pedanther

1. Monument Valley 2 has just come out for Android devices (I think it's been out on iDevices for a while). Where the first game had a girl named Ida exploring the mysterious valley where geometry is more of a guideline than an actual rule, the second game has a woman named Ro and her daughter. The player only has direct control of Ro, with her daughter automatically moving to follow her; when the valley's whimsical geography separates them (which of course it repeatedly does), the player must not only figure out what path Ro needs to take to get to the exit but also what actions Ro must take to non-verbally nudge her child in the right direction.

In the Monument Valley tradition of never outright saying what's going on, the game doesn't (in my experience so far) say what connection there is between Ro and Ida, or whether this is a sequel or a prequel. It has not escaped my attention that the ghostly figure who occasionally appears to give Ro cryptic advice looks a bit like Ida -- but then again, when Ro puts her official hat on, she looks a bit like the ghostly figure who would occasionally appear to give Ida cryptic advice...


2. Another game I've been playing a fair bit lately is Crypt of the NecroDancer, in which you move around a procedurally-generated dungeon collecting treasures and whacking monsters -- and get a bonus if you do it all in time with the beat of the background music. I'd heard a lot about it, so I picked it up recently when it was going cheap in Steam's Halloween sale. I wasn't sure about it at first, but I think I'm getting the hang of it now.


3. Also out this month, Baen Books is publishing Down and Out in Purgatory, a collection of short fiction by Tim Powers, some of which has previously only been available in pricey limited edition chapbooks (or, if you happened to be paying attention at the right time, as somewhat less pricey limited availability ebooks). Of the stories in the collection that I have had a chance to read previously, I have particularly liked the title story, which is like a more compact version of one of his contemporary fantasy novels (the plot involves a man on a quest for revenge who decides he won't be put off when his target inconveniently dies before he can be killed); "Nobody's Home", a prequel to The Anubis Gates featuring that novel's main female character; and "The Way Down the Hill", a disconcerting story that might be a sequel to The Anubis Gates if you squint.


4. With summer coming in, I've started going to the pool of a morning to swim laps. It's going pretty well so far, and I might make it my main form of regular exercise in place of going to the gym. The gym, I've found, tends to set off my insecurities -- am I doing the right exercises? am I doing the exercises right? -- but swimming from one end of the pool to the other repeatedly is a lot more straightforward and I find it tends rather to calm me down.


5. Things I am not doing this month include Nanowrimo (doesn't really work with the way I write, to the extent that I have one), Yuletide (I don't mind offering to write for people, but I can never think of anything to ask for), and the ficlets I offered to write for that AU meme over a month ago (plain and simple procrastination, no excuse).

(via lost_spook)

Because this year, between various Yuletides and the fact that a few months ago I went through my collection of old fic and uploaded (and backdated) everything I was still willing to expose people to, there's actually some chance of being able to provide meaningful answers.

( Read more... )

(via john_amend_all, who also links to a handy template)

Stats:

List of Completed Fics:

Bring Out the Lady (441 words)
Fandom: Chess (Board Game)
Characters: Queen (Chess), King (Chess)
Summary: The queen moves fast. The king can't keep up with her. There's a reason for that.

Uncommon Readers (232 words)
Fandom: Unusual Dragon Hoards - iguanamouth
Characters: Original Dragon Character(s)
Summary: There are many treasures to be found in the Hoard of Random Scraps of Paper.

The Question of Caroline Louisa (477 words)
Fandom: Kay Harker Series - John Masefield
Characters: Caroline Louisa, Eduardo da Vinci
Summary: "Do you ever miss it?" Edward asks suddenly, interrrupting his own description of his latest plan to raise the statue of St George from the ocean bed. Caroline Louisa takes a sip of tea while she considers the question.

Plus a couple more stanzas of last year's filk song, a few comment fics whose locations I can't now entirely recall, an isurrendered entry, and a reasonably substantial involvement in an LJ roleplay.

( Read more... )

1. In the end, I didn't sign up for Yuletide this year; when it came down to it, I couldn't think of anything to ask for. (Though I thought of a couple of things almost as soon as signups were over, which I've carefully written down somewhere that I'll hopefully be able to find them next year.)

I may yet end up writing Treats or something, and I'm on the pinch hit list, same as every year, although being in this time zone I almost never get to see an unclaimed pinch hit of any kind, let alone an unclaimed pinch hit I can do something with.


2. Rehearsals for the Christmas show continue. Scripts are down. The song list is mostly stable (several songs were thrown out or replaced for reasons of pacing or being blatantly inappropriate to the character and/or situation) and the dances are mostly choreographed. In the big opening song-and-dance number, I'm taking full advantage of the fact that my character is explicitly called out in dialogue as being not a very good dancer.


3. I stopped going to the gym for a few months out a combination of winter and snowballing awkwardness about peripheral business like When Should I Ask For A Follow-Up Meeting With The Trainer? and What Happens When I Run Out of Spaces On This Log Sheet?, but I've started going regularly again, and I'm feeling better than I did when I wasn't.

Also, I managed to organise a follow-up meeting with the trainer (which helped me straighten out some things I'd been doing wrong) and got a new log sheet, which is a slightly different design from the old one and very helpfully includes a space for the trainer to explicitly write down when he expects to hear from me again, so I may be able to avoid a repeat of the snowballing awkwardness.


4. A few days ago, in a fit of procrastination, I downloaded the smartphone game Doctor Who: Legacy, which some of my fannish acquaintances are enthusiastic about. I don't know how much longevity it's going to have for me; in the absence of an intriguing plot (and Doctor Who: Legacy features a near-complete absence of plot), I tend to stick with a game only so long as I can coast without having to put any actual effort into mastering the tactics and strategies of the game mechanics, and I think I've about reached that point already.

[edit to add: And the "gotta collect all the Doctors and companions" aspect isn't doing it for me, because I'm not feeling like there's any meaningful connection between the collectables and the actual Doctors and companions; Rory, to pick an example, is just a cardboard cutout and some numbers and none of the things that made me like Rory-the-character so much. Though I'll admit I was a bit thrilled when Porridge showed up, because having Warwick Davis on the team will never not be a bit thrilling even if it is just cardboard-cutout Warwick Davis.]

(It's been interesting comparing Legacy to Worlds in Time, the last Doctor Who computer game I played with any regularity. The basic game mechanics are very similar, to the point that Legacy might almost feel like Worlds in Time with a lot of bits missing, except for the crucial difference that the bits Legacy does have all work much better than Worlds in Time's bits ever did.)


5. Around Halloweentime, TV Club 10 did a list of ten noteworthy TV vampire stories (limited to one episode per series, to promote variety; Buffy and Angel are represented by "Fool for Love" and "Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been", respectively). Apart from the obvious candidates, the top 10 includes the 1968 Mystery and Imagination version of "Dracula" with Denholm Elliott and James Maxwell in. (There is also a list of honorable mentions, which includes an episode of my favourite underappreciated vampire series, Ultraviolet.)

(via john_elliott)

( Fanworks completed in 2013 )

I gather this is also a part of the Yuletide experience, so here are a dozen good stories from this year's collection that were written neither by nor for me.

To begin with, the one that I've been recommending to pretty much everyone who stands still long enough:

Four Things that Weren't Adequately Covered in Mulan's R.A. Training (4540 words)

Mulan is a Resident Assistant on a dormitory floor at a college. Gosh, some of the students on her floor come from really screwed-up families.

In which the Disney Princesses are translated into modern college students sharing a dormitory, supporting each other as they deal with weird health problems, annoying acquaintances, and a variety of screwed-up family histories.

Fortunately, Belle has a Doctorate in the University of Googling Everything and after Aurora fell asleep in the middle of a conversation about last week's Dr. Who, she said, "You know what I bet you have? I bet you have NARCOLEPSY."

( also: American Gods, Arm Joe, Asimov's robots, Black Books, The Fifth Element, Galaxy Quest, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Sneakers, and ... )

The Ten Stupidest Things I've Heard Since Richard III's Remains Were Identified

Tudor Spies and Perfidy (750 words)

A meeting of the University of Leicester excavation team.

Fewer Than Ten Scenes From the Second Coming of Richard III (5500 words)

The discovery of Richard III's remains in Leicester brings a number of visitors to the city, most of them dead. Tourism may suffer. A handful of vignettes from this critical turning point in English history.

First you need to read the blog post, if you haven't already. There were quite a few "what if some of these things were true?" stories in Yuletide this year, but these are two of my favourites.

"Tudor Spies and Perfidy" is short and hilarious. "Fewer Than Ten Scenes" is longer, also funny, with a poignant turn at the end.

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Welcome! Apparently we have an obscure fandom in common! (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it's not Moonbeam. But if it is, that's awesome.) And you've very kindly offered to write a story for me, which is lovely. I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

( General notes )
( Fandom 1: Wreck-It Ralph )
( Fandom 2: Father Brown )
( Fandom 3: Puck of Pook's Hill )
( Fandom 4: Moonbeam )

Finally: Thank you again for being a part of Yuletide. I hope this extremely long letter has been some use to you, but if you have an idea you'd love to write in one of these fandoms that isn't any of the ideas I've suggested, that's fine too. I'd rather receive a story you were enthusiastic about and loved working on than one you had to force yourself into an uncomfortable shape to write, even if it isn't precisely what I asked for. Who knows, it might turn out to be a story I never knew I needed.

1. So, a new year.

My new year's resolution last year was to make some progress on figuring out what I want to do with my life, prompted by the realisation that I was about to qualify for long service leave in the job I took temporarily after university until I decided out what I really wanted to do.

I've achieved it, kind of. I still don't really know what I want to do with my life, but I do know where I want to be in two years from now, which is more than I've managed before. Conveniently, it's geographically the same place I am now, but at least I have a positive reason for wanting to be here instead of just drifting along in the direction I was already going. And the nature of the reason is suggestive of what I might want from life, so there's room for further development there.

I don't have a formal resolution this year, just an intention to keep on with last year's, with a side order of getting back on the wagons I've fallen off with respect to morning-ness and exercise and suchlike.


2. Boy, it's hot. I've been spending large portions of the day inside, with the blinds drawn against the nuclear-powered fury of the sun, reading Yuletide fics and playing online games.


3. Speaking of Yuletide, author's names have now been revealed, resulting in the discovery that two of the fics that particularly impressed me this year were both written by the same author, RecessiveJean, who furthermore has written two more fics as well, for a total of four excellent fics, in six fandoms. (Captain America, The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, Jurassic Park, Narnia, The Rocketeer, The Scarlet Pimpernel. So yes, that means at least one superficially-unworkable crossover.)

T-Rex was in Kentucky, although he didn’t know it. He hadn’t brought a map, and if he had, he probably would have tried to eat it by now, anyway.


4. Speaking of online games, I've reached the final story arc in Doctor Who: Worlds in Time. The Doctor has traced the source of the time disturbances back to the planet Skaro - which, as he points out, is a disturbance in itself, since Skaro is supposed to be utterly destroyed.

The new iDaleks look even less threatening as two-dimensional cartoons than they did in "Victory of the Daleks", incidentally.


5. Lady Spy, Gentleman Explorer: the life of Herbert Dyce Murphy sounded promising, but I had to give up on it before the end of the fourth chapter.

The first strike against the book is that it's a work of non-fiction written as if it were a novel, studded with details the author couldn't possibly have known about what the people involved did and thought on such-and-such an occasion. To be fair, some of these are marked as supposition, but that just draws attention to the places where the author did the same thing without marking it. And it prompts one to consider whether the supposition adds anything to the account, to which my answer was generally negative.

The third strike is that on top of being written like a novel, it's such a twee novel. It's all very comfortable and superficial; despite supposedly being real people, they've got (or at least are granted by the author) less depth and complication than many fictional characters I've known. The point where I gave up was when I realised that the author had somehow managed to make the story of a man who lived as a woman in Victorian England dull.

So much for the style. Are the underlying facts any good? Well...

The second strike was awarded to a ten-word parenthesis that single-handedly destroyed my faith in the author's fact-checking. The author reports that when Murphy was living in Oxford and preparing to enter the University, he was tutored by a man named Montgomery Bell, "said to be the original of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes".