Things of various description

[melannen]

I posted Part 2 of my 2011 yuletide story! Because at the end of this month there is going to be a Convergence that will determine whether the world falls irrevocably into some kind of Lovecraftian dystopia, and I have sworn on a few dark forces that story was not abandoned, and this year of all years seemed like the wrong time to tempt the eschaton, so, here is October 10-17 in the Game of 1925 in Bluff City, Iowa.

Not Made For Any Man: (the death of the moon) (11328 words) by melannen
Chapters: 8/8
Fandom: Blossom Culp Series - Richard Peck, A Night in the Lonesome October - Roger Zelazny, 9+ assorted others
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Blossom Culp, Alexander Armsworth, Graymalk (Night in the Lonesome October), Snuff (Night in the Lonesome October), assorted others
Additional Tags: Crossover, cosmic horror, 1920s
Series: Part 3 of It Was A Soft October Night
Summary:

As the moon wanes, alliances are built, new players appear, secrets come to light, and Alexander Armstrong spends a lot of time confused.

It will take some revising if I finish the whole thing - especially in terms of canon/character voice, because I did not, in fact, review all the canons this time - and do not expect part 3 before the next Halloween Convergence in 2039 - but I managed to get every chapter up on the right day, and I am still capable of forming complete sentences apparently, so I'm calling it a win.

Meanwhile I need to sign up for Yuletide, but I am honestly having trouble thinking into the future more than, like, two days at this point, much less more than two weeks, so figuring out what I will be excited about in December is tough. I am sure I will manage! There are no shortage of things in the tagset I am *theoretically* excited about.


Also I have been doing shitpostsampler's Stitchtober prompts, because they seem to be exactly the level of distracting that works for my brain right now. I am skipping the spring/summer ones and doing only ones that are around this month, which has worked out to about half, and doing half of them is just about enough that I can keep up. (I'm also not doing exact color matches because I'm trying to use up the giant stash of inherited floss I have. Does anyone have a color conversion chart for modern DMC six strand floss and pre-1940 Bucilla numbers? How about Peri-Lusta or Brillante D'Alger? Belding Lily? Star Six Strand? No?)



(I got all excited about a Ravelry account last winter, and since then I have been doing all the fiber crafts except knit and crochet, it seems like - since pandemic I have done a huck weaving afghan, some tablet weaving, a fair amount of handsewing, lots of mask-making, lots of free hand embroidery, and this cross-stitch, but none of it goes on Ravelry. My poor sock is still exactly where it was.)

Comments

[sonia]

Your stitch squares are adorable! What a fun idea for a set of prompts.

No embroidery floss conversion charts, sorry. The internet has failed you? That seems like the kind of thing it would cough up if poked hard enough.

[melannen]

I can get conversion charts for all the major current brands of floss (which is mostly DMC, Anchor, and J&P Coats*) but somehow the nearly-century-old stuff and the stuff from long-defunct brands isn't bringing up as much!

Maybe I'm not poking hard enough, but I found a few forum posts with people asking and getting nothing, and the hardcore cross-stitch nerds online seem to be very down on using old floss in general, so my hopes are not high, I might have to wait for a day with good sunlight and make my own. (TBH, the anti-vintage-floss people are probably correct that the 1930s skeins are no longer quite their original colors anyway.)


*the numbers on the midcentury Coats & Clark, and the just plain Coats and just plain Clark that predate the 1950s mergers, don't match either, though.

[sonia]

That's true, that the colors might have changed in all this time. Still, so cool to have that stash! If you do make your own, I hope you'll post it!

[zana16]

Wow! Congrats on finishing the story!

[melannen]

I mean it's really just now half-finished instead of 1/4, but I can pretend. :P

[pedanther]

I was intrigued to receive the notifications for the story, especially since this year I'm reading Lonesome October again myself.

Does it require much familiarity with Blossom Culp? I think that's about the only fandom on the list that I don't know at all, but it seems to be the most prominent on the list.

[melannen]

I don't think so? The requested fandoms in the original were Blossom Culp and ANitLO, so they're the main characters, but basically all the plot comes from ANtiLO. Blossom Culp is a series of old kids' novels set about 10 years before my fic, but if you're ok with the way ANitLO introduces characters, I think really the only relevant thing is that Alexander and Blossom both have the rare ability to see and talk with ghosts and to travel out-of-body to other other places and the past, both corporeally and incorporeally. And when they were teenagers they did this a couple of times in ways that went newspaper-viral, so anybody in basically the whole world who follows weird paranormal stories would know at least the outline of their abilities. That's what the other characters know about when they meet them.

[china_shop]

Ahh, I love your stitch samples! ♥

[melannen]

Thank you!