imhilien

Well, Happy Midwinter to those of us in the southern hemisphere. It was freezing last night as it went down to 5 deg C / 40 deg F. I'm a summer person and struggle with cold like that. At least the weather is fine - last week it was wild and stormy.

Sunsets (and sunrises too, apparently) have a lot of bright pink in them these days, that's apparently due to the aftereffects of the underwater volcanic eruption in Tonga a while back. I'm old enough to remember years ago after Mt Pinatubo (sp?) erupted in the Phillipines, we had primary-colour sunsets for months afterward.

My local theater in conjunction with others recently had a French Film festival, so I looked at the catalogue and decided to go to 'Murder Party', which was loosely based on the game of Cluedo. There was a reasonable crowd and most of us were masked, so that was good (my city still has thousands of cases each day so I'm always careful when leaving the house). It was entertaining enough and there was a plot twist I didn't see coming, so that was ok.

I recently watched the two seasons of 'Bridgerton' after each other, I had found S1 a bit boring in places but I adored S2.

Library books and tea are keeping me going right now. I go for walks when I can and I have a cross stitch project I'm working on.

In your own space, share a favourite memory about fandom.


I was lucky enough to meet author Mercedes Lackey and her artist husband Larry Dixon at a convention years ago. They were at the auction event and Larry started quietly drawing on an art pad. Towards the end of the auction, he showed he had completed an amazing pencil drawing of Vanyel in that short time, and he was donating it to the auction.

The room went wild and there was an amazing (and expensive) bidding war. You couldn't help but wish it was yours (no, I didn't get it).

In your own space, rec a fanwork (fic, art, vid, playlist, anything!) you did not create.


I recently reblogged some art by Shaun Keenan on my Tumblr, it's that of an alternate earth where dinosaurs co-exist with people (not Dinotopia, but similar if you like that). Amazing and funny too.

https://imhilien.tumblr.com/post/673473207984078848/have-you-ever-heard-of-shaun-keenan-probably-not

In your own space, create something.


Well, I wrote a story for the latest challenge on fandomweekly at Dreamwidth.

fandomweekly | [#122] WHEN THERE'S NOTHING (EXILE SAGA AND GALACTIC MILIEU) (dreamwidth.org)

In your own space, talk about an idea you wish you had the time / energy / talent to do.


I would like do fan art for my fan fic, but I don't have that kind of artistic talent for drawing people.

In your own space, set some goals for the coming year. They can be fannish or not, public or private.

Well, I've got a WIP I'll try to write more of. A small book fandom I'm part of needs more fanfic, so that's a goal for me.

I'm also a landscape artist so I'll try and do more art that I'll put on my Redbubble store.

Hoo boy, there's going to be a reboot of Babylon 5! Will it be good? I will have to watch and find out... I've got feelings all over the place about this.


J. Michael Straczynski on Twitter: "To answer all the questions, yes, it’s true, Babylon 5 is in active development as a series for the CW. We have some serious fans over at the network, and they’re eager to see this show happen. I’m hip deep into writing the pilot now, and will be running the series upon pickup." / Twitter

Well, Auckland is still in a strict lockdown for the next fortnight (at least?), but the rest of the country is in a more relaxed lockdown. This means you can get takeaways now... and apparently there have been long queues outside some takeaway places.

[Entertains fond daydream where I go to the regions border and send off some drones to fetch pizza for me. Yes, I miss pizza, how did you guess?]

There was a big thunderstorm on Monday afternoon and I think the house shook a bit at one point. It rained through the night and caused flooding in West Auckland. The weather is more peaceful today and I went for a walk around the block.

July means winter Down Under and recently it has been cold. Last week I think it was, it dropped down to 2 c / 34 F one night and that was a bit horrible for me despite all the layers on my bed. I couldn't cope with colder temperatures than that. If it snows, don't go has been my life long motto.

My work has been busy as it's school holidays. In the gift shop they have I've got one of my landscape paintings up for sale. I also have some greeting cards with my art on for sale as well; I've sold two cards so far so that's great.

I feel sorry for Australia at the moment; New South Wales is having trouble with a bad Covid outbreak and Sydney has been in lockdown.

I've got book club on Sunday; the subject is books or authors beginning with 'C'. I might bring along 'Cold Comfort Farm' which is always good for a chuckle, as well as 'Chalice' by Robin McKinley which is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast; the heroine has honey-based magic.

My laptop's hard drive broke down a little while ago and it needed a complete replacement. I lost some files unfortunately because I hadn't backed them up, urgh. Of course this happened just before season 5b (5b!) of 'Lucifer' came out on Netflix so I had to wait a week before my laptop came back before I could watch the episodes. It started off a bit slow and then really got going. When he's not going through angst and anguish, Lucifer gives the impression he's actually a golden retriever in disguise who loves his Detective. Aww. I wrote some fanfic after the season final which is up on A03.




There is an English woman on YouTube doing vlogs of Babylon 5 and is getting quite excited as she's working her way through season 2. Heh heh.

Babylon 5: Season 2 - YouTube


There is a cold south-wester outside at the moment so am staying indoors as much as possible.

When a rocket goes up into space, various sections break off and fall back to earth. So I was watching current affairs last night and they mentioned that a section of a Chinese rocket is falling back to earth - but due to some miscalculations, it could possibly land in Wellington, New Zealand's capital, this weekend or early next week. My reaction: WUT. I have friends in Wellington. Peter Jackson lives there!

I wonder if it was meant to land in the Pacific ocean to the east of New Zealand - apparently, there's a rocket graveyard there. What's left of the space station Mir is said to be down there, and if that doesn't sound like the start of a horror movie, I don't know what does. Fingers crossed we'll be alright. The chap narrating this for the show had nervous eyes. I wonder what he knew that we don't. Maybe I'm just speculating.

I recently received a fantasy book I'd ordered online - 'Jolene' by Mercedes Lackey (part of her Elemental Masters series). I had bought the e-book version but I liked it so much I wanted the physical paperback. Ironically, ordering from a Australian bookstore meant that it would get to me quicker than if I ordered it online from a New Zealand place (as far as I could tell). I remember when Borders used to be in town (remember that store?) and they had the full collection of Mercedes' books. I miss those days.