When they said sit down I stood up

The death of tumblr

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 10:46:04 GMT

... I see we're heading back to DW, then!

I'm not sure I can remember how to make original content, have opinions, or talk to other humans, but it should be fun finding out.

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Well it HAS been a while

Thu, 18 Jun 2015 10:46:05 GMT

Drive-by posting to share my first ever tattoo. I love it a lot.

( It's been a long time coming )

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DEFINITELY NOT DEAD

Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:45:50 GMT

... Just extremely lazy about blogging these days (other than on Tumblr which doesn't really count, does it).

Anyway, so my dear lefaym and I recently made a pact, that in order to get ourselves writing, we would write at least 100 words a week and send them to each other. Doing so for a couple of months, with associated cheerleading, has led me to writing a fic. This is very unusual and unexpected.

While posting on here these days is the equivalent of screaming into a vacuum, it felt wrong not to at least whack up a link to it. So here you go: I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight. The fandom is ATLA, and the pairing is Zuko/Jet and it's got sex and drinking in it so yeah. :S

It's been over a year since my last post and that genuinely makes me sad. I wish I could say "I'll post again soon!" but that would probably be a lie.

Here are some things I have done recently, as an update: made a fuckton of sewn items, including for money; been told off for swearing at a wedding (achievement unlocked, am I right); played Animal Crossing New Leaf a lot; shaved the side of my head for fun; had a biopsy which THANK FUCK was nothing to worry about; dressed up as a mime; swum in the North Sea; eaten seven kinds of cheese in one sitting; been brought multiple dead animals by the cat.

Speaking of cats, here is a cat parade.

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I embroidered a thing!

Fri, 20 Sep 2013 14:41:23 GMT

I've just posted my Thing for the latest round of imadeathing. It's a cross-stitch of one of my favourite lines from Gavin and Stacey.

Click through for pictures!

(In other news, it's the start of a new academic year, and I hate people more than ever.)

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Old-school post: fic recs

Wed, 14 Aug 2013 14:29:55 GMT

1) I am really happy with the casting for the Twelth Doctor. :]

(I want to write a post about My Thoughts On Doctor Who and why I actually prefer the Moffat era to the RTD one and why I think you can be a feminist and want a male Doctor, and things like that, but I'm struggling to do so and also I'm still always a bit scared of wank so I might come back to that one.)

2) It has been SO LONG since I did a rec post and I have no idea if this will be of any use to anyone, but I am doing Welcome To Night Vale fic recs below this cut!

( Haven't done recs for AGES )

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Apparently I still have thoughts about that Potter fucker and his mates

Thu, 01 Aug 2013 10:13:09 GMT

I haven't been in Harry Potter fandom for a long time, and therefore haven't really been paying much attention to Pottermore. However, from time to time stuff from it comes up on my Tumblr or Twitter feed so I end up reading it.

One of the latest sections unlocked is a biography of Remus Lupin, which -- if you can be arsed -- you can read here.

My few thoughts on this, under the cut for old times' sake:

( Read more... )

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Ugh. PEOPLE

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 13:30:18 GMT

Like much of fandom, I've drifted away from LJ/DW in recent months and years, in favour of various combinations of Twitter, Tumblr, anonmemes and AO3.

I'm feeling especially grouchy about that today because I've ended up caught up in a duststorm of wank, and it's put me in a bad mood.

( I will summarise. )

The thing is -- this is a pretty small issue in some ways, but there has been a lot of argument recently about Tumblr being taken over by Yahoo, and how that might affect the adult/explicit material hosted there. (As well as the fandom presence, which includes as much NC-17 fic and art as you might expect, there are also many porn blogs, educational sex blogs, and so on.) I reblogged this because I found it worrying that something utterly SFW would be censored (especially as the bits that seem to be censored are the bits where the soldier is saying "I'm gay").

(The thing is, and this probably makes me a shitty person, but I've found myself hoping, wishing even, that a Tumblr exodus would mean everyone coming back to LJ/DW and that everything would be as lovely as it was in the good old days, which is never going to happen and those days weren't that good anyway, but I still find myself thinking it.)

Anyway! I actually do feel better having had a little rant about that. It's probably silly to be so wound up about it; there are wanky types everywhere, and fandom has always been full of people like that, and I really do feel like there are a lot of quite young people on Tumblr who have just started to learn about social justice and are very passionate but not enormously knowledgeable, and I know that I was exactly the same at that age (e.g. a boy at school might ask me what feminism was, and I would slap him in the face and call him chauvinist scum, and he was genuinely asking, and I had a book in my bag called "Feminism for Beginners" and I'd only read half of it). In any case, Tumblr isn't always a great place discussion and that it's very easy to be misconstrued there. So I'm not going to dwell on it.

Let's talk about something else. Recently I have been watching Avatar: the Last Airbender, which I had never seen until now, and it's so good! I am about to finish the final series and I will miss it very much. I love all the characters, and the weird animals and the awesome setting. It's GREAT.

I have also jumped on the Welcome to Night Vale bandwagon and I regret nothing. It's also GREAT. I have always had a thing for eldritch abominations and for incomprehensible horror and/or strangeness mixed with the very ordinary (see also my love of Murakami, for instance), so it's perfect. It's also lovely to have something I can obsess over and get excited about and enjoy immensely while also not taking my eyes off my knitting. Radio shows and podcasts are the best for that, haha.

Enough of this, anyway; how are YOU?

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I made another thing!

Mon, 24 Jun 2013 14:49:33 GMT

imadeathing - that's I Made A Thing, not I'm a'deathing, for example - is having another round! I am totally going to participate, so long as there's a prompt I can claim.

We need prompts. You should totally prompt fannish crafty prompts over here.

(Sorry, I'm not around much. Not much to say. Keep thinking I might post something here or there, just writing I've been doing, but it seems odd to post something like that out of the blue.)

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Well, it has been a while!

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:25:38 GMT

HELLO PALS. How are you?

I actually have something fannish to blog about! That's exciting, isn't it.

I went to the Horrible Histories Season 5 Premiere at the BFI, and it was spectacular. I had so much fun. Some stuff about it and general reflections under the cut!

( Read more... )

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Recent things I made (for a certain value of recent)

Tue, 19 Feb 2013 15:54:54 GMT

Fuck me, it's been ages since I posted anything I've made, imadeathing notwithstanding. Have a picspam!

( THINGS GALORE )

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I Made a Thing!

Wed, 06 Feb 2013 14:04:10 GMT

imadeathing posting is go!

I made a lace shawl, from floaty kidsilk, intended to fill the prompt of "Harry Potter, abstract, knitting". In short, I wanted to make something that was a little bit random and imaginative, and a little bit airy and light, and a little bit tiara-like, to represent Ravenclaw, because Ravenclaw rules, yo.

Here is one picture:

And here is my post where you can see more pictures and, if you're interested in that sort of thing, read about how I made it and the materials and so on.

I have no idea whatsoever what I'm going to do with it. Might whack it on my Etsy shop and see if I can sell it.

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Wah

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 14:01:24 GMT

OK, so my snowflake_challenge posts have completely fallen by the wayside, and my imadeathing project has been sadly neglected the last few weeks. There is an excellent reason for these things, though: I have come down with a fucking horrible case of the flu, with an ear infection chaser, meaning that I have spent the last two weeks in bed, popping ibuprofen and sleeping twenty hours a day. This all meant that I missed that much-anticipated singing weekend, and I am a little bit heartbroken.

I will catch up on all them posts and what have you when I am back on my feet. :(

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 8

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:10:50 GMT

In your own space, talk about setting yourself a fannish goal. Big or small, it doesn't matter. Some examples: complete a bingo, sign up for a Big Bang, write that fic you've been thinking about for years, podfic that story that you love, make a fanmix for your fandom, post that bit of meta or reclist you keep putting off. Maybe resolve to be better at leaving feedback or answering comments.

OK: here are my fannish goals!

★ Finish my imadeathing craft and blog about it!

★ Finish and post the R/S fanmix I have been working on for literally years.

★ Reorganise my master post (I imported it directly from LJ, so all the links still go to LJ posts). Correct all the links, and make a new section for browsing by fandom rather than medium.

★ As above - correct all the links that go to LJ in my Uberwank posts.

★ Leave more kudos and comments on AO3.

★ I also resolve to at least try and finish the things I start. I have so many half-written fics and bits of meta and things lurking on my hard drive and in my gdocs and it would be good to let them see the light of day.

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Days 5-7

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 11:33:23 GMT

I've not been at the computer since Friday afternoon, so here are three days' worth of challenges.

Day 5 was simply to "Stretch yourself a little and try something new. Go play in a new fandom or with a new pairing. Try working in a new medium. Or consume different fanworks", and therefore I have just watched a fanvid. I have watched vids before but they never really grabbed me. I liked the one I watched, though, because it had a really good song that went perfectly with the characters and the tone of the video -- I liked it a lot! And now I think of it, one of the reasons perhaps that I haven't been particularly bothered by vids I've seen in the past is because they had songs by fuckin' Coldplay or someone. :D

( Day 6 )

( Day 7 )

I'll post Day 8 later today.

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 4

Fri, 04 Jan 2013 11:57:34 GMT

In your own space, create a list of at least three fannish things you'd love to receive, something you've wanted but were afraid to ask for - a fannish wish-list of sorts. Maybe someone will grant a wish. Check out other people's posts. Maybe you will grant a wish.

Here are some things I would like. I have listed five things because I am greedy (and because I don't expect to get any of my wishes granted, so why not go all out?).

♥ Recs for Community fic or art for the ensemble cast, or pretty much any pairing, or something gen. I love this show and would be really excited to get into the fandom.

♥ Recs for Tangled fic, art etc. I'd be especially excited for some Rule 63 of one or both the main characters.

♥ Recs for decent Legend of Zelda fic that doesn't pair Link/Zelda (unless it's for one of the games where it's canon).

♥ Horrible Histories vidding. Like, I want it to exist.

♥ For someone to draw fan art of something I've written.

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Days 2 and 3

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 22:16:31 GMT

In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you did not create. See if you can rec fanworks that are less likely to be praised: tiny fandoms, rare pairings, fanworks other than stories, lesser known kinks or tropes. Find fanworks that have few to no comments, or creators new to a particular fandom and maybe aren't well known or appreciated. Appreciate them.

I admit I've been pretty slack at reading any sort of fic lately. And when I have, because I've been so crap at keeping up with fandom, I have no idea what's good and what's not. So some of the fics I will list here will not necessarily be new or lesser-known or anything -- but they're all fics that I have loved and that I can come back to again and again.

( More than three, too! )

Day three's task was to friend some new people. As I recently gained lots of new flisters via that there friending meme, I am counting this one as done (which I believe brings me up to date). Woo yeah!

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Fandom Snowflake Challenge, Day 1

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 23:26:32 GMT

As part of my usual resolution to post moar, I am taking part in snowflake_challenge. Here is my day 1 post, which is a day late. I may not take part every day, it depends on how hard the questions are, but I'll give it a pop. :)

Day 1: In your own space, post a rec for at least three fanworks that you have created. It can be your favorite fanworks that you've created, or fanworks you feel no one ever saw, or fanworks you say would define you as a creator.

( My answers )

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2012 in review

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 14:28:29 GMT

Happy new year! I hope everyone had a good Christmas/New Year/time off work or whatever is applicable to you. I hope you are well and OK and happy, is my point.

Here are some highlights of the last year.

( Pop pop )

This year I resolve to try and post more, because I know I've been crap at that recently (blame the above activities).

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Hello etc!

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:18:45 GMT

I've just taken part in a friending meme (eee old-school!) and gained a few new followers. And it occurs to me that there may be friends on here in general who I don't know too well. So here is a post All About Me.

( Sup )

I would love to know about you in return. :)

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I may live to regret this

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:53:44 GMT

banner by ktc

It's only a bloody fandom craft fest! You can grab a prompt or just make something to an idea you already had, and you've got until February to do it. I'm in. (More info at the info post.)

I'm really excited to take part in this - I've been feeling myself drifing away from fandom recently, and I'm hoping this will help me to come back a little. I'm also really, really stoked that someone thought to do a craft-based fest, because - well, when I first joined fandom many years ago, I always felt a bit like I couldn't really participate because neither fic nor art comes naturally to me. Crafting does. :)

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Professor Catface Miaowmers

Mon, 03 Sep 2012 14:39:40 GMT

That isn't actually her name. Her name is Agitha.

Here we are.

( KITTEN )

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Little House On The Council Estate

Fri, 31 Aug 2012 11:33:59 GMT

(Well, it used to be a council estate, though it's mostly privately owned now, as far as I can tell.)

We have moved! We have left renting behind, hopefully forever. We have our own house and nobody can sell it out from under us, or evict us, or let themselves in to look around, or redecorate without our permission, or tell us we're not keeping it clean enough, or take money away from us for no reason.

We got the keys on Friday 17th and moved in the following Tuesday. In the interim we painted and painted and painted, and also sanded and ripped up carpets and caulked and cleaned and packed.

(Moving was stressful and shitty and I will say nothing of it here. Also, letting agents are twunts. That is all.)

Anyway! Good things! Here are some pictures.

( The above image was my very useful contribution to painting in the bedroom )

Still to do: finish painting the stairs and upstairs floors; get the roof fixed; completely remodel the bathroom (it's small and damp and smells of white spirit and drains at the moment), tile the hearth, sort out the craft room completely including buying myself a table for sewing and a desk for resin-work, make curtains, and remember to keep it clean and tidy. Oh, and we're getting a cat tonight. (I'm so nervous, what if I step on the cat or hoover up the cat or set the cat on fire, but also, CAT!)

In summary: tired and oh god scary, but what a wonderful adventure, and how lucky we are to be embarking on it. :3

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Grown up stuff

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 10:32:06 GMT

So I didn't say anything about this before because I didn't want to jinx anything or be too excited or anything, but here is some news: my gentleman friend and I have bought a house.

We actually don't officially buy it until a week today, which is the date we complete, which always sounds faintly sinister to me. But we have exchanged contracts and paid our deposit, and are now frantically packing up our flat and giving things to charity and selling other things and organising vans and buying paint and generally running around in circles. This is more than a bit stressful.

This is going to be such a good thing when it's done, because we won't have to pay some money-grubbing bastard rent any more, and I really do hate paying rent because it's ridiculously high and I've never rented from any landlord who wasn't either useless or an arsehole.

(Stupid thing: our mortgage payments will be something like £150 LESS per month than our rent. I'll spare the major rant, but seriously, renting is such a fucked-up business, at least in this country and this part of the country, I don't know about other places. It's so high you end up living hand-to-mouth half the time, and you are utterly at your landlord's mercy. A few years back we were kicked out of our flat just before Christmas, and a few years before that we waited over a month for a landlady to replace a broken boiler in the middle of winter. You get scared to complain and demand is so high that you can't get away with withholding rent or threatening to move out. Maybe it's just where I live, but it's a shit situation.

And while I'm on the subject: we couldn't have bought this place without money that my parents have basically given us - although we do intend to pay them back - and that is fucked up too. We're lucky, lots of people aren't. Again, rent is so high it's impossible to save up. It makes me really cross.)

Anyway anyway - this is exciting! Our house is a nice one, nicer than we thought we'd manage. It is an ex-council house (built in the 1930s under the Homes For Heroes movement), and it even has some original features - notably the open fireplace in the living room, and the wooden floorboards, ahhhhhh! And a huge garden in which we plan to keep chickens. We are going to have a vegetable patch. WE ARE GOING TO GET A CAT. SO EXCITING.

Seriously though, this is really exciting for us, and tiring and stressful at the same time, but ultimately it will be wonderful, I hope.

...

SHIT SHIT SHIT I'M A FUCKING ADULT WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO

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Fic: A Letter of June 9th, 1994

Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:07:41 GMT

In my last post, which was a heap of wangst, I promised myself I would post some of the fic I’ve written and never done anything with. This is the first one.

(Although I wrote this one recently -- apropos of nothing and about five years too late to be of any use to anyone. And I'm not sure it's even worth much. Posting it really to prove to myself I can.)

Thanks to lefaym for the beta.

Title: A Letter of June 9th, 1994
Author: fera_festiva
Pairing: Remus/Sirius (I don’t even know)
Summary: Having made it to safety, Sirius writes a letter.
Words: ~750
Rating: G

( Perhaps I should elaborate. )

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This town (ahh) is coming like a ghost town, or, WANK WANK WANK

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 21:29:50 GMT

This is wangst; apologies in advance and do feel free to ignore it.

Over the last few days, as a way of passing the time while I'd had very little to do at work, I've found myself going through old LJ entries, organising the tags and updating links and so on. This has unexpectedly left me in a state of horrible depression, the likes of which I have not seen in a long while.

I've thought about it, and I think I know why this has happened, and it's because -- dear god, I'm not even sure I should be posting this because I feel like an idiot -- I miss LJ fandom so fucking much.

I miss the way we did fandom then (by which I mean only a few years ago, but it seems so much longer). I miss comment threads. I miss the days of squeeing over Remus/Sirius and drawing silly steampunk fanart and attempting to write fic which I was then too embarrassed to post because people would maybe read it and it wouldn't be as good as all the other things out there. I miss it all, I miss it so much. I feel terribly, horribly lonely, and I dearly wish I could claw back the good things from a few years ago, but it's mostly all gone.

I mean -- I am still in touch with some of the closest of my friends from that time. We speak on Twitter almost every day, I see their posts on Tumblr, or on Facebook (and those are not bad ways of communicating; I use them all). Other friends, though, I don't know what happened to them. I miss them. My heart hurts when I remember them. I'm not saying I'm not grateful for the friends I still have, because I know I am so, so lucky to have them in my life, and I wouldn't change them for the world, and I am touched that they would want to have anything to do with little old Fera. (You know what? Most of them won't see this, because they don't use LJ/DW any more. I'm not sure if anyone will see this at all, if I'm honest. I think maybe I'm screaming into the void.)

(And the thing is, it took me a long time to find any really good fandom pals, and by the time I'd done that, the fandoms themselves had moved on or were over or we'd all got into different things, and then I didn't know how else to meet people, and for all that fandom is a big place, it's easy to feel rather isolated, especially if you're lacking in confidence and not so able to easily bound up to people and introduce yourself.)

I'm rambling all over the place here. And overusing brackets.

(A possible positive side-effect of all this: I might actually have the confidence to post some of that fic that's been hanging about on my hard drive for ages, because the chances of anyone actually reading it are slim anyway. In fact, this is a promise. I'll post fic.)

I'll stop here.

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