regshoe

I watched Kidnapped again yesterday, on the anniversary of its first performance last year. It doesn't dim with rewatching; I was a little afraid it would, but just hearing that opening guitar-strum still takes me right back to that moment in the theatre, thinking, right, this is happening... :)

I ended up turning my semi-break from fandom into a mostly-disappearance, for which apologies. RL has been going pretty well if busily, about which I may write more in another post. Fandom has been difficult, and I've had a bit of thinking to do about where I am and what I should do from here; I've decided that on the one hand I should stick to a somewhat-reduced level of activity for the foreseeable future, but on the other hand I do want to stay here at least that much. So I've also been thinking about how I might make that work, principally by avoiding as completely as possible the things I need to avoid. AO3 Saviour has been a great help ever since I started using it, and I've extended my blocklist there; what would be really useful is if I had something similar for Dreamwidth, and so—

—I would very much like to have a blocker extension that hides entries on Dreamwidth, when viewing the reading page or someone's journal, based on the presence of blocked words from a defined list in the entry text. (And ideally does not display a 'this post has been hidden because...' notice, but just makes the page look as it would if the post hadn't been made; but I'm confident I can do that much myself.) As far as I know no such thing exists at the moment. I've been fiddling about with Dreamwidth Blocker, which is designed for use on FFA and other comment-based Dreamwidth communities and hence only works on comments; I think it ought to be possible to modify it to work on entries, but my very limited JavaScript knowledge isn't up to that yet and from doing a bit of poking it looks like it may be more complicated than just switching a few HTML/CSS terms around. I will continue poking at this and improving my JavaScript skills, and may eventually be able to figure it out, but in the meantime: is there anyone more knowledgeable than me who might be able to help with this?

(Other stuff: I will probably stop going on Tumblr; and I won't do Write Every Day check-ins anymore, though I will try to keep up with the spirit of it.)

In the meantime, I've been writing! I have four WIPs (for three different Kidnappeds and Jill) in various states of almost ready to post; I was vaguely planning to return to them over the Easter weekend, but Good Friday is here and I'm deep into a new WIP which is so absorbing I might just keep going on that until the first draft is done, so the others might have to wait a little while longer. (On the other hand, one of them is for NTS Kidnapped and the new WIP isn't, so I might harness the fresh-rewatch energy to finish editing that one... we'll see.)

On that topic,

verecunda tagged me a while ago on Tumblr in a 'post the last sentence you wrote' meme, which seems a good excuse for a snippet...

But that last morning in the Cage upon Ben Alder, and through all the hard, miserable days that followed, I think I never quite got out of that bad dream; until— I will tell what happened.

(Not as interesting out of context as in, but perhaps you can tell why I'm reluctant to stop there.)

I've also got quite a bit of new fic to read, which looks very good indeed—I've read a couple this morning and am looking forward to making my way slowly through the rest. :) And I've kept up writing (short) book reviews, without posting them, so I may have an unusually long Recent Reading entry to make at some point. Right now I'm reading another Hornblower book (which finally turned up at the library after having it on hold for three months), which, oh dear... However I am also re-reading Kidnapped as inspiration for that WIP, which is not exactly conducive to concentrating on Hornblower, so it might be a little while before I find out whether

spoiler

Bush really is dead after all.

And while re-reading Kidnapped I am making notes for a timeline, which is being a fun project!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

sanguinity

I do wish I'd been able to see Kidnapped NTS live. But alas. I'm very glad to have the recording, though -- I hadn't half dared to hope!

I'm glad AO3 Saviour is helping, and I wish you luck with developing something similar for DW!

Yay, new fic! I look forward to seeing it!

*says nothing about Lord Hornblower unless I'm directly asked*
*digs out the rec list and updates it while I'm thinking about it*

And yay, a Kidnapped timeline! I use your Heron timeline on a fairly regular basis.

From:

regshoe

We are very lucky indeed to have the recording. <3

Thank you! I think I have a working blocker now, thanks to

garonne :D

Oh dear, I've read a few more chapters and it looks like

spoilers

he is, and Hornblower is dealing with it about as well as one has come to expect from Hornblower :(

But IIRC Lord Hornblower is the book after which I can read 'Lost Honour', isn't it?

Kidnapped is an interesting one to make a timeline for; most of the events of the book are clearly dated relative to each other but there are very few absolute calendar dates, so I think it'll be a question of lining everything up and then calculating dates in sequence like a chain of dominoes.

From:

sanguinity

re spoiler

Yeah. There's a radio version of this where Hornblower is busy pretending to his subordinates that he's okay, but you can hear his breathing, and he's really, really not. :-(

'Lost Honour' is set at the end of the first chapter of Admiral Hornblower in the West Indies. Which is the book after this by internal chronology, but a good way on by publication order -- there's another three novels between. I wrote 'Lost Honour' to be comprehensible without reading that West Indies chapter, but it does spoil it very thoroughly. My recommendation is to read that chapter first, at least.

As far as fic recs go...

spoilers again

I have both Caudebec fix-its and Caudebec denialism for you. So even if you don't want to go straight on to Lost Honour, I can still set you up with fic where Bush is alive again. If you need fix-it/denialism recs right now though, let me know, and I'll get you some.

Kidnapped timeline: yes, I can see that! I'll be interested to read your commentary on it when it's published.

From:

regshoe

Oh no, that radio version sounds even worse :D

Ah, I see. Hmm, perhaps I will read that chapter next, then. Thank you—I don't need fic recs just yet (still got lots of the new Jill, Kidnapped and FotH fics to read), but both those types of fic will be something to look forward to!

From:

luzula

Hi, it's good to see you again! I'm glad Kidnapped NTS was still as happy-making, and I'm looking forward to seeing those WIPs posted. : )

From:

regshoe

Aww, it's good to see you too :) I've decided to go back to the WIPs now, or at least one of them...

From:

stonepicnicking_okapi

Nice to get an update on you!

From:

regshoe

Oh good, and it's nice to see you too! :)

From:

sovay

I am glad you aten't dead! Good luck building yourself the necessary space on DW.

From:

regshoe

Thank you! I think I've got a blocker now, thanks to

garonne :)

From:

trobadora

We'll miss you at WED!

Good luck with the javascript, I hope you can make it work. ♥

From:

regshoe

Aww, I hope things continue to go well at WED :) And thank you—I think I have a blocker now, thanks to

garonne!

From:

dr_zook

Always a pleasure to see you're still around, and I'm glad to hear that RL hasn't devoured you at all! ♥

From:

regshoe

Hee, thank you—it's good to see you again too :)

From:

muccamukk

Nice to see you posting! Looking forward to the Kidnapped timline.

The only DW blocking I know of is based on tag (if paid account) or username via CSS.

From:

regshoe

Nice to see you too :) The timeline is an interesting one—there are very few absolute calendar dates in the book but most of the events are clearly dated relative to each other, so I think it'll be a question of gathering all the material and then calculating everything in sequence.

Unfortunately tag blocking wouldn't work for what I need—but I think I've now got a blocker script, thanks to

garonne!

From:

garonne

Hello :)

I wrote a Greasemonkey script this morning that may do what you want. I'll send it to you by email!

From:

regshoe

Hello! I've replied to your email :)

From:

theseatheseatheopensea

Yep, avoiding the things we need to avoid is so important to keep enjoying fandom! Something similar to Ao3 saviour for DW would be really useful, good luck with it, and with the WIPs too!