Nanni

I read David Hone's How Fast did T-Rex Run? Unsolved Questions From the Frontiers of Dinosaur Science and really enjoyed it. Hone is a very clear communicator: his explanation of melosomes alone was worth reading the book for. (He describes them as like paint cans where each pigment has a different shape, so even with the pigment missing, we know by the shape what it once was.)

I do wish he didn't feel quite as much need to make predictions about 'what we will learn next' because of course as he explains multiple times, it's nearly impossible to make those predictions because the evidence paleontology uses rests so heavily on random chance. I felt sometimes like the speculation felt obligatory, not like the parts where he talks about what questions researchers have based on current evidence.

That was really a minor frustration though. I had a lot of fun reading the book!

I sent a message to the OTW Board of Directors to insist on their responsibility to act on their commitments to address racist abuse and harassment on Ao3 as part of the #EndOTWRacism two week action.

A link to the call to action on Dreamwidth

A link to the call to action on Tumblr

In our white supremacist society any community, space, or organization that contains white people and is not explicitly and actively anti-racist will become a structure that shields and maintains white privilege and actively perpetuates white supremacy.

That is not acceptable to me. That is not what I want my community to be. We all have to act and speak up together, and make our communities, spaces, and organizations anti racist instead of racist, by changing what is acceptable in our communities, and what is not. What is valued, and what is not. Who is valued, and who is not.

Fans of color need to be valued. They should be. Their safety and their joy need to be valued as integral elements of fandom and fannish communities, not cordoned off as somehow 'special', 'different', an option that can be discarded. Fans of color are living people who live here.

That's what I want to be valued.

I finished and published four stories this year! Mostly for exchanges, which I did several of! ...And whom I kept matching up with Guinevak for.

Title: Mme C- and the Strange Seas of Europa
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: The Comfortable Courtesan
Word Count:
Rating: General Audiences
Characters/Pairing: Madame C & The Marquess of B - Aubrey Bexbury (The Comfortable Courtesan)Madame C-/Mr F-/Mrs F-
Summary: In which they prepare to venture across the icy shell of the world, and every passage means much.
Warnings: None.
Notes: Written for guinevak, for the Chocolate Box Exchange Round 5

Mme C- and the Strange Seas of Europa on AO3

First Line: When Marcello had gone to bespeak the party a gas balloon with a traveller's carriage slung beneath it – for he did not trust any of the party except the Marquess to reliably perform this feat, being mere tourists all, and the Marquess he would not currently suffer to undertake any task even as tiring as negotiation with a semi-sapient AI juice bar – Aubrey turned to Clorinda and said, “I had no real expectation, when last I was here, at this port, of ever seeing dear old Europa again.”

Title: Keep Other Times
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Word Count:
Rating: General Audiences
Characters/Pairing: Jyn Erso & Cassian Andor
Summary: Jyn takes a middle of the night nap in Cassian's bunk. She's always been able to sleep anywhere, but it's good to get a chance to rest somewhere where rest is easy.
Warnings: None.
Notes: For guinevak, for the Aromantic Characters Exchange.

Keep Other Times on Ao3

First Line: Jyn woke up over warm.

Title: With Feelings a Hundredfold
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù
Word Count:
Rating: Mature
Characters/Pairing: Luò Bīnghé/Shěn Yuán | Shěn Qīngqiū
Summary: Luo Binghe said some things the other night, while doing a few other things, and Shen Qingqiu can't quite get them out of his head. So he's going to ask! Today! This very hour!

Shen Qingqiu is going to communicate if it kills him! (Which it won't. He is very aware of that. If squirming embarrassment were regularly fatal, he'd have died many more than three times to date.)
Warnings: Kink negotiation, discussion of rough oral sex.
Notes: Written for Remix Revival 2020. Inspired by Evonius's oral Exercise.

First Line: Shen Qingqiu asked over tea.

Title: In a Room Together
Author: Tiamat’s Child
Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Word Count:
Rating: Explicit
Characters/Pairing: Jyn Erso/Bodhi Rook
Summary: Jyn and Bodhi take some time to explore. Each other, and what they want.
Warnings: None.

In A Room Together

First Line: ( Under a cut because it's somewhat NSFW )

First day of Governor Pritzker's Shelter in Place order being in effect: I pruned the clematis vine.

I heard the sandhill cranes passing by as I did.

I couldn't see them - we had low cloud at that point in the afternoon, and the sheltered corner of the patio garden isn't a great space for scanning the sky anyway. The silver maple hasn't leafed out yet, but it's still a big presence, and the house, garage, and the neighbor's roofline limit what you can see pretty effectively. But I heard them, that low, carrying, rattling call.

Dear Chocolatier,

Heya! Thank you for creating something for me! I requested both writing and art in my sign up and I genuinely would be delighted with either!

Overall, I'm always interested in worlds and how they work, how character interacts with worldbuilding, how people are in the place they live in, how their worlds affect their relationships -

I like all the different and highly varied ways there are to be in relationship with other people and with the world around you. I like playing with canon worldbuilding and exploring it, and I like seeing other fans do so too! I like it when genres collide, and I like adventure, and building good communities and lives in the middle of/the despite of/because of a terrifying/inimical wider reality.

Mostly I hope you really have fun with whatever you choose to work on. This letter might be a little thin? I've never done one before it's freaking me out so I decided to just go for it. But I am leaving anon on on this entry, so if you have a question please feel free to ask!

Thanks again,

Tiamat's Child / Nanni / Nan

My paternal grandfather, whom I love very much, is dying, and is moving from the hospital to hospice care at his apartment pretty much right now.

I am at home, because it isn't feasible for me to be there.

I just went with the dog and picked up today's mail, and it had a glossy booklet from the Lyric Opera advertising their upcoming season. My grandpa loves the opera. I nearly started crying in the street.

If anyone would like a friendly Valentine from me, I'd love to send one! If I have your address and you'd like me to send you one, just sing out - if I don't have your address please either email me, or leave it in the comments, which are screened.

trope_bingo is doing an open amnesty round for their twelfth round, and they're having folks generate their own cards using An Owomoyela's bingo card generator if they don't have an outstanding card.

I don't currently have an outstanding card I'm pretty sure, so I went to use the card generator, because I cannot resist widgets, and also I've been intending to work on actually getting words down (on paper) and up (on the web).

The card generator is so cool! One of its pre-set list possibilities is the Arne Thompson story type typology! I am definitely going to have to play more with that! (And write Owomoyela a nice note. And their fiction sounds up my alley too!)

( Trope Bingo card under the cut )

Happy New Year, everyone!

I try to avoid resolutions, because they usually interact with my OCD um, counterproductively, but I do have a goal of posting here at least once a week in the new year!

And finishing my first run through of Final Fantasy VII, and doing more write ups of stuff I read even if it's just little, and writing a fic! or more than one fic! And continuing to work at getting more stable, and working hard to roll with changes in the household and making them productive and -

Well, all my usual goals, admittedly, but it is customary to talk about goals at the new year!

Flight Rising is doing another gathering micro-holiday! Seafood and winter themed! I'm so excited! I kind of want to write microfic about my dragon friends suiting up and setting the sails and taking their last chance to get a big haul before the winter storms restrict everybody to dive fishing from shore!

(Or, okay, for Guardians and Imperials in particular, longterm swim fishing excursions, but then you have to carry everything you catch and it's hard to get extra for the rest of the clan to share...)