Captain America #380
Jul. 16th, 2025 12:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iamrman posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
scans_dailyWriter: Mark Gruenwald
Pencils: Ron Lim
Inks: Danny Bulanadi
The Serpent Society puts Diamondback on trial for consorting with the enemy.
( Read more... )
iamrman posting in scans_daily
(no subject)
Jul. 16th, 2025 07:40 pmthawreckaRead:
A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon, translated by Anton Hur - A women in her late 20s with massive credit card debt discovers that she's a magical girl. The magical girls have a union! They're very concerned about climate change! There are illustrations with each chapter! This is interesting and fun, but slight, but mostly what it made me think about is translation audiences and assumptions made for those audiences. As in, who is the assumed audience and what do we assume they know about a place/a language? What do we assume can go transliterated rather than translated? I'm often thinking about that, because I read books and watch things translated from so many languages, and for different audiences, and they all seem to come with different sets of assumptions. This one transliterated rather than translated: 'unni' (it means older sister/girl who is slightly older than the speaker, right?), 'noraebang' (I had to google this and it seems to mean kbox). I watch the occasional Korean thing, but I wouldn't say I have a particular cultural competence there; I do feel this is more on the side of the assumption that a general audience will know what these things mean, because Korean stuff is so mainstream in English-speaking culture now, the same way someone translating a French novel might assume any random would know what 'monsieur' means.
My other main thought is that Ah Roa and the main character should kiss.
Watched:
Three episodes of Cinderella Closet, a very silly Jdrama on Netflix. A young woman (Haruka) moves to Tokyo, bumps into a very pretty crossdresser (Hikaru), and befriends him and asks for his help to glam up for a date with her coworker, but Hikaru is maybe also interested in Haruka... This has standard Jdrama overacting and is definitely not good, but it is 100% my kind of garbage. Seems like it's based on a manga, which I haven't read. Hikaru is indeed very glam, and I like his outfits.
Two episodes of The Summer Hikaru Died on Netflix. This is AMAZING! Eldritch horror romance! Flirting with the monster who has taken the form of the friend you have unspoken feelings for! The horror of day to day life in a small town! The raw chicken, I'm shrieking.
This is so unsettling, and so beautifully animated. The flash cuts and sound design combine so well to capture the horror of whatever Hikaru is, but also the daily horrors Yoshiki experiences of uncomfortable interactions, and the horrors of adolescence, and the horrors of having that first intense crush with desire you don't know how to deal with. And also in a weird way, the horror of being a monster. The scene with the arm (how should I describe that?? supernatural fisting??) in episode 2 is spectacular.
A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon, translated by Anton Hur - A women in her late 20s with massive credit card debt discovers that she's a magical girl. The magical girls have a union! They're very concerned about climate change! There are illustrations with each chapter! This is interesting and fun, but slight, but mostly what it made me think about is translation audiences and assumptions made for those audiences. As in, who is the assumed audience and what do we assume they know about a place/a language? What do we assume can go transliterated rather than translated? I'm often thinking about that, because I read books and watch things translated from so many languages, and for different audiences, and they all seem to come with different sets of assumptions. This one transliterated rather than translated: 'unni' (it means older sister/girl who is slightly older than the speaker, right?), 'noraebang' (I had to google this and it seems to mean kbox). I watch the occasional Korean thing, but I wouldn't say I have a particular cultural competence there; I do feel this is more on the side of the assumption that a general audience will know what these things mean, because Korean stuff is so mainstream in English-speaking culture now, the same way someone translating a French novel might assume any random would know what 'monsieur' means.
My other main thought is that Ah Roa and the main character should kiss.
Watched:
Three episodes of Cinderella Closet, a very silly Jdrama on Netflix. A young woman (Haruka) moves to Tokyo, bumps into a very pretty crossdresser (Hikaru), and befriends him and asks for his help to glam up for a date with her coworker, but Hikaru is maybe also interested in Haruka... This has standard Jdrama overacting and is definitely not good, but it is 100% my kind of garbage. Seems like it's based on a manga, which I haven't read. Hikaru is indeed very glam, and I like his outfits.
Two episodes of The Summer Hikaru Died on Netflix. This is AMAZING! Eldritch horror romance! Flirting with the monster who has taken the form of the friend you have unspoken feelings for! The horror of day to day life in a small town! The raw chicken, I'm shrieking.
This is so unsettling, and so beautifully animated. The flash cuts and sound design combine so well to capture the horror of whatever Hikaru is, but also the daily horrors Yoshiki experiences of uncomfortable interactions, and the horrors of adolescence, and the horrors of having that first intense crush with desire you don't know how to deal with. And also in a weird way, the horror of being a monster. The scene with the arm (how should I describe that?? supernatural fisting??) in episode 2 is spectacular.
Blue Beetle #15
Jul. 16th, 2025 10:30 amiamrman posting in scans_dailyWriter: Len Wein
Pencils: Ross Andru
Inks: Dell Barras
Blue Beetle fights a crazed archaeologist that has stolen one of his uncle's inventions.
( Read more... )
Two Brief Murderbot thoughts
Jul. 15th, 2025 10:16 pmmuccamukkThat I haven't seen anyone else mention.
ONE.
I like that they cast an older actor. AS is closing in on 50, and it might be a Hollywood 50, but he looks like he's seen some miles along the road. It makes things hit different than if they'd cast a thirty year old who looked like they just hatched. I know they compressed the timespan in the show, but in the book it'd been something in the range of four years between when it disabled its governor module and the start of All Systems Red, plus however long it'd been enslaved before that, which it doesn't even really remember. Which I think is better represented by someone with some lines around their eyes.
TWO.
Nenya speculated about if they were going to do the later books (and I think they'll do three seasons to cover the first four novellas, combining Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol into the second season, and then call it a day), and if so, if we'd see the ship from System Collapse. I'd been thinking that, actually, ( mild spoiler for System Collapse )
ONE.
I like that they cast an older actor. AS is closing in on 50, and it might be a Hollywood 50, but he looks like he's seen some miles along the road. It makes things hit different than if they'd cast a thirty year old who looked like they just hatched. I know they compressed the timespan in the show, but in the book it'd been something in the range of four years between when it disabled its governor module and the start of All Systems Red, plus however long it'd been enslaved before that, which it doesn't even really remember. Which I think is better represented by someone with some lines around their eyes.
TWO.
Nenya speculated about if they were going to do the later books (and I think they'll do three seasons to cover the first four novellas, combining Artificial Condition and Rogue Protocol into the second season, and then call it a day), and if so, if we'd see the ship from System Collapse. I'd been thinking that, actually, ( mild spoiler for System Collapse )
Good News
Jul. 16th, 2025 12:01 amysabetwordsmithGood news includes all the things which make us happy or otherwise feel good. It can be personal or public. We never know when something wonderful will happen, and when it does, most people want to share it with someone. It's disappointing when nobody is there to appreciate it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our joys and pat each other on the back.
What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?
What good news have you had recently? Are you anticipating any more? Have you found a cute picture or a video that makes you smile? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your life a little happier?
Daily Happiness
Jul. 15th, 2025 09:18 pmtorachan1. I had two meetings today but both went quicker than I thought they would.
2. The guys are coming to fix the back door tomorrow (they got the part in that they needed to order), so I decided to take the day off and then we can go to Disneyland afterwards for lunch or dinner.
3. Gemma is very put out at being interrupted.
2. The guys are coming to fix the back door tomorrow (they got the part in that they needed to order), so I decided to take the day off and then we can go to Disneyland afterwards for lunch or dinner.
3. Gemma is very put out at being interrupted.
Poem: "In Effigy"
Jul. 15th, 2025 10:33 pmysabetwordsmithThis is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "defenestration" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series Frankenstein's Family. It follows "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" so read that first or this won't make much sense.
( Read more... )
dialecticdreamer. It also fills the "defenestration" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem belongs to the series Frankenstein's Family. It follows "Incompetence, Sloppy Thinking, and Laziness" so read that first or this won't make much sense.( Read more... )
Me-and-media update
Jul. 16th, 2025 03:16 pmchina_shopPrevious poll review
In the Companions poll, the emotionally unavailable alley cat and the trivia-obsessed fennec fox came first equal with 42.1% each, followed by the stoic capybara with 35.1%. Hugs won the ticky-boxes with 66.7%, followed by frittered-away time with 38.6%. Thank you for your votes!
Reading
Audio: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, read by Arian Moayed. Full of cultural specificity and lots of wonderful observations about humanity in general, and art, and death. More emotion-driven and theme-driven than plotty. Beautifully written. So good!
Audio: Swordcrossed by Freya Marske, read by Omari Douglas. I just finished this, and oh my goodness, it mashed all my buttons! It's a light, secondary world, urban-historical m/m romance with guild politics and secrets, swordplay and skulduggery, and people being messed up by their rich guild-house families. I hereby declare (for myself, at least) a sub-category of enemies-to-lovers that is "playful-enemies to lovers". You know, when there are compelling reasons not to trust each other, but they like each other enough that they can't help teasing, admiring, and developing inconvenient loyalties, despite the suspicion. (There are tons of other examples, and I would like to read some more of them. In fact, the Guardian drama falls squarely in this category, as does White Collar a lot of the time.) The two leads of Swordcrossed clicked so well -- I laughed out loud at the banter, and again, often, in sheer delight.
There was one thing it did particularly well, for the main pairing, that I'm still emotionally and analytically rolling around in. I think it's quite hard to show people falling in love: I've seen it done via one character obsessing about the other's secondary sex characteristics, which I don't find convincing or interesting. Or sometimes an author has a character notice how good-looking the other is, and from that, the reader is supposed to intuit attraction and emotional curiosity/investment -- but it's never quite clear to me if the "good-lookingness" is subjective or objective, and there are plenty of objectively good-looking people that I don't want to even be in the same room as. Other times, what we're shown is physical attraction as a stand-in for emotional connection, followed by kisses and/or sex as a stand-in for a lot of things. (I've done all of these, of course; fandom is particularly rife with all of this because most of the time a fic author and their readers go into the story pre-invested in the ship.) Anyway, in Swordcrossed, Marske teased all these layers out by having the couple acknowledge their attraction and start an intense "casual" thing with an expiry date, semi-independently of catching feelings. The development of loyalties and being on the same side (in cahoots!), and the delicately depicted tenderness, understanding and mutual care were wonderful precisely because they weren't implied just by sexual attraction, and because it was the feelings, not the sex, that disrupted the characters' plans. It was delicious. (Perhaps I just need to read more fuckbuddies-to-lovers, with a side-order of people-in-denial-in-love, lol.)
tl;dr I found the "falling in love" part very satisfying, and it's making me think about how I might be able to do that better in my own writing. In terms of the audiobook, Douglas's narration was fantastic and very hot for the sex scenes. A++++ (And for people who've already read Swordcrossed, there's an excellent 18k fanfic for a background pairing by ![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
marquis, which works as a supplement to fill in some gaps.) (How is there not more than one other fic for this book, though? I went to AO3 expecting a "Red White & Royal Blue"-sized fandom.)
Audio: I'm two chapters into Meditations for Mortals: Four weeks to enhance your limitations and make time for what counts, written and narrated by Oliver Burkeman, and approaching it, as recommended, one chapter per day for now (though I'm not sure my limitations need enhancement).
Ebook: I'm sort of dithering between The Black Cauldron and getting back to Werecockroach, and consequently not reading anything... and now I've opened The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing for a re-read, but not actually started that either. Also, Guardian -- we're in the home stretch.
Paper: Having reached the end of my third and last library loan renewal period, I finally sat down and read No Rules Tonight by Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada in about two and a half hours. It's a graphic novel about a university traditional-dance club going on an overnight hiking trip in 1980s Korea. The military regime is a constant looming presence, but it's gently funny and sweet as well as eye-opening. I really appreciate how this and Banned Book Club, by the same authors, depict life, friendship, and resistance under authoritarianism. Also, it made me want to try Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, one of the banned books mentioned.
Btw, does anyone else remember![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obsessive24 and her amazing fanvids? Looks like she has a queer fantasy trilogy coming out soon.
Kdramas
I finished My Dearest Nemesis and loved it; an adorable depiction of whole-hearted fannishness and the search for love and acceptance. Am now an episode into First Night with the Duke and still in that "not yet hooked, but willing to be" state of quantum uncertainty. I've also randomly picked up my abandoned rewatch of the Cdrama noona romance, Nothing But Love. (This is a rewatch I started with my late friend J, way back when; he bounced off it because he hated all the male characters.)
Other TV
Finished Murderbot, Poker Face and Étoile, which I enjoyed in that (descending) order.
That said, I loved Mishi and Cheyenne's mother, and I liked Geneviève. Cheyenne was funny some of the time, and I enjoyed her sojourn in the cemetery with her mother (despite it literally not going anywhere), and Geneviève's advice to her about The Slip. And I liked Tobias' breakup.
tl;dr: I should have stuck with the gifset.
More Fringe with my sister. The cases of the week are more interesting than the season arc to the point that we both forgot, in a ten-minute break between episodes, that Olivia was kidnapped.
The Secret Genius of Modern Life with Hannah Fry s02e01, which was fun like always, but with disturbing "look how effective surveillance is" undertones.
And a whole bunch of Bluey, the kids' cartoon, which is omg so adorable and funny. I'm not even into kidfic, and I love it!
Guardian/Fandom
Guardian!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Also,mific and I are working on an intentionally Dreamwidth-specific comm for people to post or link to meta discussions about writing. Watch this space.
Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, random episodes of Letters from an American, Midnight Burger, possibly some other things but I'm having technical problems with Pocket Casts atm. (The app controls are obscured by the phone controls, as if the app thinks my screen is bigger than it is; anyone else having this problem?)
Films
Jurassic World: Rebirth -- this was such silly fun. I'm pretty sure the bad guy was built from a template, but the dinosaurs were wonderful. Favourite part:
Writing/making things
The glittering ice sculpture of my oomph has become a puddle. Anyway, this was my entry for the Science round offan_flashworks:
Life/health/mental state things
The weeks are flicking past at a frightening rate. I'm constantly in a state of "is this just my baseline sore throat, or am I coming down with something?" Note to self: that online Harvard course you signed up for? Do it.
Cats
Cure for ongoing minor cat health niggles: book a vet appointment for later in the week. Within two days she was fine, and I cancelled the appointment.
Korean
I randomly listened to a TTMIK episode (the texting vs phonecalls one) and understood maybe 10% of it? That's not nothing. (Aside: Hyunwoo's theory of why young people take phonecalls on speaker is that the young people were all on FaceTime as babies, so they didn't acquire the "hold phone to ear" habit. I was pleased with myself for catching that, then realised he'd reiterated it in English. ;-p)
Food
My sister brought me a packet of Selena Gomez Oreos, for the laughs; I'm pretty sure those were my first oreos ever. (Selena is mildly cinnamon-flavoured, if you were wondering.) | I made lemon honey last week (10/7/25); I always go through a few rounds of buying lemons and not getting started before they go a bit squishy, but in the end, it never takes as long to make as I think it will. | Also made enchiladas, including the sauce, and a no-recipe beef casserole. Yesterday I made pumpkin and kumara soup. I have plans to try lemon chicken (viaautodach) and to make no-recipe risotto this week. It's hard to fathom that a few years ago I rarely cooked.
Good things
Sunshine! Audiobooks with great narrators. Kids' cartoons. Ginger in everything. Fandom and Guardian. Writing (*presses face against the shop window*). Washing on the line. Dreamwidth.
In the Companions poll, the emotionally unavailable alley cat and the trivia-obsessed fennec fox came first equal with 42.1% each, followed by the stoic capybara with 35.1%. Hugs won the ticky-boxes with 66.7%, followed by frittered-away time with 38.6%. Thank you for your votes!
Reading
Audio: Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, read by Arian Moayed. Full of cultural specificity and lots of wonderful observations about humanity in general, and art, and death. More emotion-driven and theme-driven than plotty. Beautifully written. So good!
Audio: Swordcrossed by Freya Marske, read by Omari Douglas. I just finished this, and oh my goodness, it mashed all my buttons! It's a light, secondary world, urban-historical m/m romance with guild politics and secrets, swordplay and skulduggery, and people being messed up by their rich guild-house families. I hereby declare (for myself, at least) a sub-category of enemies-to-lovers that is "playful-enemies to lovers". You know, when there are compelling reasons not to trust each other, but they like each other enough that they can't help teasing, admiring, and developing inconvenient loyalties, despite the suspicion. (There are tons of other examples, and I would like to read some more of them. In fact, the Guardian drama falls squarely in this category, as does White Collar a lot of the time.) The two leads of Swordcrossed clicked so well -- I laughed out loud at the banter, and again, often, in sheer delight.
Thoughts about depictions of falling in love in fiction.
There was one thing it did particularly well, for the main pairing, that I'm still emotionally and analytically rolling around in. I think it's quite hard to show people falling in love: I've seen it done via one character obsessing about the other's secondary sex characteristics, which I don't find convincing or interesting. Or sometimes an author has a character notice how good-looking the other is, and from that, the reader is supposed to intuit attraction and emotional curiosity/investment -- but it's never quite clear to me if the "good-lookingness" is subjective or objective, and there are plenty of objectively good-looking people that I don't want to even be in the same room as. Other times, what we're shown is physical attraction as a stand-in for emotional connection, followed by kisses and/or sex as a stand-in for a lot of things. (I've done all of these, of course; fandom is particularly rife with all of this because most of the time a fic author and their readers go into the story pre-invested in the ship.) Anyway, in Swordcrossed, Marske teased all these layers out by having the couple acknowledge their attraction and start an intense "casual" thing with an expiry date, semi-independently of catching feelings. The development of loyalties and being on the same side (in cahoots!), and the delicately depicted tenderness, understanding and mutual care were wonderful precisely because they weren't implied just by sexual attraction, and because it was the feelings, not the sex, that disrupted the characters' plans. It was delicious. (Perhaps I just need to read more fuckbuddies-to-lovers, with a side-order of people-in-denial-in-love, lol.)
tl;dr I found the "falling in love" part very satisfying, and it's making me think about how I might be able to do that better in my own writing.
Audio: I'm two chapters into Meditations for Mortals: Four weeks to enhance your limitations and make time for what counts, written and narrated by Oliver Burkeman, and approaching it, as recommended, one chapter per day for now (though I'm not sure my limitations need enhancement).
Ebook: I'm sort of dithering between The Black Cauldron and getting back to Werecockroach, and consequently not reading anything... and now I've opened The Sleepwalker's Guide to Dancing for a re-read, but not actually started that either. Also, Guardian -- we're in the home stretch.
Paper: Having reached the end of my third and last library loan renewal period, I finally sat down and read No Rules Tonight by Hyun Sook Kim and Ryan Estrada in about two and a half hours. It's a graphic novel about a university traditional-dance club going on an overnight hiking trip in 1980s Korea. The military regime is a constant looming presence, but it's gently funny and sweet as well as eye-opening. I really appreciate how this and Banned Book Club, by the same authors, depict life, friendship, and resistance under authoritarianism. Also, it made me want to try Erich Fromm's The Art of Loving, one of the banned books mentioned.
Btw, does anyone else remember
obsessive24 and her amazing fanvids? Looks like she has a queer fantasy trilogy coming out soon. Kdramas
I finished My Dearest Nemesis and loved it; an adorable depiction of whole-hearted fannishness and the search for love and acceptance. Am now an episode into First Night with the Duke and still in that "not yet hooked, but willing to be" state of quantum uncertainty. I've also randomly picked up my abandoned rewatch of the Cdrama noona romance, Nothing But Love. (This is a rewatch I started with my late friend J, way back when; he bounced off it because he hated all the male characters.)
Other TV
Finished Murderbot, Poker Face and Étoile, which I enjoyed in that (descending) order.
Just me grumbling about Étoile; please skip if you love it!
My deep loathing of Crispin overshadowed a lot of my enjoyment; they kept making him quirky, and I was worried they might try to redeem him. And lo, by the end, Jack was turning to him for advice, wtf??? I don't super enjoy incompetent management (Jack seemed to have no idea what he was doing most of the time; who hired him?) or artistic people being assholes (Tobias, sit down and let the dancers do their jobs!). Mostly, though, my problem was Amy Sherman-Palladino's tendency to let her characters chat endlessly with no story or drive; the party episode was very rambly. I thought she'd got better with Mrs. Maisel, but this was (fittingly, I guess) more like Bunheads, just on a grander scale.That said, I loved Mishi and Cheyenne's mother, and I liked Geneviève. Cheyenne was funny some of the time, and I enjoyed her sojourn in the cemetery with her mother (despite it literally not going anywhere), and Geneviève's advice to her about The Slip. And I liked Tobias' breakup.
tl;dr: I should have stuck with the gifset.
More Fringe with my sister. The cases of the week are more interesting than the season arc to the point that we both forgot, in a ten-minute break between episodes, that Olivia was kidnapped.
The Secret Genius of Modern Life with Hannah Fry s02e01, which was fun like always, but with disturbing "look how effective surveillance is" undertones.
And a whole bunch of Bluey, the kids' cartoon, which is omg so adorable and funny. I'm not even into kidfic, and I love it!
Guardian/Fandom
Guardian!!! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3
Also,
mific and I are working on an intentionally Dreamwidth-specific comm for people to post or link to meta discussions about writing. Watch this space.Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses, random episodes of Letters from an American, Midnight Burger, possibly some other things but I'm having technical problems with Pocket Casts atm. (The app controls are obscured by the phone controls, as if the app thinks my screen is bigger than it is; anyone else having this problem?)
Films
Jurassic World: Rebirth -- this was such silly fun. I'm pretty sure the bad guy was built from a template, but the dinosaurs were wonderful. Favourite part:
spoiler
the dozing T-rex -- so tense, yet so funny.Writing/making things
The glittering ice sculpture of my oomph has become a puddle. Anyway, this was my entry for the Science round of
fan_flashworks:Title: Winging It (600 words) [General Audiences]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Characters: Ya Qing, Lin Jing, Zhao Yunlan, Zhu Hong, Original Yashou character, Da Qing
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Yashou Renewal, Education, A New Era for the SID, Kidfic, Drabble Sequence
Summary: The Crows need a science tutor.
Life/health/mental state things
The weeks are flicking past at a frightening rate. I'm constantly in a state of "is this just my baseline sore throat, or am I coming down with something?" Note to self: that online Harvard course you signed up for? Do it.
Cats
Cure for ongoing minor cat health niggles: book a vet appointment for later in the week. Within two days she was fine, and I cancelled the appointment.
Korean
I randomly listened to a TTMIK episode (the texting vs phonecalls one) and understood maybe 10% of it? That's not nothing. (Aside: Hyunwoo's theory of why young people take phonecalls on speaker is that the young people were all on FaceTime as babies, so they didn't acquire the "hold phone to ear" habit. I was pleased with myself for catching that, then realised he'd reiterated it in English. ;-p)
Food
My sister brought me a packet of Selena Gomez Oreos, for the laughs; I'm pretty sure those were my first oreos ever. (Selena is mildly cinnamon-flavoured, if you were wondering.) | I made lemon honey last week (10/7/25); I always go through a few rounds of buying lemons and not getting started before they go a bit squishy, but in the end, it never takes as long to make as I think it will. | Also made enchiladas, including the sauce, and a no-recipe beef casserole. Yesterday I made pumpkin and kumara soup. I have plans to try lemon chicken (via
autodach) and to make no-recipe risotto this week. It's hard to fathom that a few years ago I rarely cooked.Good things
Sunshine! Audiobooks with great narrators. Kids' cartoons. Ginger in everything. Fandom and Guardian. Writing (*presses face against the shop window*). Washing on the line. Dreamwidth.
Poll #33363 Retribution
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 14
The best revenge
View Answers
is living well
9 (64.3%)
is sweet
0 (0.0%)
is served cold
3 (21.4%)
requires two graves
3 (21.4%)
leaves everybody blind
1 (7.1%)
other
0 (0.0%)
ticky-box full of writing theory
5 (35.7%)
ticky-box full of brain being empty, but not in a meditation way
4 (28.6%)
ticky-box full of dabbling your toes in a tray of soft, cool, shimmery sand
5 (35.7%)
ticky-box full of the ancient language of shadows and flight
8 (57.1%)
ticky-box full of hugs
8 (57.1%)
I lost some wisdom today
Jul. 15th, 2025 09:36 pmcornerofmadnessMy wisdom tooth (upper left) shattered. I have all 4 of mine (the bottom two are too entwined with nerves to pull them and I have a big mouth where the wisdom teeth fit comfortably) Had to run to Aspen Dental (one of those big chain revolving door places) because there are shards of tooth wiggling around in there like I'm 8.
Long story short (after way too many x-rays) not only is this tooth shattered, it might also be abscessed and all of this might have been the trigger for the trigeminal neuralgia for the least 8 months. And two crowns are bad (one I knew was, I had been planning to have it fixed this fall) and both eye teeth have cavities. Well fun. I can hear Aspen going ca-ching as they add this up. I tell them no, JUST the broken tooth please and yeah gimme my x-rays. I'm only going to be here two more weeks (lie but they don't need to know) I'll have my dentist look it over.
They'll pull the tooth tomorrow (and now it's starting to hurt) And through out all of this, my Dexcom is screaming. So I had to stop the dental exam twice to get sugar pills because yesterday I was too high to read. today I'm at a critical low, so low the DexCom can only say URGENT critical low. FFS!
The stupid thing is I've been chewing on the right for a long time now thanks to the nerve pain, no issues. Today because the tooth is broken every bite I take I nail my left cheek. WHY?
I go from here to CVS to get meds. They've lost my insulins. Took 15 minutes to find them. FFS (again)
Speaking of FFS, I'm pausing the women of fandom today to talk about a few things that fans can just stop doing.
1. I MISS the Prodigal Son fandom, I don't know what it was, maybe we were all older or something but there was a lot less drama in that fandom (notice I didn't say none)
2. I've said this so many times before harassing creators is wrong. Harassing them to go faster serves no one. Harassing them because they're upset over their show being leaked makes you an ass
3. stop giving a market to the people who steal shows (Hazbin has been leaked for S2 AND S3)
4. back to harassing, it's one thing to critique a show among your friends or even doing meta and posting it and there is another to keep putting it in the creator's face telling them how badly they're doing.
5. faking creators/actors saying awful things to prove whatever random point you have is probably illegal (This time it was Amir Talai again because someone is mad Alastor is being voiced by a cis het middle eastern man and not an ace biracial one and someone faked a bunch of stuff with Amir being homophobic and then is punching out at other fans exposing this campaign of theirs)
6. Burn out is real, if a fan creator needs a break, let them have it (and it's sad that YT and other social media algorithms really force creators to the breaking point)
7. Tags are a thing. USE. THEM! I say this as an old fan creator. I started with paper zines, to yahoo groups and web rings to small websites to FFN to AO3 and beyond. Until AO3 you really didn't/couldn't do content warnings. I admit it, I was slow to learn to tag correctly (but to be fair it's not too often I do things that might be triggering and the major AO3 tags already warn for that). During Prodigal Son, younger fans laughed at me (good naturedly) because I tagged like an old woman.
I still kinda do but I've gotten much better but ffs, if you are writing your trans/intersex/genderflipped head canon, TAG IT. Tag your freaking incest fic. Etc Etc. Look I don't care what you write. Not here to police that. I am here imploring you to give the reader a heads up now that we have systems that make it easy to do that.
When I was back home I got to print a few things at work since there is no secretary right now (shhhhh) one story was LONG by a creator I do like. It was smutty (eh, actually not even my favorite thing to read) but it was also intersexed Angel Dust (I think. I couldn't quite tell, either that or trans man Angel) I do not personally want to read non-canon genders, don't care if you write them but I fell for a character the way they are in canon and that's my preference. I thought maybe it's on you. You didn't read the tags well. Reread it, nope no tags mentioning changing Angel's gender (and there is TONS of about his clit and folds in this over and over, I didn't think also this was going to be 80 pages of nothing but sex but what can you do.
We have the ability to warn readers we're making major changes to characters. Do it (I think some people don't want to because they think people will ignore their story. Yeah, maybe but man do you really want someone who is going to be way more upset than me reading something they get triggered by or don't want to read?)
Long story short (after way too many x-rays) not only is this tooth shattered, it might also be abscessed and all of this might have been the trigger for the trigeminal neuralgia for the least 8 months. And two crowns are bad (one I knew was, I had been planning to have it fixed this fall) and both eye teeth have cavities. Well fun. I can hear Aspen going ca-ching as they add this up. I tell them no, JUST the broken tooth please and yeah gimme my x-rays. I'm only going to be here two more weeks (lie but they don't need to know) I'll have my dentist look it over.
They'll pull the tooth tomorrow (and now it's starting to hurt) And through out all of this, my Dexcom is screaming. So I had to stop the dental exam twice to get sugar pills because yesterday I was too high to read. today I'm at a critical low, so low the DexCom can only say URGENT critical low. FFS!
The stupid thing is I've been chewing on the right for a long time now thanks to the nerve pain, no issues. Today because the tooth is broken every bite I take I nail my left cheek. WHY?
I go from here to CVS to get meds. They've lost my insulins. Took 15 minutes to find them. FFS (again)
Speaking of FFS, I'm pausing the women of fandom today to talk about a few things that fans can just stop doing.
1. I MISS the Prodigal Son fandom, I don't know what it was, maybe we were all older or something but there was a lot less drama in that fandom (notice I didn't say none)
2. I've said this so many times before harassing creators is wrong. Harassing them to go faster serves no one. Harassing them because they're upset over their show being leaked makes you an ass
3. stop giving a market to the people who steal shows (Hazbin has been leaked for S2 AND S3)
4. back to harassing, it's one thing to critique a show among your friends or even doing meta and posting it and there is another to keep putting it in the creator's face telling them how badly they're doing.
5. faking creators/actors saying awful things to prove whatever random point you have is probably illegal (This time it was Amir Talai again because someone is mad Alastor is being voiced by a cis het middle eastern man and not an ace biracial one and someone faked a bunch of stuff with Amir being homophobic and then is punching out at other fans exposing this campaign of theirs)
6. Burn out is real, if a fan creator needs a break, let them have it (and it's sad that YT and other social media algorithms really force creators to the breaking point)
7. Tags are a thing. USE. THEM! I say this as an old fan creator. I started with paper zines, to yahoo groups and web rings to small websites to FFN to AO3 and beyond. Until AO3 you really didn't/couldn't do content warnings. I admit it, I was slow to learn to tag correctly (but to be fair it's not too often I do things that might be triggering and the major AO3 tags already warn for that). During Prodigal Son, younger fans laughed at me (good naturedly) because I tagged like an old woman.
I still kinda do but I've gotten much better but ffs, if you are writing your trans/intersex/genderflipped head canon, TAG IT. Tag your freaking incest fic. Etc Etc. Look I don't care what you write. Not here to police that. I am here imploring you to give the reader a heads up now that we have systems that make it easy to do that.
When I was back home I got to print a few things at work since there is no secretary right now (shhhhh) one story was LONG by a creator I do like. It was smutty (eh, actually not even my favorite thing to read) but it was also intersexed Angel Dust (I think. I couldn't quite tell, either that or trans man Angel) I do not personally want to read non-canon genders, don't care if you write them but I fell for a character the way they are in canon and that's my preference. I thought maybe it's on you. You didn't read the tags well. Reread it, nope no tags mentioning changing Angel's gender (and there is TONS of about his clit and folds in this over and over, I didn't think also this was going to be 80 pages of nothing but sex but what can you do.
We have the ability to warn readers we're making major changes to characters. Do it (I think some people don't want to because they think people will ignore their story. Yeah, maybe but man do you really want someone who is going to be way more upset than me reading something they get triggered by or don't want to read?)
(no subject)
Jul. 15th, 2025 08:39 pmshadarasMmm an assortment of thoughts from the last like... week or two...
1.
KPop Demon Hunters (an animated netflix movie) was better than I had any expectation it would be, by which I mostly mean it made me cry. Lots of fun, solid music, you do not actually need to know much about kpop beyond "it has idol culture" in order to enjoy it.
2.
I have a mosquito bite on my left arm right under where my watch sits and it only itches when I forget it's there and start itching it by accident. If I remember it's there I can ignore it and it doesn't itch.
3.
At weapons class this past weekend, it was just me and sensei, and then nobody showed up for test prep so we just... kept going. xD It was fun! It's... weird, sort of, how much better I perform the kata we're working on than sensei does? Some of it is that she spends more time watching and teaching than practicing, but some of it is that this kata requires aggression and intent, which sensei just... doesn't want to focus on in her practice right now? idk.
She told me, at the end, that I'm a good teacher and that she looks forward to whenever I decide I'm gonna start taking on a teaching slot at the dojo instead of simply being a substitute.
4.
Sometimes (most of the time) I forget that I get migraines and then I get hit by one and am like "why does the world suck?" and then go "ohhhhh" when I figure it out. This is not helped by how, right now, it's hot out and the physical experience of migraines, dehydration, and overheating are all... okay not precisely the same but highly overlapping insofar as how I experience them.
5.
I have successfully begun incepting myself into plotting out an origfic novel whilehafnia goes "oh good it's your turn :3" at me. Probably this will time out for me wanting to start actually writing it in like two months. xD
6.
battleshipex has begun in earnest and, uh, the team I'm on is just going "WOW YES CREATE EVERYTHING YAY" and charging forth with zero strategy beyond the love of MAKING STUFF. I enjoy this deeply and also this is the first year of battleship where work has made me busy enough to not be able to throw myself in full-force. I'm still playing, still making stuff, but way slower. <3 That's fine, I'm having fun, and it's kind of nice to not be so completely consumed.
7.
For my birthday last week, my dojomates threw me around an appropriate number of times. (Birthday throws are: a minimum of your age, plus however many it takes to get to a number evenly divisible by the people present to throw you.) This meant I went hard enough and fast enough that I was, at the end, like "ah, yes, I can still drive myself to the edge of an asthma attack if I try". Good to know. Also good to know that I can push exactly to the edge without going over!
8.
At work today it was the rare day when I was in a QUIET area and working ALONE and so could actually listen to podcasts??? wild. very different vibe than listening to music that I only half-hear over noise!
1.
KPop Demon Hunters (an animated netflix movie) was better than I had any expectation it would be, by which I mostly mean it made me cry. Lots of fun, solid music, you do not actually need to know much about kpop beyond "it has idol culture" in order to enjoy it.
2.
I have a mosquito bite on my left arm right under where my watch sits and it only itches when I forget it's there and start itching it by accident. If I remember it's there I can ignore it and it doesn't itch.
3.
At weapons class this past weekend, it was just me and sensei, and then nobody showed up for test prep so we just... kept going. xD It was fun! It's... weird, sort of, how much better I perform the kata we're working on than sensei does? Some of it is that she spends more time watching and teaching than practicing, but some of it is that this kata requires aggression and intent, which sensei just... doesn't want to focus on in her practice right now? idk.
She told me, at the end, that I'm a good teacher and that she looks forward to whenever I decide I'm gonna start taking on a teaching slot at the dojo instead of simply being a substitute.
4.
Sometimes (most of the time) I forget that I get migraines and then I get hit by one and am like "why does the world suck?" and then go "ohhhhh" when I figure it out. This is not helped by how, right now, it's hot out and the physical experience of migraines, dehydration, and overheating are all... okay not precisely the same but highly overlapping insofar as how I experience them.
5.
I have successfully begun incepting myself into plotting out an origfic novel while
hafnia goes "oh good it's your turn :3" at me. Probably this will time out for me wanting to start actually writing it in like two months. xD6.
battleshipex has begun in earnest and, uh, the team I'm on is just going "WOW YES CREATE EVERYTHING YAY" and charging forth with zero strategy beyond the love of MAKING STUFF. I enjoy this deeply and also this is the first year of battleship where work has made me busy enough to not be able to throw myself in full-force. I'm still playing, still making stuff, but way slower. <3 That's fine, I'm having fun, and it's kind of nice to not be so completely consumed.7.
For my birthday last week, my dojomates threw me around an appropriate number of times. (Birthday throws are: a minimum of your age, plus however many it takes to get to a number evenly divisible by the people present to throw you.) This meant I went hard enough and fast enough that I was, at the end, like "ah, yes, I can still drive myself to the edge of an asthma attack if I try". Good to know. Also good to know that I can push exactly to the edge without going over!
8.
At work today it was the rare day when I was in a QUIET area and working ALONE and so could actually listen to podcasts??? wild. very different vibe than listening to music that I only half-hear over noise!
Book review: "The Once and Future Witches" by Alix Harrow
Jul. 15th, 2025 05:39 pmrocky41_7 posting in booknookTitle: The Once and Future Witches
Author: Alix Harrow
Author: Alix Harrow
Genre: Fantasy/historical fiction
On Monday I finished The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow, about a trio of sisters in the American city of "New Salem" in Massachusetts in 1893 who take it upon themselves to revive witches' magic.
On Monday I finished The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow, about a trio of sisters in the American city of "New Salem" in Massachusetts in 1893 who take it upon themselves to revive witches' magic.
The Once and Future Witches dovetails historically with the movement for women's suffrage, creating some parallels between seeking the right to the vote and seeking the right to practice magic. I would have liked to have seen this carried more through the latter half of the novel, but I suppose I can see why it wasn't, particularly given it would be another nearly thirty years before the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The suffragettes played a long game.
The core focus of the novel is sisterhood, both blood and otherwise. Harrow presents a beautifully wounded and layered portrait of siblinghood in the relationship between the three protagonists: Bella, the oldest; Agnes, the middle child; and Juniper, the youngest. Raised without a mother (she passed birthing Juniper) under the thumb of their abusive and alcoholic father in rural poverty, all three girls learned early on what they would do to ensure their own survival. And while there is great love between them, there is also great hurt, and by the start of the book, the three are not on speaking terms. Harrow did a great job with the complexity here, and watching their relationships develop and begin to heal was very enjoyable.
( Read more... )
[Discussion] Philosophy books you think are worth reading
Jul. 15th, 2025 08:09 pmzenigotchas posting in booknookThis has been on my mind for a while since I've been slowly nibbling away at Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good And Evil over the present 3 months. I'm on the last chapter and have enjoyed it way more than I expected to, even if I think a lot of his conclusions are straight up intellectually or even morally wrong, it is good to see a very different perspective from my own. It has been helping me sharpen my OWN critical thinking skills and my own personal philosophy–Being the philosophy babey that I am, I am not as familiar with the fields of philosophy or how many other good and fun books are in there, but this has been giving me an appetite for this kind of book and to keep exploring.
For those reasons I would definitely say it is worth reading, but mostly because it's so fun.
What philosophy books have YOU utterly devoured or thought were things everyone should try?
For those reasons I would definitely say it is worth reading, but mostly because it's so fun.
What philosophy books have YOU utterly devoured or thought were things everyone should try?
Finished Dr. Stone: Science Future
Jul. 15th, 2025 06:33 pmfennectik posting in anime_mangaSo I caught up with Dr. Stone and made it through the first part of the Science Future ark and it was as expected, fully enjoyable and immersible. I don't think I could ever get bored of this series. Too bad the second part is yet to be available but I am willing to be patient till it is.
And Kohaku is still my favorite.
And Kohaku is still my favorite.
Birdfeeding
Jul. 15th, 2025 02:29 pmysabetwordsmithToday is cloudy and wet.
I was going to feed the birds, but it was raining.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I fed the birds. Not much activity today though.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I potted up three apples fallen from the birdgift tree.
I am done for the night.
I was going to feed the birds, but it was raining.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I fed the birds. Not much activity today though.
I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus a fox squirrel at the hopper feeder.
EDIT 7/15/25 -- I potted up three apples fallen from the birdgift tree.
I am done for the night.
July Challenge: Swinging 40s
Jul. 15th, 2025 02:58 pmgrundyscribbling posting in silwritersguild
The 1940s was a decade of contrasts. It contained humankind's deadliest war and ushered in its biggest baby boom. European powers nursed their war wounds, the United States and Soviet Union rose as superpowers, and the first stirrings of decolonization inspired millions to seek independence and the right to self-governance. All of this occurred as swing music and the first jukeboxes played in the background, and technological advancements brought space travel, the atomic bomb, and Tupperware.
This month's challenge focuses on the decade that both contained the first teen crooners and saw literature and film turn to noir. Prompts come from the 1940s, and you are welcome to choose any from the list below. As usual, you can use any part of the prompt—dig deep into a novel or film or the lyrics of a song if you want, or use the title, book cover, or movie poster—anything goes! We welcome you to combine prompts and interpret them as creatively as your imagination requires.
Thank you to Pages for this month's stamps!
In order to receive a stamp for your fanwork, your response must be posted to the archive on or before 15 August 2025. For complete challenge guidelines, see the Challenges page on our website.