had made them all stronger, but…
… it was the kind of strength that was not allowed.
"Send me to one of your outposts, with some of my people and any of yours you trust to keep me under your eye." Dinin drew in all of his own cunning, ambition, and pride. "I live, and serving you is damn sure better than being dead or in the clutches of a different House."
"I have just the place for you," Jarlaxle said, smiling. "And I think you will thrive in our network."
Zaknafein inspected the house that had been procured in Rilauven, checking it over for any and all possible traps. When he at last came to Vierna, who was just settling back from prayer, she looked fatigued but content.
"With only ten to support us, it's not the most defensible place, but we can make it work," Zak told her.
"We will have more in time," Vierna promised him. "We still have enough gems to set ourselves on the path of growth."
"Once I am satisfied one of the fighters is able enough to defend in my absence, I will take up the offered contract at their school."
"Mother's manner of salves are unknown here, from all I can learn. That is another avenue of income." Vierna reached for his hands, and he gave them. "Thank you, for having faith in me."
"Nothing else to do when my own daughter proved she was not lost," he said quietly. "Will you be able to scry Drizzt now?"
Vierna sighed, shaking her head. "I had no luck, but then the prayers are still shrouded."
Zak frowned, but if the gods wanted to war on each other, he didn't care; he'd rather they left drow alone. "At least you being so high in favor, even with Him weakened, means you shouldn't be tested too soon."
"So I think, yes."
Vhaeraun sighed melodramatically as Eilistraee finally managed to pull the poisoned chelicerae out of His abdomen.
"You should have made it clear You wished aid long before now," Eilistraee scolded, putting the large pincers into the waiting darkflame to destroy them. "What happened?"
He considered how to answer as Her hands moved back to the wound, bringing healing and soothing the unending agony He had been inflicted with since the attack.
"One of the junior clerics My priestess had sent to learn in Her temple betrayed My priestess by thought. I managed to warn her, just before My realm was swarmed by Her abyssal spiders.
"I believe She'd already glimpsed My influence building." He grimaced with distaste for losing the first real foothold He'd made in that city.
"She will be on guard for reprisals," Eilistraee mused. "You must be careful, My Twin."
"When am I not, My dear Sister?" he asked in mocking tones, before lying back to let Her finish the healing He needed. She let Him rest, considering all of this, and how it might backlash upon Her own people.
"My priestess is safe, with her father, in one of the cities I hold more strongly," He said. "I chose well with her, even if this did not work the way I wished."
"Just don't go becoming enamored of her, Brother. My Nephew is enough trouble."
Vhaeraun laughed, bitterly, but nodded at the warning. He did enjoy such pleasures, but this priestess was too important, in His limited foresight, to risk that with.
Star Wars Fic and Meta - From All The Spaces Between Times - Chapter 74
Mar. 5th, 2026 05:05 pmelrhiarhodanChapter: Chapter 74 — The Winds Blowing Now Are the Winds That Blew Then Too
Author:
elrhiarhodan / Fandom: Star Wars, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars — Obi Wan Kenobi (TV), Star Wars — Jedi Apprentice Books
Characters Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn, Shmi Skywalker, Anakin Skywalker, The Force as a Sentient Character, Watto, Quinlan Vos, Padmé Amidala, Sabé, Darth Maul, Yoda, Mace Windu, Adi Gallia, Quinlan Vos, Professor Huyang, The Force, Plo Koon, Vokara Che, Siri Tachi, Aayla Secura, Bant Eerin, Bruck Chun, Xanatos du Crion, Sheev Palpatine | Darth Sidious, Hego Damask II | Darth Plagueis, Komari Vosa, Bail Prestor Organa, Breha Organa, Bail Antilles Prestor, Rael Averross, Nim Piana, Ahsoka Tano, Sifo-Dyas, Reva Sevander, Lene Kostana (mentioned), Savage Opress, Pong Krell, The Traitor, Original Characters, Other Characters To Be Added
Pairings: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Shmi Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Qui-Gon Jinn, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan/Qui-Gon Jinn (yes, we’re arrived). Bail Prestor Organa/Breha Organa
Word Count: ~ 4000 this chapter
Spoilers: None
Warnings/Enticements/Triggers: None
Summary: Obi-Wan Kenobi has never known it, but he has always been the Force’s Champion, destined to suffer infinite sadness in defense of the Light. On his last turn on the wheel, responsibility for The Chosen One, the false child of prophecy, had been thrust upon him with no warning, and Darkness held the upper hand.
But this time, the Force has marshaled its power and will protect its Champion until the time is right, no matter how long Obi-Wan has to wait and how much he has to suffer.
Or,
Obi-Wan is reborn as a twelve-year old.
He wakes up on a slavers’ ship, with all of his prior life’s memories intact, and he’s bound for Tatooine with a Force-inhibitor collar around his neck, a bomb implanted in his spine, and no way of knowing what state of the Galaxy is in.
Just another day in the life of the Force’s Champion.
Chapter Summary:
Quinlan Vos returns to the Temple with the Tython-One and the High Council can confirm that it was a Temple Guard who planted the transmitter, and that the Guard is Fallen and thinks of himself as a Sith.
And so the search for the Traitor begins.
From All The Spaces Between Times: Chapter 74 — The Winds Blowing Now Are the Winds That Blew Then Too (On AO3)
( Meta — The Winds Blowing Now Are the Winds That Blew Then Too )
- character: aayla secura,
- character: adi gallia,
- character: agrippa aldrete,
- character: ahsoka tano,
- character: anakin skywalker,
- character: antilles prestor,
- character: bail prestor,
- character: bant eerin,
- character: breha organa,
- character: bruck chun,
- character: cin drallig,
- character: darth maul,
- character: darth plagueis,
- character: darth sidious,
- character: dooku,
- character: force kittens,
- character: hego damask ii,
- character: komari vosa,
- character: mace windu,
- character: nim pianna,
- character: obi-wan kenobi,
- character: original characters,
- character: padme amidala,
- character: plo koon,
- character: pong krell,
- character: professor huyang,
- character: quarsh panaka,
- character: qui-gon jinn,
- character: quinlan vos,
- character: rael averross,
- character: reva sevander,
- character: rori the force avatar,
- character: sabe,
- character: saja edea,
- character: savage opress,
- character: sheev palpatine,
- character: shmi skywalker,
- character: sifo-dyas,
- character: siri tachi,
- character: the force,
- character: the traitor,
- character: vokara che,
- character: watto,
- character: xanatos du crion,
- character: yaddle,
- character: yoda,
- genre: alternative universe,
- genre: angst,
- genre: hurt/comfort,
- genre: jedi culture,
- genre: padawan culture,
- genre: reunion,
- genre: slavefic,
- genre: temple culture,
- genre: time travel,
- meme: dvd commentary,
- movie: star wars,
- movie: star wars — tpm,
- type: fan fiction,
- type: longfic,
- type: meta,
- year: 2026
(no subject)
Mar. 5th, 2026 09:21 pmtropicsbearThe director's commentary for The VVitch is apparently a lot of Robert Eggers bashing his own movie for the most specific and/or tiniest period-inaccurate details. (For example, he actually considered having the holes of Anya Taylor-Joy's ear piercings CGI'ed out of the movie.)
I think my favorite line in this was, "Our goats are incorrect." 😂 Sir, one of the goats is Satan.
Endings in sight
Mar. 5th, 2026 07:56 amrmc28The university hockey season is nearly over. Huskies have played our last league game (I say 'our' but I was actually playing with Warbirds in a different city at the time), Varsity is coming up Saturday week, and then there's Nationals in April before we move into summer ice training. We had our Varsity dinner on Tuesday in Clare College and I became sharply aware during that evening that all things come to an end and some people will graduate this summer and leave. This is a university, people are always arriving and leaving, but it's nearly thirty years since I first arrived in Cambridge and I'm still not used to friends leaving.
I love everyone in this photograph (and a couple more teammates who didn't make it to the dinner).
Varsity: Saturday 14 March, tickets go on general sale at noon today, I didn't make the Huskies ("mixed 2nds") Varsity squad but I'm playing in the alumni game and helping out with (at least) Huskies and Women's Blues.
AO3 downtime info + reflection post
Mar. 5th, 2026 02:09 amerinptahAs a lot of y’all probably noticed, AO3 had some extended downtime this past weekend.
They upgraded their database software on Saturday. The first crash happened with Sunday-evening traffic. AD&T (the committee of OTW volunteers who manage the AO3 software) painstakingly nursed the servers back onto their feet. Then they crashed again under Monday-evening traffic. (I’m describing this in US time zones, because it correlated with “the spike when USians get out of school/work and start opening fic en masse.”)
Official AO3 social-media posts haven’t named the software. I assumed because it’s a third-party vendor, and they (very reasonably!) don’t want the place getting deluged with angry emails from AO3’s wankiest users. But at this point, there’s other public confirmation that it’s MariaDB.
AO3’s public Jira board had two new tickets created while they were dealing with the downtime. There’s a helpful breakdown of the tech implications by siropsalot on Bluesky. In short:
“Audits cleanup job” – AO3 has been storing certain logs in a single giant table that updates forever and never gets archived or cleared, which is fine if you’re a small or low-traffic project, but bad if you’re one of the top 100 highest-traffic sites on the internet. (This is part of a long pattern of AO3 being, ah, poorly-designed for the scale of traffic it gets.) This ticket is to create a regular clearing-up process.
“Patch Devise to prevent excessive audits” – One specific user has a buggy older browser, which generated over 2 million entries in the giant table just for them. This ticket is to patch against that specific edge case.
(Denise was pretty alarmed by the first one, because the proposed fix might delete data the OTW is legally required to keep. That’s a tangent, this is mostly a post about the tech problems, I’m just throwing it in because it seems worth knowing.)
MariaDB also has a public Jira board. Which documents this bug in the version of the software that AO3 just upgraded to: ““Local temporary space limit reached” on not so rare occasions.”
AD&T brought the site back up on Tuesday. It’s been safely up ever since. My understanding is, it stayed up after tech support from MariaDB helped them troubleshoot and implement a workaround for that issue.
Disclaimer that I am not a programmer! Someone more technical might come along and correct me on this! AD&T is working on an official postmortem — hopefully after they catch up on some well-deserved sleep — which will be way more illuminating than anything I can figure out in the meantime.
But my impression right now is that “AO3 software has problems with huge poorly-managed piles of data” ran headlong into “MariaDB upgrade has problems with not allocating certain operations enough space,” and it went about as well as a 12′ truck trying to drive under the 11’8″ bridge.
(Except in this case it’s a more normal bridge, where safely-loaded trucks usually pass under it with no problem, while AO3 is…I guess a truck with an extra 5 feet of clearance, caused by a wobbly pile of stuff held on top of it with a precarious set of bungee cords?) (It’s not a perfect analogy, okay. But you get the point.)
Post and Jam: We're Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time) by Trooper [1977]
Mar. 4th, 2026 07:36 pmdelphiI'm trying another March to March round of Fandom 50 (the challenge where you try to make fifty themed posts in a year), and this time around I thought I'd focus on Canadian music. As a bit of extra fun for myself, I'm going to try to find one song I love per year from the past fifty years—and as it happens, 1977 gave us one of my all-time faves.
We're Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time) by Trooper
(no subject)
Mar. 4th, 2026 06:28 pmolivermossBut, I did stay for a while tonight and watched 45 minutes of red hot ice-repair-action. There was a hole in the ice. The repair kept not holding. Shortly after the teams went back to the locker rooms I decided to just ditch and go home. It was standing-room only so I couldn't even sit there and work on some writing.
It's Been a Weird Day
Mar. 4th, 2026 01:58 pmyourlibrarianmarchmetamatterschallenge has begun! I'm particularly excited this year since I will finally come current with my meta archiving. I'm already finished with 2024 and should finish 2025 by tomorrow. One thing I hope is to do more writing this year.2) The February CheckIn at
everykindofcraft has gotten a lot of responses. It's interesting to hear all the different ways that people have learned these skills.3) In less good news, a bunch of RSS feeds seem to have stopped working. The AO3 vids feed hasn't updated in weeks (so unlikely to be AO3's recent issues), and 4 feeds from Tumblr have stopped as well, though it seems only 2 have been updating lately. It's definitely not the feed service, because at least 3 other feeds I have set up have updated within the last few days. I'm wondering if Tumblr is somehow blocking RSS feeds now?
I also feel like there are people's posts that I have missed though I am less sure about that.
3) I was waiting for a cashier and there were 3 women and 2 small girls ahead of me. The two little girls were racing around everywhere, grabbing things and then having them put back by the women. It was all taking some time, and the squealing was getting on my nerves. But then one grabbed an Easter Bunny and told her mom she wanted it.
The mom asked the cashier if it was solid or hollow, and was told it was hollow (which seemed most likely to me given its size and price!) The little girl then asked what "hollow" was, and her mom struggled to explain it, finally saying "It has a hole inside it." The little girl then said "I'll put it back and get another." We all burst out laughing as her mom then tried to explain that the bunny wasn't defective, it was just the way it was made.
4) So it looks like Paramount will fold HBO into its service. I expect that will put paid to its bundling with Disney services, though it does make it more likely we'll keep Paramount+ around post-The Late Show cancellation. At this point the U.S. looks like it's going to have 3 major streamers, a number of secondary streamers (in which I include Peacock) and a vast number of tiny streamers.
5) Never posted here that I finished the latest season of Strange New Worlds. Thought it somewhat better than earlier seasons, despite the way it started, though I find it a bit jarring to see TOS episodes essentially revised for use here. The finale seemed a cross between Rey at the end of the Skywalker saga and ST:TOS's Lazarus episode. ( Read more... )
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PSA
Mar. 4th, 2026 04:55 pmgossPlease consider access-locking your entries for now, to honour her wishes.
Hugs to all of you. <333
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In Memphis, on Valentine's Day
Mar. 4th, 2026 12:22 pmsovay