None of this Nonsense, Please

General Info:
AO3 Name: mari4212

Quick and dirty rules:

If you love the canon and you love writing your story, I will probably love it. Every prompt I throw out is a suggestion to have fun playing with or to spark ideas, it is not set in stone. I will read any rating from straight G to very explicit, though most of my prompts will start off gen based.

Things I love across all fandoms:
Female characters with agency (ie, making choices, having consequences, going out and doing the things themselves because they want them done). Friendships, especially female friendships. Friendships and respect into love. Unrequited love/pining, as long as the pining character figures out how to go on with the rest of their life. Unrequited/pining turning into mutual love as respect and friendship builds. Time travel, especially with older versions of the characters going back and interacting with younger counterparts/younger versions of their group (i.e., tvtropes’ Peggy Sue). Lawful good characters not being lawful stupid. Lawful good characters in general (think Steve Rogers, 90% of Star Trek, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Keladry of Mindelan, most Heralds in Valdemar). Trickster/guile heroines. I enjoy canon typical stories and canon divergent AUs, the kind where you ask what would have happened had this person made this key choice differently.

Do Not Wants:
Rape/Non-con/Dub-con. Racism/homophobia/misogyny/et cetera being portrayed positively, if you have to portray it at all. Graphic descriptions of character/animal harm. Character bashing; even if it's not one of my nominated characters please assume I love everyone in all my canons and you'd be right more often than not. I squick on infidelity, so if you want to ship a couple that have significant others in canon, please set it in an au where the original couple never got together or somehow broke it off. On the other hand, I do like OT3 and consider it a very useful alternative to jealousy/shipping wars. AUs that drastically change the setting – no coffeeshop or high school aus for example.

Fandom-Specific:

( The Lost World - tv )

( Dragon Jousters - Mercedes Lackey )

( The Story of Owen - E. K. Johnston )

( The Lady Astronaut Series - Mary Robinette Kowal )

Noms open Sept 12th, run to the 21st, so next Weds through Friday.

Definitely nominating:

The Lost World
Twisted (Starkid Musical) - look up proper fandom posting on AO3 again.

Possibly nominating:

Valdemar (at least to get Karal, Natoli, Ulrich, and Altra in)
Something Jo Graham? I got spoiled for the past few years with good stories so I'm not sure if I have a new request.
Mercedes Lackey's Dragon Jousters series

So, several months ago, I got my Yuletide assignment and promptly cracked up. And no, settiai it wasn't you, though past experience explains why we both assume this as a matter of course.

Actually, I was laughing because I hit another pocket of my semi-incestuous fandom corner, and was assigned to tielan, who had written for me last Yuletide, and we matched on a slightly different set of books. I ended up writing:

Building Blocks (5782 words) by mari4212
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Keisha Alder/Darian Firkin
Characters: Keisha Alder, Darian Firkin, Nightwind
Summary:

"then things are actually better than they were before the fight, I think, because they've made another compromise with each other." -Darian Firkin

And when the fics went live, I found myself very glad I'd written my second idea, because someone else had written a take on my first concept as another gift for tielan. My first thought had been to do scenes from their courtship, including the first fight as a minor scene, and track how the relationship grew.

...Several false starts later, I ended up jumping to the fight, and pretty early on, needing to figure out why they were actually arguing, and how the heck the resolution would improve the relationship, while still leaving the tensions in place that developed in the first half of Owlknight. It was when I was trying to explain who the characters were and a little of their backstory to someone else which gave me the insight into Darian's fears, and gave me what would make him lose his temper. Re-reading the books also gave me Darian's view of Nightwind and Snowfire's relationship, and that he'd want to fight fair and resolve conflict well in any relationship he considered serious.

I also wanted to have some echoes for Kiesha from Owlknight. So there's both some of her worries from that book, traced back in to their roots here, and there's also parts of her advice to Shandi that developed into the scene with Nightwind.

My big regret is that I couldn't get Kel in, but there was no place in this scenario that he was a good fit.

Guys, Yuletide is up and my author-anon gave me 13K of Order of the Air adventure with Mitch and Stasi. I am going to absolutely demand that all of you who love the series like I do get over there and shower praises on the writer, because this is amazing.

Icebound (13024 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Order of the Air Series - Melissa Scott & Jo Graham, 20th Century CE RPF
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Mitchell Sorley/Stasi Rostov
Characters: Mitchell Sorley, Stasi Rostov, Henry Kershaw, Leni Riefenstahl, Max Schirmer, Franz Schrieck, Hans Schneeberger
Additional Tags: Yuletide, 1930s, Adventure & Romance, Foreshadowing, Films, Antisemitism, POV Jewish Character
Summary:

Spring of 1933: Mitch and Stasi hadn't planned on spending their honeymoon dodging bears and icebergs. But the pilot supposed to do the hair raising stunt flying on the German-American movie "SOS Iceberg" has fallen sick, the leading lady may or may not be possessed, and there is a ghost bent on revenge involving the new German leader...

And now to go make coffee and have breakfast.

General Info:
AO3 Name: mari4212

Quick and dirty rules:

If you love the canon and you love writing your story, I will probably love it. Every prompt I throw out is a suggestion to have fun playing with or to spark ideas, it is not set in stone. I will read any rating from straight G to very explicit, though most of my prompts will start off gen based.

Things I love across all fandoms:
Female characters with agency (ie, making choices, having consequences, going out and doing the things themselves because they want them done). Friendships, especially female friendships. Friendships and respect into love. Unrequited love/pining, as long as the pining character figures out how to go on with the rest of their life. Unrequited/pining turning into mutual love as respect and friendship builds. Time travel, especially with older versions of the characters going back and interacting with younger counterparts/younger versions of their group (i.e., tvtropes’ Peggy Sue). Lawful good characters not being lawful stupid. Lawful good characters in general (think Steve Rogers, 90% of Star Trek, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Keladry of Mindelan, most Heralds in Valdemar). Trickster/guile heroines. I enjoy canon typical stories and canon divergent AUs, the kind where you ask what would have happened had this person made this key choice differently.

Do Not Wants:
Rape/Non-con/Dub-con. Racism/homophobia/misogyny being portrayed positively, if you have to portray it at all. Graphic descriptions of character/animal harm. Character bashing; even if it's not one of my nominated characters please assume I love everyone in all my canons and you'd be right more often than not. I squick on infidelity, so if you want to ship a couple that have significant others in canon, please set it in an au where the original couple never got together or somehow broke it off. On the other hand, I do like OT3 and consider it a very useful alternative to jealousy/shipping wars. AUs that drastically change the setting – no coffeeshop or high school aus for example.

Fandom-Specific:

( The Lost World - tv )


( Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey )

( Order of the Air - Melissa Scott and Jo Graham )

( Lois Lane - Gwenda Bond )

My brother and his girlfriend had their first child, Liam Michael, this morning at 10:20 am. *glees* Mom and baby are doing fine, though Kassandra is absolutely exhausted.

I wrote two stories for Yuletide this year, both for the same fandom:

A True and Honest Thought (18654 words) by mari4212
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Niklaren Goldeye, Trisana Chandler, Sandrilene fa Toren, Briar Moss, Daja Kisubo, Dedicate Lark, Dedicate Rosethorn
Additional Tags: Mentor/Protégé, Teaching, Families of Choice, Tris Has Issues, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Weather Magic, alternate POV
Summary:

...that when you become a teacher, by your pupil, you'll be taught. Both Niko and Tris have a lot to learn from one another.

( fic discussion )

Playing dirty (1673 words) by mari4212
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Trisana Chandler
Summary:

Five things about Lightsbridge that are easier than Tris thought they would be, and one that is harder.

( fic discussion part two )

At least both recipients seemed to really like their fics, and I got to re-immerse myself in Emelan and fall in love with the characters again.

Yuletide fic is done, finally.

...I uploaded a shorter version of it that worked about a month ago, just to have something there, but I've been tinkering and adding sections on as I've gone. Yesterday I finally uploaded the final section, making it the longest Yuletide fic I've ever written. And this is after I scrapped about half of it to get it down to a length I could actually accomplish, given November was November.

Now I need to leave it set for a day before I re-read frantically and make sure I didn't miss something in prior edits. Or possibly look around and see if I can pull off a treat or two. I had a bunch highlighted before the world went crazy.

Also, dear Yuletide author, if you are reading this which you most likely are, given my normal suspects: If the collection opens when it did last year, I will be between two church services on Christmas Eve. I will either dive headfirst into my story as decompression, or I will be ignoring it until I have a brain again the next morning. I am already planning on pretty much never leaving the church that day, given Community Cafe in the morning, then the Christmas pageant practices through the second church service. Expect a squeeing review in the morning, after my cat wakes me up demanding breakfast.

...It didn't happen.

So last night my uncle called around 6ish to let us know that traffic was really bad and he'd be taking the long way home, we should have our dinner and not wait for him. I finished making the soup and bread, and aunt Cathy and I ate.

Right around 7:20 we get another call from my uncle. He hit a dear. Or the dear hit him, more. He was okay, just a little shaken, and he needed us to come get him while a tow truck collected his car.

So Cathy and I called various people to let them know not to come over, including the landscaper guy, and she and I got in the truck and went to find Uncle Ralph. We spent from a little after 7:30ish till 9pm sitting in the driveway of the house closest to where the accident had happened, chatting with the couple that had come out to check on Ralph and offered him a place to move his car, and the tow truck still didn't show. We decided to head back to my aunt and uncle's place, leaving the car with its keys for the tow truck.

The couple that had helped Uncle Ralph called around 9:45ish to let us know that the tow truck had finally arrived.

Landscaper guy called me this morning, reaffirmed that he still wanted to try to connect with me, and I said I'd be willing to at least talk further to see if we had anything in common. So no awkward post dinner conversation, but a slightly awkward phone call?

Canon review about half over, and a wild plot appears!

I know pretty much what my focus is, what key points I have to make sure to hit, and what the resolution is. Now I just have to finish reviewing canon to get details right, and then write the darn thing.

Still, progress?

I have an assignment already! *pets shiny recipient* Plus they had their letter up already, and I'd thought about what I'd write for this person, so yay for shiny things. I can even do canon review on vacation and draft ideas. And one thing they suggested strongly for this fandom is even squarely in my wheelhouse.

*cuddles shiny prompts*

So I've been having a bit of a problem with my power cord/adapter and the computer not acknowledging it was plugged in off and on for a while. Thought I had it fixed until this week, then it abruptly stopped working altogether. Luckily,I could order a new one and next day shipping was free for once, so I'm back to having a working computer!

Just in time to find out that it did not save my working draft of my Yuletide letter. It saved something labeled Yuletide letter, but not any of the information within. *headdesks*

Luckily I'm recycling two fandoms, so they mostly needed a moderate revamp (that added like two paragraphs on to one fandom's section, oops). And I had at least thought through the other fandoms a bit already, so I could just rewrite some of my existing ideas. But still, that wasn't the most fun. Also, my letter is now twice as long as the minimum story length. So yeah.

Fun things learned while writing this letter? I apparently have a real character kink for the trickster/manipulative/jewel thief/guile hero when it's a female character, and I love shipping said character with a lawfulish good male character. Hadn't realized it was more than just a one fandom thing until I started writing my Order of the Air section and practically hyperventilated over Mitch/Stasi.

So my inability to tell when someone is flirting/hitting on me tends towards the legendary among my friends in real life.

Today? Today I actually noticed. Partially because it was so many of them in a row, and partially because one of them was pretty much lacking in all subtlety as he:

pointed out that he was a single father twice
mentioned that he'd been divorced for three months now
sat next to me talking at the church table for a good twenty minutes
Asked me if I had family, clarified to ask if I was married, then engaged, then if I was single in very short order
Found me and sent a friend request on facebook before I got home

At that point even I can take a hint. Dude wasn't creepy or annoying, just very obvious about his intent.

The other was having about three late twenty-something guys hovering around my table for a bit eating cookies and doing mild flirting with me.

...The things that happen when it's 90+ degrees out and you're wearing a semi low-cut sundress and have a prodigious bustline.

And also when you're handing out free cookies and lemonade at a street music fair/block party type thing for your church. That probably contributed in large part to the group of guys.

*blows dust and cobwebs off of journal*

So yeah, I kind of disappeared from active ljing for...seven months ish? What's been up since then:

1. Kitty is well settled in, and adapted to home. He functions as a pretty good alarm clock, once we came to an agreement that four in the morning was not going to happen. He's settled into waking me up around six nowadays. He's a lot more vocal than he was at first, and he loves playing with my hair. He's also disturbingly good at getting hairties off of the end of my braids when he wants. ( kitty )

2. Church stuff, including a busy summer, has happened. Some of my church youth participate in Appalachia Service Project, which works on rebuilding and repairing homes in portions of Appalachia, and of course I went too to help supervise. We were in West Virginia when the rains/flooding hit, but fortunately did not have to be evacuated, unlike other ASP sites in the state.

Other church things this summer: Vacation Bible School took place and no-one died in the process, even me. I actually managed to find a free VBS program with decent theology, two major wins in a row.

And our interim Rector's time ended at the beginning of August. I am going to miss working with her, because seriously, she was awesome. I still have her on Facebook, which helps somewhat. Our new priest starts in November, so we have a supply priest covering Sunday worship and the parish admin and I are kind of running the church office, with vestry/senior warden running the church. I've at least shot an intro e-mail out to him, so he knows I'm a geek and some of my work background.

3. Big family news: my brother and his girlfriend are expecting a child late January/early February. We've known for a while but have been sitting on the news since there was a lot of other stuff involved in said girlfriend's life to be settled first. Mom and I are both knitting blankets. Well, Mom is actively knitting. I decided to do a lofty ambitious cabled project, freaked about the time involved, and started knitting as soon as I got back from the ASP week in early June. Said cabled project went way faster than anything I'd expected, and the blanket is all done way ahead of schedule. ( blankie! )

4. Some friends from college and I are starting a sewing blog focused on historical reenactment and geek culture/cosplay and where they kind of overlap. We've got the first few posts up here: https://sewingroomofrequirement.wordpress.com/. Yes, I did write nearly 2000 words about Beauty and the Beast costumes and where in the 18th century we can place the story based on Belle's dresses.

5. And it's hard to believe, but it's almost time for Yuletide Noms. I've got my tentative list arranged, at least.

Hipply Birdie to you!

( Read more... )

Hipply Birdie to you!

( Read more... )

Hipply Birdie dear Mommy!

( Read more... )

Hipply Birdie to you!

( Read more... )

Thought you'd like the teapot theme this year.

I will not stab my nice, highly invested, youth ministry volunteers.

I will not stab them when they remind me, slightly over a week before, that Scout Sunday is coming and they're expecting something amazing for it. (Okay, I did remember when Scout Sunday was and had already started discussing it with Kim, but really? We plan church out in advance, people.)

I will not stab them when I make a post encouraging all scouts to show up in uniform, including the girls, and I get four comments about how Girl Scout Sunday isn't until March 6th, and it's not fair to push the girls in with the boys, that they should have their own day to celebrate. Even if I pointed out that there are already two different things going on that Sunday that we'll need to be prepping for as well.

I will absolutely not stab them for making these comments after magically supposing that I will intuit how these days have been handled in this church and what the groupthink was when I've not been there for these Sundays and have heard absolutely nothing from the church about how they have been handled in the past.

And I will respond to nothing more tonight when I am ticked at them, but will reply in the morning by letting them know that they have been heard and I will instead figure out a way to include the girl scouts into an already full Sunday when I could have let them be celebrated with the rest of the scouting universe on an acceptable date to represent all scouting.

...You know, like I've seen it done at pretty much every other church I've been in.

And I will figure out some way to let them know that Reverend Kim didn't make the decision that they are angry about, much though at least one of them seemed to be making a swipe at her for this.

But first, I will make myself some hot chocolate, and not scream at passive aggressive church ladies.

*headdesk* And it had been such a nice day.

So, sometimes when I'm arguing on the book of faces I get a bit passionate. And, well, this happens. For context, the guy I was replying to was first replying with already disproved arguments about helping Syrians, then asked why they weren't just staying in their country and standing their ground. He finished by asking what would America even get out of helping them, aside from "diversity" as if he wasn't sure diversity was even a good thing for us.

I ranted a bit in response:( Read more... )

So on the one hand, the big mucking project for the national church is over and it apparently was very well received by both presiding bishops.

For those of you not following the intricacies of the American Episcopal Church, the head of the clergy is the presiding bishop, we elect a new one every 9 years, and this year is the major transition from the first female presiding bishop, Katherine Jefforts-Schori, to the first African American presiding bishop, Michael Curry.

My new priest is pretty high up in the Union of Black Episcopalians, and they were hosting a vigil service for the new presiding bishop. I got asked to help make vestments, an altar frontal (the giant tablecloth thing on the altar), and a baptismal font. We had all of a week to get this done, and it all happened. There are even pictures somewhere which is not yet my computer.


(In this case, Episcopal Digital Network, at least for the frontal and a tiny bit of the vestments)

In other church news on the positive side, two major upcoming events that I thought I was going to have to take the lead on planning turned out to already have people doing a lot of the work, so I just have to throw in my bits and supervise everything.

On the other hand, the church tried to pay me by direct depositing the check into the priest's bank account. So my priest is the one who catches it, and now she has to write me a check that I will be sending back home to get deposited. Head, meet desk.

***

And on the completely non-work side, Yuletide assignments are out, canon review is about half-way through, and my assignment totally hit all my easy buttons.

I just agreed to do something incredibly awesome with my new boss that is going to eat up a bunch of my time between now and November 1st. It does mean that my name will be a footnote in a pretty significant coming event, at least within my denomination.

Equal parts squee and terror will now ensue.

I also pretty much forced my boss to come and eat soup with me because I do not know how to make veggie soup for less than like ten people now. And she hadn't had a chance to breathe let alone eat for most of the day.

Just letting everyone know, I'm moving into my new apartment today. Internet will mostly be sir not appearing until I know work schedule and can arrange an install around it, so I will be off and on for a while. If I miss anything major, let me know and I'll come back to look for it.