violsva | Entries tagged with using random numbers to build narratives

My comments on reading in April are a couple recs: firstly, The Executioner's Daughter by Ashley Warren. D&D level 3 solo adventure/CYOA story, very cool.

And I have also been greatly enjoying Ballarat National Theatre's podcast production of Persuasion. Highly recommended.

Next year I may deliberately plan to only reread from December to February. Things are starting to feel much less like I'm fighting my way through molasses.

Recent: As well as fanfiction, The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor was very well done and exactly what it wanted to be.

Read Statistics Without Tears: An Introduction for Non-Mathematicians by Derek Rowntree, very much recommended if that's what you want, I actually wanted combinatorics. And a little more math rather than mindset.

I also read a couple chapters of Georgette Heyer's The Corinthian to check voice for the Hell of the Ball, but didn't really feel the need to keep going. I don't have any nostalgia associated with Heyer so I tend to notice her flaws more than, say, Christie's.

Current: Almost done D&D's Worlds & Realms. I suspect I would find Mordenkainen a lot more irritating if I had not first been exposed to Tasha's Cauldron of Everything. Also Jeannie Lin's novella Capturing the Silken Thief.

Started listening to Re: Carmilla, which is a really good performance. Every time I forget just how soon and how hard Le Fanu goes on the lesbianism.

Future: After Re: Carmilla finishes I will reread this lovely (dark dark dark) fic that

breathedout wrote for me for Yuletide 8 years ago.

A bunch of holds on books I started in January and didn't finish are going to come in sometime in April, so we'll see if those do better without the SAD. Hopefully they'll come in before the advance polls, which I will be working.

A one page RPG about avoiding people at a Regency party

It is one of the most anticipated nights of the London Season. You are at a fine ball, surrounded by the wealthy and titled, wearing a gorgeous (and extremely expensive) outfit. Hundreds of candles light the room, and a small orchestra is playing a minuet.

You hate it and you want to leave.

Let us be frank: some gentlepersons simply would not enjoy the glittering spectacle of a grand Society occasion—or at least not every night. This game envisions an unwilling, unimpressed, somewhat grumpy participant at the sort of grand rout one sees in hundreds of Regency romance novels, as many of us who read them must admit we sometimes would be.

It is hot, it is loud, it is unpleasant, and someone has just stepped on your foot. Can you find a single moment of privacy at this event?

You will need: A standard deck of 52 cards and a six-sided die.

Free PDF available here!

This is not actually the game I expected to post first. The first game I wrote was The Haunted Ruin, currently in playtesting, but that is somewhat large and I will be charging for it and playtesting and editing take time. And then I had an idea for something a lot smaller, so I accidentally wrote a one-page RPG to test uploading things to itch.io before the large project. So that worked out well.

I am having a lot of trouble both picking up books to start and concentrating on them while reading. Even reading D&D sourcebooks, which is all my brain really wants to do right now, I sometimes have to read a sentence three times for it to penetrate. This is probably seasonal depression.

Anyway, I have still read some.

Recent: I finished Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft earlier this month, straight through, with no particular reason or plans to work on a horror campaign. Enjoyed it very much.

Finished Packaged Toronto: A Collection of the City's Historic Design, which I got from the spacing store last year and have been reading slowly ever since. Vaguely related to Four Apples but also just my city, yay. I would have liked more detail on most things but that's a constant state.

And in my quest for ever-smaller M/M pairings, I have started reading D&D: Honour Among Thieves fic, and I recommend Counterpoint by Geese_In_Flight if you like plot and ethical conflicts and people not talking about their emotions.

I also read or reread a bunch of short stories: more than half of The Bone Key (great as always, would have finished it if not for library holds), "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" (definitely an early 19thC New England gothic story), and Mistakes Were Made by coveredinfeels (awesome. I don't know Dragon Age beyond watching

consultingpiskies play a few times, so I can't speak to canonicity, but lots of fun and set in my favourite kind of modern AU).

Current: This is the part where I feel like nothing's happening. I am flipping through various D&D sourcebooks and reading the sequel to Counterpoint, above. Other than that, I have not made much progress with Middlemarch, and I read the first 15% of The Teller of Small Fortunes and I like it, there's no reason for me not to read it, but I haven't got back to it. Maybe because I haven't spent much time on public transit (I wrote that yesterday, but today I was on public transit and the focus still wasn't really there).

Future: I have got The Dire Days of Willowweep Manor out of the library again.

I have a Jeannie Lin novella out from the library, I have various fics lined up, and I am wondering if audiobooks would be more manageable right now. Alternatively I am considering taking March off from expectations.

Okay, I am going to write a January books post even if I feel like I haven't finished anything.

Recent: Because I have in fact finished The Ironmaster's Tale, Swordheart, and Blood and Ember. Swordheart was on hold for most of December because the climax had a lot of emotions and I did not feel up to that. But I did in fact get myself to finish things, one of which was not a reread. Also some fic.

Current: I borrowed Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft from a friend and I have been reading so many game sourcebooks. Also Grizelda's Guide to Ghost Hunting, which I bought last October from Bundle of Holding and then completely forgot about, whoops. It's very good.

I am halfway through a bunch of things, some of which are getting regularly picked up and some not so much. Nature Tales for Winter Nights edited by Nancy Campbell has some nice sections.

I did in fact start Middlemarch, through the Serial Reader app, which has segments a little shorter than full chapters. However it's been a while since I caught up so we'll see. I do really like it, although in a "/o\ oh my godddddd Dorothea" sort of way.

Future: I have a book on Chinese knotwork, although currently my nonfiction reading brain is taken up with TTRPGs. And on the theme of ghosts I might reread The Bone Key by Sarah Monette.

Sometime this month my holds on Shoestring Theory by Mariana Costa and The Teller of Small Fortunes by Julie Leong should come in.

Oh, also I finished a Discworld ficlet yesterday.

So here are all the Ravening War meta bits I've posted on tumblr. I'm not cross-posting most of the liveblogging, though. Assume they all have spoilers.

( On Karna after episode 2 )

( On Amangeaux after episode 3 )

( On Fructera and Vegetania )

( On Karna post-season )

( Short meta in liveblogging posts )

And my tag on tumblr has a bunch of other people's meta and fic recs and art.

One of my few superstitions is that I don't want to talk about anything good until it has already happened, in case I jinx it, but today was my first day at work and everything is good, so I think I can say: DW, I have a job! A full time job! With benefits! Yay!

Apart from that, I have been liveblogging and writing various meta about Dimension 20: The Ravening War on Tumblr: Calorum, Amangeaux, Karna

I also wrote a poem which contains massive spoilers for A Court of Fey and Flowers.

I have been thinking lately about alternate universes versus retellings (like fairy tale retellings). An alternate universe, in the fandom sense, is usually the same characters in a different plot, or a different setting. The characters are the constant (fanon notwithstanding), and everything else may have parallels, but it doesn't need to be the same or even similar.

But in a retelling, the plot is sometimes more of a constant than the characters. The events are the important part, and the characters are filled out in different ways to fit those events. A retelling is not a fandom style alternate universe, it's Terry Pratchett's narrativium. You need to have characters in the right situations to produce the story, but a different retelling can have almost entirely different characters. The plot is what's important, not who it's happening to.

Mice and Murder is a story inspired by Sherlock Holmes (specifically the RDJ movies), but I don't think it's a Sherlock Holmes adaptation (unlike, say, Basil of Baker Street), because Sylvester Cross is not Sherlock Holmes (and Lars isn't Watson, and Daisy D'Umpstaire isn't Irene Adler, etc.). Although he is apparently similar enough to have produced this.

Title: Always Nice to See You
Rating: G
Universe: Dimension 20: Mice and Murder
Characters: Sylvester Cross, Lars Vandenchomp
Warnings/Enticements: Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Dungeons & Dragons Game Mechanics, Serious Injuries, Hurt/Comfort, Second meeting
Summary: A broken hip and a forged alliance.
Word Count: 920

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