Sophinisba Solis

So idk this is maybe not wise but I can't help it, I really want to sign up for merlin_holidays this year!


Sign-ups for merlin_holidays begin Sept 24 at 10 am Eastern

This is a mostly-Arthur/Merlin-but-other-pairings-are-okay-too fest in its third year and it is for fic, art, and vids. (I also plan to do the informal Twitter podfic exchange but have decided not to sign up for Yuletide and Festivids. I can do this. I am not out of control.) The comm is on LJ with fic and art posted on the AO3, and you can follow merlin_holidays_feed if you prefer to read on Dreamwidth.

Unfortunately I probably won't be able to be on LJ for about 9 hours after signups open tomorrow. Would anybody be free to do a proxy signup for me? I'd send you an email with my info and you could just drop it in an LJ comment tomorrow. (I have it all filled out except for the actual prompts.) ETA: Thanks, I am set! /ETA

Who else is playing?

Okay so it's April! Among other things this means:
-A new round of remopodmo to help us all record more podfic for amplificathon, podficbigbang, or whatever. I always get a ton done during remopodmo months. Thank you, cantarina!
-The official start of welovepodfic, the Podfic Feedback Challenge, including the week 1 mini-challenge, comment on an old favorite to tell the reader how much it's meant to you.
-Also there will probably be a new challenge at kink_bingo! (The mini-challenge post hasn't gone up yet but I'll probably edit this post to link to it when it does.)

Another thing that's happening that started in late March is the People with Disabilities (PWD) Being Awesome Commentwork Fest!, hosted by terajk. You can leave prompts or post fic or drawings or podfic or whatever there.

Hey, speaking of fanworks about people with disabilities, I want to make some! Maybe you can help me. Although I'm paying attention to the kink_bingo mini-challenges and doing my best to participate in those, the two big personal goals I've set for myself during this amnesty period are
-finish a blackout of my second bingo card (some images NSFW), and
-make a Characters With Disabilities bingo for the top row of that card.

I only have four squares left to fill for the blackout! One of them is a fic that I'm writing and am pretty sure I can finish. The other three are part of that top row and I don't know how I will fill them yet. Can you help me find stories that I could podfic, featuring characters with disabilities and the kinks vehicular, guns, and body alteration/injury?

( more about what I'm looking for )

If podficcing doesn't work out for all the squares maybe I will write something, so I would take fic prompts as well! Especially interesting to me would be prompts involving the ladies of Merlin.

For those of you who don't know me, my main fandom is Merlin and I'm also into Lord of the Rings, Doctor Who, Community, and a bunch of other fandoms that are listed in my tags.

Thanks so much!

-Aaaaaahhhhhh purimgifts deadline in less than 15 hours! Well, I feel better about mine right now than I did last night. Have finished the first of the three posts anyway, and have a general idea of what to do with the other two.

Several participants have defaulted and roga could use help with pinch hitters in fandoms including Inception, Leverage, Community, and Treme (SO MANY awesome womens to be written about!). Drop her a comment on DW or LJ if you think you might be able to help out!

-Signups are open for Remix Redux 2011: Love Potion No. 9!! You guys, I am probably not signing up this year because deadlines, but Remix is my favorite! So much fun! Please sign up and I will cheer you on! Yay, Remix!! The challenge is being hosted at the AO3 but you can follow the remixers_lounge community for announcements and discussion.

-I finished a draft of my podfic of The Universal Language this weekend! I had an awesome time making it!! Am still hoping I might do a third project for podficbigbang since it's another month before they start posting, but we'll see.

I left a comment over at the comm requesting cover art for srin's fic, and eosrose is hoping an artist can help her out with another big Merlin podfic, seperis's Tale of the Sea Serpent. There are also these other requests in other fandoms for art or music/sound effects.

I thought I'd try doing a new podfic today and saw that I'll need to say the word "Idirsholas", which I don't know how to pronounce. Do any of you know? Does it actually get said aloud in the episode or is it just in the title?

ETA: Watched the scene where the farmer and then Gaius say it, thanks Netgirl!

Good luck to my friends who are finishing up your Yuletide and other fest fics this weekend! Let me know if I can help you by betaing or talking through some ideas.

I dropped out of the one holiday fest I was in and I'm feeling guilty and sad and at loose ends. I'd like to try writing some drabbles to break out of my not-writing inertia. I would love some drabble prompts in any fandoms I know, especially of the short kind that have three words, one or two of which can be character names (ex. "Gwen Freya burn"), or else five thingses.

(I know that I didn't finish most of the prompts people gave me last time I did this and that there are thousands of requests at Yuletide and other places that I could be working on. Just, um.)

Other things I would appreciate:
-ideas for what to do with the "humiliation (in public)" and "piercings/needleplay" squares on my kink_bingo card (suggestions of podficcable stories would be great)
-a heads up (could be an anon comment) if/when the merlinfemfest entry made for me gets posted, so I'll know to thank the creator even if it's posted "for the community"
-recs from merlinfemfest, merlin_holidays, eventually camelotsolstice, and other fests
-hugs

Hey guys, what songs do you think of when you think of bound wrists?

baranduin wants to fill the "bondage (wrist/ankle restraints)" square on her kink_bingo with her first fanvid and is looking for music ideas. The subject would be Evgeni Plushenko, possibly paired with Johnny Weir, so I'd guess references to ice or cold or Russia would also be good, but the main thing is bondage. Please comment with your ideas!

Also, Merlin fans, please help me decide what to do with my "confined/caged" square! Poll on Dreamwidth only because crossposting them is too difficult. (Poll mentions noncon situations but only in a vague way.) ( ticky box )

Thank you!

I think this might be my first poll since I started crossposting. We'll see how that works.

This morning I accidentally dropped my backpack that had my beloved laptop Kimiko in it in the street. It's still working fine but one corner of the casing is a little dinged up and some of the paint is chipping off. I just backed up the files on my external hard drive.

I've only had this computer (a Toshiba Satellite) for a year and a half and it's been great for what I need it for but I'm a little worried about how banged up it's gotten. Also its battery only lasts about 25 minutes these days, so it's getting less and less practical for taking places. Of course I could get it a new battery, but I've been thinking about whether I should try getting a new computer instead rather than lugging this one around all the time and worrying it might actually crack up one of these days.

I've been thinking about Macbooks and how pretty they are and how Mac people are so cultish snobbish enthusiastic about them. I've heard they're sturdier, and that would certainly be a good thing. But then I look at the prices and I think, okay, technically I could maybe afford to spend that much money, but how do I justify it when I could get a PC laptop for half of that? Mac people, can you help me?

So then on the other hand I think about these new mini-laptops, netbooks, which are around 3 pounds and $300 and cute. I guess they're mostly supposed to be for the Internet but I could install a word processor on it too, and that would pretty much take care of the stuff that I do when I take my laptop to campus or a coffee shop (reading and writing). Then I could keep Kimiko at home for reading and writing but also watching movies and TV shows, and it wouldn't get so banged up. Anything PC would also probably be more compatible with school/work computers than a Mac. Maybe the small keyboard would make typing on a netbook uncomfortable though, I don't know.

What do you think?

ETA: My eyesight is not awesome. I mean, it's not bad, I wear glasses and they're okay but I still really hate small type and lack of contrast. Does that make a difference? Do netbooks make type any smaller or do they keep it the same size so you just have to scroll more? What's with Apple's website and all the gray-on-white text? Are the computers like that too, when you're doing...operating system type stuff?

ETA2: If you've got all your files on a PC (Mostly Office documents but also PDFs pictures and some videos and other things), how easy is it to transfer them to a Mac?

Could someone please link me to a seriously nice picture of Orlando Bloom, suitable for posting at lotr_fic_recs to remind people of their favorite Orlando-centric fics?

ETA: mews1945 to the rescue! I'm good now, thank you!

I sometimes get stuck in this rut where something happens that feels too huge for me to write about it, but then posting about other random stuff without acknowledging the huge thing also seems wrong, so then I just stop posting and I get very lonely. It's crazy! And it can happen just as easily for good things (last year's Houston moot, after which I didn't post for two weeks) as for bad (Fanlib, journal suspensions omg). So anyway.

Well, it is nice to see pornish_pixies back without the strike through their name. The fandom and fiction journals that were suspended are being brought back. I love that pornish_pixies replaced all their interests with "the internet's for porn" and are hosting a smutfest to celebrate their triumphant return. And I love that almost every time I refresh the profile at fandom_counts, a few more fans have signed up. I love fandom!

( LJ not so much. )

I'm very hopeful about the fanarchive project and want to support and use it once it gets off the ground, but I'm wondering if I should be putting my fics somewhere else in the meantime. Not that I expect anything to happen to this journal, just that it's nice to have a backup, and I know some people prefer to read on archives.

Also, I can't get the ljArchive thing to work to save my journal on my own computer. I can download the program fine, but when I try to run it it says that it won't work because my computer doesn't have the .NET framework. And I'm supposed to be able to get that from Windows Updates or find the link from the ljArchive site, and it's probably something really obvious but I can't find it and I feel dumb. :( Help? Um, got the NET thing (thanks, b_briarwood) but it still isn't working to archive the journal. Eh. Will try again tomorrow.