schneefink

For my August rec post I continue to clean out my very old to-rec bookmarks: 7 recs from Yuletide and Yuletide Madness 2015.

( 7 recs for Hamilton, Steerswoman, The Martian, Captive Prince, and Jupiter Ascending )

Since the pandemic some important financial deadlines were pushed from September to December. It was definitely necessary at the time, since everyone was so busy with subsidies etc. that the September deadline was impossible, but I really hope that they'll change it back next year because having the busiest time of the year in December and especially between Christmas and New Year's is not fun. At least we have plenty of chocolate.

I got a fantastic Yuletide fic! Learning to Fly, Phoenotopia Awakening (gen, post-canon, 6k.) I'm especially honored that the author checked out the game because of my prompts. I'm not sure how well the story works without canon knowledge, you're definitely not going to get many of the jokes, but I'm still going to try and give a brief summary of what I think is necessary to understand it because it's a great fic and deserves more comments.

Spoiler for the entire PHOA game:

Most of the people of Gail's village were kidnapped by aliens. On her journey to find them again she meets Bart, a member of the Stellanites, humans who left Earth during the apocalypse a few centuries ago and joined the Galactic Federation. (Bart is still on his space ship, they can only talk through a golem head Gail found and carries around with her.) She also meets and frees Leo, a human prince who was kidnapped and probably tortured by alien mercenaries, and meets Lisa again, her best friend who avoided being kidnapped because she'd moved elsewhere. Bart warns them that the Astral Empire is planning to attack Earth and directs Gail to find a lost mythical weapon to defend the planet. Gail finds out that the "weapons" are actually genetically engineered super soldiers, called Phoenixes, that were put into hibernation after they played a part in the apocalypse, and also that Gail herself is a Phoenix. The first Phoenix the Stellanites manage to wake up is later called Zero by Bart, and he helps them defeat some alien mercenaries, called kobolds, that were also after the weapon. We find out that the Phoenixes help Earth repel the attack by the Astral Empire, but the Empire is still a threat, and Gail still plans to find her friends and family again.

I haven't had time to go through much of the collection yet, much less comment, but both fics for Steerswoman and Elemental Logic are great.

I almost forgot to mention it: I wrote two short fic snippets for fandom_stocking.

Connection to the Unknown, a Steerswoman/Star Trek: Discovery crossover. ( Disco spoilers )

ice+fire, a TAZ:Balance h/c snippet. I almost didn't post this on AO3 because it's so short and not very polished, but then I told my inner perfectionist to shut up.

Speaking of, my reaction to the last two Star Trek Disco episodes: ( Spoilers )

A bit late, but: In my fandom_stocking I got great recipe and story and vid recs, and great stories :)
In the Hour of the Ox by naye, a Nirvana in Fire canon-divergence hopefully-fix-it with Lin Chen and Jingyan and absent MCS being very much themselves (with all that entails *facepalm*); and
Tubbs, In Repose by nenya_kanadka, a fun and adorable Steerswoman/Neko Atsume crossover.

Yesterday I played Cards Against Humanity with friends and we had a fantastic time. I'm also a bit proud of myself: in the past often most of the time I've been invited by my friends to do stuff, and for a while now I've wanted to initiate doing stuff together more often from my side, so the friendship is more equal in practice too. I organized the game on Thursday and it turned out great, and the people I introduced to each other got on as well as I hoped they would. I hope I'll be able to do it more often :)

Every once in a while, when people in my dw circle post about what they've read in a week, I'm amazed at how many books they read. Those are weird moments, because I'm a fast reader and I read a lot. And then I think back to how many novel-length fics I read each week and it makes sense again.

I had a therapy session on Monday that felt fairly brutal, but I've been more active in my job search this week than in many previous weeks so she probably knows what she's doing.

After the HTML+CSS basic course last weekend, this weekend I'm being introduced to JavaScript. I'm looking forward to it, even though I'm sorry to miss the Woman's March in Vienna, and I know I'll be exhausted on Monday. D&D on Saturday is not ideal, but I'll make it somehow. At least today is my dad's birthday party and there will be cake. And maybe I'll finally get around to trying out the smoothie machine my roommate Nadine got for New Year's.

I'm having a few bad days in a row now and it sucks. It's a self-perpetuating cycle: I feel lethargic and out of energy, I don't eat or drink enough and my sleep rhythm gets screwed up, I become too tired to do the things that might otherwise cheer me up/give me energy, things I'm supposed to do start to pile up which makes me feel discouraged and so on and so on. At least now that I'm done with my degree I'm feeling less guilty. I'm even too lazy to make a rec list of the fic I found so at least other people could benefit... I cooked today, hopefully that means it'll get better soon.


For the March posting meme: talk about a few SF/F books you love (or that you reread).

This was surprisingly difficult. There are many SF/F books that I love, but to my own surprise not that many that I currently semi-regularly reread.

Quick note about my current reading habits: For several months I read very little original fiction. A few months ago I started reading more books again – almost exclusively SF/F, because that's what I'm in currently in the mood for – and I enjoyed it. Almost exclusively books in English, btw: I tried finding new German SF/F books, but it was surprisingly difficult and most of the ones I did find sounded very unoriginal and uninteresting.
For some reason it's easier for me to resist starting a new book when I know I don't have the time than it is to resist starting a fic of the same length. I'm not completely sure why, just that reading books and fic feels a bit different. I think it's partially because with books I expect to need to think more, while many fics are more relaxing to read because I know more about what to expect. I don't need to get to know new characters and figure out how I feel about them, etc.

I made a list of books that stayed with me two years ago, it hasn't changed that much. 10/10 are SF/F, pretty clear it's always been my favorite genre.

This time… when I saw the prompt my first instinctive reaction was "yay, another reason to talk about the Steerswoman books", so maybe I should go with that ^^ I've only reread parts of the series, mostly books 1 and 4 and mostly for fic research, but the main reason for that is that I'm impatient and when I feel like I have the time to read books I want to read new ones. I just need a time machine.

There are many reasons why I like the series, including the smart & resourceful main characters and the interesting worldbuilding, but the main reasons why I got more into it than other book series were probably a) especially book 4 pushing my loyalty kink buttons, and b) the timing: I read them right before Yuletide nominations, then both wrote and received Yuletide fic, so I kept thinking about that world instead of moving on.

A few Steerswoman plotbunnies, some of which I've even started writing:
- the one for Lupercalia, where Rowan is bonded to a wolf
- the one where Willam is captured by Abremio and cursed with the speech-garbling spell
- the AU where they're all captured by pirates
- the one where Willam has a huge crush on Rowan
And several more that are still very vague, like one-sided Reeder/Naio and post-LoP Willam&Corvus and one about Fletcher's loyalties and one about Bel's responsibilities to her people and one about Zenna and Rowan etc. etc. Experience says I will finish maybe one or two of them with a little bit of luck, but so far I'm enjoying the process.

For the first time this winter, we had snow in Vienna today! According to the radio it started around 6am and when I got up (around 11) there was a thin layer of white outside and it was still snowing lightly for a short time. Finally :)


For Yuletide this year I wrote Steerswoman fic: Dark Blue Skies
Summary: In the third year of Willam's apprenticeship with Corvus, Abremio came to Wulfshaven.

Thanks to isis and sholio for the help. It's not perfect, but I'm proud of this one. 9.8k! My second-longest published fic, and the longest since 2011. It's in the smallest fandom I've written in so far and especially at first it was a bit disappointing that so few people read it, but I got some lovely comments which made up for it :)

( More about the writing process )

Hi! Thank you very much for writing a story for me! :D

( General Likes and Dislikes )

Soviet Hockey Players RPF
Characters: Alexei Kasatonov, Slava Fetisov

If you don't know what it is: ( They were some of the best hockey players in history, and some of them hated their coach. )

Prompt: ( The great betrayal )


The Steerswoman series – Rosemary Kirstein
Characters: Rowan, Bel, Willam

If you don't know what it is: ( A fascinating SFF series currently at 4 books )

Prompt: ( (post)book 4 fic )


Krabat | The Satanic Mill – Otfried Preußler

If you don't know what it is: ( a myth-based novel about the apprentices to an evil sorcerer )

Prompt: ( trapped )

It was technically the second pre-season game, but the game the Pens played yesterday featured most of their stars and kind of felt like the first. It was a lot of fun! I only watched a part of the first period and got to see goals by Tanger and Olli. 7-3 overall, and Phil scored two goals. (Apparently more reporters wanted to talk to Phil than to Sid, this is probably not working out as Phil hoped *g* man it's great to see him smiling so much.) I can barely wait for the start of the regular season.
Me: Tanger with four points, Olli with a goal… Good game :)
DD: though I'm paranoid about guys with a history of injuries/illnesses starting the season with a 4 points game. (but it's the preseason so hopefully it doesn't count.)
Me: WHY WOULD YOU REMIND ME OF THAT
DD: do you really think I enjoy suffering alone? Hell yes I'm gonna share thoughts like that.
Ah, fandom friendships <3

Someone on Tumblr posted a Wait For It, a song from the new musical "Hamilton." As I sometimes do with songs I really like and/or can't get out of my head, I listened to it on a loop for hours. "Life doesn't discriminate/between the sinners and the saints/it takes and it takes and it takes…"
naye recced the musical and linked to an audio version. I just listened to Act I and I really liked it. I was a bit worried audio only would be confusing - I'm generally not good at telling voices apart, or at least not at remembering which voice belongs to whom – but it was surprisingly clear, I could understand the words well and follow the action (I'm pretty sure.) The lyrics are very good, especially the rhymes, and overall the music is excellent. I'm looking forward to Act 2 (though I've heard it's a bit sadder so it might have to wait a few days.)

I read "The Lost Steersman", the third Steerswoman book, and I liked it a lot. ( Spoilers )

( Blackhawks )