Five Things because it's been awhile

[melannen]

• I've been reblogging fandom/geek/tumblr holidays to my tumblr this year (I have them queued until the end of the year) and this is the middle of the biggest week in holidays all year! The 7th was Purim, and then Mar 10 is MAR10 day for gamers; yesterday was the Eleventh of March for those who will always remember the Eleventh of March; March 12, today, is GNU Terry Pratchett day for SF/Fantasy fandom; 3-14 is of course Pi Day; and then it's the Ides of March, followed by Leprechaun Day on the 17th. And this year Ramadan then starts the 22nd. So happy holidays everyone who celebrates any of those! (If you celebrate none of those, happy March, I guess.)


• I FINALLY read Nona the Ninth. My brain was doing the thing where I had to put off reading it because I'd staked to much on it and then I kept putting it off, but it was way beyond due to the library, so I finally did (by staying up till 2 AM) so now I am having all the feelings the rest of the fandom had six months ago. The flashbacks filled in *exactly* the story I wanted them to, which is always a weird feeling as you read something you're overinvested in, what do you *mean* this isn't disappointing me?? It was supposed to disappoint me!
  
  Anyway I wanted to post my Blood Of Eden name here just so I don't lose it again:
  Greetings And Defiance Fairest And Fallen ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον It's Not Made Of Fire Forget What You've Been Told In The Past
  
  (what would your Blood of Eden name be, if you know what that is?)


• I made a sort of low-key resolution to post fic to AO3 once a month this year whether I'd actually written any or not, so there may be a bunch of old unresolved fic showing up backdated there this year. I'm also going to try to actually keep up with comments on them, we'll see how *that* goes. This is February's (shhh. it's still February.)
  
  Lacunae (2234 words) by melannen
  Fandom: Highlander: The Series, The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
  Rating: General Audiences
  Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
  Characters: Pin-Lee (Murderbot Diaries), Dr. Gurathin (Murderbot Diaries), Methos (Highlander)
  Additional Tags: Crossover, Community: intoabar, Post-Book 1: All Systems Red, image recognition software
  Summary: Pin-lee first noticed him because he wasn't there.


• Still both playing and watching too much Minecraft! Got weirdly stuck in sand yesterday and thought I was going to die of suffocation, which would have been my first death in months, because I couldn't move and couldn't break blocks, but then I didn't die and didn't die and didn't die, didn't lose health even though I had the "taking damage" sound and animation, so I thought I might have lost the whole world, and then I got desperate and just walked out through the solid blocks. Dunno what was going on there but hey I didn't die! I might be almost ready to finally light a portal and go to the Nether soon. There's an island-based extra-large ruined portal really beautifully situated under a natural arch that's part of a giant dripstone cave system that's centrally located on the water route between my two main bases, hopefully the nether on the other side is just as cool!


• I keep recently seeing people - fans and actual journalists - being extremely upset about shows coming down from streaming services that own them, which means they will be GONE FOREVER! And treating this like some horrible injustice and some new thing that is going to totally upset how the creative industry works.
  
  And. I mean, I get why people are upset, they won't be able to easily access favorite shows anymore! But your beloved shows won't be gone forever? As long as a single person has a pirated copy and either a torrent client or a CD burner and a mailbox, they won't be gone forever. It's especially weird from the POV that I'm still doing the in-period Star Trek watchalong, where it's 1968 and Star Trek has just been officially renewed for a third season after a massive fan campaign, which was extremely important not just for new canon, but because having less than three seasons would have meant it wouldn't go into syndication - which would mean, really truly, it would be gone forever and nobody would ever be able to see it again, only listen to fan-made audio recordings and look at photos and scripts.
Gideon Marcus, who runs the watchalong, attempts to also give us the 1968 shows that ran before and after Star Trek - and only about 50% of them still exist in any form at all, even in locked film and video archives. (And, tbh, this is generally not a great loss to culture the way Trek would have been.)

So, on the one hand, if you really want it have it forever, save your own physical copy (on media you own!) And on the other hand, "make this available to everyone who wants to watch it, forever" has never been a goal of any media producer, even a little bit, and anyone who thought that, even in the age of streaming, hasn't been paying attention. Also: sometimes things are ephemeral, and all you have of them is your memories of the experience, and that's ok. I've been trying to write fic for the watchalong without cheating and using sources I wouldn't have had in 1968 (even the ones around in 1998) and it's such a different experience, and freeing in a lot of ways!