Arctic Light

Okay, ONE more vid.

Avatar the Last Airbender - Dance Mix on AO3

Also posted on Tumblr for the first time ever

This was, for a long time, what I considered the best vid - from a technical, editing perspective - that I've ever made. There are vid notes at the AO3 link in which I talk about the circumstances under which I created it (caregiving for an elderly relative in summer/fall 2010, essentially spending weeks in a bedroom I basically couldn't leave, which gave me basically endless time to take clips from DVDs).

At that time - and up through the mid-2010s - I was making most of my vids using clips from downloaded TV rips, which was perfectly fine for my purposes, but also meant that this, which was entirely made from DVD footage, was much nicer looking that most of what I was making at the time. I also had ample time on this one to match movement of clips/song in a way I didn't normally. I'm still darn proud of it.

The vid archiving project continues!

Two more Agent Carter vids are online at Sholio Vids on AO3:

• Shut Up and Dance (March 2016)
• Night Changes (July 2016)

As well as two vids for the sci-fi show Sanctuary from 2011:

• What About Everything? (Helen Magnus)
• The Bitch is Back (Nikola Tesla)

Continuing with the Ao3 vidding project, I'm getting my Agent Carter vids up on AO3!

Going in order so far:

One More Day (2015)
Another Tonight (Jan 2016)
Miracle and Wonder (March 2016)

Let me know if anything doesn't work! All the original download links should work (I just copied them over, I haven't changed anything that I can remember since then), and I've generated new embed codes from the original uploads. Happy to fix anything that goes kablooey.

Writing up a few books I've read over the last few months and never wrote about. (There will be a separate post for the nonfiction. Probably. Eventually.)


Out Law by Jim Butcher - This is a Dresden Files novella set during or perhaps shortly after Twelve Months that came out in May. It took me a while to read it because the summary looked like it featured Marcone heavily and I ... really do not like Marcone AT ALL. (I know this is a very minority opinion among Dresden Files readers.) However, it turns out that he appears for a couple pages in the beginning to set up the plot, and is otherwise Sir Not Appearing In This Book. And I really enjoyed it!

Spoilers/reactions: ( Under here )


Emmett Hardy series by Chris Kelsey (books 1-6) - This is a noir-flavored series of mystery/crime/police procedurals set in small-town Oklahoma in the 1960s and 1970s that I inhaled over the course of the spring.

More about that: ( Under the cut, no specific spoilers )


The Inheritance by Ilona Andrews - This is "Ilona Andrews does portal fantasy." The first 2/3 or so of the book was GREAT. And then the ending was staggeringly disappointing. So all in all, I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about it.

Spoilers proceed: ( Under here )

It is finally summer, or at least summer-ish. (Never mind the frost warning two days ago.) I took a drive this evening and took this picture from a boat launch at a nearby river.



I also drew a birthday card for my sister and mailed it today.

( Under the cut )

I finished that Season 5 AU WIP! Finally!

The Living and the Damned (23K, Londo/G'Kar, mature-rated)
Fixit (of sorts) going AU in 5x18.

Some thoughts on writing WIPs under the cut (not spoilery for this fic in particular, more like general musings).

( Under here )

I don't know - what do you all think? Do you post WIPs? Do you read WIPs? It's been a long time since I've been in a fandom that had a lot of WIPs, prior to getting into Murderbot last year, which is almost like old-school ffn/LJ fandom with its very high number of WIPs. Including a lot of unfinished ones! And that's part of what got me back into posting some of my longer fic in WIP form, because there is a certain excitement and energy to it that I miss. Plus, in non-fandom spaces, I've enjoyed serialized media for a very long time (comics, webcomics, TV shows, etc). But it is obviously not without its down side, and I don't think I was prepared for how much trouble I was going to have finishing things when they're being written WIP-style.

I picked up "The Living City" by Des Fitzgerald at the bookstore a few weeks ago because it sounded interesting - the book's core premise is that trying to make cities "greener" (in the sense of more trees, more connection to nature, more intentional planning of green spaces within urban spaces, etc) is antithetical to the purpose of a city. So I wanted to see what he had to say about that.

The answer is: very little. This is essentially a book-length manifesto about how the entire concept of a green city is rooted in early-20th-century racism and fascism. There are some interesting ideas in here, but for a book whose entire premise is that trying to change cities into something else is wrong, bad, and also fascist, there's a surprising lack of actual positivity about cities as they currently exist. He just doesn't like the concept of planned cities, and especially city planning with the intent of introducing more nature into cities, based on the idea that green spaces are a more natural human environment. But he rarely brings up existing cities except to talk about how much he hates them, specifically. Paris? Awful. Copenhagen? Worst city he's ever been in. New York? Soulless grid. There's one chapter that opens with several pages dissing on Melbourne, Australia, for wanting to preserve its self-image as "a genteel outpost of European colonialism" because the residents are upset about all their trees dying in a drought. He doesn't seem to hate London as a whole (I GUESS) but mostly talks about it in the context of "fuck these specific neighborhoods in particular."

In case you're thinking this is because he'd rather be in the country - definitely not! He also hates the country. The worst thing about making cities greener is that it makes them more like the country. He refers to the part of Ireland he grew up in as "a bog" which he was glad to escape. The country is also terrible and the last thing cities want to do is be more like the country.

The truly baffling thing about this book is that it contains exactly zero content about the main thing I picked it up for: to find out what alternative he's proposing. Trees and other green spaces have obvious benefits that even he makes a nod to every now and then (cooling things down, trapping water, supporting wildlife, beneficial effects on the mental health of their residents, etc), plus most people who live in cities like them, and I was wondering what he was going to propose as an alternative, and he just - doesn't! What I knew from reading the blurb on the back of the book - that he feels cities are meant to be chaotic, grimy, full of machines and people but lacking in plants - is exactly as much as I know after reading 2/3 of the book. I guess I was expecting a paean to how cities in their modern chaos are flawed but great, and instead I got a book about how cities are almost uniformly terrible, but planned, green cities and the country are even worse, and also planting trees is a fascist tool to pacify the working class.

I didn't really DNF on purpose, so much as I put it down because I was reading other things and just never picked it back up again because the more time that went by without dealing with this guy's relentless negativity, the less I wanted to go back to it. So I guess it's a DNF.

A brief roundup of fic I've posted on AO3 in the last couple of weeks.

Cadence (Babylon 5, Londo/G'Kar, gennish ship)
Resulting from the realization that I haven't written hair-care kink for these characters before. Season 5.

Ate a Bug (Murderbot, gen)
For the Murderbot May Maladies prompt "swallowed a drone."

Treasure in the Deep (Babylon 5, Londo & G'Kar + others)
Gen (I guess) soulmate AU.

Eyes Wide Open (Falcon & Winter Soldier, sleep deprivation)
Finishing up a fic I started four years ago for a prompt/discussion on the old Winterbaron discord.

The first half of this month was A Lot - mostly family stuff, mostly not bad stuff, just A Lot - and I kept thinking I was going to summarize things, but in the end, I was too tired, and there was too much. (Basically a number of relatives were in town, some staying with me, and I was so peopled out past a certain point that I just sort of collapsed when everyone left.)

Things are much better now! I do have in-laws to deal with this upcoming week, but I'm looking forward to having more time to be online and more mental bandwidth.

So naturally I tripped and signed up for an exchange.

Outside POV Flash. This is a flash exchange - 300 wd minimum, 1 week writing period, 1 fandom request/offer minimum. Signups close tomorrow.

Yes, this is a shameless attempt to lure in more fandom-compatible people. It's only a week! It's only 300 wds! Maybe someone might want a warm-up for IPQ, you never know ...

Other things currently ongoing - summerofhorrorexchange is in signups! This exchange has slightly unique rules so see post here. (I don't think I can do this one this summer, because I also have assignments in both Whumpex and IPQ, but I've really enjoyed it all the times I've done it!)

It's finally spring here, and I'm so ready. Except for the sudden but inevitable pollen.

There are three of these books, the latter two are basically out of print, but I did get my hands on a copy of the first one from back in the 2000s. Some things I found interesting are below, but the book stops before (I gather) the TNT meddling really got underway.

( A few bits and pieces from the book below )