Beyond the Roundels

I knew when I posted the other day that I was forgetting something, and I was!

Anyway, while I was not really up to talking to people over the weekend, I worked on adding a lot more tables to 20icontables and it's now ready to go!



20icontables is a new icon community with no deadlines, claims or voting. Simply choose any of our 20 prompt tables and use it to inspire you to make icons! All levels of iconmakers and types of icons welcome.

For further details, see the comm's sticky post: https://20icontables.dreamwidth.org/617.html


Anyway, fingers crossed, and let's hope that people find it a useful resource and I thought hopefully it might also be nice for people who might be a bit deterred by more structured challenges, too. Anyway, as long as somebody else finds it inspiring, that's all that matters.


(Now I just need to put my icon making head back on again, because I still can't seem to stop myself dropping in and out of it in a very unhelpful way. But look! Not only do I have a timed & tricky challenge for retro_icontest to give me the much-needed shove, now I can have ongoing tables without a deadline, lol. I just have to choose...)

1. I am writing Dracula (TV 1968)/Doctor Who, with Ace meeting the others post-canon for the hc_bingo April crossover challenge. This is what happens if nobody gives me prompts and I'm doing a Seventh Era manifesto while making gifs of Dracula. The downsides are that I don't know if I can finish it in time, as I'm not really that great right now, and probably nobody but me would want to read it anyway, so it will probably die in my notepad if I don't. So I will try.


2. I sort of accidentally bought a paid Dreamwidth account the other day while trying to see if it was now possible for me to do so. (It hadn't been before for a lot of UK users). Well, it is now, and I have 100 icon spaces, which I am fast filling up. Journal-space is just so much less fun without icons; everything has perked up now. I am getting all the icons I need for comms and writing purposes while wondering about making original Element icons and also how many Silver and James Maxwell icons a person might be able to get away with. And is there any justification for Mrs Mortimer icons? (I still love her even if I have mostly stopped going on about Public Eye.) Plus, I need to find new icons for new things. And it's more fun to make them when you might be able to use them, even if only for a year.

Anyway, this is what happens if I get really annoyed at not having my Dracula icon any more for the third time in three days.


3. I am working on a Seventh Doctor Era manifesto for tardis_library. It's very hard to narrow down the recs! At the moment, I have a good list but it is free of some of my most favourite Seven authors which feels pretty weird and wrong. I have a growing list of things that will need reccing separately on the comm afterwards now. Which is also good, as long as I remember to do it!

(Talking of which can a person justify separate Ace and Seven icons, or should she just have a Seven 'n' Ace one still, or even have all three? But then 100 icon spaces are not unlimited icon spaces especially if you are a multifannish person with multiple comms and also one of those fandoms is Doctor Who and you like all 56 years it and the audios and some of the books...*)

Oh, and ruuger has posted their Twelfth Doctor manifesto for the same challenge, so you should definitely look at that. (Posted on TARDIS Library's first birthday, too! I am thrilled that it has come this far in these fallen days. <3)


3a. I've been planning to do a rec set for the genprompt_bingo square "genderswap" as a way of dealing with it (not my trope, and I wanted to do the border bingo) but just as I'm getting on nicely with it (especially after realizing that it also includes Rule 63 fic), I had an idea on how to fill it myself. Self, that is just inconvenient. I've been making this rec set possible for a year now!




* There may be some other advantages to having a paid account, but I'm all about the 100x100 icon spaces.

Re. the name change - nothing is wrong and the only drama was my accidental deletion! Apologies if I alarmed anyone. I didn't exactly plan to do either when I woke up this morning, but it fell out that way.

I came up with my user name a long time ago when Spooks was only at S5, and not finished 8 years ago (!) to use on a Spooks forum as a Ruth Evershed reference. All the obvious Ruth-related names were taken and she was missing at that point, so lost_spook. It's just that 'spook' is also a racial slur in some places (which obviously I didn't know back then, but it's why the show was MI5 in the US), so someone gave me a rename token to fix it, and now I have.

It's a bit weird to say goodbye to it, because it's been me in most places for over 10 years now, but, as you can see from above, it was never carefully chosen, it was just nicely oblique for a general fannish name.

What I didn't mean to do was delete my tumblr, but on reflection, I'm not sad about that either. I'll probably make a new one next week or some time to salvage some of my lost posts via people's reblogs, but there was very little there to mind losing, and it feels oddly better to have it gone, and if I do start another one, it'll be easier.

thisbluespirit is also nothing profound, though - I played around in my head with things I like + variations on 'spook' - and hopefully it will not have any such unpleasant associations for anyone.

(I also feel sure thisbluespirit must be cooler than lost_spook, but that, I fear, can only be delusion, as I am very much still me and, alas, Uncool. ;-D)

I still love Ruth Evershed to pieces, though. (Nicola Walker is amazing in anything, of course, but Ruth is how she won my heart forever and other characters cannot compete. Also Ruth is many many things, but not cool. I love her. Did I mention that already?)

( Nowhere in the country is safe from her )

So, when I switched primarily to Dreamwidth last year following the introduction of the new TOS, my plan was to stop cross-posting when my paid account ran out. That was six months ago. I've been reluctant to take the last step, because I think I'll inevitably lose some people. (I'll still be looking at the couple of LJ-only people I still follow and comment on the same, though, so no need to worry about that.)

Anyway, it's ridiculous: I'm not cross-posting any more filtered personal content to a site that gives me no rights over it (even tumblr assures me that my content is my own), even aside from the unpleasant anti-LGBTQ+ stance embedded in the new TOS. For a site like LJ, though, the content thing is a dealbreaker. (Deal broken, LJ. You broke it, not me. ;-p)

I tried to set up an LJ feed for people if they wanted it so they can still read here and comment there, as now, but I can't seem to. I think I need a paid account? (If anyone knows how to do it, if you pm me the link either side I'll edit it into the post).

ETA: https://lost-spook-dw.livejournal.com/

Thanks, eve_n_furter!

ETA2: Of course, this only shows public entries, not private & commenting there would be pointless. (Click through to the entry proper to comment as usual.)

Comments disabled as no one will get anything good out of another round of Dreamwidth vs LJ. We all have different preferences and last straws and all that. I just need to bite the bullet, make this post, and stop at last and I'm really sorry if that inconveniences anyone, but I already waited longer than I should have done.

(And then hopefully no more! It takes quite a while to fiddle about and pack up stuff, and spoons too. Also rl was a little busier at the same time.)

1. I have been moving my communities! Some of these are still waiting on import, for various reasons (also the queue is still very long; it's definitely a mass back-up/exodus this time) and so have nothing on them yet, and some of them are more for archival purposes, but most are active or would happily be again, and certainly this mod is around for questions/tagging etc. if anyone else posts:

I moved dw_allsorts over here in January, and it is all shiny and ready at who_allsorts. I won't close the other, but feel free to switch your claim over (or drop your claim and start a new one at Dreamwidth, I won't tell). Also I probably will only add new tables on this side now.

dw_straybunnies is now fully imported at who_straybunnies! (It hasn't been active for a while, but as long as I'm still here, I'll be fine with people posting to it - it is/was a community for donating Doctor Who fanwork ideas (plotbunnies, if you'll forgive the tweeness, but it makes for a handy name) plus regular discussion of plot ideas we'd like to see and occasional challenges to fill some of the donated prompts.)

dw_guestfest is created now at who_guestfest, but I won't import it until this weekend is over, as someone's still trying to write a last fic for this year's fest. Obviously, the ficathon is over for this year, so nothing will be happening there until it runs again.

house_of_eliott is now in progress to house_of_eliott, hopefully before the LJ version entirely crumbles off a cliff. It's very tiny, but it's a general House of Eliott comm. (This is the only one I will be deleting, because it's so very tiny and crumbling and my co-mod has deleted their account, so it's on virtual point of collapse.)

cakefic is not yet in progress (but will be as soon as HoE finishes) and you'll find it at cakefic. It's not exactly very active, I know, but I do mean to finally run a cakeficathon one day (and heaven forfend that cake fic should be lost)! (clocketpatch, shall I make you co-mod again?)

I am also co-mod of b7friday, which vilakins has imported to b7friday and I hope to see if it's possible to revive it over there, as I think quite a lot of the B7 crew are more Dreamwidth based, such as there is in journal-land anyway). vilakins also imported b7fic, and already runs blakes7 (and foolishly just made me co-mod of both, which is new. Soon, I shall be supreme commander of the Federation and have all the best dresses!)

And I think I really am going to launch Apocabingo soon at tic_tac_woe, but more about that anon!

Please feel free to join any of them you like, even the ones that are still slightly works in progress. I do mean to pimp who_allsorts and b7friday a bit, and of course tic_tac_woe once I've firmed up the rules, and we'll see how it goes with the rest.

And, wow, no wonder that's been taking it out of me. *collapses* (Also, if you are not so much on Dreamwidth, or even if you are, and are feeling a little concerned about imported content, claiming your open ID is super-easy and seems to work like magic on assigning those posts and comments to your actual Dreamwidth account (providing you have one, of course) and then that allows you to edit/delete them as with the original.)


2. Also, in order to get me over the transition bump among other things, I've decided to turn off commenting on my crossposts for the next two months (at least). I've been trying to make sure I've granted access to everybody I can think first so you'll still be able to see and comment on flocked entries, but spotting who I've missed is rather like that game where you have a tray of objects and then take one or two away - and I was always rubbish at that game! So if I haven't yet, just point me in your direction at Dreamwidth. I am a terrible turncoat, I know, but I feel very happy about it! I hadn't realised how much worrying about LJ apocalypses was getting me down.

(tl;dr after this entry, you will have to click through on the link to comment, but I have faith in your ability to cope with slight extra clickiness, even if you judge me for it. ;-p)