Reading

Small successes and mixed-up veggies

I'm very much in winter mode here as although some days are sunny, it's cold, and a lot of days are very wet. So not going outside much and not doing gardening, which I don't feel great about. I seem a bit beset by inertia in terms of things physical, possibly a mid-winter slump, but I'm doing indoors things just fine - well, the things I like doing, anyway. Not cleaning or organising! I do tidy up once a week before Fionna comes to vacuum, and occasionally the dishes get washed, but that's about it.

I've started another longer podfic - this one for the due South Big Bang. Am also continuing to add lots of new podfics to the Audiofic Archive (we got inundated by >600 short ones from a recent Voiceteam challenge). And I finished a personal project with the Audiofic Archive of adding streaming links to all the SGA podfics there so they can be enjoyed easily with no need to download zip files. That's 138 pages of SGA podfics! - and increasing each week, as we make more. Next fandom to complete is due South.

In the process I stumbled on Lim's old Fanvid page on Wayback, and the vid downloads still worked. Lim made avant garde vids with lots of altered graphics. Some are on AO3 but a lot of the SGA ones aren't. The Wayback page is here (with additional info and credits), and I downloaded the SGA ones and converted them to mp4 format here. CW for flashing, fast cuts, loud music in some of them. One, Mission Report, (lyrics) is a multimedia podvid where Lim created the lyrics, music, and vid, and sang it for the SGA flashfic comm.

In "first world problem" news, a grocery mix-up. My online delivery packer needs help with alliums! Ordered a bunch of spring (green) onions:
alt

And got a giant leek. Size matters! (in terms of making salads, anyway)

alt

Finally, I saw this amazing poem on tumblr, apparently written by nine-for-a-kiss as a teenager. It's very Dark-is-Rising-ish.

Current Music: Slumber Party, "Soldier"

I'm a mercenary soldier and we all look the same

I screamed in dismay in the middle of the night because I had just seen the news that Kenneth Colley died.

I saw him in roles beyond the megafamous one, of course, and he was everything from inevitable to excellent in them, but it happens that last week

spatch and I took the excuse of a genuinely fun fact to rewatch Return of the Jedi (1983) and at home on my own couch I cheered his typically controlled and almost imperceptibly nervy appearance aboard the Executor, which by the actor's own account was exactly how he had gotten this assignment stationed off the sanctuary moon of Endor in the first place, the only Imperial officer to reprise his role by popular demand. In hindsight of more ground-level explorations of the Empire like Rogue One (2016) and Andor (2022–25), Admiral Piett looks like the parent and original of their careerists and idealists, all too human in their sunk cost loyalties to a regime to which they are interchangeably disposable, but just the slight shock-stillness of his face as he swallows his promotion from frying pan to fire would have kept an audience rooting for him against their own moral alignment so long as they had ever once held a job. It didn't hurt that he never looked like he'd gotten a good night's sleep in his life, not even when he was younger and turning up as randomly as an ill-fated Teddy-boy trickster on The Avengers (1961–69) or one of the lights of the impeccably awful am-dram Hammer send-up that is the best scene in The Blood Beast Terror (1968). Years before I saw the film it came from, a still of him and his haunted face in I Hired a Contract Killer (1990)—smoking in bed, stretched out all in black on the white sheets like a catafalque—crossbred with a nightmare of mine into a poem. Out of sincere curiosity, I'll take a time machine ticket for his 1979 Benedick for the RSC.

He played Hitler for Ken Russell and Jesus for the Pythons: I am not in danger of having nothing to watch for his memory, as ever it's just the memory that's the kicker. No actor or artist or writer of importance to me has yet turned out to be immortal, but I resent the interference of COVID-19 in this one. In the haphazard way that I collected character actors, he would have been one of the earlier, almost certainly tapping in his glass-darkly fashion into my longstanding soft spot for harried functionaries of all flavors even when actual bureaucracy has done its best for most of my life to kill me. I am glad he was still in the world the last time I saw him. A friend no longer on LJ/DW already wrote him the best eulogy.

Entry tags:

flight of the heron

[heron fic] Hegesistratus

Been reading a lot of Herodotus lately. The flight of Hegesistratus made me think of Ewen.

Hegesistratus (100 words) by sanguinity
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Jacobite Trilogy | The Flight of the Heron Series - D. K. Broster, The Histories - Herodotus
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Ewen Cameron
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Drabble, Angst
Summary:
Ewen Cameron, lame and hunted after his escape at High Bridge, remembers his childhood daydreams.

...now back to finishing Book IX before book group tomorrow!

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DaredevilExchange 2025!

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2,797 episodes of premium quality entertainment

I joined the New Tideland discord server, which is very big and busy and has a million channels, but I'm starting to settle in, mostly lurking or emoji reacting. It's a refreshing change from Star Wars fandom, I have to say. People are able to just...disagree and move on? Politely request that things go in different channels? Incredible. Still the occasional piss-on-the-poor whackjob out in the wild, but I think I've blocked most of them.

( spoilers )

I can't wait for the finale but also I'm distressed that there's only one episode left. This has been an emotionally load bearing 25 minutes a week for me.

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exchanges:hurtcomfort

Hurt/Comfort Exchange

hurtcomfortex released today! I happened to be driving a backcountry highway with no cell service at the time (coming home from Mom Things), but it was lovely to find my gifts waiting for me when I got back.

Hold a Candle To (MASH, 3400 wds, gen) delivered some lovely Charles drug withdrawal h/c with teamy affection, and A Way Out (Biggles, 4400 wds, gen) let me roll around in excellent Biggles & von Stalhein enemies-era reluctant cooperation and sympathy. Truly a lovely haul!

Current Music: Japanese Breakfast, "Picture Window"

All of my ghosts are my home

On the normality front, our street is full of cracks and bangs and whooshes from fireworks set off around the neighborhood, none so far combustibly. Otherwise I spent this Fourth of July with my husbands and my parents and eleven leaves of milkweed on which the monarch seen fluttering around the yard this afternoon had left her progeny. My hair still smells like grill smoke. Due to the size of one of the hamburgers, I folded it over into a double-decker with cheese and avocado and chipotle mayo and regret nothing about the hipster Dagwood sandwich. A quantity of peach pie and strawberries and cream were highlights of the dessert after a walk into the Great Meadows where the black water had risen under the boardwalk and the water lilies were growing in profusion from the last, droughtier time we had passed that way. I do not know the species of bird that has built a nest in the rhododendron beside the summer kitchen, but the three eggs in it are dye-blue.

On the non-normality front, I meant it about the spite: watching my country stripped for parts for the cruelty of it, half remixed atrocities, half sprint into dystopia, however complicated the American definition has always been, right now it still means my family of queers and rootless cosmopolitans and as most of the holidays we observe assert, we are still here. It's peculiar. I was not raised to think of my nationality as an important part of myself so much as an accident of history, much like the chain of immigrations and migrations that led to my birth in Boston. I was raised to carry home with me, not locate it in geography. I've been asked my whole life where I really come from. This administration in both its nameless rounds has managed to make me territorial about my country beyond the mechanisms of its democracy whose guardrails turned out to be such movable goalposts. It enrages me to be expected not to care that I have seen the pendulum swing like a wrecking ball in my lifetime, as if the trajectory were so inevitable that it absolves the avarice to do harm or the cowardice to prevent it. It is nothing to do with statues. The door to the stranger is supposed to be open.

The wet meadows of the Great Meadows are peatlands. They were cut for fuel in the nineteenth century, the surrealism of fossil fuels: twelve thousand years after the glaciers, ashes in a night. The color of their smoke filled the air sixteen years ago when some of the dryer acres burned. If you ask me, there's room for bog bodies.

Current Mood: ecstatic

Twice in one day

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Entry tags:

Two Guardian fics: Sunshine and Honey (M-rated) and Pages for You (T-rated)

I wrote a self-indulgent Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan treat for

idproquo and a post-canon Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan domestic-fluff flashfic for the

fan_flashworks Amnesty round. Thanks to

trobadora for beta on both of them! <3

Title: Sunshine and Honey (4126 words) [Mature]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Ye Olde Haixing Era, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Outdoor Sex, Feeding, Finger Sucking, Oral Fixation, First Kiss (for one of them), First time (for one of them), Treat
Summary:

They were halfway to the Allied Forces’ southern boundary when the sun came out. Shen Wei pulled back his hood and looked around, conscious of the breeze on his bare face. The heavy clouds were finally breaking up.

Meanwhile, Kunlun had dropped his bag and flopped onto his back on the grassy slope. “Let’s rest here a while.”

Title: Pages for You (1762 words) [Teen and Up]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Fade to Black, Community: fan_flashworks
Summary:

Over the course of the evening, an impulse had taken root, and now Shen Wei submitted to it. He switched on his desk lamp, laid out several large sheets of paper and quietly ground some ink. If Zhao Yunlan wanted to read of their time together through the eyes of a Dixingren soldier, who better than Shen Wei to write an account—to show Zhao Yunlan exactly how much his arrival had meant to the war effort and to Shen Wei himself.

Entry tags:

weekly update

Me-and-media update

Previous poll review
In the Routine poll, 84.2% of respondents voted for tooth-brushing, 50.9% for locking up and switching things off around the house, and 33.3% for tending to pets. Night-time routines taking more than half an hour got 24.6%, and "sometimes it takes me an hour or more" got 7%. *high fives*

In ticky-boxes, hugs won with 75.4%, followed by "how stressful it is to ask tradespeople to change things they've done" with 57.9% and "sitting on a mountain ledge in the moonlight, listening to owls" with 56.1%. Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
Incandescent by Emily Tesh, read by Zara Ramm, who sounds exactly like Emma Thompson. I spent the middle third of this being unsure what the plot was (or if there even was a plot; "is this a cosy magic-school story?" I asked nobody in particular). Things stirred ominously under the surface, but the tension relied on the reader being more worried about them than the mostly oblivious POV character -- which was interesting. Overall, I enjoyed it very much.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (Chronicles of Prydain). A few more chapters. I'm past halfway and it still feels like setup, which I guess is a function of it being the first book of five.

A tiny bit more of Neurotribes. I'm bored with the case studies/anecdotes and ready for some theory.

Two more chapters of Guardian by priest.

My Whimsy binge stalled after bouncing off three different narrators for The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. None of them hit the humour right. I suppose I'm going to have to read in text, but Prydain first (and I still haven't finished my reread of Werecockroach, note to self).

Kdramas
I finished Our Unwritten Seoul and enjoyed it very much. It's about 30yo identical twins, one who works in a corporate office in Seoul, and one who lives in their hometown and does a series of temporary and part-time jobs. The office worker is miserable from being bullied at work, so they decide to swap lives. Contains some pretty good (in my inexpert opinion) disability rep, and

I approved of both the morals (spoilers)

1) if you bottle things up and don't let people see your vulnerability, you can't feel their love; and 2) love isn't about winning or losing, or whether you're a burden; it's about being on the same team, staying together, and supporting each other as you win or lose. <3 <3 <3 (I was so happy when Ho-su stopped pushing Mi-ji away, and with the ending when they used sign language sometimes. <3 <3 <3)

I cancelled my VIKI subscription earlier this week because I wasn't using it, so of course I immediately started watching My Dearest Nemesis, as recced by

adore. It has a bit of a "based on a webtoon" feel, but I'm fine with that, and it's a neat twist on the Obnoxious Repressed Chaebol Exec trope. (The leading man is leading a double life: he's a closet fanboy, but his family and position require him to present as a 100% bland, respectable businessman.) I'm obsessed!

Note to self: check out First Night with the Duke next. And maybe renew your VIKI subscription.

Other TV
Poker Face and Murderbot continue to be enjoyable (we're an episode behind on each of them). I found the second half of Andor season 2 a lot more engaging than the first half (and might like the first half more on the rewatch; yet to be determined). Another episode each of Étoile and Krapopolis. The Old Guard 2 on Netflix.

Tiny spoiler for the very end.

Andrew was disgusted that, at the end, as [redacted] leave the secret archive full of ancient texts, they turn out the light but leave candles burning. "What about the ancient books?!" LOL!

A rewatch of French film Rosalie Blum, which I love.

Guardian/Fandom
The continuing delights of read-alongs and polls.

Audio entertainment
A little bit of Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American (US constitutional-law context for current developments), a little bit of Midnight Burger (audiodrama), most of the first season of Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones (which I'm enjoying despite not being familiar with DWJ's earlier books).

Writing/making things
I wrote a flashfic for the

fan_flashworks amnesty round and am poking at a couple of WIPs. My brain seems to be in recovery mode. My only current deadline is the

fan_flashworks Science round.

Life/health/mental state things
My thumbs/hands/wrists are not in great shape. My body is working hard to metabolise ambient stress. (*hugs to everyone*) I'm feeling a little under siege by winter and ~the state of things~, but I saw my sister for the first time in weeks (she's had a cold), a friend came over for lunch on Thursday, and last night our tv-watching friend joined us for Rosalie Blum.

Good things
Chocolate. Andrew and Halle. Fandom and all of you. Polls. Kdramas. Books. Podcasts. Eminem. Writing when it happens. AO3 (*clutches*). Love, kindness, and diversity.

Poll #33324 Crowd-sourcing randomness

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 30

View Respondents

Crowd-sourcing randomness

View Answers

heads
6 (20.0%)

tails
7 (23.3%)

edge
7 (23.3%)

zero-g (the coin never falls)
13 (43.3%)

ticky-box full of grumbly cats in search of treats
20 (66.7%)

ticky-box full of being protective of your blorbos
16 (53.3%)

ticky-box full of surviving AO3 outages
20 (66.7%)

ticky-box full of soft, bright-green moss nestled at the base of a tree, glittering with beads of dew
18 (60.0%)

ticky-box full of hugs
22 (73.3%)

Entry tags:

lit: ellen raskin

BOOM

I've been trying very hard to cheerful!post this week because I'm frequently struggling to breathe, as one does these days. You all know how it is. I was planning on posting from the perfect 4 July book (The Westing Game). But when I looked at the exact words of the quotation, it felt much too on the nose:

The sun has set on your Uncle Sam. Happy birthday, Crow. And to all of my heirs, a very happy Fourth of July.

So, okay, I thinks to myself. I'll quote my other favorite Fourth of July bit from the end. But when I looked it up, uh. That didn't feel any less apropos to the moment?

Turtle?"

"I'm right here, Sandy." She took his hand.

"Turtle, tell Crow to pray for me."

His hands turned cold, not smooth, not waxy, just very, very cold.

Turtle turned to the window. The sun was rising out of Lake Michigan. It was tomorrow. It was the Fourth of July.

Ah, well. Ready for a nice game of chess?

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let them eat fancake

Fancake's Theme for July: Working Together

Photograph with added text: Working Together, at Fancake. Workers in India use wide wooden paddles with long handles to shove a huge yard of drying grains into big piles. The grain, most likely rice, is a beautiful golden color, and there's a mix of western and traditional clothing among the seven men and women.

fancake's theme for July is Working Together!

If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, come talk to me!

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Fanfiction: who you are and what you want (Deltarune, Kris/Noelle)

whooooo wants DISTRESSING SNOWGRAVE FANFICTION

For the moment, this fic is exclusively available on my blog! I'm holding off on posting this to AO3 until tomorrow, because a) AO3 is currently sorting out some bookmarking issues, and b) I suspect Americans are going to be Fourth of Julying instead of reading fanfiction. Consider this a sneak preview!

Title: who you are and what you want
Fandom: Deltarune
Rating: 14
Pairing: Kris/Noelle
Wordcount: 1,400
Summary: The soul can't take any action that hasn't crossed Kris's mind, apparently. So why does it keep treating Noelle like this?
Warnings: Spoilers for the Snowgrave route in Deltarune, up to chapter four. Intrusive thoughts. Deals heavily with consent issues, although there's no sexual contact in this fic.

( who you are and what you want )

Current Mood: determined

"The Opposite of War Isn't Peace, It's Creation"

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Current Mood: pensive

Two For The Fourth

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Current Mood: amused

"Away, you three inch fool!"

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Entry tags:

tv:murderbot

Murderbot 1x09

This show is such a freakin' delight.

( Spoilers )

Current Music: The Dropkick Murphys, "Who'll Stand with Us?"

Through crime and crusade, our labor it's been stolen

Because Hanscom hasn't held an air show in years, I have no idea what the hell passed over my parents' yard behind the unrelieved overcast except that it sounded like a heavy bomber, but not a modern one: an air-shaking piston-engined roar like who ordered the Flying Fortress, which were not to my knowledge even tested at the base. It suggested lost psychogeography and worried me.

Japanese Breakfast's "Picture Window" (2025) came around again on WERS as I was driving this afternoon. The line about ghosts and home keeps resonating beyond the pedal steel guitar.

I see we will be celebrating the Fourth of July out of spite this year. So go other holidays. Af tselokhes, John.