Bjewelled - Jewels' Journal

I've no idea why, but there appears to be a problem with my domain. I think I've fixed it (for some reason the main index page in the root directory had been replaced with something blank that was redirecting to a nonexistent page). I'm poking tech support and changing my passwords, but it should be okay now.

So, in case anyone was watching (and, let's face it, probably no one was), you may have noticed that this journal kinda vanished for a couple of hours. That was due to me switching all the posts to friends-only and going through them one by one and restoring anything to do with my fic to the public-level of security.

Main reason for this is irrational, but has become such of a niggle that it's now impossible to ignore. A couple of months ago, I got linked in metafandom for a post I made, and as a result attracted some... not very pleasant attention... and I'll be honest in that the hate mail that I received really shook me. It left me feeling very uneasy about posting in this journal, to the point of not being able to post, well... anything. Not even behind f-lock. I know that it's silly, and that it comes from a bit of an emotional part of me, but I decided after a while that it was ok to pander to myself on this one. So everything's been shoved behind a lock (also on the dreamwidth mirror). If there's something you remember that should desperately be made public, poke me in the comments and I might unlock it, but I make no promises. Also, prod if I know you and I've accidentally left you off my friends list.

As I say, though, I'm pretty sure no one's really reading this journal for much other than the fic (I've seen the stats :P) so I'm probably just muttering at the ether here. No great loss on the personal posts, I suppose. ^^

Oh look, this book seems familiar. “A Billion Wicked Thoughts: What the World’s Largest Experiment Reveals about Human Desire.”

http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2011/04/22/suspicious-sexual-stats-deviate-from-the-norm/

yeah, I missed this one.

Hmm. It has been a while since I did one of these recs, hasn't it? Ah well. I hope I make up for my lack of quantity with quality.

There's not a huge number of Pern stories online. There's more than there used to be, certainly, but a lot of these, for a long time, have been fusions, and none of them have been lengthy, chewy pieces. One of these is Dragonchoice which, if I haven't recommended before, I do so now, but another which I dug up the other day while rooting through Google is "The Rider's Pride" by Dan Kirk, a prime example of a fic that shows that just because a story involves romance doesn't mean it forsakes all other plot (newbie writers, take note). Set at the start of a Pass, it feels very novel-like in its tone, in that I could easily imagine it as one of the published Pern novels as it describes the preparations of Hold and Weyr for the danger ahead. Certainly I enjoyed it far more than I enjoyed any of Todd McCaffrey's offerings.

The Rider's Pride by Dan Kirk

As much as I love doing Yuletide, I think I may give it a miss next year. It's just SO massive and yet simultaneously limiting. Looking through the voluminous fandom list, for instance, produced only five fandoms I recognised, and whenever you tried to do anything to do with the challenge during US hours, the servers were just creaking and the signup was a nightmare (I know it's all in beta, but the challenge signup page was just unwieldy and too restrictive for Yuletide). It's a LOT of messing around. I'd still want to do a festive challenge, I think (because story gift giving is very seasonally appropriate) but I may just limit myself to some of the fandom-specific secret santas that are around.

That said, I wouldn't have written Every Day Like This One if not for Yuletide, and I'm incredibly happy about that one, mostly because I a) enjoyed writing it, and b) got on really well with my recipient.

The point of all this is mostly to point out that this year I wrote Marla's Folly, a Mass Effect fic (and colour me surprised that ME qualified as a 'small' fandom when apparently Babylon 5 doesn't) which I had fun writing as I hadn't really considered throwing any Ashley/Kaidan stuff in my fics until the requester mentioned it, and found it made a certain amount of sense.

I got two gifts, both Pern related (are you seeing where my recent Pern thinkies are coming from).

Title: Sowulo
Author: Jewels
Website: http://www.b-jewelled.co.uk/
Fandom: Earth: Final Conflict
Disclaimer: Alliance Atlantis has this one, but it's been about eight years, so I don't think they care anymore.
Summary: Sequel to Inguz. Boone recovers from his injuries at the hands of Ha'gel, but the Taelon's biggest concern is that their captive hybrid has escaped the Mothership, and they need him tracking down.
Word Count: 17,098

Over at AO3 - Comment anyway? :)

*pokes the muse* Now can I go back to my nano story? Pleeeease?

Something occurred to me last night (or rather, this morning I suppose) while I was writing, and I realised that I was making pretty big assumptions based on my own knowledge. See, in UK, or, I suppose specifically, London, if a person is spyed on CCTV in say, Waterloo, it's not inconceivable that a CCTV operator could follow them through the streets to their destination. We're that well covered by cameras that I wouldn't have a problem with sticking that in a story.

My question, to the Americans on my flist, is this: how equally probable is that to happen in a major US city, like LA or DC? I realise that the UK is pretty heavily surveilled, the most CCTVed country on Earth (Big Brother is watching us and we try not to think too hard about it). I was just curious if this could happen in the US?

Weee~ Continuing nostalgia! I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna do the entire series, but I'm having fun rewatching these episodes on nightshifts, and putting down thoughts, so I might as well continue for the moment. :)

( EFC Season 1: 1.03 - 1.06 )

Oh, I'm indulging tonight. Knitting and nostalgia. The former makes my fingers cramp up something rotten (mini penguins anyone?), while the latter involves rewatching Earth: Final Conflict. Anyone who knows me will have heard me mention this more than once. EFC was one of my major fandom loves, which went sour at the end but who I still hold a candle for.

Tonight, though, I watched the first two episodes of the first season.

( 101: Decision/102. Truth )

Fandom's got a few established formats by now for ficathons, big bangs, whatever. I have to wonder if there's other things that might prove popular that haven't been tried. Like whoever writes the most ficlets in a given time wins a prize?

In other news, this thinkbox ad is just genius. I laughed myself sick.