Aristotelian Logic

...oh right, I'm allowed to write things along with reading them.

Has it already been a year since I last made a personal post? Has it only been a year since I last made a personal post?

Such is life, I suppose. It's been a pandemic, and apart from work it turns out that keeping small children alive and entertained takes a lot of time. Still no problems in our extended circles, though; older child's school year proceeded largely without issue, apart from one week of the school being closed during some contact tracing.

Almost alarmingly uneventful, honestly; our local government did a pretty decent job.

I've managed to eke out a little time regularly for a little roleplaying, fortunately. Work hours are flexible enough that if I get started early, I can take a break in the mid-afternoon, up until the kids' supper is done. A few hours a week - which is enough for a D&D game with some mostly-European players. A slow-paced campaign, admittedly, but it's been some consistent gaming time. That's been fun, and worth elaborating on another day.

But generally...it feels like it's been quiet. That bit of gaming has been most of my creative output since fandomtrees wrapped up - I'm still a little active on Discord, but still haven't posted on Tumblr or Twitter in ages - it just feels like it's been a quiet few months.

Children running around and jumping off of furniture notwithstanding, of course.

Now these stories we are telling have constraints of length and spelling
And debated validity brought to life from days of yore
Though this fanmade word is spoken it is oft seen as a token
Yet the name deserves protection - to all writers I implore
Tests of word count long attempted - knowing what the term is for
'tis a drabble, and no more.
But it seems the term is fleeting, many writing forms unseating
Countless multitudes of ficlets treating restriction as bore
Just one hundred words and finished - let all writers keep this lore
Lest the drabble be no more.

No grand tragedy, no abrupt change in perspective. My journal has been silent for a while for a pair of reasons, one mundane and one rooted in sequential ordering.

The mundane reason is honestly that I have been busy. Little kid is big enough to try walking, and needs a watchful eye to keep out of trouble. Big kid needs an even more watchful eye, because mobile and clever. Unfortunately, with The Pandemic going on, big kid's preschool was closed for a few months - which has resulted in no small amount of cabin fever.

Also there's a bit of a pandemic going on. I've been working from home since sometime in March, and it's mostly gone well - some frustrations but ones rooted mostly in what I'm working on, not any of the expected reasons. Things have otherwise gone about as well as they can on that front - the immediate family has avoided illness so far, and our province managed to shut everything down quickly enough that we've hit the nice quiet period. What will come next, one wonders.

As for sequential ordering - that one's a little harder to discuss. A couple of friends-of-the-family passed away last fall, one almost immediately after the other. They were mentors to me growing up, and I decided that I should write something of a eulogy here. So in my head, that had become the 'next' post I was going to write.

And then...I didn't. I still want to, but I haven't yet. It's a heavy subject, and part of me feels that this isn't the time or place - but it's important.

So maybe I'll get that written next. Or maybe I won't. A matter for another night.

sunshine_challenge offers the challenge of introducing a fandom identity. I've done...some of the housekeeping challenge, but I've got at least seven years of badly tagged LJ posts too many to call that done.

To those stumbling across this for the first time, I left all my old posts up in spite of how I might have grown since then. Going through those was...I'll go with an educational reminder for me, but there's a prominent seven-year hiatus in there. Some things change, some things stay the same, but I can present how I think I am.

( Without )

To anyone who made it through that, I'm open to specific questions. Some of my answers might be brief, some might be long and rambling, but I'll do my best to come up with some answers. I might also add more details in the comments, such as if I can get my head together enough to come up with a list of recent favourite media or something.

So...ask away!

A short post, as a preamble to my transcribing some rambling from today's trip, and in response to a Tumblr discussion since I seldom post anything on Tumblr any more.

So, I've kind of given up leaving responses - or reading much of anything - on FFN. AO3 isn't ad-supported and has a friendlier interface overall; it's just plain easier to leave a comment there. Easier to start following an author, easier to read without worrying about hammering a data plan, and easier to leave that bare-minimum feedback, a Kudos.

Apparently some people have criteria for Kudos. In response to that discussion on Tumblr, I wanted to share what my current criteria are for feedback on AO3.

Did I finish reading the fic/a chapter? Kudos. I got at least those few minutes of entertainment out of getting that far, there's my acknowledgement. If I really didn't enjoy what I was reading, I wouldn't have gotten to the end of the page.

Were there a few things that gave me joy, or one thing in an update to a fic I previously kudos'd? A short comment expressing what I enjoyed. I don't always comment on every chapter (especially if I'm playing catch-up) or every short-fic, but if a line made me laugh or if there was something I thought was clever, I want to say so.

Was there a theme that just plain worked, or a great chunk of banter, or clever characterization twists? A longer comment. This is really an extension of the previous, except that I just keep going. If there's something I really enjoyed reading, I want to let the author know - in detail, about what I enjoyed in the hopes that they'll go and do more of that.

FFN killed my habit of commenting on stories, but a few fantastic AO3 entries have steadily been reviving it. There's times when I have a story that I really enjoyed, but don't know what to say; of late, I've been leaving those tabs open to hopefully make amends to later. Reading well-written fanfic is a joy, though, and these days I'm trying to let the authors know that.

The evening is done and gone, and were it sensible I would be in bed. Most of the evening was lost to trying to convince children to sleep, though, so instead I'm spitefully awake. Not quite alert enough to get any meaningful writing done, but too stubborn to simply go to bed.

What better to do than to create a new tag for future posts at this hour and write some ramblings and musings. This is a journal, after all, so I might as well put a few thoughts into it.

( Ramblings about why to have a journal under cut. )

( Ramblings about recent fandoms under another cut. )

So there's my brief midnight life update. Probably nothing revolutionary, just a bunch of rambling that perhaps no one needs to read but that I feel better for having written. I feel more comfortable posting things like that here over Tumblr or Twitter - there's a lot less of a potential signal boost for idle mutterings. Maybe I'll just start making these more often; if anyone got through that, questions are welcome in the comments.

I just found out that Brian Jacques died this past weekend.

I have a bit of a history with the Redwall books. I can't recall when I started reading them, though I'd lay odds on it being in the 90s. Started with Mossflower - which remains my favorite of the lot - and went on from there.

I haven't read any of the later books; I drifted away from the series some years back. Still, they left their mark on me. Back in...'98, '99? My brothers and I played a lot of Myth online, and I wound up quoting one of the Dibbuns' songs in teamchat. This led to joining an in-game Redwall-fans clan. Usernames were easy to tweak in those days, and I bounced between a few Redwall-themed names before settling on one.

'Gullwhacker'.

I've been using it since before I met any of you who read this journal, and I figure I'll keep on using it. So...though I haven't read the Redwall books in a while, they're a part of my history.

Brian Jacques, you will be missed.

So, I should actually do a life update some time. Next post. This is just to get me writing something at all.

Blame starswing for this.

Reply with "JONAAAAAAS" and I'll give you four fandoms. You then have to make an entry writing about your favorite character from each fandom, and why.

( My choices within. )

So, post if you want me to tag you.

Not much - I have a lot to talk about, but I've been putting it off.

So! A meme to get me posting again.

Name a fandom and I'll tell you
- three pairings I love,
- two pairings I consider shipping,
- and one pairing I hate