deerna | Recent Entries

warning: might contain spoilers (namely: stranger things, hollow knight)

FANDOM

turns out that set it up is a romcom with rights. special mention to downtown abbey II: a new era because it's the first time i went to the movies in forever and it was good but strange.
eurovision was fun but i wasn't too hyped for it, despite it being in italy. i liked ukraine's entry, but i preferred france's fulenn and moldova's trenulețul. on the other hand, our diodato, måneskin and mika did some great live performances ♥
putting a dent in my to-read list: we read 2/3 books of simon snow and it was an amazing time, especially wayward son because vampires, obviously. dracula daily is still going strong. the southern book club's guide to slaying vampires was a surprisingly heavy read; well done, absolutely fucking terrifying because of the realistic element rather than the supernatural one. i made an attempt with camere separate but i couldn't; i'm sorry because it's queer and italian and god knows how rare that is, but i think i had my fill of sad gay stories.
finally watched ted lasso and tumblr didn't like: it was really a good time, even if i don't give a shit about soccer. stranger things is back; i like the new guy and im lowkey shipping him with steve ~~and billy, who is perfectly fine and alive in my dreams~~
finished hollow knight: i had to cheat in order to finish it but i don't regret it. i'll never be happy again after learning the whole story, and after the final battle against the hollow knight (i've been listening to the ost obsessively, too). ao3 has little, precious fic, and that's how im surviving.

WRITING

i haven't posted anything, but i did some impressive progress on the infamoous ace geralt fic. i finally finished part 1 and part 2, and im putting a dent in part 3. hopefully by the end of june it'll be done. (i know i said it was going to be done by the end of may but eh. that didn't happen clearly. im also glad i finally started working on the novelization of the dnd campaign, dunya. it's a little unnerving, because im writing an original character on top of characters that belong to friends, but i'm having a grand time so far.

ART+CRAFT

the craft part was pretty much a complete failure, because i didn't get shit done, but on the art side i'm keeping up with the weekly digital drawing. i finally found a way to keep it consistent. i don't know if it'll work with the next set of subjects (flowers) but im gonna keep experimenting. i also practiced watercolor a little, taking advantage of movie nights with friends. i'm pretty proud of it.

fandom

lots of catching up, this month. this is us s5, which was long overdue lmao. as usual i enjoyed it very much, i think it's the only drama i can stand. dialogue and storytelling is always strong and it never fails to make you shit bricks on the finale. brooklyn nine-nine s8 was another thing that i kept putting off bc i didn't want it to be over. they picked a good time to end it, i think. you can't keep dragging a thing forever, and eight seasons is still a pretty long time. they stopped before it could turn bad and they did it well (winking a little at current times issues. good for them). our flag means death, obviously, bc everyone and their mothers has been talking and giffing and fanarting about it. i enjoyed it very much and it would be silly of me to deny how good it is, but my brain is still wholeheartedly devoted to my other blorbos so it hasn't clicked with me entirely. i thought i was going to be insane about jim but the magic wasn't entirely there (i do love vico ortiz though. call me). if i had to nominate a blorbo from this show (besides ed, who is basically default) i would pick lucius i think. yeah yeah i know. predictable.

in conclusion, bookclub time: we finished magnus chase, which ended on a strong, lovely note, and i finally dug my teeth in my first terry pratchett, pyramids. the general mood was 'what the fuck did i just read' but in the most positive way you could think of. the amount of layers of humour and commentary is astonishing.

WRITING

the goddamn ace geralt commission is finally going somewhere! i managed to get the first part to a somewhat final draft and im steadily chewing on part two. let's hope may will be the month it sees the light of day.

on the other hand, i posted a few fics that i wrote during february and march that just needed a bit of formatting:

a million stars away, a tiny reflective piece about my dnd blorbo and their half-orc boyfriend.
drought, an old-ass short piece about jaskier being (spoiler) angsty on the beach.
about those definitions, the royed where they're both suicidal and alcoholic that was missing the ending.
through the cracks, about jesper touching himself while he thinks of kaz. set in a nebulous canon between the tv show and the books, bc of course.

writing still feels like pulling teeth, and it doesn't help that i finally noticed how much i suck at endings. i knew that but hey. i also have no idea how one would go about at doing practice on that (other than writing, that is) (this sounds like a scam)

ART+CRAFT

i'm pretty satisfied of my progresses in this area. i finally attached the binding to the blanket; i have to fell three sides and then i'm done. i also bought the fabric for the shirt; it turned into a double project because i want a generic floofy shirt tm on top of the lambert shirt whose embroidery i still have to plan. i figured it might be a good idea to make a first, plainer attempt to familiarize myself with the process, before going for the complex one. (excuses, excuses. but no, really). also, i've been drawing digitally quite a lot, and i had a lot of practice with inks and watercolors; a friend got me a few inks and a fancy glass dip pen last year, but i didn't have time to try it until now. it's a lovely medium but my drawing skills are still too meh to really appreciate it. i need to practice more.

FANDOM

finally listened to/watched heathers the musical, which is a good, ironic, dark time.

i finally finished reading bend sinister, which once again made me mad at nabokov because the guy is just too aware of language and of his own craft. (it pains me because he uses writing in such an expressive way and i would love to plagiarize the hell out of him for my own shit but it feels too pretentious for this century. i always feel like writing have to feel effortless, these days-- close to the way normal people talk and feel and thing, and a thing like literary nabokov doesnt sit well with that kind of aesthetic. my own writing strives to be quick and to the point, no excess.--not that im getting paid for it. not for the things that matter to me. but i digress).

also finally started magnus chase and yes, i fell in love with alex fierro. i was a fool. i waited too long. rick riordan once again demonstrates that he does the homework, thank you very much. im just missing the third book in the trilogy and i cannot wait.

watched doctor who s14 and as much as i love her, i don't think i got it. i don't enjoy it as much as i used to, i think, despite my fondness for the characters and for the universe. it's a pity.

it probably doesn't count as a fandom but since mr joey batey and miss madeleine hyland stuffed the thing with lore i might as well mention that i finally listened to ruin. i still need to chew on it i think.

WRITING

i wrote more than i expected but not as much as i wanted. im struggling a bit with getting words out and getting what i want, but i managed to write at least a fic per week for the challenge. better than nothing.

ART + CRAFT

i finally finished the embroidery on the dnd bag! i wanted to start binding the blanket too but i keep procrastinating. i didn't go back to watercolor either, but i followed the list on the plant project. it's going slowly but the important part is not giving up.

new project for 2022: one post a month with a quick update about fandom discoveries and art+craft projects. seems doable, right? except i’m already behind, but nevermind that.

warning: might contain spoilers

( january )

( february )

Writing 2021: a summary

Masterlist 2021

21.766 words /gross sobbing
9 works, for 3 fandoms

( Read more... )

Fandom 2021: a summary

40 movies: 8 rewatches, 4 animation, 2 stand up comedy
31 books: 10 re-reads
25 serials: 5 western animation, 5 anime and 7 reality tv
4 games, 2 in progress

( Read more... )

click on the banner to see the challenge

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... )

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

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Unhealthy Obsessions

Recent Entries

recap | may 2022

recap | april 2022

recap | march 2022

recap | january + february 2022

Reviewing 2021 | writing

Reviewing 2021 | fandom

Carpe diem #4 | Thursday's child has far to go

some kind of witcher prequel

Carpe Diem #1 | Monday's child is fair of face

fandom snowflake challenge #13

fandom snowflake challenge #12

In for a copper, in for a crown

Fandom Snowflake Challenge #9

fandom snowflake challenge #8

fandom snowflake challenge #6

fandom snowflake challenge #5

memo to self

fandom snowflake challenge #02 ... and not quite #03

fandom snowflake challenge #01

Reviewing 2020 | writing

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