deerna | Recent Entries

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Tell us about a place or indeed time period you’d love to see some canon/fanon based in.

The thing is - I don't like modern AUs for fandoms like the Witcher. The whole point is that they're witchers, and oftentimes when it's set in contemporary days, that whole part of the canon gets put aside.

I actually know of a couple works that do an excellent job at keeping the witcher thing going but it's so rare! I had a super self-indulgent and ambitious half-a-plot going with geralt &co. getting frozen à la captain america and being brought back in the present. It would be a fun challenge to write - a contemporary version of the Continent! Where monsters are still a thing! - but my brain is too small and tired to contemplate it. Man though it would be fun.

i didn't dislike it but man choices were made

Before you start reading:
this is a review of The Nightmare of the Wolf (2021) directed by Han Kwang-il and it contains spoilers.
Read my review on Letterboxd if you don’t want to be spoiled.

the good: good quality animation, great banter and some very interesting original characters, another look into the lore of the world of the witcher, cool monster design

the bad: weird choices about the timeline, some questionable narrative choices ...and SPOILERS.

i was looking forward to this movie. the witcher s2 is so far away still, and i have no way to justify a third playthrough of wild hunt, so i really hoped it would help me get some kind of fix. the good news is that the mood is right: we have a witcher fighting monsters, we have the intrinsic tragedy of being a witcher, and we have excellent animation to tell us that story. there's also a lot of stuff that left me with a bitter aftertaste in my mouth though. i enjoyed myself, but i wish i liked it more.

( Rambly and spoiler-y recension under the cut )

challenge intro

decided to go for the squee portion of the challenge so i can force all of you to look at the Portrait of Emiliana Concha de Ossa, painted by Giovanni Boldini. He painted her a bunch of times, but this is my favorite one. The black peeking from under the fur doesn't even look like a dress, it looks like something darker is hiding under there. I don't know if it's quite on topic but it's fascinating either way - a visual representation of something that isn't supposed to be seen, maybe.

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a wrapped giftbox with a snowflake on the gift tag. Text: Snowflake Challenge January 1-31

Challenge #13: share fandom resources

i almost didn't do this part of the challenge because i didn't really think i was going to have anything useful to share but then i realized that the hundreds of links i got squirreled away in my bookmarks might actually come useful to someone, so here we are.

( Way too many links under the cut )

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a snow-covered green bench in a snowy park. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.

fandom snowflake challenge #12: resurrect an old meme

I don't feel like whipping out photoshop to make another "fave character" bingo, which is the one meme that came up when i searched through my journal, so i'll do the spell your name in songs one.

I chose to use my "writing" username, somewhatclear, and i'll use my spotify library to pick the songs

Saviour of the Waking World - Cement City
Oleanna - Storm Weather Shanty Choir
Mama - My Chemical Romance
Energia - Russkaja
Week of the Mermaid - Juliana & PAVA
Hora staccato (played by Salvatore Accardo) - G. Dinicu
Ashes - Coastal
Trøllabundin - Eivør
Calabi-Yau - I Cani
Let's Misbehave - Irving Aaronson and His Commanders
Evening in the tavern - Pawel Blaszczak
Army of Viking Ghosts Marching in the Moon Light - Andrey Krylov
Riptide - Vance Joy

Edit: I actually made it into a weird playlist, so here!

New witcher fic that i posted on the wrong journal because I'm smart.

i cant remove the link because it breaks linking to my masterpost so here it is. I also guess it counts for the snowflake challenge #11 now, so hi peeps.

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring feet in snuggly socks, a mug of hot chocolate, a notebook with 'dreams' written on the cover, and a guitar. Text: Snowflake Challenge 1-31 January

challenge #9: brag about yourself

i know im not the only one who had a kneejerk reaction at the verb to brag - because at one point in life we've been taught that being proud of an accomplishment is unsightly, not nice, not polite. the thing is that there's a vast difference between rubbing something into someone's face, and feeling good about your own skill.

so this is a list of things i accomplished during the past year. the feeling good and proud about them will come as i write, i hope.

life: i survived, bitch. given the year that we had, that's surely something i can brag about. ~~a bit ironic since i need to be tested tomorrow, but that's 2021 for you~~
writing: almost 60k words, and im happy with basically all of it. go read my things if you're interested (the witcher, overwatch and a bunch of other fandoms)
work: i came up with a pseudonym, i have portfolios and i actually found a job where they pay me to write ~~more or less~~.
media: i read a lot of books, watched a lot of movies and played a lot of games during the past year. i even wrote a couple rec posts
art: i picked up watercolor painting, and i started drawing more seriously. i have an instagram now, and an artblog.
fandom: i tried to interact more, both here on dreamwidth and on twitter; i did some beta reading for some friends; i curated a landing page and compiled a bunch of resources for the witcher fic writers network, where i met a lot of friendly people. i reconnected with old friends.

skipping #7 because i have zero ideas about challenges... also i need to get my mind off things so here we go

challenge #08 make a wishlist

i have a weird relationship with wanting things, so im using this as an excuse to crowdsourcing help kjdgh here i go:

icons of the witcher; i've seen a few people asking for them, and i plan to make some myself at one point, but if you have some icons of geralt lying around i'd love to see them!
communities about coding; dreamwidth & livejournal layout communities were a thing, once upon a time, but i can't find active ones? also appreciated would be a guide to learn to code layouts for dreamwidth or something.
help with uhhh,, possibly javascript? i'm trying to organize a writing bingo, but i want partecipants to be able to create their own bingo card, so i've been looking into javascript... i found a script that generates a bingo card with numbers but i don't know if it's possible to make it cycle through a list of words/prompts instead. My javascript learning is going slow, so... help?

i should be writing but i can't get in the flow so i might as well catch up a little

challenge #06: rec at least three fanworks that you didn’t create

first of all im going to cheat and redirect you to my other two reclists -- one for series and one for single fics.

the three stories i rec'd are huge, cover heavy themes either psychologically or emotionally, and are very different between them, for genre, pairing and style, so I think they make for a nice morsel for someone who -- well, wants to look into my tastes in fanfiction i guess haha. please give these people all the kudos because they deserve them.

three stories that consumed me

tap tap tap, by lemmingdancer geralt/eskel, geralt/jaskier | angst with a happy ending | 45k | link
this fic is long. it spans their whole lives, from childhood to retirement, and it's deliciously painful. one of my favorite things about it is geralt's transformation after the second trials, how he has to put an effort in learning how to act human again. and i love how eskel and jaskier go at it, with their flaws and their sweetness. i loved the issues and the mistakes and the feelings and the tap tap tap. and after a lot of pain — a happy ending. truly a must-read. // warning for minor spoilers for the games

Silver and copper, by heronfem geralt/jaskier | canon au, alternative meeting, horror and violence | 56k | link
jaskier has a very good reason not be a bard, and geralt happens to pass through lettenhove and fix it. this is a horror story (to the point that i regretted reading it at night) and there's some truly horrifying stuff going on about the curse, so heed the tags. it's also a mystery story, which reminded me a little of the side quests you can play in tw3 but with a lot more frustrated meandering and false leads, which keep you on the edge of your seat. there's also a lot of hope and love, though — the truly selfless kind, the kind that doesn't give up on you, the kind that waits for you to come back, the kind that adopts you even if it has no reason to do so.

out in the pouring rain (down on your knees) by SummerFrost geralt/jaskier/yennefer | modern au, BDSM | 45k | link
it starts out as jaskier doing a favour to yennefer and geralt, to satisfy a cuckhold fantasy, and then it turns into something much more complicated. i'm extremely picky with modern aus but this pushes all my buttons re: kink & the witcher cast. also, i almost feel like i should've tagged this as jaskier/yennefer because that's what mostly is - geralt is off screen a lot, but he's the elephant in the room and the reason everything is happening and everyone is feeling. the pining hits hard and the burn is slow; by the end of it i felt consumed by it, in the best of ways.
special mention: ciri! she's trans (i know that folk look for that kind of thing) and adorable and her parents and jaskier love her very much and i appreciated the whole thing so much.

code by tessisamess | icons by honeymoonedit, twelveedits & retroicxns

challenge #05: talk about a canon you love

Nobody will be surprised to see that this post is about the Witcher, since apparently it’s all I think about these days. I don’t actually talk about it much on any of my online spaces - I’m not great at meta and I always feel like other people have more interesting things to say. Fiction is usually my way to say things about my canons, so that’s what I usually write — but this is a challenge so I felt like challenging myself.

Before the netflix show came the games, and before the games came the books, which I had the pleasure to discover during the entirety of 2020 — so I’m going to gush a bit about the opening scene of the short story that started it all.

( spoilers about the books under the cut )

reading the posts about goals made me want to re-make the one i did in a more structured way, so i guess i am officially behind with the challenge lmao. it's one of the drawbacks of dreamwidth--since it's longer posts, it takes me more time to write them and i always second guess myself and the content i post.

anyway, for day #5 the challenge is to gush about canon and i wonder if it's finally the moment for me to re-read the witcher (the short story) and shard of ice and break them down--but i don't have time today and my hands hurt and it's taking me forever to just type this so maybe somewhen during the week?

Snowflake Challenge promotional banner featuring a chubby brown and red bird surrounded by falling snow. Text: Snowflake Challenge: 1-31 January.

Challenge #2: Intearact With Someone New

I was so nervous about this one, but it happened almost naturally in the comments of my previous post, so that's good! *waves to new people* it was such a pleasure! Please gush at me about the Witcher whenever you want, I'm open to it 24/7.

Challenge #3: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

I'm not actually doing this because putting myself in the same space as 'fandom creatures' doesn't come naturally to me — which is something I actually want to talk about, so here's my version of the challenge, with a twist to the topic!

I always enjoyed playing with characters in the space of my fantasy, but I could never picture myself there with them, not even putting myself in one of the characters' shoes. There's something about my sense of self that doesn't let me breathe the same fictional air as they do.

I missed out on tons of my friends' adventures because they created personae that were based on themselves in order to join their fave characters on adventures set in the franchise of the week, and I didn't. It's something that bleeds into more reality-related stuff, like meeting actors, singers and writers to get their autograph or take a picture with them.

I don't know if it's because I'm scared of something or if it's just shyness, or if it's just my way to interact with fandom — but I love seeing other people have fun with it! Tell me your secrets, oh self-insert writers!

challenge #1: in your own space, introduce yourself!

hi i’m deerna, a twenty-something queer gremlin who writes for a living and also for fun. i’ve tried to do the snowflake thing on pillowfort last year because i thought i was going to be more active on that platform, but then i started posting a little more often on dreamwidth so i thought of doing the challenge on here instead.

for challenge #01 i updated my intro/sticky post. i joined the witcher fandom a year ago and it doesn’t look like i’m going anywhere, so i added a paragraph about it. if you're wondering about it, the #a just death thing (like my main icon) is about dirk strider (homestuck epilogues).

if you want to know more about me you can also read my fandom recap and my writing recap from 2020, that i just posted. most of my personal posts are locked but i’m not fussy about adding people; just say hi under the sticky post so i know who you are.

writing 2020: a summary

Masterlist 2020

57.918 words - a personal record
25 works, for 3 fandoms (mainly the witcher)

( Read more... )

Fandom 2020: a summary

41 movies, of which 8 animation and 8 rewatched
16 books, of which 4 re-read
22 serials, of which 6 western animation, 1 anime and 3 reality tv
26 games, of which 1 re-played, 2 in progress and 13 dropped

( Read more... )

The good thing about writing is that it makes me write more.

Read Buttery and bright, another witcher fic where a lot of sex happens, geralt goes along with what he thinks jaskier wants, and jaskier has him get what he needs. Feelings are discussed. A bright future is on the horizon.

Does anyone have experience with IFTTT? I'm trying to set up a thing that reads a RSS feed from Ao3 to post it on Dreamwidth but I can't absolutely seem to figure it out...?

EDIT: nevermind, I did it!! Unfortunately the free version of IFTTT lets you create only three applets at a time, which is really not useful for what I wanted to do (I have like, three dozens of tags to filter and I'm not sure commands such as OR work in the 'keyword' field??) so I'm back to square one. I'm not even entirely sure if it works the way I intended it to, but I guess we're going to find out next time I post a fic in the tag.

The Witcher Fic Writer Network twitter chat is pretty fun now that we're only a few people, but I would love for it to have a scope beyond the livechat feed (which can be pretty overwhelming, even if we all write in different moments because of timezones)... So that is the feed idea: create an account that automatically shares the fics written by the people in the network!

I would love to have an actually active space here on dreamwidth (or pillowfort, even) but the ones that are already existing don't have a lot of interaction and I feel a little awkward...

Anyway if you're a fan of the witcher and you write or intend to write fic for it, feel free to come and say hello!

Today was a good day. Nothing happened, in particular, but I just felt content in general. I worked well, I ate well, I did my self-care routines without a hitch. Fixed an issue with my mom's phone, had a job call, watched a fun movie. Did my nails.

I missed doing my nails so much. I used to do a different mani every other week and then suddenly I stopped -- mostly because I had to cut my nails really short bc I couldn't stop scratching the dumb stress eczema that popped up with the rest of the apocalypse and my nails are too small to do anything fun with them, if there isn't at least a little bit of lenght. It was a bit depressing.

But now I'm back! This is definitely one of those things that are part of myself.

I can't seem to be able to embed the instagram post with my current mani, so check it out here.

I'm here waiting for the steam download to finish and I'm positively vibrating out of my skin. It's still unreal to think that this game is a thing...

Anyway. I'm doing a first playthrough tonight and I'll post my impressions as I go.

Spoilers ahead, obviously

( Day 1 )

( Day 2 )

TL;DR that was a ride. Pun intended.

and now the count is three (3) counting the Witcher. Goddammit.

credit

Before you start reading:
this is a review of Enola Holmes (2020) directed by Harry Bradbee and it contains spoilers.
Read my review on Letterboxd if you don’t want to be spoiled.

the good: overall fun and engaging, nuanced acting despite the risk of cartoonish performance, a good management of trope-inversion up to a point, Feel-Good messages about feminism, the future and hope.

The Bad: a slow beginning, Spelling Out Absolutely Everything, and eyeroll-worthy vibes of performative wokeness™

Yes, I watched this movie because Henry Cavill is in it and I’m still riding the Witcher high. I have no qualms admitting that. I also like Millie Bobby Brown quite a lot — people tell me she’s overrated, but I enjoyed her acting in Stranger Things — and the premise looked fun (I am not familiar with the books though) so I watched it.

I was looking for something undemanding to wind down after a heavy day — and Enola delivered. She managed to engage my brain for a couple hours and it made me itch for more, which is always a good thing, so that's a win in my book.

I started writing this entry back in September, but then things happened, and I couldn't be arsed to re-watch the movie in the meanwhile, so there might be inaccuracies. Have mercy on my scatterbrained soul.

( Rambly and spoiler-y recension under the cut )

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i think ultimately you become whoever would have saved you that time that no one did.

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