cyphomandra | Network

Hugh Howey, Wool: ( underground dystopia )
Stephanie Burgis, Wooing the Witch Queen: ( meet cute )

R.F. Kuang, Katabasis:( hell is other academics )

Qntm, There Is No Antimemetics Division: ( fighting a war you can't remember )

Mia Tsai, The Memory Hunters: ( memory and mushrooms )

John Scalzi, R. F. Kuang, Peng Shepherd, Kaliane Bradley, Olivie Blake, P. Djèlí Clark, The Time Traveler’s Passport: ( short stories )

Francesca Serritella, Ghosts of Harvard: ( ghosts or just mental illness? )

V. E. Schwab, A Darker Shade of Magic: ( world hoppers )

redbird

I think I have arranged to transfer the inherited IRA money from my mother's account at BNY to a new account in my name at Fidelity. It's at Fidelity because they were willing and able to do this, rather than telling me that I would have to go somewhere else to get a medallion signature.

A couple of weeks ago Adrian's advisor at Fidelity said that they could provide the medallion signature, and would do it for free because she has an account there. When she called this morning to make an appointment, they told her that they couldn't do that for her partner, but if I created an account today to transfer the money into, I could go there tomorrow and get the medallion signature. So, I called Fidelity to set up the account.

That went more smoothly than I expected. Someone walked me through the process of creating the new account, and setting up the transfer. He said the Fidelity back office people will take care of moving the money, and he didn't think I would need the medallion signature, meaning I don't need to go to their office. The website said the "estimated completion date" was Dec. 16, and the man I was talking to said it would probably be sooner than that.

I want this to be done before the end of the year, so I can take the 2025 required minimum distribution.

I am hopeful that this will work, even if they call me and tell ne to come in and get the medallion signature guarantee.

tarlanx posting in

c_ent

Created to fulfil a challenge in

seasons_of_fandom Round 1.

Drabbles

Fandom: Word of Honor (TV)
Characters: Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu

Wen Kexing awoke with a start, shaking off the nightmare and looking down at the man asleep beside him. Zishu was restless, murmuring as if caught in his own nightmare. Concerned by the pallor of his skin and the sweat beading on his forehead, it seemed only natural to grasp the twitching fingers. Zishu sat up with a gasp, blood on his lips and his breathing was ragged, his Qi pulsing weakly. Kexing moved behind and forced his own Qi into the sick man, shoving down the crushing fear that Zishu was running out of time for both of them.

Fandom: The Yin-Yang Master Dream of Eternity
Characters: Qingming/Boya

Qingming raised his cup of wine and watched as Boya stalked away with a disgruntled expression that would have been amusing on anyone else, but for some inexplicable reason he wanted Boya to like him. He hid his melancholy thoughts and smiled at the lesser demons he had invited to sip wine with him, noticing one of them watching him intently.

"He did not like seeing you in our company."

Qingming's smile waned. "He has no love for demons."

"Perhaps most demons but not all. That was jealousy not anger."

"Jealous? Of me?"

The demon laughed. "No. Jealous of me."

Graphics

Phone Wallpaper - 1080x1920
Fandom: Guardian/L'Oreal Time Engraver
Characters: Zhao Yunlan/Shen Wei|Time Engraver

Guardian-Time Engraver - Phone Wallpaper by Tarlan

Bookmark - 300x800
Fandom: The Yin-Yang Master Dream of Eternity
Characters: Boya

The Yin-Yang Master Dream of Eternity - Boya Bookmark - Front image

The Yin-Yang Master Dream of Eternity - Boya Bookmark - Rear image

Postcard
Fandom: Word of Honor (TV)
Characters: Zhou Zishu to Ye Baiyi (with added remarks from Wen Kexing)

Word of Honor - Postcard to Ye Baiyi by Tarlan

pauraque

In my ongoing journey to play games from as many countries as possible, I ran across this early example of a game from Hungary. It was developed by Pál Balog with music by Zoltán Mericske, and was brought to English-speaking audiences by the British company Andromeda Software, who specialized in producing English localizations of games made in the Eastern Bloc. (They were the ones who introduced Tetris to the West.)

white bird carries a twig to a nest in a tree

white bird carries a twig to a nest in a tree

Bird Mother (or Madár mama in Hungarian) is, as you might have guessed, a game where you play as a mother bird who must build a nest, feed her babies, and protect the young while they fledge. (It's also an early example of a game with a female protagonist!) You might also guess from the release date and the English subtitle "Life's a Struggle" that the game is hard, and you'd be correct in that as well. I was actually impressed by how uncomfortably infuriating the game is to play.

( more about the game and a little info on personal computers in Communist Europe )

You can play Bird Mother in your browser if you wish to be reminded that whether you build your nest in the First World or the Second, life truly is a struggle.

marycatelli

I Picked Up This World's Strategy Guide, Vol. 1 by atchi ai

A frolic with a somewhat different approach. A girl works in her mother's item shop, and one day while gathering herbs, she finds a book. A strange book.

( Read more... )

darkjediqueen posting in

fan_flashworks

Title: More Than One Bomb
Rating: R
Warnings: No Warnings Apply
Fandom: 9-1-1, S.W.A.T.
Relationships: Donovan Rocker/Molly Hicks, Evan Buckley/Tommy Kinard
Tags: Established Relationships, Bombing, Mistaken Identity,
Summary: Molly is helping with first aid after an explosion at the mall when she figures out one of Rocker's secrets.
Word Count: 1,983

( More Than One Bomb )

duskpeterson

Some elders of the borderland still remember the months in 949 when Daxis's Border Port was crowded with war refugees, caused by the outbreak of war between Koretia and Emor.

For a place of somber history, Border Port is an exceptionally cheerful town. Border Port is the only port in the borderland, though you can easily journey to the borderland from points north and south. Disembarking at Border Port, however, places you immediately into one of the liveliest locations in the borderland.

"Lively" is a euphemism for "rowdy." Do not – I repeat, do not – wander here unescorted if you are a woman. Families with small children will probably want to pass through this town quickly, taking overnight accommodations elsewhere.

Unmarried men, however, are likely to enjoy their visit. Sailors have long made this town – one of the oldest ports in the Great Peninsula – their place for recreation. Daxions have happily met their needs. In this mild climate, entertainment is year-round and usually takes place on the streets. Daxion bards sing on every corner, Emorian jugglers stand in every doorway, and Koretian dagger-throwers lay claim over every handy wooden wall. Look out for the last; dagger-throwers don't offer warning before they throw.

Many of these entertainers will have bowls at their feet. These are for coins or – if you do not yet possess peninsularean coinage – for gifts of food. Be generous in your offerings; bards in particular are inclined to offer commentary on stingy listeners, in the form of excruciatingly derisive ballads.

"But what about the women?" Many a northern mainlander has asked me that question. Houses of prostitution are indeed abundant in the Border Port. I mention this, not in order to encourage this distasteful trade, but because these houses are often overlooked by mainlanders who come to the Great Peninsula in search of wives. See the section on courting for more information.

[Translator's note: Readers can take a trip to Border Port in Death Mask.]

oursin

Last week was definitely a trifecta of Electrical Stuff.

Okay, I had been suspecting for some time that the fan heater in the front room was an ex-fan heater, and plugging it into a different socket (rather than an extension cord) confirmed this.

Have now ordered a convection heater (Which Best Buy), allegedly arriving tomorrow.

Last Tuesday around 6 am there was a power cut - it only lasted about 90 minutes, but involved a certain amount of resetting appliances which had become confused - also UKPowerNet only finally alerted me about this event by text several hours after things were back to more or less normal.

What I had not expected and accounted for in resetting things was that my clock alarm had decided that the time my alarm was set for was 6 am, so I got a rude awakening the following morning.

The other thing - and this was positively sinister - was that my electric toothbrush suddenly started buzzing away all by itself on the bathroom window ledge and was very very reluctant to be switched off. How is it not scary when this sort of thing happens?

Anyway, next morning it was apathetic about being switched on and is now an ex-toothbrush. A new one - not a top Which Best Buy as those are hugely expensive, but about third on the list which is on promotion at various outlets - currently expected. I have a backup but would rather this had not happened the week I am due for a trip to the dental hygienist.

badly_knitted posting in

drabble_zone

Title: Prisoner
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:

badly_knitted
Characters: Varian, Camden, and the Privateers.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 477: Lock And Key.
Setting: Before the series.
Summary: Captured and flogged by a band of sixteenth century English privateers, Varian must find a way to escape.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
A/N: Triple drabble.

Prisoner

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

misfitmonarchy posting in

fandomcalendar

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marycatelli posting in

books

Orange by Ichigo Takano

This is available in five volumes, and also in two omnibus editions (the second included a backstory which I didn't get into), but it reads as one story.

It opens with Naho receiving a letter. It says it's from her future self, that a new boy will arrive in class and sit beside her, and she must not ask him to walk home, because he's no longer with them in the future.

Not knowing what to believe, she joins with her friends in asking

( Read more... )

romanajo123

Title- The Sweetest Proposal Ever
Fandom: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (Big Finish)
Characters/Pairings: Eighth Doctor &/ Charley Pollard
Words- c. 932
Summary: The Doctor and Charley discover a odd alien custom.

Notes:

tardis_festivities gift for

lurking_latinist .
This was pretty fun to write! And special thanks to

shivver for her help / feedback.

Read it here!

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: room

larryhammer

For Poetry Monday:

Stills, R.A. Ammons

I have nowhere
to go and

nowhere to go

when I get
back from there.

---L.

Subject quote from The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel.

autumninpluto posting in

addme_fandom

Name: Sim / Simmy

Age group: In my late 20s :')

Country: Somewhere in Southeast Asia

Subscription/Access Policy:

I generally subscribe back if we have shared interests and if the vibes are good. I don't really have access-locked posts yet, so I don't have a clear policy on that for now.
I'm queer, sex positive, anti-censorship in media and fiction, and anti-generative AI. If this is a problem, please refrain from subscribing, thank you!
Minors are generally fine; any possible adult content will be age-restricted as needed.

Main Fandoms: Fire Emblem: Three Houses, My Hero Academia

Other Fandoms: Spy x Family, Hetalia, Dangan Ronpa, Hunter x Hunter, Orb: On the Movements of the Earth

Fannish Interests: Writing fanfics, making fanart, participating in community events or challenges, meta, rambling about headcanons or just thoughts about a thing in general

OTPs and Ships: I'm not very particular about top/bottom dynamics; I have preferences, but I'm fine with whichever arrangement. I'm also a huge multi-shipper and if I list everything out, this will get really long, so I'll just list my top ships lol

FE3H

Sylvain Jose Gautier / Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Marianne von Edmund / Hilda Valentine Goneril
Caspar von Bergliez / Linhardt von Hevring
- I'm also into Caspar von Bergliez / Ashe Ubert / Linhardt von Hevring <3

My Hero Academia

Todoroki Shouto / Bakugo Katsuki / Midoriya Izuku (poly ship/OT3, but all variations are okay too, like BakuDeku or TodoBaku, etc.)
- In order of preference, it's BakuDeku, TodoDeku, and TodoBaku
Kaminari Denki / Jiro Kyouka
Togata Mirio / Amajiki Tamaki

Other ships: Killugon, Hisoillu, Okubade, Twiyor, Damianya, USUK, GerIta

Movies: Chicago, Spirited Away, Forrest Gump, Star Wars (1-6; I've also watched 7-9 but I honestly don't remember much)
Other Anime/Manga: Code Geass, 86, Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood, Naruto, Chainsaw Man, The Fragrant Flower Blooms with Dignity, Dungeon Meshi, Sousou no Frieren; I tend to like a lot of shounen/seinen, but I also like slice-of-life, comedy, and romcoms.

Books: I used to read a lot when I was a teenager, but now, not so much. I did like The Hunger Games series, and The Princess Diaries.

Music: BTS, NMIXX, Fall Out Boy, Vaundy, Yorushika, Two Door Cinema Club, etc.

Games: Some other Fire Emblem games (9, 10, 13, 14, 17); Civilization VI; Persona 3; Persona 5; Pokémon
Webcomics/Manhwa: The Remarried Empress, True Beauty

Current Mood: nervous

minoanmiss

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scripsi

I haven’t written any fanfic in a long time, and I feel I need to get back into it. I know from experience it’s good for my mental wellbeing to write, and as the world continues to hassle us, I need what I can get to feel good. I had been thinking of signing up for Yuletide, but completely missed the sign-up window. But when I checked what other people wish for, I found 2 letters that gave me ideas. So I will try to get those done as treats. I’ll try to write 300 words every day. More if I get in a flow, of course, but 300 words is doable even days with little writing time.

Fanfic meme gakked from all over my f-list.

From your AO3 Works page, look at the tags and find the answers to these questions.

I currently have 123 works published, in 28 fandoms.

1. Under what rating do you write most?
Teen and up audience, with 47 works.

I thought Explicit or Mature would be on top, but they are number 3 and 4. But as it is my longer fics that tends to get that rating, while my one-shots usually have a lower rating, that isn’t so surprising.

2. What are your top 3 fandoms?

Doctor Who with 32 fics.
Peter Pan with 17 fics.
And Harry Potter and Versailles both come third with 8 fics each.

Peter Pan was my first big fandom in the early 2000s, and Doctor Who my second one, ten years later, so no surprise with those. I was also super into Versailles for a bit, so that’s not odd either. But I’ve never really been very big on Harry Potter. I was over 30 when I first read the series, and I never really thought they were particularly well-written, though I was hooked enough to read every new book. But 3 of my fics are written as part of a re-mix challenge, so I didn’t really choose which fandom I would match on.

3. Which character do you write about most?

Captain Hook, who is in all my Peter Pan-fics. The Delgado version of the Master comes second, and River Song third. Though if you want to argue that the Master is the same character regardless of regeneration s/he is definitely my most written one, in 30 fics in total.

4. What are the 3 top pairings you've written?

On shared first place are Wendy Darling/James Hook (Peter Pan), Sophie de Clermont/Fabien Marchal (Versailles) and The Master/River Song (Doctor Who), who all have 7 fics each. Second pairing is Beth Harmon/Vasily Borgov (The Queen’s Gambit) with 6 fics. And third place are Evy Carnahan O'Connell/Rick O'Connell and Imhotep/Evy Carnahan O'Connell (The Mummy), and Vanessa Ives/Sir Malcolm Murray (Penny Dreadful) with 3 fics each.

5. What are the top 3 additional tags?

On shared first place I have Humor, Angst, Dark, which have 14 fics each. Second is Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence with 9 fics, and in third place is Spanking with 8. Which I feel gives a pretty good general overview over my fanfics.

oursin

Happy birthday,

claudine and

littlered2!

vriddy

Editing a fic in which one of the characters has an eyepatch and replacing ~~too~~ many instances of "eyes" with "eye".

Only singular orbs in this house!!

dustbunny105

I'm not ready to go back to work tomorrow T_T

Maybe I would be if not for having the niblings these last few days. Trying to get anything done with them around has been practically a non-starter and there were some things I couldn't even attempt. Or, well, I guess it's more accurate to say it didn't feel worth bothering. I stand by those decisions, though.

Anyway, my room is a mess right now, lol. I shoved stuff around to move furniture, only to realize things didn't fit as well as I'd thought they would and I didn't like it. In my defense, the spaces were awkward to measure. I did end up switching placements for my display shelves and I do think I like them better this way but the bed is back where it started and the dresser and Travis didn't even move. In between all this, aside from having to deal with the kids, I put more time than I expected it would take into trying to reorganize yarn and books and a few other small things. I'm going to try to get up early and work on it some more rather than keep going tonight. Then I'll keep at it after work each day.

I keep reminding myself that it isn't as bad as it looks; things are mostly just out of place. Looking around is still pretty overwhelming, though. I'm gonna be relying heavily on the fifteen-minute and clockwise methods this next week, haha. I think it's time for another declutter too. I've realized that I still have a lot of my plushies not because of any special memories that are attached but simply because I'm used to having them. I'll keep the handful with sentimental value and the fandom characters, maybe a couple others. Some of them can go with the kids' stuff we keep here but others will probably be rehomed. I know some charities like Toys for Tots only accept new stuff but I'll see if anyone is taking donations of gently used stuffed toys. Might ask the neighbors with kids too.

So, my vacation hasn't ended on the sweetest note but I got a solid start on a few things. I maintain that I can finish what I want finished by the end of the month. Just gotta lock in. Easier said than done, granted, but just because something isn't easy doesn't mean it's impossible. Keep wishing me luck, guys! And if you wanna needle me about it, that would probably help too.

cornerofmadness

Today was hard, tomorrow will be worse. Fully expecting to be yelled at but I don't regret posting the the union all the DOJ investigations into the shit insurance we're voting on. So enough of that. Let me get into the writerly ways.

One of the reactors for Hazbin Hotel was ranting about 'forced conflict' and I'm like that is a great term for it and I do hate that writing...shortcut? Trope? I'm not sure what I want to call it. Basically, characters X &Y act (often out of character) in a way that most people would not do and it ends up creating drama and conflict that we otherwise wouldn't have and don't necessary need.

I'm sure this has been happening forever. But the first time I remember ranting about it was way back in the heyday of Buffy the Vampire Slayer when Xander purposely doesn't tell Buffy that Angel's soul could be/was being returned. At least that example has a reason. Xander is a jealous douche.

Later in the same verse we have much less of an excusable example is in Angel S4 with Connor. When the whole team knows that something is wrong with Cordelia and they set out to prove it, Angel excludes Connor rather than keeping him close so he could see for himself that Cordelia is being influenced. Because Connor isn't there in the beginning he believes the team is attacking Cordy for no reason. There was no reason to force this conflict and it made the team look like a team of morons.

Oh I know why it was done. Joss was punishing Charisma for getting pregnant and wrote the world's stupidest story line to make her look bad (she is now freely talking about how much of a piece of shit he was to her) but at the time we didn't know this and it felt like bad writing.

Where this came up in Hazbin was Charlie, the pollyanna of the group, sees her father's big secret exposed to all of hell and rather than comfort him for the torment he just endured she tears him a new one for destroying her dreams on purpose (he didn't know Vox had found his secret out and had gone to stop him for his daughter's sake) and when Vaggi mentions she had asked Lucifer to help, this out of character ire is turned on her for the better part of two episodes. The fans did not react well and as far as I'm concerned, we shouldn't. There was still an opportunity for Charlie to be mad b ut maybe mad for the right reasons. Sigh.

So have you written this? I try hard not to. Have you come across it and been disappointed by that turn of events? Or did you like it?

Open calls

The Faerie Cat Volume 3
Fantasy, speculative fiction, and horror, especially those steeped in Celtic mythology or featuring the Fair Folk

Adventitious Issue 1 Stories that offer a surprise and sense of wonder through their language, characters, plots, or all of the above

The Phantom Pulse 2026 First Window speculative fiction of the grey corners of humanity, dread that permeates the skin, and the bizarre

We’re Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction 2025 Queer short fiction reprints from 2025

Shift: Now Seeking Submissions

30 Magazines Accepting Genre Fiction

From Around the Web

Charting Your Course #2: Self-Publishing in 2025

How to Maximize Book Pre-Orders (Even With a Small Audience)

Creating Low Points for Your Protagonists

these next four are from