Words of Wood

To be added to! Here are rough under-the-wire braindumps

[Greeting, gratitude etc]

[I like music with nice lyrics]

The Shape of Water (2017) [SAFETY]
Ok, so I loved the film, EXCEPT for the hand injury stuff, which hit 100% on my squick-meter and I have not been able to rewatch it. So I would desperately love a vid showing the beautiful monster romance while involving zero disgusting hand stuff. That's my only constraint here.


Did I nominate all my favourite Cbeebies shows that my 4yo watches? Yes, I did. I was very restrained in fact and only nominated my top three. I have added a brief explanation of them, partly because I really want the excuse to vid them for someone else and I am hoping other fans may make themselves known in the comments or watch a couple and become fans *eyes* I am really open to any type of vids for these!
Dipdap (2011 UK) [SAFETY]
These are wordless 3 min episodes you can watch at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b00xgpj9/dipdap They are made literally in MS Paint and are line drawings that draw as you watch. They are also GENIUS. Basically an intro to perspective and slapstick comedy at the same time. "Gallery" (no. 50) is my fave.
Sarah & Duck
These are 7 min episodes. They are narrated by Roger Allam, ie Douglas from Cabin Pressure! https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b04drklx/sarah-duck They are about a small child, Sarah, looking after her friend, Duck. Who is a duck. They are supremely gentle and wistful and magical-realism. I recommend episode 12, Big Shop.
Hey Duggee (Cartoon)
These are 7 min episodes, and they are bonkers. They are surrealism for toddlers, narrated by a genteel but gruff military type voice (apparently Alexander Armstrong refused to do any other voice, saying it needed to be this one. I can't disagree) https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/b07xdmgk/hey-duggee Honestly I think Can't Stop by RHCP would be a great song choice for this but I'm too intimidated to do it myself.

Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) [SAFETY]
I love the beauty of this film, the slow pace and the gorgeous shots. And Quvenzhané is incredible in it, I'd really love a vid keeping her and her world and view central. (And the aurochs. I love the aurochs.)

Kisima Inŋitchuŋa | Never Alone (Video Game)
This is such a sweet, beautiful game and I'd love any sort of vid about it!

Mortal Engines (2018) [SAFETY]
Here is a confession. I have not actually watched this film. I own it on DVD, but I have not watched it because I love the book so much and I'm worried about the film doing it badly. But I have seen the trailers and the visuals are absolutely stunning!(If you matched with me only on this fandom and are mentally glaring at me now, I can only apologise.)

I finally got around to reading Tides of the Titans, by Thoraiya Dyer, which is book 3 of her Titan's Forest trilogy. (I just went on Amazon to check the spelling of her name, and found that in the UK at least you can currently buy the three-book set in the kindle store for £1.50, which is a pretty amazing deal!)

I really enjoyed it! I'm useless at book-blogging, but thought I'd give it a shoutout. Although I seriously wish it came with a summary of what happened in the previous two books, because I read them ages ago very spaced out, and even having read book 3 I still can't really remember. (They all have different main characters*, which doesn't help.)

*Book 1 had as its main character a mildly amoral 16-yo girl who thought she was extremely heroic even as she was objectively not, and this was her growth arc, but I am really bad at recognising when not to take protagonists at their word and instead I was mostly stressed out reading. I should probably re-read sometime because I know I'd enjoy it a lot more know with that understanding! Anyway, the other two books didn't have that issue for me. Book 3 has the inverse, actually, with a young man as the protag who considers himself to be a very dark and edgy amoral thief, but actually he was clearly just a disaster (affectionate).

Anyway, it is set in an UNREASONABLY GIANT FOREST with a magic system based around the using and sometimes eating the bones of Old Gods, and the worldbuilding in general is utterly, utterly batshit but in a really entertaining way where it somehow all hangs together (why would baby pterodactyls NOT turn into stars I ask you). Also there are lots of queer people and no homophobia. And the author clearly cares a LOT about trees and giant trees and fantasy ecosystems and I appreciate this level of detail. If you do too then you may enjoy this!

New Year's Resolutions I would like to gently suggest to my toddler for her consideration

1. I will sleep ALL NIGHT in my own bed. Maybe once a week, as a compromise? Once a month??

2. I will eat things other than peanut butter.

3. I will at least maybe TRY foods I have enjoyed very much in the past when they have actually passed my lips, instead of just comedy shaking my head like I'm trying to make it fall off when SCARY FOOD like anything not made of peanut butter is offered to me.

4. I will stop sticking my fingers up Mummy's nose while we're snuggling.

5. I will hold hands when walking on the pavement rather than throwing myself dramatically to the ground because the act of my hand being taken means ALL MY BONES DISSOLVE.

6. I will accept that having stroked the bunny very nicely several times does NOT mean that I have now earned the right to grab her fur and try and pin her in place for cuddles.

7. I will stop feeding the bunny things she is not allowed, like biscuits. Or building bricks.

8. I will wear a hat outside. For more than 30 seconds at a time. Occasionally.

9. I will turn off the magnetic attraction I have towards scissors, knives, fragile objects, open cans, cleaning products, basically everything that could kill me and is therefore obviously GREAT.

10. I will stop playing the game where I climb onto the sofa and then throw myself off (with a little run-up first) regardless of whether either of my mummies are actually prepared for IMMINENT FLYING BABY, even though obviously they should always be prepared for IMMINENT FLYING BABY.

In the spirit of posting more, I shared on my public twitter yesterday a lot of photos from a book I found in Oxfam. I was not prepared for it, and you will not be either.

It is the nativity story.

With GUINEA PIGS.

Real guinea pigs! Photographed in sets. Wearing tiny hats.

Today in Oxfam, completely unprepared, I found this nativity book.

Obviously I bought it. pic.twitter.com/RqH8QrhQqf

— An Odd Type of Dragon (@OddTypeOfDragon) November 23, 2021

leesa_perrie, I particularly commend this to your attention :D

Today I went to a garden centre which was hosting a little funfair. I decided to buy some fresh doughnuts, as you do. They come in bags of four, so I thought that Liongirl could have one and I could have three. (They're tiny, don't judge.)

There was a man and a woman in the van, both fairly old. They were frying these doughnuts to order, not taking them out of a ready-made stock. The woman asked the person in front if they wanted sugar on their doughnuts, they did, she put the doughnuts in a paper bag and sugared them. Then she just did mine too on autopilot and passed them to the man who tried to pass them to me.

Me: Oh, actually I didn't want sugar on all of them. I wanted three with sugar and one without.
Him: They've all got sugar on them
Me: Yes, I know, can I have one without sugar, please?
Him: They've got the sugar on them already
Me: Yes, can you maybe take one of them out of the bag and give me a different one without sugar on it?
Him: You can't have just one without sugar. They all go in the bag and then the sugar goes in the bag and you shake it and they all get sugar on
Me: But... could I maybe have three in a bag with sugar, and one in a different bag with no sugar?
Him: They don't come like that.
Me: But can you not... make one like that... please?
Him: ...
Woman: OH FOR GOD'S SAKE *shoves him out of the way and proceeds to put three doughnuts in a bag with sugar and one in a separate paper bag without sugar
Me: Thank. You. <3
Queue of people having built up behind me: *incredibly boggled looks*

They were tasty doughnuts.

I've got quite into sewing lately, by which I mean that within a month I went from, "maybe I could make Liongirl a couple of handmade clothes in stretch/jersey fabric even though it seems scary" to "am in the process of making myself and Liongirl an entire wardrobe of outfits and have also begun sewing on commission". Yes, I'm a parody of myself. (So far my "shop" is me repurposing one of my myriad twitter accounts, but anyway it's OddTypeOfDragon if you're interested in seeing what I'm making. Also a load of baby clothes posted on my main twitter, but I need to decide whether to retake photos without Liongirl in or what, so only the couple of things I've made today are on the shop account so far.)

Obviously I'm having all kinds of ridiculous inside-my-head stress related to this, featuring such hits as how I should definitely point out every time I make a tiny mistake or it's DISHONEST, how can I possibly charge my friends money for things, how can I justify charging money when I don't have an overlocker like what proper tailors have to make everything look super professional (answer: because they're £300 and I can't afford one yet), and also the urge to spend literally all of my non-Liongirl time sewing. Or, rather, cutting out and piecing together fabric, which takes VASTLY more time than the actual sewing on the machine part.

A nice thing is that I've discovered that all the tracing/cutting out can be done sociably, and also watching TV, although not new things because I'd miss too much. But that does mean that I finally have motivation to actually rewatch stuff. It drives Ellie a bit mad that I keep starting TV series with her where I've seen them and apparently want to show them to her, but then I never have much motivation to put episodes on. But since I've been cutting patterns, we've watched an episode of Lost Tomb Reboot every night this week! We now only have 5 episodes to go! We... started this watch-through almost a year ago, right after Liongirl was born. It is entirely my fault that it's taken this long to get through it, I'm just very very bad at feeling in the mood to watch things. Possibly when we finish we'll finally pick up Stargate Atlantis again - I think we got to mid-season 3 or somewhere like that. And Ellie would also like to watch Leverage, which she never got very far with on her own.

Now I need to do some writing!

June Fandom questions, via hils. As you can see, I did not do them day by day. I have no track record of ever completing things done like that! Here are a pile of them instead. I'll do half today and the second half when I next get to it.

Day 1: What's changed about your fandom life in the last 365 days?

WELL. I had a baby. That had a rather... damping effect XD I am literally only just managing to regain some of my writing focus. Also I really drifted away from being "in a fandom" for a while, but in the last couple of weeks I've finally really started feeling like part of a DMBJ community, which is lovely!

Day 2: You've got your OTP, you have to throw a third into the mix (from the same fandom), creating an OT3. Who is the OTP, and in your opinion, why would they make a perfect third for them? Bonus question: What about adding a third to your OTP from a different fandom? Who and why?

So currently I only have an OT3, the only way I am interested in ANY ship dynamic with the Iron Triangle is if they're all equally important. No writing off Pangzi, or saying "oh yes of course he's part of an OT3, but platonically"! (Tbh that viewpoint is hilarious to me because he's really the only one of the Iron Triangle I feel is actively very interested in sex.)

Day 3: What's a favorite, or at least memorable fandom meeting/interaction that you've had?

I still have a special fondness for the first NineWorlds where I went to the queer geek tea with great trepidation (I think it was queer? I really can't remember) and got rescued from my extreme shyness and not-knowing-anyone by raven, who introduced me to their whole collection of London friends who are still one of the most important parts of my twitter life to this day.

Day 4: What are the origins of your penname/username?

Frith is the name of the wood my parents' garden borders onto, and the road, and was part of the name of the first house I lived in (next to the same wood; we moved 2 miles down the road for the sake of a better garden when I was 6). It's also the god from Watership Down. It's also an Old English word meaning sanctuary. I had an earlier LJ called blackthorn_tree because I love them and because when I was little I looked exactly like the blackthorn fairy in the Flower Fairies books. So I kept the thorns part, not least because I was having a bit of a sad time when I made this username. Anyway, the "in thorns" part isn't so important to me, but I love being called Frith. I answer very happily to it IRL when people who know me from the internet call me it! (This is also useful as my first name is pretty common so there's usually at least another one.)

Day 5: Compare and/or contrast your very first fandom obsession and your very latest fandom obsession.

My first fandom, when I was 16, was CSI:NY, which I remember fondly for some reasons and very much not for others XD It's where I discovered hurt/comfort without knowing the word for it or realising that that was entirely what I was writing and reading. It was also a fandom that was misognynistic as hell, thankfully the people who were really into bashing the women didn't actually care about my fave (Stella) though, they were all about being shit to the women who got between their Danny/Don pairing. *eyeroll* Although... DMBJ doesn't really have women, certainly not non-fridged ones *more eyeroll* with the exception of Xiao-Bai, and she's in very few fics. I... should really do something about that.

Anyway, the intervening years have mostly taught me exactly what hurt/comfort is and that reading and writing it is the vast majority of my fannish interest. Sometimes I feel embarrassed about this!

Day 6: What's a fandom that you wish had a bigger following?

Wolf 359! I'm still sad I never really managed to get any of my fandom writer friends into this while it was airing and the fandom was active. SUCH a good little show - it's an indie space audio drama, and if anyone wants to get into it now... *hopeful face*

Day 7: What's the longest time you've been in a fandom. Not necessarily your oldest fandom, but a fandom that you started and still continue to read/write/create content for in some way.

I guess maybe Vorkosigan? Which I read for the first time ten years ago, scarily enough (I know this because it was while I was on a Lake District walking holiday with Ellie where it was just us two and we were Totally Gen and sleeping snuggled together etc in camping barns in a very gen way and then continued to sleep in the same bed when we were back at her parents because we had a nice time! Anyway she got me to read Vorkosigan and I got her to read Codex Alera and we spent a large majority of the walking time excitedly discussing the bits we had each read the previous evening). It's never been a primary fandom, but it's something I dip in and out of, mainly to check whether anyone wrote any good Illyan fic since I last looked, and write for exchanges every now and then.

Day 8: Crack!fic - We all know it. What's your opinion of it, and if you want, show us an example.

Hmmmmm. I really like funny fic! A lot of what gets billed as "crackfic" though I don't really find funny, it just tries way too hard to be WACKY. Like, all the fics of characters being drunk which bear no resemblance to how anyone has ever been while drunk in the history of the world.

Day 9: Drop the cast of a fandom you follow into a reality tv show - who/what/why?

I'd say this wouldn't work for most of the fandoms I've been in because the characters are too serious/competent. Fortunately, DMBJ absolutely does not have that problem! While I think it would be very very hard to write it without falling into the issues of crackfic as above, I reckon you could put the DMBJ cast in pretty much any reality show and it would be hilarious. Also, whichever you chose, from Bake-Off to I'm A Celebrity to Love Island, you'd have Pangzi throwing himself into 100% engagement with the premise and having an amazing time, Wu Xie going between totally baffled and outright cheating, and Xiaoge just being Xiaoge in the corner as hard as he possibly could.

Day 10: Drop your OTP or small ensemble from the fandom they're in into another fandom - how do they do?

Again, I would love to watch the Tomb Idiots smash their way through literally any other canon. Although, in a taking-it-seriously way, I was involved the other day in the discord in hashing out a whole Old Kingdom AU for DMBJ and I am now super invested in it! I am not saying I'll write it. But it had Liu Sang as the Abhorsen, Xiao-Bai as one of the Clayr, Pangzi as an extremely disreputable border guard with lots of sus jobs in his past who turns out to be a surprise Wallmaker, and Wu Xie as a scholar from Ancelstierre with Old Kingdom heritage who goes poking around the Clayr library and stumbles upon a lost Abhorsen from generations back, Zhang Qiling...

I signed up to genprompt_bingo this year! I was intrigued by all their categories, and thought it would be nice to have a bingo card that pushed me out of my comfort zone a bit, after many years of fun with hc_bingo.

Here's my card!

Taxes	The way we were: Pre-canon	Information is given off the record	Pack	Mystery
Push and Pull	Daily Rituals (Morning Routines / Nightly Prayers / Meal Times)	Powerful	The Mind's Eye	Trapped!
Books are the Best Weapons	Trauma	Wild Card	Triads (Maiden / Mother / Crone, The Fates, Macbeth's Witches, etc.)	May Morning
Spells and Geases	Logic and Numbers	Thrills (Speed / Danger / Daring)	Something Useful	Half-life
Coercion	Rainstorm	Tombs, Graveyard and Memorials	Camouflage	Fire and Firelight

It's interesting! Lots of things I wouldn't have immediately thought of as using in a fic, which is rather the point. The bottom line is clearly the easiest for me to do, but who knows.

Any prompts you'd particularly like me to use for a specific fandom/character? Or do you have an idea for a square? Let me know - I always enjoy writing fic to requests where I can!

Well, this has been A Week. After the thing I wrote on Thursday, which was rather an anguished howl into the universe, I've been very very slowly ticking away on the current Liu Sang one. In theory it should be barreling along now that I've done all the setup and am just on the trauma, but everything is just a bit difficult, really, isn't it?

(I had a birthday yesterday though, that was quite nice.)

-

"Xiaoge, can't you do something —"

"We need to move him," Zhang Qiling said, and his hand was firm on Liu Sang's back. "Liu Sang, can you stand up?"

For Zhang Qiling, voice quiet but inexorable, Liu Sang could. With support on both sides, he pushed up shakily from his knees, and staggered forward, still with his hands squeezed tightly over his ears and his eyes screwed shut. He walked step by step, relying on the others to guide him. He could barely be sure that he was vertical; he had nothing left over to care about which way he was going.