So, it is party time again, folks!
Oct. 1st, 2014 10:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Each year this time, we launch my virtual birthday party, which starts on October 1 and ends on October 9 at midnight, sharp. The goals of the party are to post as many comments and collapse as many threads as possible, on as many new pages as we can. It is always great fun, as you can see if you check out the similar entries of the last few years.
This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.
Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)
So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!
Soledad, in excited expectation

Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.
Enjoy!
This year, I'll also throw the real party at mid-time - and post the recipes of all the food that will be there for you, so that you can all participate if you want to. Virtual food has no calories.
Fandom-related discussions are as welcome as the ones about coffee or chocolate (just to name a few favourites from previous years), and, of course, pictures and recipes of birthday cakes. ;)
So, drop by, tell your story, post your pics or silly poems, ask questions you always wanted to ask and have a good time!
Soledad, in excited expectation

Oh, and by the way, to provide birthday gifts hobbit-style, I've got a revived story and a Kansas 2 update for you.
Enjoy!
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-07 06:19 pm (UTC)It will be interesting to see how many we share. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 06:40 pm (UTC)Top 10 TV fandoms:
1) Battlestar Galactica (the original)
2) Star Trek (classic, the original)
3) Babylon 5
4) Kindred: The Embraced
5) Tour of Duty
6) Merlin
7) Sherlock BBC ( the first 2 seasons - I despise S3)
8) Stargate: Atlantis
9) Star Trek: DS9
10) Torchwood
Top 6 book fandoms:
1) Tolkien's universe
2) The Cadfael Chronicles by Ellis Peters
3) Taran books by Larry Alexander
4) Miss Marple novels by Agatha Christie
5) Poirot novels by Agatha Christie
6) Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin
There are lots of other books I love, but they can't be considered fandoms, so this is what I could think of off the top of my head.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 07:36 pm (UTC)Television
1. Twin Peaks
2. ST:DS9
3. Angel
4. Yes, Minister
5. Blackadder
6. Blake's 7 -- this was my entry fandom at least in terms of online interactions but I'm pretty much out of it now
and way below...
7. Forbrydelsen S1
8. The Hour
Books
1. Jane Austen
2. Earthsea
3. JRR Tolkien
4. Diana Wynne Jones
5. Jane Eyre
6. Eagle of the Ninth series & other Sutcliff
7. Norse mythology
8. Sherlock Holmes
9. Good Omens & other Gaiman
10. LM Bujold Vorkosigan/Chalion series
and many, many more...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 08:00 pm (UTC)Is there a meaning behind which ones are in italics on your list?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 10:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 01:49 am (UTC)1) Anything Jacques Cousteau
2) Sealab 2020, a cartoon about an underwater colony of scientists -- that's what I wanted to be as a little geek girl
3) Star Trek -- most of the iterations, except Janeway never did it for me
4) Tour of Duty -- Thanks for the reminder, wiseheart. That was a special show, and for America, I think it was culturally an important marker: we could actually have a show on commercial TV about Vietnam that showed a lot of the ambiguities
5) Stargate - original -- don't think I've seen more than an episode or two of the later ones
6) Cadfael series (seen on public television in the US)
7) Arthur of the Britons -- saw it as a kid in NZ. As I've described it elsewhere, a young, grubby Arthur and his grubby companions -- Saxon Kai and his adoptive Welsh father, Llud -- all riding around a grubby, not-at-all-great Britain
8) Early St. Elsewhere which, I discovered when I moved here, was modeled on the medical facility that houses my current academic employer
Haven't read for fun enough to have favorites in books, but I have enjoyed the odd Cadfael novel and remember being enchanted by the ecology of the magic system in the Earthsea trilogy. I also must have bought and read just about every paperback spinoff from the Space: 1999 series in my teens. No accounting for my "tastes"!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 04:01 pm (UTC)I love Cadfael too, though I felt the television adaptations did a relatively poor job, despite Jacobi. It didn't help that they kept recasting Beringar; I preferred the first one, despite his acanonical blond hair.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:09 pm (UTC)In general, it was very cheaply made (filmed in Hungary, no less), practically everything took place in the same cottage with slightly different decoration. And I didn't find Jacobi a good choice. I used to know an old Benedictine brother who was just like Cadfael, but Jacobi was too aristocratic-looking for the part.
I preferred the first Beringar (Sean Pertwee), too. That was another character turned inside out; and I missed the Cadfael-Beringar friendship. It is such an important element of the books, and it was completely omitted from the series.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 07:53 pm (UTC)Beringar I was occasionally ok, though they did play down the central friendship. Beringar II might as well have been an OC.
I don't remember the television version of The Pilgrim of Hate; possibly I've mercifully blanked it; possibly I've just never watched it.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-09 01:45 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 08:34 pm (UTC)TV
Babylon 5/Crusade
Doctor Who
Stargate
Firefly
West Wing
Books:
Tolkien
Swallows and Amazons series - Arthur Ransome
Bujold
Sucliff - various of the historical ones
Paksenarion series - Elizabeth Moon
Sherwood Smith
Far Distant Oxus - Katherine Hull and Pamela Whitlock
Noel Streatfield
And I should stop trying to make the lists now, I know I'm forgetting this and it is hard to pick.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 04:56 pm (UTC)I started Chalion only last year, and only read the last two books immediately before the Bujold conference this August. I need to read them again, but I think it's a much stronger series than Vorkosigan. The invented religion in particular is really interesting, and not something I've seen done so successfully elsewhere.
Sharing Knife I'm still reading. Plotwise it's a bit slow not to say corny, but I find the worldbuilding hints simply fascinating and I'm loving the parallels with LotR.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 05:14 pm (UTC)The religion in Chalion is great - I love the fact that the gods do want to intervene, but have rules (and that the rules aren't really understood by anyone).
The plot picks up more in the 3rd and 4th books ofSharing Knife. I love the totally different basic setup and the whole Lakewalker culture and life. It is really interesting to speculate on what might have happened before or how things will change.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 05:43 pm (UTC)I must try to finish Sharing Knife -- before YT sign ups if possible, though I'm going to be frantically busy &/or away from home for much of that time.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:06 pm (UTC)Yes. It really builds on everything.
also, I didn't like the heterosexualising of Byerley, who I'd read as queer.
I'll probably have to reread at some point, because I still saw him as queer through it - just in a relationship of some sort with Rish. I may have been reading what I want into it, I know reading something for the first time I often miss things (one of the things that make rereading so much fun).
I must try to finish Sharing Knife -- before YT sign ups if possible, though I'm going to be frantically busy &/or away from home for much of that time.
*nods* Where are you at?
I should not say much about it, because spoilers, but the fourth book is very much my favourite.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:21 pm (UTC)There was a lot of talk at the conference in August abut how all of Bujold's homosexual/bisexual characters do one of die horribly; be Eeeevil; or Turn Heterosexual for Love.
With SK, I'm somewhere in the middle of book 2; I keep picking it up & putting it down again. Altariel, my Bujold-peddler, likes the last two books, as I recall.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:29 pm (UTC)It would have changed the first parts a bit - Ivan's not seeing her as a threat etc, but I think it could have worked.
all of Bujold's homosexual/bisexual characters do one of die horribly; be Eeeevil; or Turn Heterosexual for Love
there are a few that don't, but oddly it seems to be more in the fantasy series that Vorkosigan: Umegat (in Curse of Chalion, and some in Sharing Knife (but spoilers)
Book 2 is slow paced for a lot, but the pace of the books picks up from there.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:36 pm (UTC)A slight & androgenous Rish that big military Ivan took for female could have been made to work, I think.
I'd forgotten Umegat. He doesn't get to die, but he does suffer terribly.
Looks like I need to plod through book 2 in anticipation of jam tomorrow...
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:47 pm (UTC)A slight & androgenous Rish that big military Ivan took for female could have been made to work, I think.
yes
I'd forgotten Umegat. He doesn't get to die, but he does suffer terribly.
*nods*
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:11 pm (UTC)I read Cryoburn without knowing the end, but I can see why you'd not want to read it. It is an interesting mystery before that, but the end is very sad.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 09:39 pm (UTC)I got spoiled for Cryoburn by clicking on a piece of fanfiction immediately after the book came out without reading the spoiler line (if there was one), and it so upset me I've steered clear of the book. I gather one can avoid the event by stopping a few pages off the end, but I don't know whether I've got that sort of discipline.
For some reason I find it really hard to mentally resurrect characters when canon kills them off, which it seems to do with my favourites with monotonous regularity. (Thank you JKR, Joss!)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 09:56 pm (UTC)It is the very end of the book and afterward bit, but I think it would be hard to stop. I know I couldn't!
For me it really depends, some deaths I have no trouble ignoring by writing earlier or AUs, others throw me out of the fandom hard. It partly depends how much it works emotionally in the canon (ie most of the HP deaths seem far too formulaic and not dealt with well...)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 10:39 pm (UTC)I was very upset by the end of HP; it didn't completely throw me out of the fandom, but it stopped me rereading canon.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 11:10 pm (UTC)I struggled with the whole of the 7th book - it just made so little sense (especially I just couldn't believe all the fuss about finding food in a summer/autumn countryside....) but the end really didn't work - so many random, oh this person died, but everything goes on exactly as if nothing had changed from the first book.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 07:23 pm (UTC)I think you might particularly like Chalion -- the worldbuilding is excellent and it's set in a fantasy medieval Spain.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 06:13 pm (UTC)Oh, and I wanted to be a nun, too, for almost 20 years! I even spent nearly 3 years in a convent in Germany, before finally giving up on the idea.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:42 pm (UTC)I don't have any urge in modern society to become a nun, though I can see the attraction in medieval England.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:47 pm (UTC)At heart I'm an anarchist, which doesn't help!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-09 02:19 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 01:11 am (UTC)Since early in this century, I've been a qualitative researcher in public health at a university, but another shift is due. I'm trying to get into work around local/regional resilience and readiness in response to the impacts of climate change. I live in a harbor city, and the storm surge map projections show me living on waterfront property, at least temporarily, within the next 10 years. Sobering... I have research background in climate change work (back when people still said "possible" or "hypothetical" in front of "climate change"), and I can get almost anybody to talk to me, and I feel like this is the area where I can be useful. I have a few contacts, and now my health is settling down, it's time to get off my butt and start actively networking, etc.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 04:07 pm (UTC)Working in the field of climate change impact sounds both interesting and essential.
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:17 pm (UTC)I suppose my guilt has to do with the fact that if they paid me less they could pay people having thankless/boring/what-have-you jobs more. On the other hand, knowing employers, I think they would just pay me less, and the other people less as well, so I usually don't let it get to me (too much).
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-07 09:51 pm (UTC)Good night all, and thanks for fun discussions! Looking forward to seeing threads collapsing on this fifth page tomorrow!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-07 10:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 01:14 am (UTC)Isn't it funny how things come to remind us when we forget something important about our lives?
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 01:26 am (UTC)The 2 bedroom flat itself is a bit rough in spots, and we're still finding places to put things away, but it's getting to be cozy. I like the relative quiet of our one-block, one-way street, compared to the busy two-way street we lived on before. The back porch is a generous size, and our dog, Mac, is very fond of it. He goes up to the back door, sits, and makes the most pitiful sounds until he is let out. Even in rain or cold, he needs at least a brief visit to survey his domain!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 12:30 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 04:19 pm (UTC)We're moving sometime between end of November and early next year after ~15 years in one place, my longest ever. Hopefully no snowstorms to contend with though!
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 04:13 pm (UTC)Oooh - that sounds interesting!
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-09 02:57 am (UTC)I think they gather their power from the dissonance between the dark subject matter and the clean bright liberal socialist ideals that at least Brits tend to associate with Scandinavia, as well as the beautiful landscapes/cityscapes. So they often deal with themes of racism, homelessness, political, police or military corruption, terrorism &c. The pacing is often languid, particularly compared with other modern crime dramas. There's an emphasis on the victim's family's grief. They're usually of the police procedural type, and the investigating officer is often a strong & unusual woman, who isn't interested in family or clothes/appearance -- the last alone is a huge & to me welcome difference from all US crime drama I've ever seen.
The genre reminds me of Edge of Darkness, an iconic British drama, if you happened to have seen that.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 04:07 pm (UTC)It looks like we are over half way to p6 and a great comment total \o/
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Date: 2014-10-08 07:44 pm (UTC)Hoping you feel better soon!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:00 pm (UTC)They usually last a fair while for me - probably interacting with everything else.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 06:19 pm (UTC)However, I find I don't really care about breaking any records. I'm having such a nice time with you lovely ladies, such interesting conversations, that the rest doesn't count.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 04:28 pm (UTC)I'm not sure I know the precise answer to my own question! I know we met in Tolkien fandom. I recall I'd read and enjoyed her stories in that fandom. I think
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:20 pm (UTC)Of course, that was before the arrival of the little princess.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:22 pm (UTC)The nearest book shop was 100 kilometers away, so buying books ourselves wasn't really something we could do very often. On the other hand we did get taken to the library by the school once a week for half of each semester; that was where most of my reading material came from!
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 10:31 pm (UTC)The nearby library was a bit useless; at one point I started madly reading ballet books -- my mother asked me whether I wanted to learn, and I pointed out I'd read the entire children's section from end to end, apart from the ballet books. So the librarian was persuaded to give me an adult ticket, aged about 10. My mother also had an extensive book collection (she used to teach English & history) and she only banned Enid Blyton, so I read Solzhenitsyn & Lolita instead. (She put the less suitable books on the top shelf, but I was wise to that!)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 10:39 pm (UTC)My parents had an extensive book collection, too, but not that much in the way of fiction actually. Dad had a couple of Enid Blyton books in Swedish from when he was a kid, which we did all read several times over.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 05:38 pm (UTC)I quite liked the first one, rolled eyes at some of the changes (especially Arwen) and things being missed out - liked the extended version more. Then had real problems with the second, especially the character assassination of Faramir, and all the excessive battle scenes. And the third was still a disappointment from there (evil Denethor, all the fighting, no scouring of the Shire, etc).
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 05:51 pm (UTC)But the cinema version of TTT was simply awful. Faramir was one of my favourites and I couldn't forgive that. And the warg fight/horse kissing -- don't get me onto that.
And, oh god, RotK -- suffice to say, Denethor was another of my favourites.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:00 pm (UTC)Denethor is such a great and under appreciated character - just because he went wrong at the end - he managed to lead Gondor and hold Mordor at bay for so long. It is one of the things that makes me so sad that there is not more interesting Denethor stories in fandom.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:24 pm (UTC)The Hobbit movies are evey bit as blasphemic. Interestingly enough, there, too, the second one is magnitudes worse than the first. I am already afraid of the third part.
Generally, the artwork is splendid, the writing is rubbish (save for the lines stolen from Tolkien), the canon rape is painful, and with the exception of Sean Bean and Martin Freeman, none of the actors really managed to convince me.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 06:59 pm (UTC)Yes. Although even the artwork fails at some points.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 07:42 pm (UTC)I am definitely NOT going to watch the other Hobbit films -- the first one was bad enough...
Bean made Boromir into a tragic figure, in a way that didn't come over quite so well in the book. I found the settings got worse as time went on; the Shire & Rivendell were good; Moria a little disappointing; Lothlorien & Rohan completely wrong; Minas Tirith just rubbish.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 07:49 pm (UTC)The Shire ws beautiful indeed, Moria boring, and Minas Tirith, aside from the outside view where it indeed looked like a ship, could have been just any other city in Southern Europe.
What was your problem with Rohan? I mean, the buildings, not the Rohirrim, who were terrible.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 07:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:01 pm (UTC)Rohan was meant to be a plain with long grass, as I've seen in Mongolia. The NZ landscape was too rocky with too short-cropped grass, and not at all horse (as opposed to pony) country.
The buildings of Edoras were ok, but the hill fort had far too small a hill. (We have a set of hill forts locally, and they're nothing like that.)
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 07:51 pm (UTC)Minas Tirith seemed out of proportion, but some of the details were good - but the climbable rocks were wrong. Although I did enjoy seeming all the trebuchets.
I'm probably going to see the other Hobbit movie, just from curiosity.
(no subject)
Date: 2014-10-08 08:09 pm (UTC)Edoras wasn't too bad; some of the detailing was excellent -- it was the Rohan plains I really didn't like -- they should have been plains of long grass with no rocks, as I've seen in Mongolia. The rocky heath was terrible horse country.
(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 08:18 pm (UTC)I'll watch it for Martin Freeman, though. He's an excellent Bilbo, IMO.
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:12 pm (UTC)Then I was fortunate enough to meet
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:21 pm (UTC)I have to admit, the Moomin books drove me wild as a child, and I've never tried them as an adult. They were read to us in primary school, and I did hate being read aloud to, which didn't help.
I've never met Soledad's mum, but Mr EA and I were lucky enough to spend some time with S in her home city, when she was gracious enough to show us round -- and feed us espresso/cakes!
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:04 pm (UTC)Getting shown around any city by a native is usually the best way to see it, I think! That you also got to meet
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:08 pm (UTC)It is a lovely city, and I wish I could visit again -- unfortunately we're on zero holidays till we've settled down a bit financially, which might be several years.
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Date: 2014-10-08 07:01 pm (UTC)In 2011, we had 943 comments on 7 pages. In 2010, it was 742 comments, on 6 pages. In the earlier years, it was even less, despite that we had twice as many party guests. This year's party is fantastic!
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:11 pm (UTC)Best of luck with the move! It sounds like a great adventure.
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:12 pm (UTC)or more topics, but I'm failing to think of any at the moment.
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:27 pm (UTC)The think the rest of everything is very stuck at the moment, of course, whether I make any progress depends on what my Yuletide assignment ends up as.
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:44 pm (UTC)Yes, I am updating Adventures weekly, but those are all pre-written chapters that have been waiting for their turn in FF.Net's Document Manager for a long time. And Prophecy Change is practically a repost of Flarn Manages, the Minbari Sue I was writing with
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Date: 2014-10-08 09:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2014-10-08 10:54 pm (UTC)Are you planning to participate in the Autumn (in the northern hemisphere) Pico this year? I seem to recall you were working on Firiel ?last year.
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:05 pm (UTC)It depends on how the Yuletide work is looking by that point - hopefully assignments and the first rush of questions will be over by then, and everything settling down (plus sharing out more work to volunteers). I've started Autumn Pico several times, but not done so well on finishing. I'd like to participant as it has been very good in getting me making progress on things in the past.
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:17 pm (UTC)I'm not sure how many times I've finished (if at all) -- I tend to get distracted, either by lack of progress in writing or RL events.
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:21 pm (UTC)Yes - trying to work towards it being far more of a general team effort, and working out which bits really need to be done by mods (which I suspect is very much a minority of the work, but lots of the decisions), and how it can be spread out without causing problems and stress.
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Date: 2014-10-09 08:41 pm (UTC)I hadn't realised that the mods couldn't see the nominators -- I did wonder why the series of LJ queries when it seemed quicker to e-mail!
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Date: 2014-10-08 11:01 pm (UTC)Given how busy I am between now and the end of the year, I probably need to restrict my energies to Yuletide, and even that is beginning to feel a bit goey, what with the moving 'n all...
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