ceb's Big Log

Dear Yulegoat,

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


General likes/dislikes:

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

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

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

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

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

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


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

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


Fandom: Powerpuff Girls
Characters: Space Towtruck

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

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


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

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

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

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

I have hexagons! Also a large weight lifted now the house is largely back together. Although I haven't found the contents of the spice cupboards yet. A couple of photos here: https://wandering.shop/@molybdomantic/114194784278529588

I have an ADHD diagnosis! I had to write an extra essay to cover all the things that the little-boy-centred diagnostic forms leave out, but I found an extremely helpful psychiatrist-convincing article covering those things: https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/gender-differences-in-adhd-and-their-clinical-implications (this article counts as CPD for American psychiatrists) and my stressful childhood-obsessed psychiatrist actually read it so maybe he'll be better to the next person like me.

The MS drugs seem to be doing their thing as far as we can tell, I've got an MRI appointment to see how my brain is doing.

I'm in the middle of getting assessed for ADHD at the moment, having been referred a year ago. It's extremely clear to me, my family, and my friends with ADHD that I have ADHD, and I would quite like to try the otherwise-unobtainable drugs please.

However I have been assigned a psychiatrist who is obsessed with the "you have to have shown clear signs before age 12" part of the definition. Which, that's in both the DSM and ICD definitions so you can't really complain. However I was a load-bearing emotionally-and-academically intelligent oldest child in a chaotic household (think ADHD and alcoholism) so I was great at school and I've been masking since forever.

Anyway, this is not a long post, but it's so fucking frustrating that people are gate-keeping such a narrow definition based on hyperactive little boys.

Usual annual WGT band mini-reviews.

Declared prejudices: I generally like goth, punk/horrorpunk/psychobilly, 80s, pirates, and the near end of metal, electronica, EBM, industrial. Also weirdo up-itself French/Spanish noodling with drums, for some reason I cannot adequately explain.

I generally do not like folk/mittelalter, indie, noise, the noisy end of electronica &c., the beepy/clubby ends of electronica &c., the washing-machine/sore-throat/hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can ends of metal. So if you like those things, take my reviews with a pinch of salt and listen to the bands anyway. (Also while I generally like classical, it's not what I go to WGT for, so I tend to skim over classical artists.)

When I say unqualified 'trad' I mean trad goth.

https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/forumwgt3/viewtopic.php?t=26134

( band reviews beneath )

Usual annual WGT band mini-reviews.

Declared prejudices: I generally like goth, punk/horrorpunk/psychobilly, 80s, pirates, and the near end of metal, electronica, EBM, industrial. Also weirdo up-itself French/Spanish noodling with drums, for some reason I cannot adequately explain.

I generally do not like folk/mittelalter, indie, noise, the noisy end of electronica &c., the beepy/clubby ends of electronica &c., the washing-machine/sore-throat/hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can ends of metal. So if you like those things, take my reviews with a pinch of salt and listen to the bands anyway. (Also while I generally like classical, it's not what I go to WGT for, so I tend to skim over classical artists.)

https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/forumwgt3/viewtopic.php?t=25448

( band reviews beneath )

Dear Yulegoat,

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


General likes/dislikes:

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

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

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

DNW: No 2023 real-world politics please (e.g., no rising fascism, no real wars, no TERFery, no disintegrating climate doom).

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

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


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

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


Fandom: The Saint of Steel - T. Kingfisher
Characters: Shane, Galen, Istvhan, Stephen

Please, give me more of paladins being gently exasperating to everyone around them (including other paladins) in such a lovable way that you can't even tell them to stop. I just adore those big, angsty, kind-hearted, heavily-armoured, gingerbread-scented goofs.

This is the fandom where I mind least about plot or worldbuilding. Some notable event could be going on, or everyone could just be playing cards and drinking beer; as long as paladins are being gently and adorably exasperating then I will be very happy. Also you do not need to include all the nominated characters; feel free to focus on any of the nominated paladins (individually or in combinations) if you'd prefer to, and to bring in any of the other characters you'd like to.



Fandom: Paranoia (Roleplaying Game)
Characters: Worldbuilding

I love everything about this game; I love the Brazil-esque computer bureaucratic ludicrousness, the Catch-22 logic gotchas, the constant secrecy and doublethink, the accusations and the in-fighting and the pointlessness of trying to achieve anything sensible. Ideas? The computer's daily to-do list. The top secret recruitment manual for a secret society. The complex machinations required to do even such a simple task as making a sandwich. An insight into the life of an Alpha Complex filing clerk or the person who runs the morgue. Some great work of literature after it has been through the Computer's censorship programs. Ingenious solutions to impossible problems set by the Computer. A secret society devoted to celebrating Christmas. Fun! Adventure! Mystery! Dead clones!


Fandom: Powerpuff Girls
Characters: Space Towtruck

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

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

Our oak tree seems to be developing a lot of knopper galls. I am wondering whether I have the grip to try making ink, and/or whether anyone else I know in the UK would like some to have a go with later in the year...

People in the UK, there's a giant health study recruiting:

https://ourfuturehealth.org.uk/

From their website "Our Future Health aims to be the UK’s largest ever health research programme. It is designed to help people live healthier lives for longer through the discovery and testing of more effective approaches to prevention, earlier detection, and treatment of diseases."

Participation involves a bunch of online questionnaires and optionally going to be measured and have blood taken. Measurement clinics are all over, they have mobile clinics and appointments in various Boots'. Relevantly to people near me there are finally appointments available in Cambridge, at the Newmarket Rd Boots.

Usual annual WGT band mini-reviews.

Declared prejudices: I generally like goth, punk/horrorpunk/psychobilly, 80s, pirates, and the near end of metal, electronica, EBM, industrial. Also weirdo up-itself French/Spanish noodling with drums, for some reason I cannot adequately explain.

I generally do not like folk/mittelalter, indie, noise, the noisy end of electronica &c., the beepy/clubby ends of electronica &c., the washing-machine/sore-throat/hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can ends of metal. So if you like those things, take my reviews with a pinch of salt and listen to the bands anyway. (Also while I generally like classical, it's not what I go to WGT for, so I tend to skim over classical artists.)

https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/forumwgt3/viewtopic.php?t=25448

( band reviews beneath )

Dear Yulegoat,

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


General likes/dislikes:

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

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

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

DNW: No 2021 real-world politics please (e.g., no Covid, no Brexit, no TERFery, no disintegrating climate doom).

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

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


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

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


Fandom: Temple of the White Rat Universe - T. Kingfisher
Characters: Shane, Galen, Istvhan, Stephen

Please, give me more of paladins being gently exasperating to everyone around them (including other paladins) in such a lovable way that you can't even tell them to stop. I just adore those big, angsty, kind-hearted, heavily-armoured, gingerbread-scented goofs.

This is the fandom where I mind least about plot or worldbuilding. Some notable event could be going on, or everyone could just be playing cards and drinking beer; as long as paladins are being gently and adorably exasperating then I will be very happy. Also you do not need to include all the nominated characters; feel free to focus on any of the nominated paladins (individually or in combinations) if you'd prefer to.


Fandom: Phoenix Extravagant - Yoon Ha Lee
Characters: Worldbuilding

I would love to hear more about the capabilities of the magical pigments, and in particular I would love to hear about attempts to make them less destructive and more sustainable, whether they are attempts by Jebi and Arazi, or people later in the history of the world.


Fandom: The Order of the Stick
Characters: Vaarsuvius

Vaarsuvius is my problematic fave; they are an arrogant, overly-verbose, clever-clogs, pompous arse, but I love them anyway. They're learning humility as the full consequences of their misguided evil pact hits them. However I would be delighted if you took me back to those pre-humility days and showed me V. dealing with a lower-stakes problem in their own special way. Maybe escapades at Magic Academy (or wherever they learned) - I bet V. even managed to be insufferable in their lab book and exam papers. I've been re-reading Frankenstein, and Frankenstein's incredibly self-centred university career feels very like V. to me. Or a tale from the early adventures of the Order where V.'s magic saves or hinders the party.

Extra request for this fandom: please keep elves mysteriously-gendered as in canon.


Fandom: Paranoia (Roleplaying Game)
Characters: Worldbuilding

I adore this game; I love the Brazil-esque computer bureaucratic ludicrousness, the Catch-22 logic gotchas, the constant secrecy and doublethink, the accusations and the in-fighting and the pointlessness of trying to achieve anything sensible. Ideas? The computer's daily to-do list. The top secret recruitment manual for a secret society. The complex machinations required to do even such a simple task as making a sandwich. An insight into the life of an Alpha Complex filing clerk or the person who runs the morgue. Some great work of literature after it has been through the Computer's censorship programs. Ingenious solutions to impossible problems set by the Computer. A secret society devoted to celebrating Christmas. Fun! Adventure! Mystery! Dead clones!


Fandom: Dwarf Fortress
Characters: Worldbuilding

Oh how I adore this game, with its ludicrous combination of simulationism and gaping holes. It is my very favourite spectator sport. Tell me a tale of dwarven bards roaming the fortresses, declaiming poems with incredibly complex auto-generated forms. Of elves and their strange snobbery about wood. Of the problems of surviving in a fortress beset by reanimating corpses. Or just encrust everything with gems and make it menace with spikes...

I've currently got a book in the Ferens Gallery Open Exhibition (which has been closed since the start of lockdown). However they've put up an online version of the exhibion here: http://humbermuseums.com/exhibitions/ferens-2020-open-exhibition/ in which you can see my book at #117.

Things which have been saving my sanity, in no particular order:

* we adopted Jacob, he lives in our house now (for a few hours on a Monday)

* books, notably _A Memory Called Empire_, _The Angel of the Crows, _Gideon the Ninth_, all of which are excellent

* Pokemon Go

* the garden game

* wine

* making masks, which makes me feel useful and gets me out of the house (to the postbox but then I tend to keep walking once they're posted): https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/809182992/handmade-reusable-face-masks-adult-size and https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/840455801/handmade-reusable-face-masks-adult-size

* The Quacks of Qedlinburg

* art plans

* Worldcon (I hope)

I have been musing about/mourning the things I really miss, one of which (the one I'm least likely to get back any time soon) is gigs. But tonight I discovered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UziJgInAFO0/ , not quite contemperaneously but soon enough to feel like a part of the thing, and it's not as good as a real gig, but it's pretty good. I sat in the dark and bopped.

* embroidery
* Ocado order
* bank details to V
* chopped up some tree

Usual annual WGT band mini-reviews.

Declared prejudices: I generally like goth, punk/horrorpunk/psychobilly, 80s, pirates, and the near end of metal, electronica, EBM, industrial. Also weirdo up-itself French/Spanish noodling with drums, for some reason I cannot adequately explain.

I generally do not like folk/mittelalter, indie, noise, the noisy end of electronica &c., the beepy/clubby ends of electronica &c., the washing-machine/sore-throat/hit-it-as-fast-as-you-can ends of metal. So if you like those things, take my reviews with a pinch of salt and listen to the bands anyway. (Also while I generally like classical, it's not what I go to WGT for, so I tend to skim over classical artists.)

https://www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/forumwgt3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=25199

( band reviews beneath )

I've been making books. Would anyone like one? This particular set are... learning exercises. I'm quite pleased with them, they're functional and nice notebooks, but they're not up to standard for selling or exhibiting. Flaws (which may well not bother you) are: endpapers are a bit lumpy, the pages are not always nicely aligned with the covers (the green one is worst), I've not quite got the hang of marbled edges so there's a tiny bit staining to the edges of pages and there are some grey smudges in the marbled patterns. (Some pages may also be stuck together but you should be able to gently pull them apart.)

The blue one's already spoken for. Would anyone like one of the others? Free to a good home; I'm happy to post if you paypal me the postage cost.





ETA: All gone!

Dear Yuletide author,

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


General likes/dislikes:

I would prefer gen fic for all the fandoms I've nominated, though plot-relevant sex is fine if that's where your plot needs to go. I don't mind whether I get a happy ending or not. I prefer bittersweet to crushing doom (though if you want to write appropriately epic crushing doom for Gloryhammer then knock yourself out :-). Bittersweet and/or ambiguous endings are a thing I love very much.

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

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

DNW: No real-world politics please.

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

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


Fandom 1: The Dundaxian Codex - Gloryhammer (Albums)
Characters: Any

I am in love with this unashamedly epic fantasy metal. It's tongue-in-cheek but in a "let us take this and make it GLORIOUS" way, not a poking fun way. It has evil wizards and mighty generational hero clans and zombie space unicorns. It reminds me of the delightfully awful Victorian poet William McGonagall (it turns out that's not even slightly accidental and he's a major influence).

I would love back-story fic for this. How did Zargothrax get so evil? Who froze the Frozen Princess? (These questions may be related.) Epic battles of the Knights of Crail (5 times they won gloriously + 1 time the Chaos Wizards wiped the floor with them). Tales of the endless line of Angus McFifes, scandinavian saga-style. Training manuals for the Knights of Crail (12 Steps To A Secure Eagle Harness).

Whatever you do, have fun, and keep it epic. \m/

Some links you might find helpful:
http://dundaxiancodex.wikia.com/wiki/Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXl5x1edtRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXSDPoWeXIg


Fandom 2: Stacking (Video Game)
Characters: Any

Stacking is a delightful puzzle game with an unusual mechanic. All the people in it are matryoshka dolls, and you, the protgonist, are a littlest matryoshka doll. Every character has its own special ability (e.g. flying, picking up heavy objects, unlocking doors, screaming alarmingly) and if you stack yourself inside the appropriate matryoshka doll you can use that ability.

I'm really fascinated by the mechanic here. How does this world *work*? Is it all an awful capitalist nightmare of renting out your body? Or is it a happy share-and-share-alike community? What does consent look like? What's it like to have your body borrowed? Are both consciousnesses still in there? How do you maintain friendships and relationships if the body you're talking to might be someone different today? What kinds of social mores grow up in a society like this? (If you wanted to write me an etiquette manual or an advice column for a Stacking society I would be all over it.)

The game aesthetic is slightly-steampunky visuals and a plot driven by Victorian capitalism and exploitation of child labour. I would be very happy for you to lose the setting and to write the mechanic in a different setting (particularly if you'd like to write a non-capitalist non-nightmare and that makes it easier! ;-)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stacking_(video_game)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0JeFGCNy6M


Fandom 3: Spaceteam (Video Game)
Characters: Any

Spaceteam desribes itself as a "collaborative shouting game" and it is ridiculous fun. You and a team of friends attempt to pilot a spaceship. You have a bunch of weirdly-named controls and a set of instructions flash up. They're not all things you can do, though, and you don't know who has that particular control, so you end up shouting instructions out for others to follow. Meanwhile you have to deal with asteroid fields, disintegrating control panels, attacks of green goo, wormholes, distortions in spacetime, and a variety of other distractions.

This video shows the interface: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymwSbxUDtTw
and this one gives a good idea of what gameplay is actually like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp9DXfljDt4

I would love a story of a space journey in a universe where this is how spaceships work. Is the flight desk complete chaos, or do the engineers have their green goo wipes and screwdrivers ready to hand to fix problems at a moment's notice? What's it like to be a pilot or an officer on a ship like this? What are the spaceship manuals like? Are they incredibly dry or do they also flip sections and lose pages without warning? Does the rest of the universe work like this too, or just the spaceships?


Thank you and have a lovely Yuletide!

I have a few things saved up to post about but just quickly here's diziet's adventures in game board design and manufacture:

https://diziet.dreamwidth.org/2320.html

Recently I went to see the absolutely superb _The War of the Worlds_ by Rhum and Clay and Isley Lynn at the New Diorama in Camden. Linkies:
https://twitter.com/newdiorama/status/1089472984874713089 (trailer video)
https://www.newdiorama.com/whats-on/the-war-of-the-worlds
http://www.rhumandclay.com/

The production is partly about the Wells story, partly about Orson Welles' adaptation of it, and partly about a podcaster trying to uncover the story of her friend's mum's War-of-the-Worlds-related estrangement from her family. It has a cast of four playing a variety of parts, a very sparse set, and about a dozen props total. Everything from an alien invasion to an alien-invasion-themed diner is portrayed through highly competent physical theatre. The narrative moves seamlessly between modern day and the 1930s to explore the links between fiction, news, and fake news, as well as how stories get distorted, how and why people lie, what the algorithms tell you, and what it means to be true anyway. I loved the whole thing, but favourite parts included four people playing Orson Welles at once, and 1930s and 2010s versions of the news reporting from the scene of the invasion. Fantastic stuff!

Apparently January is the month of SF theatre.

I'm going to see The War of the Worlds (NB new play with the same name as &c. &c.) at 19:30 on Wednesday 30th January at the New Diorama Theatre in London (near Great Portland Street). It's unassigned seating, so if you want to come too then book yourself a ticket.

https://www.newdiorama.com/whats-on/the-war-of-the-worlds

and a review:
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/jan/11/the-war-of-the-worlds-review-new-diorama-theatre-london-fake-news-orson-welles


R.U.R. was pretty good. It's very 1920s SF, robots rise up and destroy their creators, as you do. The costume and makeup was particularly excellent; the robots wore bright colours and sparkles, and the humans wore black and white and heavy grey makeup so that they were essentially monochrome. The overall effect was that the humans looked like a black and white film, like an outdated thing from the past, from the very start.

* punching cradle
* wire-wrapped pendants
* case-bound book
* marbled paper
* marbled book blocks
* diamond stitch book

I feel like I used to do at work before I started keeping a done list. What actually *have* I done this year?

* Been on the committee for Dublin 2019, an Irish Worldcon. Run a staff weekend and an in-person committee meeting and lots of other bits & pieces. Not gone mad!
* Wrote a scavenger hunt for the San Jose worldcon.
* Opened an Etsy shop, and sold 4 things, including one to someone I don't know :-D : https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/CityOfDreamingPylons
* Sold a bunch of jewellery at Eastercon, as usual. Helped out with the Eastercon art show quite a lot.
* Made a book for an exhbition, and visited it: https://www.knowsley.gov.uk/knowsleycouncil/media/Documents/Liverpool-and-Knowsley-Book-Art-Exhibition-april-2018.pdf
* Made lots of hardback notebooks as presents (I should have taken photos really, but forgot).
* Run the 2017 round of BSFA Awards, and started 2018's.
* Finished a drug trial.
* Carried on contributing to the MS Register.
* Not been sent mad by work.
* Tried counselling; dumped my counsellor.
* 2 repair cafes (I think?).
* 2 escape games (one of whioch had take-home puzzles, which we won :-).
* Been to Sheffield watch the snooker.
* Been to Leipzig for WGT.
* Seen Hamilton, twice :-)
* Been on a book-making course and a box-making course.
* Visited the big quilt show in Birmingham, which I've been meaning to do for years.
* Been to a remote and pretty bit of Scotland to see S & T get married.
* Cycled round the Deltawerken.
* Cycled round all the Cambridge colleges in alphabetical order.
* Been on 2 big EU marches.
* Been on a floating museum tour of the Cam.
* Watched niblings become Dutch.
* Wrote a Yuletide story and poem.
* Visited the giant naval museum in Portsmouth (and an incidental steampunk weekend).

Dear Yuletide author,

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


General likes/dislikes:

I would prefer gen fic for all the fandoms I've nominated, though plot-relevant sex is fine if that's where your plot needs to go. I don't mind whether I get a happy ending or not. I prefer bittersweet to crushing doom (though if you want to write appropriately epic crushing doom for Gloryhammer then knock yourself out :-). Bittersweet and/or ambiguous endings are a thing I love very much.

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

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

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

AO3 Name: molybdomantic


Fandom 1: The Order of the Stick
Characters: Vaarsuvius (Order of the Stick)

Vaarsuvius is an arrogant, overly-verbose, clever-clogs, pompous arse, but I love them anyway. They're learning humility as the full consequences of their misguided evil pact hits them. However I would be delighted if you took me back to those pre-humility days and showed me V. dealing with a lower-stakes problem in their own special way. Maybe escapades at Magic Academy (or wherever they learned) - I bet V. even managed to be insufferable in their lab book and exam papers. I've been re-reading Frankenstein, and Frankenstein's incredibly self-centred university career feels very like V. to me. Or a tale from the early adventures of the Order where V.'s magic saves or hinders the party.

Extra request for this fandom: please keep elves mysteriously-gendered as in canon.


Fandom 2: The Dundaxian Codex - Gloryhammer (Albums)
Characters: Any

I am in love with this unashamedly epic fantasy metal. It's tongue-in-cheek but in a "let us take this and make it GLORIOUS" way, not a poking fun way. It has evil wizards and mighty generational hero clans and zombie space unicorns. I was going to say it reminds me of the delightfully awful Victorian poet William McGonagall, but it turns out that's not even slightly accidental and he's a major influence. McGonagall's The Tay Bridge Disaster is in the tagset too and I would totally be up for a crossover.

I would love back-story fic for this. How did Zargothrax get so evil? Who froze the Frozen Princess? (These questions may be related.) Tales of the founding of the Kingdom of Dundee or the endless line of Angus McFifes, scandinavian saga-style. Or perhaps McGonagall's entire output is a Victorian reflection of events in this alternative universe, and the Tay Bridge disaster is merely the manifestation of the Fall of the Bridge of Krafnor in the Battle of Kinross in our more mundane world.

But remember, whatever you do, keep it epic. \m/

Some links you might find helpful:
http://dundaxiancodex.wikia.com/wiki/Home
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXl5x1edtRk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXSDPoWeXIg


Fandom 3: Paranoia (Roleplaying Game)
Characters: any

I adore this game, and the recentish re-release has got me excited! I'm happy with any of the flavours of Paranoia; original/XP/recent re-release/whatever really. I love the Brazil-esque computer bureaucratic ludicrousness, the Catch-22 logic gotchas, the constant secrecy and doublethink, the accusations and the in-fighting and the pointlessness of trying to achieve anything sensible.

Ideas? The computer's daily to-do list. The top secret recruitment manual for a secret society. The complex machinations required to do even such a simple task as making a sandwich. An insight into the life of an Alpha Complex filing clerk or the person who runs the morgue. Some great work of literature after it has been through the Computer's censorship programs. Ingenious solutions to impossible problems set by the Computer. A secret society devoted to celebrating Christmas. Fun! Adventure! Mystery! Dead clones!

Thank you again and I hope you have a fun Yuletide!

That's copy #2 (mine, slightly rough) sat on top of copy #1 packaged up to go to the gallery tomorrow. I am celebrating with cider and gruyere and ship's biscuit (which damerell made while I was busily measuring/cutting/punching, and which is surprisingly nice).

A year and a half late, but here we go.

damerell and I make a Christmas cake every year, following damerell's family's traditional Christmas cake recipe, and have quite a lot of fun decorating it, usually with lego. Now the oddity with this recipe is that damerell's parents are tee-total, so while the cake mix contains some alcohol, the recipe notably does not include feeding the cake post-baking. This is, of course, Wrong. Sooo the theme of 2016's Christmas cake was "ceb proves to damerell that we should feed the cake", which obviously necessitated making a fed cake and a control, non-fed cake.

There is a glaringly obvious lego opportunity here, which we would have been remiss not to take advantage of. In 17-umpty-mumble, William Hogarth produced a couple of etchings in support of the idea that the demon drink (specifically, gin) was the root cause of all society's ailments. These were called Beer Street and Gin Lane, and there is an informative wikipedia article about them here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_Street_and_Gin_Lane

Observe: Beer Street



and Gin Lane:



Let me unpack these for you... ( details beneath )