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bikes and stuff

Sep. 13th, 2025 01:17 am
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
(So much for that daily posting thing - I've already skipped a few without meaning to. /o\)

Today I rode an e-bike for the first time. Useful for the hills, for sure, but it wasn't as much fun as a regular bike, so I don't see myself doing that often.

Last spring I signed up for a local rent-a-bike service, and ever since then I've been riding bikes a lot again, after a break of something like 15 years. (That was about when my bike got stolen, and I didn't buy a new one because I didn't and still don't have a good place to put it.) I still like biking a lot, though I'm glad I no longer have to in the winter, the way I used to when I was still biking to uni. *g*

I've also been walking a lot again this summer, so overall I've been getting a lot more exercise than I used to! Which, alas, did not turn out to be an unmitigated good. (Turns out that more physical activity makes me hungrier - shock, horror! - but not exactly in proportion. I'd really rather keep fitting into my clothes, and also I don't want not be constantly hungry. So less activity might actually be better. Since we're heading into winter and I don't like going out very much when it's wet and/or cold, I guess I'll see!)

words, counted

Sep. 9th, 2025 09:31 pm
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
Today I finally updated my word count spreadsheet, for the first time since March.

Nothing but alibi sentences for most of that time, now all typed up and word-counted. Turns out (not entirely unexpectedly) July and August this year were my second- and third-worst writing months ever since I started documenting my writing ... Time to get out of that slump NOW.

Does anyone have tips for restarting? I think I could use some ...

ETA: Specifically, what I'm struggling with is that I've been writing no more than a sentence or three at a go, for much too long, and now I'm out of the habit and can't seem to go beyond that without a major effort. *grumbles*

Dear FFFX writer

Sep. 8th, 2025 05:35 pm
trobadora: (reader)
[personal profile] trobadora
Dear [community profile] fffx writer,

thank you so much for writing a gift for me! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships or worldbuilding themes I requested. and everything important is in the requests themselves, but if you'd like even more info, general likes etc., here you go.

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

( Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms, relationships, worldbuilding

In somewhat alphabetical order - note that one of them is expanded compared to what's in the sign-up form:

Jump directly to:
( Christabel/Grimm crossover: Worldbuilding )

( 绅探 | Detective L: Huo Wensi/Luo Fei )

( Grimm/Guardian crossovers:  )

( Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

( 长公主在上 | Eldest Princess On Top: Li Yunzhen/Gu Xuanqing )

Guardian Slo-Mo Rewatch

Sep. 7th, 2025 11:43 pm
trobadora: (Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan - broadcast)
[personal profile] trobadora
I don't know where the day went, or the weekend. How is it almost midnight already?!

Anyway: Over at [community profile] sid_guardian we've kicked off another rewatch - a slo-mo one this time, half an episode per week. And since we've already done the "take an epic amount of notes and write epic post" kind of rewatch, this one's going to be a bit more relaxed. *g*

Zhao Yunlan sprawled on a couch, grinning at his phone. The background shows a purply sky with stars. Text reads "Slo-Mo Rewatch. Guardian - half an episode per week @ sid-guardian.dreamwidth.org."


Here's the first post, episode 1, part 1.

fests and exchanges

Sep. 5th, 2025 11:36 pm
trobadora: (mightier)
[personal profile] trobadora
After not writing anything more than alibi sentences for ages - my last fic was in May (The Consultant, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan), and the one before that in March (Beyond the Gates, the Mountain, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan) - I'm signing up for a lot of stuff now! Deadlines are usually very effective at making me write, so now that I'm not so busy any more and it's actually possible, that should get me back to where I want to be, writing-wise. I hope. *g*

In order of reveals:
  • There's [community profile] rarepairexchange, which has its deadline a little over two weeks from now, though reveals aren't until October. I've been poking at my assignment, and I have a bunch of things I know I want to be in it, but so far I haven't managed to pull it all together into a coherent narrative. Hopefully once I've conquered this one, things will be flowing again!

  • Then there's [community profile] guardian_wishlist, for which I just finished my sign-up last night - and we've only just posted the first batch of wishlists. (Mine is here; I'm requesting Guardian drama and RPF, as well as Guardian/Grimm and Guardian/Stargate crossovers.) And there are so many tempting prompts already! Reveals are on 6 October, and I hope to make a bunch of stuff before then.

  • Next comes [community profile] ficinabox, with a deadline in October and reveals in November - assignments aren't out yet, but should come soon. I won't seriously tackle that one until after Rarepair Exchange, though. Plenty of time if I brainstorm and have a plan by then!

  • There's also the Guardian Bonus Bingo grace period in November, for which I hope to finish at least some of the things I started and didn't finish so far. *g*

  • Yuletide is of course gearing up again as well, so that's what I'll be working on in December. Can't wait to find out which rare fandom I get to write this time!

  • Then, hopefully [community profile] fandomtrees will also run again this year, and I'll get to make a bunch of stuff for that too! Reveals are genearally early to mid-January.

  • And finally, there's [community profile] fffx which doesn't have its deadline until the second half of January. I still need to finish my sign-up for that (planning on doing that this weekend), but that deadline is so far away, there'd still be plenty of time even if I didn't start thinking about it until after Yuletide ends. (Though I hope to have a plan before then!) Of course, an idea might grab me right away and I might be working on this in parallel to everything else, you never know! *g*

Yeah, I know that's a lot. *g* I hope to make up a bit for all those months of not writing! But everything's nicely spaced out, except for Rarepair Exchange revealing one day before Guardian Wishlist, and the Bingo grace period overlapping with FIAB reveals. So it should be very doable without being too exhausting. *g*

What fests or exchanges is everyone else doing?

Bohemian Rhapsody (Zulu version)

Sep. 4th, 2025 03:09 pm
trobadora: (Default)
[personal profile] trobadora
Via [personal profile] brithistorian: the South African Ndlovu Youth Choir has translated Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody into Zulu. It's gorgeous - and after I saw the video, I just had to share it. It's completely stunning:

YULETIDE!!!!

Sep. 3rd, 2025 09:56 pm
trobadora: (Discworld: Hogfather)
[personal profile] trobadora
It's that time of year again!

Yuletide is still my favourite multifannish exchange, and this year's schedule is out - nominations start on the 15th. And they're running an experiment with giving us more nominations and requests this year! Very cool, and I hope it works out well!

What's new this year:
  • The deadline is 12 hours earlier than it was the last few years. (First time in a while that the deadline will be when I'm actually awake, but I'll try not to cut it too close. *g*)

  • Reveals are also 12 hours earlier than they've been the last few years. (First time in a while that I'll be awake when the collection opens!)

  • We get 5 fandom nominations instead of 4. (Woohoo!)

  • We get 8 requests instead of 6! (And again, woohoo! It's so hard to choose between rare fandoms.)

Who else is doing Yuletide? Have you thought about what you're going to nominate/request/offer this year?

September posting, and Guardian Wishlist

Sep. 2nd, 2025 09:56 pm
trobadora: (Guardian - SID team)
[personal profile] trobadora
I haven't been posting much lately - or rather, in a long while. In March I crashed pretty hard after a writing marathon, and then work got very busy for a very long time, so I spent several months putting almost all my energy into that. Until late May I kept thinking I could do more, fannishly, but after that I gave up on keeping up with anything other than the Guardian novel readalong on [community profile] sid_guardian. August has been (finally) back to normal at work, but the month just flew past before I could get back on my feet, never mind in the saddle. *g*

But this month I'm trying to make that happen. Writing more than alibi sentences: something I need to relearn, LOL.

And I'm trying to post more again here too, finally! My plan for that is twofold:
  1. post something every day of September, and

  2. because I keep feeling like I did literally nothing at all since April other than work, but that's not in fact literally true, I want to remind myself of that by posting about stuff I did do during these months.
Yesterday I got off to a good start by posting about the very last thing I did in August, namely watching Dongji Rescue.

For today, here's another thing I did do recently, together with [personal profile] china_shop: preparing for [community profile] guardian_wishlist! And then sign-ups just opened at the end of August:

A gifting fest for Guardian and related fandoms: guardian-wishlist.dreamwidth.org


I really love this fest. It's our Guardian-and-related-fandoms version of [community profile] fandomtrees (rules), and we're in our fifth year already, wow! I love that this fandom is still going strong. :D

Our schedule for 2025:
  • 28 August: sign-ups open - open now!
  • 5 September: first wishlists posted
  • 15 September: sign-ups close
  • 16 September: final wishlists posted
  • 6 October: gifts revealed
Wishlist reveals are on Reunion Festival/Mid-Autumn Festival, which is late this year. Hopefully I can actually get back in the saddle and write some significant amount of gifts in that time!

We already have 8 sign-ups! I haven't finished mine yet, but soon. Definitely hoping so see some more of you there as well! ♥ ♥ ♥

Seasons of Drabbles - Summer Round 2025 fills

18 Sep. 1st, 2025 08:38 pm
exceptionallyunfortunate: Santa from 999 doubled over in pain (Aoi)
[personal profile] exceptionallyunfortunate

Pod Together 2025 Reveals

Sep. 1st, 2025 10:24 am
phoenixfalls: Stone & Sky (Default)
[personal profile] phoenixfalls
Title: Pod_Together Rolling Remix
Fandoms: Captains Courageous; Vorkosigan Saga; White Cockades: An Incident of the "Forty-Five"; Kushiel's Legacy; Elementary; Flight of the Heron
Rating: Gen & Mature
Word Count: 11,020 words
Podfic Length: 91 minutes
Summary:
A Rolling Remix project by [personal profile] phoenixfalls and [personal profile] sanguinity, created for Pod-Together 2025. Eight stories and six fandoms, wherein each story reimagines the story that went before. Each story may be enjoyed as a stand-alone, or as part of its chain of remixes.

Approaching this year's Pod_Together, Sang and I both liked the idea of working together again, but also felt intimidated by the success of last year's project - it seemed inevitable that anything we produced this year would disappoint in comparison.

So we chose to eschew comparison altogether - we would create something entirely for ourselves, purely for the joy of it, with no consideration whatsoever to whether there was a potential audience. We hit upon the idea of a rolling remix, just between the two of us, where none of the usual rules applied: we could change tropes, characters, ships, even fandoms at will. (We did not even promise to stick to fandoms we knew the other person was familiar with!)

The writing period was a delight. The podficcing period was challenging, in part because we both did some good-natured poking at each other with the fandoms we chose to write in - Sang started us off with a historical boat fandom I knew nothing about, and also threw some Gaelic at me; I retaliated by giving her an alt!France fantasy novel - but it was a good stretch for both of us, figuring out how to keep up our performance up as we experimented with accents. ([personal profile] garonne and [personal profile] tgarnsl were invaluable to this effort!)

And after posting it all, we discovered we'd written 11,000 words and recorded 90 minutes of audio - an extremely productive 10 weeks or so! In terms of theme, the whole project is something of a meditation on devotion: between friends and between lovers, between liege lords and vassals; between blood family and between chosen family. I'm extremely happy with how it turned out.

Here are the individual fics; they can each be enjoyed as a standalone (well, the three Vorkosigan Saga fics are a single AU that should be read in order), and even canon-blind (though you may want to read/listen to the What You Need to Know summaries we put together first):
  • Current Mood: pleased
Tags:

东极岛 Dongji Rescue

Sep. 1st, 2025 08:23 pm
trobadora: (Zhu Yilong - pirate)
[personal profile] trobadora
Last night I saw 东极岛 Dongji Rescue (IMDB | MyDramaList), Zhu Yilong's new film.

It's based on a historical episode from World War 2 (the sinking of the Lisbon Maru), though it's heavily fictionalised and in no way historically accurate. *g*

(There's a 2024 documentary on the real event, which I'd love to see if anyone knows where to find it!)

Anyway, Dongji Rescue is a really well done, effective film! ( spoilers below the cut )

Also, watching this movie was a very multilingual experience - the film itself has Chinese, Japanese and English dialogue all aplenty (which you don't see nearly enough of, IMO!), handling the language barriers really well - and then we had German subtitles on top of that. *g* They were good, too, and not as distracting as I might have expected. Since I've generally watched Chinese media with English subtitles, and also learned what Chinese I have with English-language material, all my Chinese is routed through English, and it's usually somewhat disorienting to watch something with German subtitles instead. But the multilingual mix of this film somehow balanced that out, and I didn't have an issue. Though I was happy to have the Chinese subtitles as well as they helped me follow along the Chinese dialogue where I could!

Dear FIAB creator(s)

Aug. 31st, 2025 02:05 am
trobadora: (Trobadora)
[personal profile] trobadora
Dear [community profile] ficinabox creator(s),

thank you so much for creating a gift for me! I'll be absolutely thrilled about anything you can create about the relationships or worldbuilding themes I requested. Here are all my request details and prompts, as well as general preferences/likes etc.!

My AO3 account is [archiveofourown.org profile] Trobadora, and it's set to welcome treats.

General Preferences

( Likes & Dislikes/DNWs )

Fandoms, relationships, worldbuilding

In somewhat alphabetical order:

Jump directly to:
( Christabel/Grimm crossover: Christabel/Geraldine in Grimm )

( Grimm: Nick/Renard/Juliette, Worldbuilding )

( 镇魂 | Guardian (TV): Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing/Zhu Hong, Shen Wei & Ya Qing, Worldbuilding )

( Grimm/Guardian crossovers: various combinations of Shen Wei, Zhao Yunlan, Ya Qing, Sean Renard, Juliette Silverton, Nick Burkhardt )

( Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling: Kashtiliash & Raupasha )

( Once Upon a Time in Wonderland: Anastasia/Jabberwocky )

( Sherlock (BBC): Sherlock Holmes/Jim Moriarty )

( 山河令 | Word of Honor: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu, Worldbuilding )

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