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I'm thinking of renaming the little township that two of my characters are from. It's generally in the Midwest, although the state could be anything from New York to Indiana, probably not any further west than that. I'd originally had it set in upstate NY, but then ended up modeling the college town somewhat after Columbus, OH.
The tiny township was Munro, originally, but Monroe is a common town name in many US states, so whichever state you think Alien Romance takes place in, will likely already have a place named Monroe or Munro.
Some of my contenders:
Malby, named after Malby, Sweden.
Maybe something about Burke, one of the established families there. Burke Path, Burke Bend, Burke Mill, Burkeville, just Burke
Lambert is another one. Lambert Mill?
Luddy, named after, I don't know, sounds cute and awkward and maybe a surname of a founding family. Then I can name some characters Luddy!
Opinions welcome! Additional suggestions also welcome.
The tiny township was Munro, originally, but Monroe is a common town name in many US states, so whichever state you think Alien Romance takes place in, will likely already have a place named Monroe or Munro.
Some of my contenders:
Malby, named after Malby, Sweden.
Maybe something about Burke, one of the established families there. Burke Path, Burke Bend, Burke Mill, Burkeville, just Burke
Lambert is another one. Lambert Mill?
Luddy, named after, I don't know, sounds cute and awkward and maybe a surname of a founding family. Then I can name some characters Luddy!
Opinions welcome! Additional suggestions also welcome.
Fantasy story with loner male knight and cross-dressing female page
Feb. 21st, 2026 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alias_sqbrI didn't watch Dunc and Egg but Cam did, and he found himself thinking about how fun it could be to have a story where a somewhat loner knight (disgraced/unproven/just antisocial, whatever) takes on a determined and surprisingly knowledgable page, who he eventually realises is a girl in disguise, and they have Adventures (but no romance, preferably)
He asked if I knew of any stories like that, since it feels like a really obvious premise, and I felt like I must have seen something along those lines by Tamora Pierce/ Mercedes Lackey etc but nothing came to mind. eg the Alanna series has the crossdressing page part but not the loner knight, Kel doesn't have the cross-dressing, etc.
So I come to you! At this point we're mostly just curious if it exists at all, but actual recs are definitely not unwelcome. Books/tv/movies, whatever.
He asked if I knew of any stories like that, since it feels like a really obvious premise, and I felt like I must have seen something along those lines by Tamora Pierce/ Mercedes Lackey etc but nothing came to mind. eg the Alanna series has the crossdressing page part but not the loner knight, Kel doesn't have the cross-dressing, etc.
So I come to you! At this point we're mostly just curious if it exists at all, but actual recs are definitely not unwelcome. Books/tv/movies, whatever.
I drew some more horses. I've been feeling burnt out but maybe horses are a nice break. These were grabbed from FB so I don't know if they'll show up.
Start of Part 3. As of this point, I had 40% of the audiobook left to go, and 1 week until it returned. So these next 2 posts will cover the final 2/5 of the book.
Light spoilers for the whole book in my annotations; comments are a free-for-all. Previous HDM-related posts on DW; see also The Reaction Posts of Dust on AO3.
Didn’t bother putting screencaps in this one. Too much of it was either “new elements introduced in the sequel trilogy” or “things that didn’t get visually adapted in the TV series.”
Onward.
( Tiny Gryphon is good-guy-coded, so her idea of “who needs to die” is presumably correct and unproblematic in every way )
Help my friend and her two kids buy an RV.
Late-stage capitalism comes for us all eventually, some sooner than others. My friend Cat has done everything right - left a toxic relationship, protected her kids from grief and trauma, aimed for the stars career-wise (literally - she worked for NASA before going into the private sector), bought a house to escape the infinite-rentals trap, and used her resourcefulness and survival skills to keep her finances under control.
But her whole industry is being gutted by recent developments, and now she's scrambling to avoid becoming homeless/houseless by any means possible. In her case, buying a used RV and a truck so that there's at least a roof over her family's head.
She is, as we say in Boston, wicked smart, and doesn't seem like a likely early victim of the distressed economy, and yet here she is.
***
Roleplaying for two!
On a slightly less dire note, my friend Ossandra made this cute booklet for a different kind of roleplaying experience.
The Partner Handbook: WILLOWISP Duo Journaling RPG Zine A fun set of games for two people to play together, set in the mysterious sci-fi world of WILLOWISP spies, lies, and surprise!
Support her kickstarter to get a copy in paper or PDF, and support hard-working POC, women, independent creators.
Late-stage capitalism comes for us all eventually, some sooner than others. My friend Cat has done everything right - left a toxic relationship, protected her kids from grief and trauma, aimed for the stars career-wise (literally - she worked for NASA before going into the private sector), bought a house to escape the infinite-rentals trap, and used her resourcefulness and survival skills to keep her finances under control.
But her whole industry is being gutted by recent developments, and now she's scrambling to avoid becoming homeless/houseless by any means possible. In her case, buying a used RV and a truck so that there's at least a roof over her family's head.
She is, as we say in Boston, wicked smart, and doesn't seem like a likely early victim of the distressed economy, and yet here she is.
***
Roleplaying for two!
On a slightly less dire note, my friend Ossandra made this cute booklet for a different kind of roleplaying experience.
The Partner Handbook: WILLOWISP Duo Journaling RPG Zine A fun set of games for two people to play together, set in the mysterious sci-fi world of WILLOWISP spies, lies, and surprise!
Support her kickstarter to get a copy in paper or PDF, and support hard-working POC, women, independent creators.
I saw this friday five and thought, I can do that, and also I can tie it to my other post for one mega post, why not???
When did you last:
Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?
Been a while. If we are counting for quarters for laundry machines, maybe when we lived in Ottawa. Before that, laundry coins when we lived in Esquimalt, and before that probably college for vending machine lunch money. Every couple months I dig thru the junk drawer for a new cart quarter bc they seem to like wandering off!
Visit a dentist?
Earlier this month! I have to get a crown for an old root canal and a tiny filling but they're waiting for word from my insurance to do them at the same time.
Make a needed change to your life?
I feel like I have one of these coming soon. I hate change, lol. Maybe quitting instagram last year??? Though I've replaced with bluesky and now youtube shorts which are harder to avoid, so. Now I have to quit those too :P
Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?
I do this often. Not every day or anything, but I'm the food guy here. There's some amount of winging it but not too much or it would be chicken fingies and your vegetable is ketchup every night. Also, my war with the grocery stores. When they try to claim the regular price is higher so the sale looks better?? I know your scams!! Anyway the point is that I have to plan meals around (actually good) sales, so the forward thinking is necessary.
Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?
My soft soft clothing protects my skin from the TEXTURES of the world 🤢
Anyway, my in progress post was about how I was doing tier lists the other day because it's better than doomscrolling, and having a lot of fun. A lot of the food ones are turbo American though, so I went for straight fruits and veg.
( FRUIT AND VEG TIER LISTS, also Batman )
When did you last:
Scrounge for change (couch, ashtray, etc.) to make a purchase?
Been a while. If we are counting for quarters for laundry machines, maybe when we lived in Ottawa. Before that, laundry coins when we lived in Esquimalt, and before that probably college for vending machine lunch money. Every couple months I dig thru the junk drawer for a new cart quarter bc they seem to like wandering off!
Visit a dentist?
Earlier this month! I have to get a crown for an old root canal and a tiny filling but they're waiting for word from my insurance to do them at the same time.
Make a needed change to your life?
I feel like I have one of these coming soon. I hate change, lol. Maybe quitting instagram last year??? Though I've replaced with bluesky and now youtube shorts which are harder to avoid, so. Now I have to quit those too :P
Decide on a complete menu well in advance of the evening meal?
I do this often. Not every day or anything, but I'm the food guy here. There's some amount of winging it but not too much or it would be chicken fingies and your vegetable is ketchup every night. Also, my war with the grocery stores. When they try to claim the regular price is higher so the sale looks better?? I know your scams!! Anyway the point is that I have to plan meals around (actually good) sales, so the forward thinking is necessary.
Spend part of the day (other than daily hygiene) totally/mostly naked?
My soft soft clothing protects my skin from the TEXTURES of the world 🤢
Anyway, my in progress post was about how I was doing tier lists the other day because it's better than doomscrolling, and having a lot of fun. A lot of the food ones are turbo American though, so I went for straight fruits and veg.
( FRUIT AND VEG TIER LISTS, also Batman )
I was going to draw all the horses for Tết (Lunar New Year), but I'm falling behind.
"Weee are the champions, my friend," sings Ella as she triumphantly enters her flat, fists pumping. Cathy glides in behind her, showing off her shiny tiny driver's license.
Jon, offscreen, exclaims, "You got it? That took hours! What happened?"
He's in his wheelchair again, taking a break from the ordeal of hopping about on crutches, favoring easy mobility in the small space.
"They failed her at first," Ella explains, " but I was the squeaky wheel and got them to change their minds!"
"That's great," says Jon.
"Plus a trip to the police station to file charges," adds Ella. She's brandishing a slip of paper herself. "And I got this citation for disturbing the peace!"
"Wow," says Jon.
He sits passively and lets Ella collapse in front of him, laying her head on his lap. "Now I just want to sleep..." Ella mumbles, "for ten billion years."
"The earth will be consumed by the sun by then," Jon points out.
"Yes please," says Ella.
Cathy is curled up on the couch. I'd like to think that in a minute or two, they notice her there and go over to comfort her. Cathy is often a puzzle to them, but they can easily figure out what she's going through this time.
I'd like to think that they're sensitive friends and won't let her down.
If they aren't, nothing different will happen. Cathy will power through, by inertia if by no other means. All she has to do is to not leave, and not present herself as being too needy, and that shouldn't be too hard when she can't articulate her thoughts too deeply.
People sometimes ask me why I don't write out Cathy's innermost thoughts. But... I do! I insist on never breaking the language barrier, because that's a key element to the story. But her heart's on her sleeve. Even if she's wearing a sweater.
I had a dream for the third time this week about watching the 1980s live-action Batman show with my sister so I figured it was worth a DW post :P
If you don't know the 1980s live-action Batman that I apparently watch in my dreams here's a quick overview:
- It was a weekly one-hour show that ran for about three seasons. It predates the age of season-long arcs but it had more than the usual number of 2- and 3- part episodes and some character growth even.
- It's clearly intentionally following up on the legacy of the 1960s show because it revels in the fundamental absurdity and plays for comedy, but it was also determined to not get pigeonholed as a kids' show - it has non-cartoon violence and solid emotional arcs.
- For example instead of all the silly Bat-Gadgets, they had Wayne Enterprises (TM) machines. There's a running bit where Tim always makes sure he has access to a Wayne Enterprises (TM) Automatic Soup Dispenser (TM) and nobody can tell if he's just really into soup or if he's modding it to dispense other things.
- Oh yeah, despite being called Batman, it's actually mostly about Tim and Dick. Bruce shows up in every episode for at least a few minutes but is rarely the focus. (Yes, I know the 1980s is early for comics!Tim - I assume the comics character was based on the show character? - and there's no Jay in this continuity, which lets it be a little more lighthearted about their relationships with Bruce.)
- Tim became Robin after Dick "retired" and Bruce finally noticed how neglected the neighbor boy actually was. In the show he's mostly traveling around playing poor little rich boy and Robinning with a rotating guest cast of Teen Titans (nearly every episode is in a different city - they must have had a huge travel/sets budget.)
- Dick is 100% a civilian these days he swears. He's technically in college but never appears to attend. He's always showing up to "hang out" with his little bro, or following Kory to a show, and then having to secretly superhero it up without a costume or name. The show is constantly teasing that this is the episode he'll finally become Nightwing and never follows up.
- When Bruce shows up it's usually not as Bruce, or even Batman, but as his even more useless cousin "Kenneth Wayne", who only shows up in the tabloids when he's done something so ridiculous Bruce has to send Alfred to bail him out, and therefor has an excuse to be places Bruce can't possibly be. He has absolutely 0 natural authority over the boys, who treat him as an embarrassingly untrustworthy uncle, and enjoys the hell out of this.
- Dick is dating Koriand'r, but they insist they're not girlfriend and boyfriend because "Tamaraneans don't have boys and girls, she's just my Kory and I'm her Dick". This is never explored beyond that at all. (Also Kory looks a lot less human and more like Ron Perlman's Beast* (except as a hot not-girl, of course.)
- Tim spends every episode excited and/or worried about the main plot interfering with or facilitating a possible or planned date with a girl. The girls are never named or shown onscreen. Dick teases him about this.
The episode we watched last night involved Tim and Dick renting out an old mansion/party house in Philadelphia that was haunted by a very lazy demon shaped like a yellow cartoon rabbit, a very large monitor lizard who was wanted by the Mob, a bunch of people having to shelter overnight in a Victorian-themed cafe in the zoo, and every single character having to dress up as Matches Malone in the same bad wig at the same time. Also the Three Stooges guest-starred. I hope I get to watch more later, I don't think there's an official DVD release.
*did I only have this dream because I did that "name all the animals" game right before bed and was thinking about Golden Lion Tamarins??
I fell behind on Alien Romance posts! I keep up better on my Patreon page. It doesn't have the transcripts but it has additional commentary that I don't post here. Then again, here has commentary that I don't post there.
( I'm putting this one behind a cut even though it's meant as catharsis because I know I have some friends here who have had metoo experiences. )
( I'm putting this one behind a cut even though it's meant as catharsis because I know I have some friends here who have had metoo experiences. )
Liveblog roundup from the rest of Part Two.
Light spoilers for the whole book in my annotations. Go wild in the comments.
Previous HDM-related posts here. To start from the earliest Book of Dust reactions, see The Reaction Posts of Dust on AO3.
It’s getting harder to find relevant HDM TV moments to screencap for some of these parts. Sometimes I just went “eh, this is very loosely relevant, and Pan is cute, so I’ll go with it.”
I first tried watching Seven Dials a while ago, with my mother, but she got bored and quit partway through. I was intrigued, and I usually enjoy Agatha Christie adaptations, so I watched all three episodes today, back to back.
It has the bones of a rather fun and intriguing story with three potentially clever and compelling characters. But unfortunately, it is not that story. Instead, it's a bit plodding, misses many of its swings when it comes to emotional beats, and has overwritten dialogue of the kind that makes allegedly clever characters appear rather foolish. Helena Bonham Carter in particular was disgracefully wasted.
Although I wanted to like it, I found the whole thing to be rather a waste of time.
It has the bones of a rather fun and intriguing story with three potentially clever and compelling characters. But unfortunately, it is not that story. Instead, it's a bit plodding, misses many of its swings when it comes to emotional beats, and has overwritten dialogue of the kind that makes allegedly clever characters appear rather foolish. Helena Bonham Carter in particular was disgracefully wasted.
Although I wanted to like it, I found the whole thing to be rather a waste of time.
Down to 1135 fandoms total. (As of this posting, there are 24 total with any tags that need wrangling.)
So, dropped about 50 over the past month. Including almost all the random little fandoms that aren’t “part of a tag tree I’m actively keeping” or “webcomics.”
The update I’m considering to the Fake News fandom tree would, if approved, shrink my fandom count by 2. But my next requested additions to the Madoka Magica tree, if approved, could grow it by up to 4 again.
Haven’t started the planned “another full A-to-Z pass through all the webcomic fandoms.” For the past month-ish, I’ve been using a lower-key strategy of “inviting other wranglers to take whichever half-dozen tiny webcomics got new tags this week.” On the theory that, if the comics are popular enough to have new-fic-writing fans, they’re more likely to have fellow-wrangler fans.
It’s worked for a few! Biggest win: a couple of non-English-language comics, which I was able to pass to a wrangler who’s a native speaker of the language.
I’ve also recently been involved in an effort to solicit wranglers for some of the currently-untouched “Religion & Lore” fandoms. So my giveaway posts are spaced-out between recruiting posts for fandoms that aren’t on my list in the first place. (Some of them are very small, only 1-2 works total, it would take no extra effort to just pick them up for babysitting myself…but that would really offset my fandom-dropping progress.)
Windows 11 is so phenomenally shitty that they managed to ruin Notepad, arguably The single most useful basic all-purpose program. You could just open any text file in it. You could use it to edit properties files, configuration files, XML, HTML. You could write entire Java programs in it if you were enterprising. It was quick, lightweight, and had all the features it could possibly need, which was almost none.
W11 "Notepad" is a bloated monster that takes several seconds to load a file less than 1KB. I uninstalled it. For the first time in my life, I uninstalled Notepad.
This fucking timeline, man.
W11 "Notepad" is a bloated monster that takes several seconds to load a file less than 1KB. I uninstalled it. For the first time in my life, I uninstalled Notepad.
This fucking timeline, man.
In case anyone wants to borrow Alien Romance for a crossover with their own characters, or just play around in their universe:
The year is 1990. The place is Midwestern USA. Maurice, the son of immigrants who grew up in the family store in a rural county, has married Cathy, a struggling artist from an intellectual family in Lyon, France. They're learning each other's languages, and live together in a 4th-floor walk-up apartment with Ren, Maurice's very tall childhood friend, who is in a pre-med program.
Maurice drives a truck all day and in the evening he's a guitarist in a band.
Cathy doesn't have a work permit, nor any sense of how to run a household, but she tries to support her new husband and all his oddball friends in ways that they don't necessarily understand.
There is an alien, and some ghosts, and a lot of questionable decisions as this group of young misfits try to navigate the end of the 20th century without any guidance. It's kind of a period piece, so if you grew up then too, you'll have plenty to reminisce about, and if you showed up later, you're welcome along for the ride.
The year is 1990. The place is Midwestern USA. Maurice, the son of immigrants who grew up in the family store in a rural county, has married Cathy, a struggling artist from an intellectual family in Lyon, France. They're learning each other's languages, and live together in a 4th-floor walk-up apartment with Ren, Maurice's very tall childhood friend, who is in a pre-med program.
Maurice drives a truck all day and in the evening he's a guitarist in a band.
Cathy doesn't have a work permit, nor any sense of how to run a household, but she tries to support her new husband and all his oddball friends in ways that they don't necessarily understand.
There is an alien, and some ghosts, and a lot of questionable decisions as this group of young misfits try to navigate the end of the 20th century without any guidance. It's kind of a period piece, so if you grew up then too, you'll have plenty to reminisce about, and if you showed up later, you're welcome along for the ride.
The instructor gets into the passenger seat of the test vehicle, and Cathy gets into the driver's seat. He gives her a steady stream of instructions, and she doesn't respond directly, but she's more or less keeping up. He tells her to parallel park. As she's twisting around to look out the rear window with one hand on the steering wheel (which we all had to do before rear view cameras were invented, and is still probably a good idea in some modern cars), the instructor looks down at Cathy and smirks.
***
How are you all today? I'm hanging in there. I don't feel well enough to go out, so it's a day for staying home. Anyway, I spent entirely too much yesterday and all I got to show for it was some cake mix. So I suppose I should make some cake.
My friend sent me a pretty amazing mug.
The picture's pretty blurry, and it's gold leaf on pink, which is hard to read. But it says, "I'd punch a bi*ch for you, right in the throat." I don't know if I've ever had a friendship before with this vibe! Now I do, and I love it! My hidden aggressive side doesn't have to stay completely hidden. It's still not much of an aggressive side. After I messaged her to thank her and laugh about it, I helped talk her preteen son through how to draw mouths.
It takes a village!
I know there’s not a ton of people left who actively care about this fandom. But of the ones who do, I’m guessing at least a few of you still follow my blog(s).
So here’s a quick writeup! Let’s find out if anyone has feedback.
For people who weren’t in this fandom (or have forgotten the details by now), I’ll start with some backstory.
( A little unwieldy, a little awkward. It kinda counted on taggers having pre-existing knowledge of “which terms the LiveJournal-based fandom uses in which specific ways.” But for a long time, it worked! )
Ella speaks to the desk clerk while Cathy waits besides her. Ella had offered to be Cathy's translator last time. But the DMV doesn't allow that! So Cathy goes into the exam room.
"You have 30 minutes to complete the packet," the proctor informs her.
I took my driver's test like this, before everything was done on consoles. But I don't remember the details. So this scene might be presented with slight inaccuracies.
Anyway...
She looks at a question on the exam and it looks all garbled to her. Grumbling, she buckles down to decipher the text.
***
It's been quite a week! And still going! My spouse asked how I wanted to spend Lunar New Year and I said I just want to go to Formosa again. Formosa is a Taiwanese restaurant a few towns over, and serves the closest thing to the Chinese food we'd grown accustomed to. Taiwanese cuisine has quite a lot of crossover with Shanghaiese cuisine, but more important, it's not just American Chinese cuisine. Not that there's much wrong with American Chinese cuisine! It's good when you're in the mood for it. I wouldn't want it more than a couple times a month. Real Chinese food really is something you can happily consume every day. Then again, in Shanghai, I'd go out and get a big bowl of niurou mian (beef noodle) for cheap cheap as my main meal of the day, and my other meal would be, for instance, some bok choy, tomato, and onion sauteed in spicy sauce at home on my tiny stovetop. Still Chinese, very modest.
I guess I'd better pull myself together. The rest of the driver's license plotline is a lot of work, and I'll need to make time later today to work on it.
