So, today I had a tedious lecture from a mumbly lecturer. And rediscovered one of the perils of note-taking on a tablet pc - namely, that it really does encourage doodling. So Julia and I had a doodling match, which I've uploaded, as one of the other perils of a tablet pc is that they make it so much easier to show things like this on the internet.

Picture's below the cut, as it's rather large. Blue numbers retrospectively added, for ease of working out what the hell's going on. Odd numbers are Julia, even numbers me, and I would like to point out that the only reason it looks like she won is that the lecture finally ended then ;)

Also, the bee and mushroom don't relate to the game... I think they're types of neurone cells. Can't really remember.

( View the madness... )

Decided I'd have a play at writing Tesla, because it's something I've wanted to try for a while. And what better time to do it than when I'm supposed to be doing something else!

So here's a (short!) tag to 'End Of Nights pt 2', with slight spoilers for 'Eulogy'. Maybe unoriginal, but hey, I've got to start somewhere! ;)

( Read more... )

Eta: Thank you, people on the Tesla GW thread, for your lovely feedback on this! :D

Yes, I know I already did this for BSG.  But I'm bored, and have three essays to procrastinate about writing.  So...

Using only EPISODE names from ONE TV SHOW, answer these questions.
Try not to repeat an episode title. It’s a lot harder than you think!
Repost as “My life according to ...”

( Read... )

I've decided I might as well use this place as a fic archive, as well as writing rather pointless posts about my daily life :P  Completed fics, at any rate.

The link goes to fanfiction.  LJ doesn't seem to like me posting from MS Word, it brings a load of HTML junk with it.

Title: The Long Star Mile
Author: frith_in_thorns / Blue Shadowdancer
Rating: PG-13
Summary: John and Rodney and one Jumper, trying to get a smooth ride home, but of course that never happens.
Spoilers: Set sometime mid season 3
Characters: Mostly Rodney and John, some team.
Genre: H/C, suspense
Word count: 26,000

So today I spent five hours standing behind the Tolkein stall at my university's freshers' fair.  We're one of the 'traditional' old societies, so we have a good reputation and standing, which was great, as we got a good place, where there was room to display our rather splendid banner.  I thought I'd share some choice quotes from certain visitors:

Said in an extremely disparaging voice: "You guys have a whole society for Tolkein?"

"So are you and the CS Lewis club like, rivals?"

"What did Frodo say when he saw trees dancing?  That's Ent-ertainment!"

"No offence, but this seems a bit... lame."

"So do you have any members?"

"Do you guys dress up and swordfight?"

And my personal favourite:

"What's a Tolkein?"

(Of course, nearly everyone was very nice, and by the end of the day there were 60+ signups, and 100+ termcards handed out.  Not bad for the first day, although my feet are now killing me!)

Edit to add: Over the three days total we got just over 200 signups!  Which means we'll need about four of the room we actually have for freshers' moot if they all turn up... however, that's doubtful ;)

Meme shamelessly copied from astridv
Look, I even broke my all-lower-case-titles for it!

Started by dsudis: So I was adding some new interests to my LJ profile and found myself feeling defensive every time I typed a female name, thinking, basically, FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME, because I felt as if someone somewhere was going to be criticizing my love for them.

So, anyway, then I made a list of women who make me want to say FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME. They are far from the only women who are awesome, or the only women people need to be told to step off of, but they are the top ten I feel that way about, right now, off the top of my head.

If you want to argue with me about the awesomeness of any of these women, I am afraid I will simply be referring you to the subject line. THAT IS ALL.

Because here's the thing, I totally accept that not everyone's going to like every character I love, but I'm really tired of feeling like I'm going on the defensive every time I admit to loving a female character.

FUCK YOU, SHE'S AWESOME:
(in absolutely no order)



Juliet Burke (Lost), Stella Bonasera (CSI New York), Donna Noble (Doctor Who), Lindsay Monroe (CSI New York), Abby Scuito (NCIS), Jennifer Keller (Stargate Atlantis), Adelle DeWitt (Dollhouse), Teyla Emmagan (Stargate Atlantis), Catherine Willows (CSI), Helen Magnus (Sanctuary).

For lack of motivation to do anything else, I read The Lost Symbol.  It made me glad I didn't pay any money for it.  Christ.

I made notes as I read it, which are below.  One of my friends wants me to tell her about it before she'll read it, so these were originally for her, but I thought I might as well post them anyway.  They might amuse or annoy you, depending on your viewpoint.

Cut for length, spoilers (although I've tried not to put down big spoilers), and a horrendously large amount of melodrama.

(Please note that one of the reasons I find Brown's books so infuriating is that they are bad fiction presented by him as fact.  Bad fiction on its own tends to be much less annoying.)

( Read more... )
To sum up:  No, I'm not very impressed.  But then I didn't expect to be.  I thought it would be better to be informed as to what the book was about, though.  Only lost a few hours of my life, after all...

So after an epic battle with different video editing programs and YouTube, I have a River Tam video.  And I thought I'd embed it here so that it looks as if I occasionally do interesting things with this LJ.

Please not that if you watch it actually on YouTube it's much bigger and doesn't randomly jerk at odd points - so I take no responsibility for those things :P

Spoilers for all of Firefly and Serenity.  Song used is 'Wires', by Athlete.

So, being slightly bored today after my manic updating (chapter 5 of The Long Star Mile and chapter 13 of Missing Moments) I decided to see whether my ability to draw had improved since the last time I tried.

Well, it hasn't really :P

However, my boyfriend thinks they're cute, so that's enough reason for me to upload them here and inflict them upon others.

( SGA pencil-drawn stuff below cut... )

So the weather's decided to be summery, just in time for September!

To celebrate I spent all day in the garden reading my new shiny Richard Dawkins book. In an armchair which I dragged onto the lawn, because it was comfortable. And my parents have gone away camping for the weekend, leaving me to look after my younger sister; a task which is very easy, as she's gone out to a party from which she will not return until tomorrow.

Anyway, I took some photos in the garden so that I can have them when I'm back at uni to look at. I've stuck a few under the cut, because I can.

( Largish photos... )

So, I've just used my skip in the first round of the LFWS, and I have mixed feelings about this.

On the one hand, I've been trying for ages to write my script-format tag, without really suceeding.  I have about the right number of words (~450 currently), but nothing like the story I wanted to tell with them.  And looking at prompts from previous years, there've been loads that I'd love to get to write for.  I really don't want to be voted out in the first round and lose my chance at getting to participate in these later rounds, where I know I can do much better.  So at 4.30 am I gave up on this one, after poking my various scenarios for days and developing a really really annoying headache.

But on the other hand... well, I'm not really sure how I feel about using skips.  It sort of feels like cheating, really... given that I know someone's going to be voted out this round, and given that I know it won't be me because of the aforementioned non-participation.

Oh dear.

Actually, I haven't yet technically used my skip - I've only asked if I can.  But it's 5.00 am.  Right now, I'll take sleep over remaining in the LFWS, much as I would love to have both.

Goodnight.

I joined with the Women of the Gate community, and they're posting their ficathon now.

Ficathon link

You should go and read!

Here's the (very short) one I wrote:

Title: Safety
Author: frith_in_thorns (me!)
Rating: G
Warnings: Tag for 'The Daedalus Variations', so spoilers up to and including that episode
Prompt: Teyla contemplates motherhood.
Summary: Teyla wonders if she's doing the right thing. After all, the galaxy is a dangerous place, and one day she might not come home.
Author's Notes: Word count: ~750

My life according to BSG

Using only EPISODE names from ONE TV SHOW, answer these questions.
Try not to repeat an episode title. It’s a lot harder than you think!
Repost as “My life according to ...”


( Read more... if you can be bothered :P )

When I'm bored, I seem to develop a mental block towards doing anything useful.  Like, say, writing, or reviewing...  I'll catch up later.

Instead I drift around the internet.  And then decide to play Bioshock for an hour, and look up to find the clock's moved on four hours without me noticing.

And I joined Twitter.  I'll probably look at it for a week or so and then forget about it, but hey.  Name's kikaylabird there.

Now I'm going to go and be unproductive some more.  If it goes on like this, I could even end up back on Neopets.

*Shudders.*

Today I've been boarderline productive.  Well, I watched the BSG finale for a second time and cried at least half a bucket.  *Sobs at the memory of it*.  Yeah, I'm really easy to make cry with storylines I invest in.

I've also done quite a lot of writing over the past few days, which I'm pretty pleased with.  Some for 'Hush', a couple of experimental attempts at channelling Sheppard (I've yet to hear back about how well it went down with the person who's reading them...), and a surprising amount of 'The Long Star Mile'.  Seriously, I'm surprised, and not least at the fact that I've actually thought of an ending for it, which I can now write towards.  Been tentatively splitting it into chapters, too, and getting about 3000 words per chapter.  A couple more to wipe the blood up, and I'll be done.  (For the benefit of a certain few people reading this: yes, yes it is Rodney's blood.)

And I made a new msn account, so that I no longer have to pretend to be offline the entire time in order to avoid being deluged with people saying Hi! at which point the conversation pretty much ends because we haven't seen each other for years.  That sounds mean, but I'm not being really - I'm giving the address to all the people I actually see now, rather than people I went to primary school with.  In a bid to make this last paragraph actually relevent at all to the purpose of this LJ, the address of it is on my user info page, probably underneath my gmail one.  If you have nothing better to do, come and say hi, I'm bored :P

Also, the internet is still painfully slow.  BT broke it when they were 'fixing' the phone line, and won't admit it's their fault.  We should be getting 2MB - we're getting 0.13MB.  It's currently being 'monitered' by them, and if they can't deny it in 24 hours (which is unlikely...) they may come on Friday and fix it properly.  Can't say I'm holding out an overabundance of hope at this juncture...

I realised this afternoon that I've been sadly neglecting 'proper' books.  So I read the second half of Use of Weapons, and then Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?.  Both very good.  Can't decide now between more sci-fi, or some crime, I've got a couple of each lined up.  But I also don't want to read my last two Iain M. Banks books, because then I'll have read all of his, and will end up buying his next book in hardback, which I shouldn't do...

Also I was making icons yesterday, but lost them when a parent did a force-shutdown of my computer because apparently the blinky light was annoying.  Ah well, it's reinforced the importance of saving things before they're finished, I suppose...

My input tablet arrived today, and it's incredibly fun.  Although handwriting while looking at the screen rather than at what you write is quite tricky at first, but I'm getting the hang of it.

Solitaire is also very much improved with this, to encourage me to waste yet more time at my computer instead of working or writing.  Then I tried it on Age Of Mythology, and had to drag myself away from it.  This thing's magical.  At some point I may even find my camera and take pictures of it... however, that requires finding my camera, which may be a problem.

Also been reading a lot of Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks, I now own all of his books thanks to some left-over student loan, so am spending happy times working through them :)