Muse list
I feel like I should have a list at this point. I may apply formatting later I cbf right now.
Entry tags:
Sparkle HSR icons
Currently 28, I may make more later. I needed icons.
( Icons below the cut! Mostly from her trailers )
( Icons below the cut! Mostly from her trailers )
Dear Black Emporium Writer
Likes:
Avexis/Minaeve
Fanfiction
Avexis is such an interesting character--no one else in Thedas seems to have even vaguely similar powers to her. Something using her powers would be interesting. But the main point here is her with Minaeve! Which basically requires that she be transferred to Kinloch Hold for some reason--maybe for anonymity, to keep her away from Maleficar plots in Orlais? Anyway, Avexis and Minaeve in the same circle. There are two main directions for this: Either they're apprentices together and friends and it's fluffy and cute, or it's darkfic where Avexis is made Tranquil (either before or after arriving at the Circle) because her gift is seen as too dangerous--this because of Minaeve's attachment to the Tranquil. Maybe it's because of one specific Tranquil?
Sera/Tallis
Fanfiction
Dagna/Lace Harding
Fanfiction
Lace Harding/Josephine Montilyet
Fanart, Fanfiction
Josie sends Harding flowers! What more do you need to build a ship on? Maybe Harding is shy of Josie because she's so worldly and cultured. Maybe Josie appreciates Harding's straightforwardness. Maybe Harding brings back pretty things she finds on missions for Josie. Maybe Josie ends up as Harding's partner in dancing lessons. Maybe Harding tells Josie about all the places she goes, since Josie dreams of traveling. Regardless, they're cute and they'd be cute together.
Alistair/Female Cousland/Anora Mac Tir
- Angst! Darkfic!
- Kidfic. If you give me something about a ship ending up with a baby somehow - pregnancy, adoption, 'whoops this kid's parents just got killed by bandits and there's no one else around to take it', whatever - I will be delighted. I love stuff about characters parenting.
- Makeouts. Someone being pinned against a wall by their partner for makeouts. (Someone being pinned against a wall by the throat for makeouts.)
- Flirting. Flirting that causes one or both parties to blush. Flirting that is enthusiastically returned in kind.
- Breathplay.
- Smoking, if you're writing/drawing a character that might be the type to smoke. (cough Isabela cough)
- Smut is welcome but not necessary!
DNWs:
- People angsting about being queer. No sexuality crises or homophobia, please.
- Coming out stories.
- Dubcon/noncon for these pairings.
- Embarassment/humiliation. (Blushing, however, more than fine.)
- Drugs/alcohol.
- Setting AUs, especially modern. (Canon divergence AU is fine, just keep it in Thedas and everyone their original species, please.)
Avexis/Minaeve
Fanfiction
Avexis is such an interesting character--no one else in Thedas seems to have even vaguely similar powers to her. Something using her powers would be interesting. But the main point here is her with Minaeve! Which basically requires that she be transferred to Kinloch Hold for some reason--maybe for anonymity, to keep her away from Maleficar plots in Orlais? Anyway, Avexis and Minaeve in the same circle. There are two main directions for this: Either they're apprentices together and friends and it's fluffy and cute, or it's darkfic where Avexis is made Tranquil (either before or after arriving at the Circle) because her gift is seen as too dangerous--this because of Minaeve's attachment to the Tranquil. Maybe it's because of one specific Tranquil?
Hespith/Sigrun, Female Brosca/Hespith, Branka/Hespith
Fanfiction
I love... Hespith. I love her poem and her tragedy. Fanfiction
Branka/Hespith: Something about when things were good for them together, before the expedition? Something bleak about the downward spiral of the damned expedition? "I was her captain, and I did not stop her. Her lover, and I could not turn her. Forgive her... but no, she cannot be forgiven. Not for what she did. Not for what she has become." Horror welcome. Please avoid Oghren.
Hespith/Sigrun or Hespith/F!Brosca: The Joining can save someone who's been infected with the taint! What if Hespith could be recruited into the Wardens instead of dying? Could she ever forgive herself for failing to stop Branka? And learn to trust someone else?
Sera/Tallis
Fanfiction
OKAY JUST LISTEN OKAY. I think this ship has so much potential. They're both super good at getting into and out of places they're not supposed to be, and they both care about helping people, and they could meet accidentally while on various 'jobs', and I think the Qun could appeal to Sera under the right (probably pregame) circumstances - the way Tallis talks about it, somewhere to fit, to know where you belong and the sense of rightness that she's searching for? I think that could appeal to Sera a lot. Not to mention that the Qunari don't have nobles. ALTERNATIVELY, Tallis is clearly struggling with the Qun in Mark Of The Assassin, and I believe there's some canon that says she gets demoted for her actions in MotA and generally punished by the Qun for being an imperfect Viddathari, so Sera convincing her to leave the Qun would also be interesting. (I think there are some papers in Trespasser that refer to Tallis, which could be used as a hook to get Sera's attention on her, especially if she'd heard Hawke mention the hot redhead before?) Or they could just happen to cooperate on a Red Jenny operation! And then FLIRTING and MAKEOUTS. Maybe Tallis ends up with something shiny she has no need for and she gives it to Sera. Maybe things go totally AU and Tallis goes to the Jennies for help with the Heart of the Many and Sera goes through MOTA with her.
Dagna/Lace Harding
Fanfiction
I love the idea of Dagna and Scout Harding together. Dwarf girlfriends! They are both adorable and I love them both, so the two of them together is even better. There's a lot of room to play around with them, with cultural differences between lifelong surface dwarf and someone originally from Orzammar. And Dagna's overwhelming enthusiasm is just so much FUN. Harding being dispatched to find materials for Dagna also has a lot of potential mileage! Dagna crafting armor for Harding? Harding giving Dagna presents of things she found out on patrol? Giving each other flowers? Bonding over everything in Skyhold being too goddamn big?
Fanart, Fanfiction
Josie sends Harding flowers! What more do you need to build a ship on? Maybe Harding is shy of Josie because she's so worldly and cultured. Maybe Josie appreciates Harding's straightforwardness. Maybe Harding brings back pretty things she finds on missions for Josie. Maybe Josie ends up as Harding's partner in dancing lessons. Maybe Harding tells Josie about all the places she goes, since Josie dreams of traveling. Regardless, they're cute and they'd be cute together.
Alistair/Female Cousland/Anora Mac Tir
Fanfiction
I love this OT3! It can be super political, or super bedroom focused, or super emotion focused, I am good with any of these. The most obvious way to do it is to have Alistair and Anora politically married and Cousland with both and not on the throne, but if you think you can work it out logistically with some other combination on the throne, I'm totally open to it! (Including Political Marriage Anora/F!Cousland. Queens!) Do they have to negotiate their relationship, or does it come easily? Does someone have to admit their feelings for someone(s) else? No pegging and no societal disapproval of the relationship, please.
I love this OT3! It can be super political, or super bedroom focused, or super emotion focused, I am good with any of these. The most obvious way to do it is to have Alistair and Anora politically married and Cousland with both and not on the throne, but if you think you can work it out logistically with some other combination on the throne, I'm totally open to it! (Including Political Marriage Anora/F!Cousland. Queens!) Do they have to negotiate their relationship, or does it come easily? Does someone have to admit their feelings for someone(s) else? No pegging and no societal disapproval of the relationship, please.
Isabela/Josephine Montilyet
Fanfiction
I love this ship, it is delightful. Isabela is such a charming rogue and she would be so much fun charming the pants off of Josie - she'd probably expect her to be somewhat buttoned up, but judging by the games of Wicked Grace, Josie can give as good as she gets. I would be so down for a highly competitive game of Wicked Grace that culminates in hot makeouts/going to bed together. I would also be down for Josie hiring Bela for some legitimate family trade business and getting relentlessly flirted with.
Fanfiction
I love this ship, it is delightful. Isabela is such a charming rogue and she would be so much fun charming the pants off of Josie - she'd probably expect her to be somewhat buttoned up, but judging by the games of Wicked Grace, Josie can give as good as she gets. I would be so down for a highly competitive game of Wicked Grace that culminates in hot makeouts/going to bed together. I would also be down for Josie hiring Bela for some legitimate family trade business and getting relentlessly flirted with.
I've discovered a new interest, unfortunately
Unfortunately, because I do not remotely have the money to make any serious pursuit of it.
I decided to buy some bottom of the barrel and used components and build a desktop to use as a media server--this seemed like a more practical plan than buying a prebuilt machine of any kind because I can just load it up with drives we already own and save a *ton* on storage. And I could focus resources on where I felt would be most useful. So it has the approximate processing power of a potato (used ancient CPU that cost like $9, so if it's not enough for my purposes it'll be no great loss to get a better one, and if it is enough I've saved money!), and a very cheap old graphics card several generations behind, a single 4gb stick of RAM, and a used motherboard, and a case that's new but from a company so hilariously cheap that the only documentation is a single sheet of paper with a heavy pixelated photo of the case with a few labeled arrows.
I only got to finally build it yesterday, because it took that long for the motherboard to arrive, and I still can't actually turn it on and see if it boots because the SATA cables haven't come yet, and the used motherboard came with nothing but itself (including no IO shield, which I remember making a mental note about when I bought it but then I absolutely forgot to order one and only realized while building, so I'm going to have to install that later. I'm bidding on a broken used for-parts-only copy of the same motherboard, because it's 95 cents and $9 shipping and ships from the US, and the alternative is like $8 for just the IO shield, with free shipping, from china that will take like two months to get here). The motherboard is ASUS, though, and there's extensive documentation online, so I don't mind at all not having a manual or anything. And I managed to work out where everything went in the case just fine.
Other parts include:
Full parts list with prices, and some pictures of the in-progress build, on my neocities, which is having some hilarious interaction between the imgur embed code and my transparent boxes over the background to make the text more readable (I know it's a nightmare I was being retro to amuse myself and I haven't gotten around to making it less busy) has rendered the embedded photos semitransparent. But you can see them well enough to be getting on with!
I keep browsing components on newegg and ebay. I deeply enjoyed putting it together. I want to do more. I've taken everything useful out of three old laptops because I wanted to keep tinkering with something and I might need to buy more antistatic bags to keep the scavenged components safe. This is terrible.
I decided to buy some bottom of the barrel and used components and build a desktop to use as a media server--this seemed like a more practical plan than buying a prebuilt machine of any kind because I can just load it up with drives we already own and save a *ton* on storage. And I could focus resources on where I felt would be most useful. So it has the approximate processing power of a potato (used ancient CPU that cost like $9, so if it's not enough for my purposes it'll be no great loss to get a better one, and if it is enough I've saved money!), and a very cheap old graphics card several generations behind, a single 4gb stick of RAM, and a used motherboard, and a case that's new but from a company so hilariously cheap that the only documentation is a single sheet of paper with a heavy pixelated photo of the case with a few labeled arrows.
I only got to finally build it yesterday, because it took that long for the motherboard to arrive, and I still can't actually turn it on and see if it boots because the SATA cables haven't come yet, and the used motherboard came with nothing but itself (including no IO shield, which I remember making a mental note about when I bought it but then I absolutely forgot to order one and only realized while building, so I'm going to have to install that later. I'm bidding on a broken used for-parts-only copy of the same motherboard, because it's 95 cents and $9 shipping and ships from the US, and the alternative is like $8 for just the IO shield, with free shipping, from china that will take like two months to get here). The motherboard is ASUS, though, and there's extensive documentation online, so I don't mind at all not having a manual or anything. And I managed to work out where everything went in the case just fine.
Other parts include:
- an optical drive with bluray capability, because we don't have a single thing in the house that can play blurays but we own a bunch of blurays (ones that come with digital copies of the movies, which are how we've watched them, but it'll be nice to be able to actually use our physical copies, and also most importantly the making-of documentary in our dvd-bluray limited edition boxset of 3 From Hell is not available in the digital copy and only the first quarter of it fit on the DVD so we haven't been able to watch it THIS ENTIRE TIME IT'S BEEN MONTHS) [arrived, installed]
- a $12 used 500gb 3.5" hdd, because it seemed sensible to have *something* that wasn't scavenged out of a laptop [arrived, installed]
- an actually new but quite cheap power supply [arrived, installed]
- a PCIE card that goes in the smallest PCIE port that I'm sure not using for anything else and that I can mount two card-style M.2 SSDs on [ordered, not here]
- a CPU cooler so cheap it doesn't even have a brand name [arrived, installed]
- actually very good thermal paste because I bought it to replace the thermal paste on my laptop because the internet indicates that this brand's stock thermal paste is bad and that may be why my laptop is so bad at cooling and of course I'm also using it on the desktop, it's not like I'm in any danger of running out [arrived, installed]
- a bracket to install 2.5" drives in a 3.5" bay [ordered, not here]
- ordered a roll of cable tie velcro after building it and realizing that cable management might actually be important [ordered, not here]
Full parts list with prices, and some pictures of the in-progress build, on my neocities, which is having some hilarious interaction between the imgur embed code and my transparent boxes over the background to make the text more readable (I know it's a nightmare I was being retro to amuse myself and I haven't gotten around to making it less busy) has rendered the embedded photos semitransparent. But you can see them well enough to be getting on with!
I keep browsing components on newegg and ebay. I deeply enjoyed putting it together. I want to do more. I've taken everything useful out of three old laptops because I wanted to keep tinkering with something and I might need to buy more antistatic bags to keep the scavenged components safe. This is terrible.
New Year
I try not to do resolutions, because putting pressure on myself in any way activates the LET'S PRETEND THIS THING DOESN'T EXIST sectors of my brain and becomes rapidly actively (violently) counterproductive. (This is why I don't do NaNoWriMo. Took me a few years to get it through my head, but I have soundly learned my lesson.)
I do have one, small, goal. It's the same one I decided on last year: write at least twelve poems.
(Not, mind, 'write at least one poem per month'. I have an unpredictable and contentious relationship with linear time, and if I try to do that, I will fail to notice an entire month going by, feel like shit about it, and the guilt of missing one will stop me writing poetry the entire rest of the year. The intention here is to not do something that will end up being counterproductive!)
I had written twelve poems by mid-March, last year. (I wrote 23, in total.) This is the point of the goal: to the so easy it's basically impossible for me to fail, but also enough that I feel like I've achieved something. Twelve poems is the sweet spot for that for me. It's also, in fair part, just a mental reminder to myself to keep writing poetry, because I love writing poetry, but there have been years I wrote few or none because I just... forgot that was a thing I could do, I guess?
In the spirit of Vague Superstition (I have few actually codified superstitious practices, but a lot of accreted osmosis about how they tend to unfold), I spent New Year's Eve in a dress covered in skulls and roses, with a tank top covered in pineapples under it. (Pineapples represent hospitality, I think.) In the same spirit, I spent New Year's Day in a dress covered in sunflowers, ate black-eyed peas and stewed greens, and wrote a poem. (It is a very short and formless poem, and I feel vaguely like it's insufficient, but telling myself to shut up about things being Not Good Enough is one of my general non-timelocked life goals. Anyway, I can write more sonnets and jumpropes and villanelles and things later.)
Some kind of intention setting for 2020, I suppose. Or just hope that hope is possible.
May 2020 be better than 2019. May the 20s be better than the 10s.
I do have one, small, goal. It's the same one I decided on last year: write at least twelve poems.
(Not, mind, 'write at least one poem per month'. I have an unpredictable and contentious relationship with linear time, and if I try to do that, I will fail to notice an entire month going by, feel like shit about it, and the guilt of missing one will stop me writing poetry the entire rest of the year. The intention here is to not do something that will end up being counterproductive!)
I had written twelve poems by mid-March, last year. (I wrote 23, in total.) This is the point of the goal: to the so easy it's basically impossible for me to fail, but also enough that I feel like I've achieved something. Twelve poems is the sweet spot for that for me. It's also, in fair part, just a mental reminder to myself to keep writing poetry, because I love writing poetry, but there have been years I wrote few or none because I just... forgot that was a thing I could do, I guess?
In the spirit of Vague Superstition (I have few actually codified superstitious practices, but a lot of accreted osmosis about how they tend to unfold), I spent New Year's Eve in a dress covered in skulls and roses, with a tank top covered in pineapples under it. (Pineapples represent hospitality, I think.) In the same spirit, I spent New Year's Day in a dress covered in sunflowers, ate black-eyed peas and stewed greens, and wrote a poem. (It is a very short and formless poem, and I feel vaguely like it's insufficient, but telling myself to shut up about things being Not Good Enough is one of my general non-timelocked life goals. Anyway, I can write more sonnets and jumpropes and villanelles and things later.)
Some kind of intention setting for 2020, I suppose. Or just hope that hope is possible.
May 2020 be better than 2019. May the 20s be better than the 10s.
Christmas was nice
(Belatedly.)
I was given a fair pile of presents, mostly snacks and candy, but very touching to have so much to open. The presents I gave went over well. I got a nightgown, which I knew I was going to because I'd suggested it as an alternative to pajama pants when I was told those were a traditional gift and asked for a size, because I don't wear pants, but I hadn't realized that getting a nightgown for Christmas would remind me of when I was little and my grandma got me and my cousin matching nightgowns for Christmas morning photos every year.
It continues to be really disconcerting how nice and welcoming my friend's parents are being, and how so many unspoken rules I'm used to from my family don't apply. They keep assuring me that I'm welcome and encouraged to eat any food in the house, and it's just so weird compared to being faced with a fridge full of food and no idea which items will get me yelled at if I touch them. My aunt chewed me out for like twenty minutes once because I ate some of the wrong cheese on a family vacation. And no one got annoyed at me for being antisocial when I spent a couple days locked in the guest room recharging my ability to interact with other people? Which is even more of a standout, since my dad explicitly said the reason I wasn't welcome in his home was because I spent too much time in the bedroom on my computer.
I called my grandma on Christmas Eve, which was uh actually the first time I'd managed to get ahold of her since the phone call during which I texted my dad and then decided I wasn't going to Arizona, so she didn't know I was in Georgia and had had a Christmas floral arrangement sent to my house, as discovered by the catsitter. Whoops. (I also then had a panic attack on hearing about this from said catsitter until I got confirmation that it had been locked in my bedroom with the hibiscus, because what if it had lilies or poinsettias, Koschei is an idiot and would get into it (as he did with the hibiscus, he ate half a leaf and then barfed everywhere, but lilies or poinsettias are more toxic), and it's been a year since Tabby and Bluebell died and I got him and it all kind of came crashing down on my head.)
But anyway. Other of my friend's relatives came over on Christmas day itself for dinner, and I did an excellent job being gracious and gregarious and glossing over the part where I'm unemployed because I'm super mentally ill, and apparently they liked me. Even though I was in the dregs of a really brutal cold, which thankfully I am mostly over now, my throat's just slightly off and my nose is just slightly stuffed. Which is greatly preferable to not being able to breathe through my nose, or at one point even talk.
It has also, of course, been really nice hanging out with my friend. She is a lovely person and it's great to finally be able to spend significant time together.
I'm in Georgia for another week before I go home.
I was given a fair pile of presents, mostly snacks and candy, but very touching to have so much to open. The presents I gave went over well. I got a nightgown, which I knew I was going to because I'd suggested it as an alternative to pajama pants when I was told those were a traditional gift and asked for a size, because I don't wear pants, but I hadn't realized that getting a nightgown for Christmas would remind me of when I was little and my grandma got me and my cousin matching nightgowns for Christmas morning photos every year.
It continues to be really disconcerting how nice and welcoming my friend's parents are being, and how so many unspoken rules I'm used to from my family don't apply. They keep assuring me that I'm welcome and encouraged to eat any food in the house, and it's just so weird compared to being faced with a fridge full of food and no idea which items will get me yelled at if I touch them. My aunt chewed me out for like twenty minutes once because I ate some of the wrong cheese on a family vacation. And no one got annoyed at me for being antisocial when I spent a couple days locked in the guest room recharging my ability to interact with other people? Which is even more of a standout, since my dad explicitly said the reason I wasn't welcome in his home was because I spent too much time in the bedroom on my computer.
I called my grandma on Christmas Eve, which was uh actually the first time I'd managed to get ahold of her since the phone call during which I texted my dad and then decided I wasn't going to Arizona, so she didn't know I was in Georgia and had had a Christmas floral arrangement sent to my house, as discovered by the catsitter. Whoops. (I also then had a panic attack on hearing about this from said catsitter until I got confirmation that it had been locked in my bedroom with the hibiscus, because what if it had lilies or poinsettias, Koschei is an idiot and would get into it (as he did with the hibiscus, he ate half a leaf and then barfed everywhere, but lilies or poinsettias are more toxic), and it's been a year since Tabby and Bluebell died and I got him and it all kind of came crashing down on my head.)
But anyway. Other of my friend's relatives came over on Christmas day itself for dinner, and I did an excellent job being gracious and gregarious and glossing over the part where I'm unemployed because I'm super mentally ill, and apparently they liked me. Even though I was in the dregs of a really brutal cold, which thankfully I am mostly over now, my throat's just slightly off and my nose is just slightly stuffed. Which is greatly preferable to not being able to breathe through my nose, or at one point even talk.
It has also, of course, been really nice hanging out with my friend. She is a lovely person and it's great to finally be able to spend significant time together.
I'm in Georgia for another week before I go home.
Entry tags:
Just saw Cats (2019)
I am even more disappointed than I expected to be!
Alas :(
Emmy wants to see Cats (1998) for comparison now, though, so I'll be showing her that at some point soon, to soothe myself with The Real Thing.
Alas :(
Emmy wants to see Cats (1998) for comparison now, though, so I'll be showing her that at some point soon, to soothe myself with The Real Thing.
Entry tags:
Identification get!
I got a new state ID! With a single moment of panic I wasn't prepared for, but thankfully it turned out fine. There I was with my old ID, all the listed documents for a RealID, my birth certificate (and name change order), my social security card, two utility bills with my name and address on them,
And then she goes 'this ID is expired, I can't use it, I need something else on this list of [mostly photo ID] things'
None of which I have at all (hunting license? pilot's license??), let alone on me, EXCEPT! I have a student ID from the community college, which is like five years old but it has no expiration date on it! And that was apparently acceptable!
It literally just has my name and photo on it and the name of the college. There is no reason on earth this should verify my identity more than my expired state ID. AND YET.
But now I have an ID, so I can get through the airport, and one that will continue to be good for getting through the airport after the deadline next year.
Also having a non-expired ID means I can run into the vape store to get stuff for Alex again, because last time they regretfully told me that they were being cracked down on and couldn't accept expired IDs anymore.
(My old ID expired in, uh, 2017. I just straight up did not notice until I had to get a full patdown and bag search at the airport last year because it had been expired for over a year. And then I kept... not getting around to it.) (It expired after like two fucking years, I feel like I'm justified in not thinking that it was imminent. Why are non-drivers IDs good for like half the time drivers licenses are???) (The new RealID one is good for four years, so there's that, at least.)
The photo on it looks ghastly, but that's unsurprising.
And then she goes 'this ID is expired, I can't use it, I need something else on this list of [mostly photo ID] things'
None of which I have at all (hunting license? pilot's license??), let alone on me, EXCEPT! I have a student ID from the community college, which is like five years old but it has no expiration date on it! And that was apparently acceptable!
It literally just has my name and photo on it and the name of the college. There is no reason on earth this should verify my identity more than my expired state ID. AND YET.
But now I have an ID, so I can get through the airport, and one that will continue to be good for getting through the airport after the deadline next year.
Also having a non-expired ID means I can run into the vape store to get stuff for Alex again, because last time they regretfully told me that they were being cracked down on and couldn't accept expired IDs anymore.
(My old ID expired in, uh, 2017. I just straight up did not notice until I had to get a full patdown and bag search at the airport last year because it had been expired for over a year. And then I kept... not getting around to it.) (It expired after like two fucking years, I feel like I'm justified in not thinking that it was imminent. Why are non-drivers IDs good for like half the time drivers licenses are???) (The new RealID one is good for four years, so there's that, at least.)
The photo on it looks ghastly, but that's unsurprising.
Entry tags:
Idle musing
I spend so much time seeing people be thoroughly frustrated by unwanted/intrusive replies on twitter that it makes me really chary of replying to basically anyone anywhere that I'm not already close friends with, because I've had a deep horror of imposing on and annoying people for most of my life. (I am a very loud and strange person and was rather singularly unpopular in school, because I was annoying. I'm not very good at settings between 'talking incessantly' and 'not talking at all'.) I do a lot of typing out half a comment (or a whole comment), and then deciding I'd better not and closing the tab.
This makes it rather difficult to make new friends, and I really don't know what the solution to that is.
Relatedly, I made a new OKCupid the other day on a whim and have been confronted with the necessity of actually sending messages to people, and man I am not sure how to do that anymore.
This makes it rather difficult to make new friends, and I really don't know what the solution to that is.
Relatedly, I made a new OKCupid the other day on a whim and have been confronted with the necessity of actually sending messages to people, and man I am not sure how to do that anymore.
Entry tags:
Anime rewatches
I decided to rewatch one of the most fluffy and low-stakes anime I know, because I have had A Week. I'm on episode 8 (of 12) of Princess Princess and it's just... pleasant. There are a few points that would probably be stressful if I didn't already know the plot, but I do, so I can just enjoy Yuujirou being a jerk and teasing easily-flustered Mikoto, and Tooru being all self-sacrificing and tragic. And Yuujirou just being annoying to everyone. The yandere cousin plot just started in earnest and it's so frothy and dramatic and interspersed with thinly-veiled excuses for bishounen in dresses, which is basically the entire premise, and I love it for that.
I've never really managed to update my anime knowledge past the things my friends introduced me to in anime club in 2007 or so. I'm also in the middle of rewatching Hellsing (finished through episode 7), but I decided today called for lower stakes than that. (Man, my Hellsing shipping opinions are different now than they were when I was 17. I remember thinking Alucard/Seras was really compelling, and now I'm like... but Integra/Alucard is so much more interesting, past Jessa. Controlling the super magic vampire rather than being controlled by the vampire. Also interesting are Alucard/Walter and Alucard/Alexander. I probably won't muster the effort to actually look at fic, but I'm definitely thinking shippily.) (I've never seen Ultimate, but I have a copy of it too and vague plans to watch it with a friend who's only ever seen Ultimate and wants to rewatch it.)
Also delightful about both of these things is that I have old fansubbed copies, and in an era where there are official translations available for stuff so much more easily, I've ended up really nostalgic for fansubs. The copy of Hellsing I have renders his name as 'Arucard' and it delights me beyond reason.
I might switch to Kyou Kara Maoh after I finish Princess Princess, which I know the fansubs I have of are also weird, because which group was translating switched several times midstream and the different groups made different choices--I specifically remember that one of them translated "original king" and one left it as "shinou".
Someday I will finish Ancient Magus Bride, which I started while it was being released and then lost track of because I'm bad at keeping up with actively-updating things, but watching something on Crunchyroll with ads and all seems like an insurmountable effort right now, so just anime I have copies of on my media laptop it is.
(For reference, the full fairly brief list of anime I have copies of: Azumanga Daioh, Chobits, Excel Saga, Fruits Basket (original), Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate, Kyou Kara Maoh, Lucky Star, Ouran High School Host Club, Princess Princess, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Puni Puni Poemy, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Serial Experiments Lain. Some of these I've only seen once or only seen parts of despite that I've had copies for years. I'm just not good at visual media, especially when I'm not familiar enough with it to know exactly how it goes so there are no potential stressful surprises.)
God this is so melodramatic. THE PRINCESS SYSTEM IS BEING THREATENED! THE HORROR! PLAY DRAMATIC MUSIC! I love you, bishounen in dresses anime. I'm so glad you're here for me.
I've never really managed to update my anime knowledge past the things my friends introduced me to in anime club in 2007 or so. I'm also in the middle of rewatching Hellsing (finished through episode 7), but I decided today called for lower stakes than that. (Man, my Hellsing shipping opinions are different now than they were when I was 17. I remember thinking Alucard/Seras was really compelling, and now I'm like... but Integra/Alucard is so much more interesting, past Jessa. Controlling the super magic vampire rather than being controlled by the vampire. Also interesting are Alucard/Walter and Alucard/Alexander. I probably won't muster the effort to actually look at fic, but I'm definitely thinking shippily.) (I've never seen Ultimate, but I have a copy of it too and vague plans to watch it with a friend who's only ever seen Ultimate and wants to rewatch it.)
Also delightful about both of these things is that I have old fansubbed copies, and in an era where there are official translations available for stuff so much more easily, I've ended up really nostalgic for fansubs. The copy of Hellsing I have renders his name as 'Arucard' and it delights me beyond reason.
I might switch to Kyou Kara Maoh after I finish Princess Princess, which I know the fansubs I have of are also weird, because which group was translating switched several times midstream and the different groups made different choices--I specifically remember that one of them translated "original king" and one left it as "shinou".
Someday I will finish Ancient Magus Bride, which I started while it was being released and then lost track of because I'm bad at keeping up with actively-updating things, but watching something on Crunchyroll with ads and all seems like an insurmountable effort right now, so just anime I have copies of on my media laptop it is.
(For reference, the full fairly brief list of anime I have copies of: Azumanga Daioh, Chobits, Excel Saga, Fruits Basket (original), Haibane Renmei, Hellsing, Hellsing Ultimate, Kyou Kara Maoh, Lucky Star, Ouran High School Host Club, Princess Princess, Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Puni Puni Poemy, Revolutionary Girl Utena, and Serial Experiments Lain. Some of these I've only seen once or only seen parts of despite that I've had copies for years. I'm just not good at visual media, especially when I'm not familiar enough with it to know exactly how it goes so there are no potential stressful surprises.)
God this is so melodramatic. THE PRINCESS SYSTEM IS BEING THREATENED! THE HORROR! PLAY DRAMATIC MUSIC! I love you, bishounen in dresses anime. I'm so glad you're here for me.
Entry tags:
Good Omens
I watched it it all through a second time yesterday, I can't remember any other time I've rewatched a tv show that rapidly.
(For the record, I read the book once when I was sixteen or so and haven't read it since. I didn't remember much about it before Alex got me to watch it with him.)
ETA: Why the fuck does linking an account inside a cut break it and why do I always forget that that happens until I've broken my spoiler cut and have to hurriedly fix it, argh.
( Here be shipping and spoilers )
I wish Pterry could have seen it.
GNU Terry Pratchett.
(For the record, I read the book once when I was sixteen or so and haven't read it since. I didn't remember much about it before Alex got me to watch it with him.)
ETA: Why the fuck does linking an account inside a cut break it and why do I always forget that that happens until I've broken my spoiler cut and have to hurriedly fix it, argh.
( Here be shipping and spoilers )
I wish Pterry could have seen it.
GNU Terry Pratchett.
Entry tags:
Bedframes and birds' nests and buds, oh my
I think my bed is broken.
I have been having persistent horrible back pain.
These facts may be related.
Not sure what to do about them, though, because I certainly can't afford a new mattress (I believe part of the springs inside broke) and while I might be able to afford a new bedframe of the same style I have now, I'm not sure what good it would do, if living my life broke this one. (I think the middle leg against the wall has bent and that part of the bed is caved in, but my bed is boxed in by difficult to move furniture and I'm not sure how to access it to try and fix it, if that's even possible. I've been vaguely considering lying on the floor with a flashlight and just sort of... shoving it with my cane and seeing if I can do anything about it like that. I certainly can't fit under the bed.)
In other news, I stuck my hand in our mailbox and there was AN ALIVE BIRD IN IT THAT HAD APPARENTLY BUILT A NEST THERE, AND I PUT MY HAND ON IT, AND IT FLEW OUT AND INTO MY HEAD, AND IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST TERRIFYING THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO ME IN THE LAST YEAR AT LEAST. Like, oh my god, I'm sure it was a completely harmless sparrow or whatever, but I was not expecting that and it scared the everloving shit out of me. I was shaky for at least an hour afterward from the adrenaline. I didn't scream (which is probably good because it was like 10:30pm) but I made some kind of horrible strangled noise while stumbling backwards and flailing my hands around my head. I'm sure that was a sight.
Anyone know how to convince a bird to not have a nest where it has a nest? My mom's suggestion was to wait until it leaves and use tongs to take the nest materials out and then sterilize the tongs, and that I shouldn't leave it and end up like her, because she had to turn her pool pump off and stop treating the water because a family of ducks moved in with their eight babies and they're trashing her backyard but she doesn't want to hurt them.
(Also, I should probably try and remember to keep the mailbox closed when it's empty, but I'm not actually sure that would help with not having birds' nests in it, because there's a round hole in the front as large as if not larger than the holes on birdhouses.) (It's a letterbox attached to my house, not a street mailbox.) (I have no idea why it has a hole in it. Not sure what I could cover it with, either. Packing tape, I guess, if I could find some.)
I guess this explains why there are always pine needles in the damn thing even though it's under the carport and there is no perceptible way for them to fall in.
Alex bought me a hibiscus plant a week and a half or so ago--I'd admired them previously but they were more than we could afford, and he later caught one on clearance--and it's got a giant flower already! I'm very impressed. I guess it liked being repotted. My ludicrously leggy potted rose I've had for a couple of years has also popped up with another flower. I think I should probably prune it this (winter? do you prune roses in winter? I need to look that up) and see if I can get it to grow out a bit rather than just up and up and more up and then sort of tilting over because it's not next to any support and it's like six feet tall. I assume you can use pruned bits as cuttings to make new rosebushes, so I could continue my evil plan to have an army of rosebushes that I completely neglect unless they look like they're about to drop dead. (Which has only happened once--I potted the rose in the soil we had, which was the cheapest available and turned out to be this horrible stuff that was basically just chipped bark, and it compressed into a tiny horrible rock at the bottom of the pot and din't hold water and all the leaves on the rose died, and I dumped in some regular dirt from the yard and a bunch of used teabags and watered the shit out of it and it recovered with a vengeance.) (I am not a good gardener, I only have alive plants because I moved to a climate where they pretty well take care of themselves. Anything that doesn't take care of itself dies and I carry on with the ones that can handle the fact that I absolutely will not remember to do anything for them at any point.)
I may have added the section about plants just so I could have a third thing to put in the post title.
I have been having persistent horrible back pain.
These facts may be related.
Not sure what to do about them, though, because I certainly can't afford a new mattress (I believe part of the springs inside broke) and while I might be able to afford a new bedframe of the same style I have now, I'm not sure what good it would do, if living my life broke this one. (I think the middle leg against the wall has bent and that part of the bed is caved in, but my bed is boxed in by difficult to move furniture and I'm not sure how to access it to try and fix it, if that's even possible. I've been vaguely considering lying on the floor with a flashlight and just sort of... shoving it with my cane and seeing if I can do anything about it like that. I certainly can't fit under the bed.)
In other news, I stuck my hand in our mailbox and there was AN ALIVE BIRD IN IT THAT HAD APPARENTLY BUILT A NEST THERE, AND I PUT MY HAND ON IT, AND IT FLEW OUT AND INTO MY HEAD, AND IT WAS PROBABLY THE MOST TERRIFYING THING THAT'S HAPPENED TO ME IN THE LAST YEAR AT LEAST. Like, oh my god, I'm sure it was a completely harmless sparrow or whatever, but I was not expecting that and it scared the everloving shit out of me. I was shaky for at least an hour afterward from the adrenaline. I didn't scream (which is probably good because it was like 10:30pm) but I made some kind of horrible strangled noise while stumbling backwards and flailing my hands around my head. I'm sure that was a sight.
Anyone know how to convince a bird to not have a nest where it has a nest? My mom's suggestion was to wait until it leaves and use tongs to take the nest materials out and then sterilize the tongs, and that I shouldn't leave it and end up like her, because she had to turn her pool pump off and stop treating the water because a family of ducks moved in with their eight babies and they're trashing her backyard but she doesn't want to hurt them.
(Also, I should probably try and remember to keep the mailbox closed when it's empty, but I'm not actually sure that would help with not having birds' nests in it, because there's a round hole in the front as large as if not larger than the holes on birdhouses.) (It's a letterbox attached to my house, not a street mailbox.) (I have no idea why it has a hole in it. Not sure what I could cover it with, either. Packing tape, I guess, if I could find some.)
I guess this explains why there are always pine needles in the damn thing even though it's under the carport and there is no perceptible way for them to fall in.
Alex bought me a hibiscus plant a week and a half or so ago--I'd admired them previously but they were more than we could afford, and he later caught one on clearance--and it's got a giant flower already! I'm very impressed. I guess it liked being repotted. My ludicrously leggy potted rose I've had for a couple of years has also popped up with another flower. I think I should probably prune it this (winter? do you prune roses in winter? I need to look that up) and see if I can get it to grow out a bit rather than just up and up and more up and then sort of tilting over because it's not next to any support and it's like six feet tall. I assume you can use pruned bits as cuttings to make new rosebushes, so I could continue my evil plan to have an army of rosebushes that I completely neglect unless they look like they're about to drop dead. (Which has only happened once--I potted the rose in the soil we had, which was the cheapest available and turned out to be this horrible stuff that was basically just chipped bark, and it compressed into a tiny horrible rock at the bottom of the pot and din't hold water and all the leaves on the rose died, and I dumped in some regular dirt from the yard and a bunch of used teabags and watered the shit out of it and it recovered with a vengeance.) (I am not a good gardener, I only have alive plants because I moved to a climate where they pretty well take care of themselves. Anything that doesn't take care of itself dies and I carry on with the ones that can handle the fact that I absolutely will not remember to do anything for them at any point.)
I may have added the section about plants just so I could have a third thing to put in the post title.
'Walking it off'
(Via ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
umadoshi )
"GenX Tribe: Breaking Bones and Other Stories of Walking it Off"
CW: Link and this post contain stories about injuries, treated and untreated.
I'm not Gen X, but my dad's a Boomer (I was a late in life baby), and he was (and is) very much in that medical mold. He liked to call it 'caveman medicine'. (Luckily my mother was not as much, so I was actually taken to the doctor for things like dislocating my elbow as a kindergartener or having a 104.5 degree fever because I had swine flu.) His opinion is that you should walk it off if you possibly can, and that superglue (with baking soda on it to make it cure faster, and an ice cube on that to keep the exothermic reaction from burning you) is preferable to going to the hospital for stitches.
He yelled at me once because the wound care clinic visits prescribed to keep my feet from going septic after I had to go to the hospital for burning all the skin off my feet cost money, and apparently I should have just stayed at home and suffered? And/or gotten sepsis? (I went into shock! Twice! I burned all the skin off my feet and there was asphalt ground into them!)
I was definitely told that if I pulled something in my back or twisted my ankle (or possibly sprained my ankle!) I should just get up and walk it off. One time when he was in college, he fell roller skating to class and twisted his whole leg and could barely stand, but he got up and kept going and it was fine!
I don't think I've ever seen someone talk about growing up with this kind of thing, except maybe jamethiel, and her dad's a doctor, so there's another kind of dimension going on there. Very interesting for me to read, and really makes me appreciate that my mom actually believes in doctors, because I got off damn lightly compared to some of the stories in the link.
(My dad is even more anti-doctor now, he's been inducted into the weirdo We All Have Candida Overgrowth and Microwaves Cause Cancer and Wheat Binds To The Opium Receptors Of The Brain nonsense via his girlfriend, sister, and mother. I think my mom was a lot more of a mediating influence on him than I ever realized before the divorce.)
I definitely didn't come out of that upbringing unaffected. I'm disinclined to go to doctors for anything I can possibly deal with myself, which ranges from 'treating my ear infections with neosporin' to 'lancing my own boils'.
new CW: animal death
It's also, frankly, to blame for the deaths of my cats, because he doesn't believe in veterinary care any more than he believes in doctors--he bought vaccines from the feed store and gave them himself when they were kittens and then nothing else ever--and I had no money for emergency care, and I knew he wouldn't give any to me, so I tried to nurse Tabby through her final decline without asking (after he refused for Bluebell and my mother cleaned out her savings for her) because I didn't want to live the rest of my life knowing he'd refused to give me the money that could have saved her, and that her death was 100% his fault. (So now I just get to know that it's my fault, instead. Both of them. If I had just realized that Bluebell had gotten out of the house sooner, I could have found her before she froze to death somewhere lost and I never saw her again, it's my fault, if I had fundraised if I had put up posters if I had tried harder--) (I miss them so much. Koschei is a darling and I love him, but Tabby and Bluebell were the first pets I ever had and I'd had them as long as I could remember and they're gone.) But my dad, who cheerfully talks about Tizzy kitty, who was two years old when she never came home but he doesn't see this as a reason to stop having outside cats because he has no goddamn empathy--
This got away from me. I don't have a conclusion.
I want my girls back, and I'm never going to see them again, and I don't even have Bluebell's ashes like I managed to hysterical breakdown my father into paying for cremation for Tabby. (More willing to pay for death than life.)
umadoshi )"GenX Tribe: Breaking Bones and Other Stories of Walking it Off"
CW: Link and this post contain stories about injuries, treated and untreated.
I'm not Gen X, but my dad's a Boomer (I was a late in life baby), and he was (and is) very much in that medical mold. He liked to call it 'caveman medicine'. (Luckily my mother was not as much, so I was actually taken to the doctor for things like dislocating my elbow as a kindergartener or having a 104.5 degree fever because I had swine flu.) His opinion is that you should walk it off if you possibly can, and that superglue (with baking soda on it to make it cure faster, and an ice cube on that to keep the exothermic reaction from burning you) is preferable to going to the hospital for stitches.
He yelled at me once because the wound care clinic visits prescribed to keep my feet from going septic after I had to go to the hospital for burning all the skin off my feet cost money, and apparently I should have just stayed at home and suffered? And/or gotten sepsis? (I went into shock! Twice! I burned all the skin off my feet and there was asphalt ground into them!)
I was definitely told that if I pulled something in my back or twisted my ankle (or possibly sprained my ankle!) I should just get up and walk it off. One time when he was in college, he fell roller skating to class and twisted his whole leg and could barely stand, but he got up and kept going and it was fine!
I don't think I've ever seen someone talk about growing up with this kind of thing, except maybe jamethiel, and her dad's a doctor, so there's another kind of dimension going on there. Very interesting for me to read, and really makes me appreciate that my mom actually believes in doctors, because I got off damn lightly compared to some of the stories in the link.
(My dad is even more anti-doctor now, he's been inducted into the weirdo We All Have Candida Overgrowth and Microwaves Cause Cancer and Wheat Binds To The Opium Receptors Of The Brain nonsense via his girlfriend, sister, and mother. I think my mom was a lot more of a mediating influence on him than I ever realized before the divorce.)
I definitely didn't come out of that upbringing unaffected. I'm disinclined to go to doctors for anything I can possibly deal with myself, which ranges from 'treating my ear infections with neosporin' to 'lancing my own boils'.
new CW: animal death
It's also, frankly, to blame for the deaths of my cats, because he doesn't believe in veterinary care any more than he believes in doctors--he bought vaccines from the feed store and gave them himself when they were kittens and then nothing else ever--and I had no money for emergency care, and I knew he wouldn't give any to me, so I tried to nurse Tabby through her final decline without asking (after he refused for Bluebell and my mother cleaned out her savings for her) because I didn't want to live the rest of my life knowing he'd refused to give me the money that could have saved her, and that her death was 100% his fault. (So now I just get to know that it's my fault, instead. Both of them. If I had just realized that Bluebell had gotten out of the house sooner, I could have found her before she froze to death somewhere lost and I never saw her again, it's my fault, if I had fundraised if I had put up posters if I had tried harder--) (I miss them so much. Koschei is a darling and I love him, but Tabby and Bluebell were the first pets I ever had and I'd had them as long as I could remember and they're gone.) But my dad, who cheerfully talks about Tizzy kitty, who was two years old when she never came home but he doesn't see this as a reason to stop having outside cats because he has no goddamn empathy--
This got away from me. I don't have a conclusion.
I want my girls back, and I'm never going to see them again, and I don't even have Bluebell's ashes like I managed to hysterical breakdown my father into paying for cremation for Tabby. (More willing to pay for death than life.)
Entry tags:
OH MY GOD I'M SO HAPPY
So clear back in 2009, Seanan McGuire had a story called Inspirations published in The Edge of Propinquity. Which is a magazine that only keeps stories online for a year or two, which I didn't realize at the time, and by the time I did it was no longer online. I actually emailed both her and the magazine to see if there was any way I could give someone money for a copy of it, but no dice. I gave up, I had given up for years, but I was just now idly googling to see if it was in the wayback machine somewhere that I'd missed, and I discovered that long after I'd given up IT WAS REPUBLISHED IN NIGHTMARE MAGAZINE IN 2016. I CAN READ IT AGAIN. THIS STORY HAS HAUNTED ME FOR A FUCKING DECADE AND I'M FREEEEEE
Inspirations, by Seanan McGuire, at Nightmare Magazine. (Fair warning that it's gory brutal horror full of despair and betrayal.)
Inspirations, by Seanan McGuire, at Nightmare Magazine. (Fair warning that it's gory brutal horror full of despair and betrayal.)
Entry tags:
Captain Marvel
I'm just going to put all of my thoughts under a spoiler cut rather than trying to sort them by spoilery or not. Also, I saw it over the weekend, so my recollection has inevitably fuzzed up a bit since. (Partially collected from my post-movie twitter ramble.)
( Here there be spoilers )
( Here there be spoilers )
Entry tags:
Books I've been reading
Read:
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: I loooved this. Really glorious interweaving of different perspectives in a folkloric story that was almost but not quite a retelling of a couple of different fairy tales, with (almost) all female POVs who did their best to take charge of their own lives and do their best for the people they see as their own, whether that was an entire country or only their siblings. Really loved it. Immediately thereafter put her Uprooted on hold. I've been vaguely dithering about trying her profic for years, since I love her fanfic in my fandom, and this was a great introduction.
The Passager by Jane Yolen: It only took like 15 minutes to read, I didn't have enough time to even form an opinion. I checked it out because I'm on her poem-a-day mailing list and she asks that subscribers purchase or check out from a library one of her books each month in recompense, and this was one my library had that I hadn't read yet.
the princess saves herself in this one, by Amanda Lovelace: Lovely book of poetry, about being broken and putting yourself back together and surviving and thriving. Highlighted a mildly absurd amount of it--28 things.
Water Sings Blue by Kate Coombs: Poetry again. Very brief, very devoted to rhyming. Also had what appeared to be OCR errors. Probably works better as a physical book in which one can actually appreciate the art. Also, I think it's actually aimed at five year olds, for whom it's probably great. Really scraping the bottom of the library's ebook poetry collection. (At least as long as I'm avoiding weird Go Ask Alice-y verse novels, which I absolutely am. Why are there like 17 different YA verse novels about suicidal teenagers by the same author? Find your niche and never leave it, I guess.)
Currently reading:
Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton: Really enjoying this, need to get back to it and read more so I can finish it before my loan runs out or else I'll have to renew it, it's great.
DNF:
A Bite-Size History Of France by Stephane Henaut: Gave up at 15% in, because it just did not provide enough detail about food to be engaging on that metric and I felt very misled. Might have been otherwise interesting as a history book, but it was just too disappointing on how I felt it was sold for me to get into. My loan expired before I got any further.
A Princess In Theory by Alyssa Cole: I am clearly just not cut out for the mistaken identity genre, this was driving me nuts. I made it to 66% and I was just so angry at all of it and I wasn't enjoying it and ditched it in favor of other things. My loan doesn't expire for another week, but signs do not point towards me picking it back up before then.
She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy: Didn't even make it through the introduction, it was swimming in gender essentialism and then it declared that mothers are 'always right' and I ragequit and returned the ebook to the library. Also, quote, "Women have always been at the center of poetry—throughout history we have been its inspiration, and more recently, women are the authors of the most profound poetry of our time." BITCH WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AUTHORS, GO TO HELL. Clearly not a book for me, I do not respect this woman as a curator of works.
Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna: Ehhhhh. It all felt very self-conscious in a 'can you believe I'm writing poetry? kind of way and after I realized it was a youtuber's book deal I realized why it all seemed random and slipshod. I thought maybe it was great for some not-me audience, but the reviews on goodreads (including from her youtube fans) are also terrible, so it's not just me! This is a bad book. Gave up at 29%.
Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christina Hoppermann: Nope, me and my (absolutely fucking battled for) decent relationship with my body do not need to read a book of poems about eating disorders. Maybe it's great for girls who have them and need to feel reassured that they're not alone, idk. I just feel annoyed that I've never fit into anything from Abercrombie in my goddamn life and shut up about being sad in their dressing room because things don't drape perfectly. This book made me feel like I should be more self-conscious about my weight. Sounded kind of rhapsodic about tiny numbers on the scale, honestly, and that's not for my fat ass. Stopped reading 33% in.
( Currently on hold )
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik: I loooved this. Really glorious interweaving of different perspectives in a folkloric story that was almost but not quite a retelling of a couple of different fairy tales, with (almost) all female POVs who did their best to take charge of their own lives and do their best for the people they see as their own, whether that was an entire country or only their siblings. Really loved it. Immediately thereafter put her Uprooted on hold. I've been vaguely dithering about trying her profic for years, since I love her fanfic in my fandom, and this was a great introduction.
The Passager by Jane Yolen: It only took like 15 minutes to read, I didn't have enough time to even form an opinion. I checked it out because I'm on her poem-a-day mailing list and she asks that subscribers purchase or check out from a library one of her books each month in recompense, and this was one my library had that I hadn't read yet.
the princess saves herself in this one, by Amanda Lovelace: Lovely book of poetry, about being broken and putting yourself back together and surviving and thriving. Highlighted a mildly absurd amount of it--28 things.
Water Sings Blue by Kate Coombs: Poetry again. Very brief, very devoted to rhyming. Also had what appeared to be OCR errors. Probably works better as a physical book in which one can actually appreciate the art. Also, I think it's actually aimed at five year olds, for whom it's probably great. Really scraping the bottom of the library's ebook poetry collection. (At least as long as I'm avoiding weird Go Ask Alice-y verse novels, which I absolutely am. Why are there like 17 different YA verse novels about suicidal teenagers by the same author? Find your niche and never leave it, I guess.)
Currently reading:
Those Wild Wyndhams by Claudia Renton: Really enjoying this, need to get back to it and read more so I can finish it before my loan runs out or else I'll have to renew it, it's great.
DNF:
A Bite-Size History Of France by Stephane Henaut: Gave up at 15% in, because it just did not provide enough detail about food to be engaging on that metric and I felt very misled. Might have been otherwise interesting as a history book, but it was just too disappointing on how I felt it was sold for me to get into. My loan expired before I got any further.
A Princess In Theory by Alyssa Cole: I am clearly just not cut out for the mistaken identity genre, this was driving me nuts. I made it to 66% and I was just so angry at all of it and I wasn't enjoying it and ditched it in favor of other things. My loan doesn't expire for another week, but signs do not point towards me picking it back up before then.
She Walks in Beauty: A Woman's Journey Through Poems by Caroline Kennedy: Didn't even make it through the introduction, it was swimming in gender essentialism and then it declared that mothers are 'always right' and I ragequit and returned the ebook to the library. Also, quote, "Women have always been at the center of poetry—throughout history we have been its inspiration, and more recently, women are the authors of the most profound poetry of our time." BITCH WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AUTHORS, GO TO HELL. Clearly not a book for me, I do not respect this woman as a curator of works.
Adultolescence by Gabbie Hanna: Ehhhhh. It all felt very self-conscious in a 'can you believe I'm writing poetry? kind of way and after I realized it was a youtuber's book deal I realized why it all seemed random and slipshod. I thought maybe it was great for some not-me audience, but the reviews on goodreads (including from her youtube fans) are also terrible, so it's not just me! This is a bad book. Gave up at 29%.
Poisoned Apples: Poems for You, My Pretty by Christina Hoppermann: Nope, me and my (absolutely fucking battled for) decent relationship with my body do not need to read a book of poems about eating disorders. Maybe it's great for girls who have them and need to feel reassured that they're not alone, idk. I just feel annoyed that I've never fit into anything from Abercrombie in my goddamn life and shut up about being sad in their dressing room because things don't drape perfectly. This book made me feel like I should be more self-conscious about my weight. Sounded kind of rhapsodic about tiny numbers on the scale, honestly, and that's not for my fat ass. Stopped reading 33% in.
( Currently on hold )
Recently read: Short Stories
Dustdaughter at Uncanny Magazine is lovely and intensely communal and--hopeful.
Deriving Life at Tor.com made me fucking sob my eyes out, be cautious with it if you have issues with self-hatred or suicidal ideation. A little too close to home, gave me a headache from crying.
Some Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw warnings for suicide again, and parental abuse, and also this one doesn't really have a satisfactory conclusion ime.
Do Not Look Back, My Lion at Beneath Ceaseless Skies made me cry. The pitiless machine of war, and the helplessness of those within it.
Okay, Glory at Lightspeed Magazine I regret reading at 3am, I spent like half an hour unable to stop thinking about it while trying to sleep afterward. Brutal isolation and the psychological horror thereof after the narrator's AI smarthouse is hacked and turned against him.
Thirty-Three Percent Joe at Clarkesworld (viaisis) is a scifi military thing narrated mostly by the autonomous AIs powering a not-very-good soldier's replacement body parts.
What is Eve? at Lightspeed Magazine (viaisis) is a kind of terrifying piece that I can't say much about without spoiling everything, though I will, as Isis did, say that it has a happy ending.
Deriving Life at Tor.com made me fucking sob my eyes out, be cautious with it if you have issues with self-hatred or suicidal ideation. A little too close to home, gave me a headache from crying.
Some Breakable Things by Cassandra Khaw warnings for suicide again, and parental abuse, and also this one doesn't really have a satisfactory conclusion ime.
Do Not Look Back, My Lion at Beneath Ceaseless Skies made me cry. The pitiless machine of war, and the helplessness of those within it.
Okay, Glory at Lightspeed Magazine I regret reading at 3am, I spent like half an hour unable to stop thinking about it while trying to sleep afterward. Brutal isolation and the psychological horror thereof after the narrator's AI smarthouse is hacked and turned against him.
Thirty-Three Percent Joe at Clarkesworld (via
isis) is a scifi military thing narrated mostly by the autonomous AIs powering a not-very-good soldier's replacement body parts.What is Eve? at Lightspeed Magazine (via
isis) is a kind of terrifying piece that I can't say much about without spoiling everything, though I will, as Isis did, say that it has a happy ending.Entry tags:
Links
More DW Markdown guide
Why Is a ‘Pepper’ Different From ‘Pepper’? Blame Christopher Columbus-- More things to blame Columbus for: the linguistic ambiguity of the word 'pepper'.
viaumadoshi, The Plant Breeder Who Minted a New World of Flavor is a sweet little history of a man who hybridized dozens of new varietals of mint.
How Architects Are Designing Buildings With Birds in Mind--95% reduction in bird mortality, damn!
Is Japan losing its umami? is a very clickbaity title for a genuinely really sad piece about heritage methods of food production in danger of being lost.
Neat: Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays (not something he plagiarized, but something he almost certainly read and was influenced by.)
Two cool small articles with lots of pictures of China's "bicycle graveyards"--I have never seen so many bikes in one place in my life, holy crap. First link, second link. I'm used to the concept of airplane boneyards, because I grew up in Tucson, but this is so much more dense and disarranged and plants growing through and--just wow.
Why Is a ‘Pepper’ Different From ‘Pepper’? Blame Christopher Columbus-- More things to blame Columbus for: the linguistic ambiguity of the word 'pepper'.
via
umadoshi, The Plant Breeder Who Minted a New World of Flavor is a sweet little history of a man who hybridized dozens of new varietals of mint.How Architects Are Designing Buildings With Birds in Mind--95% reduction in bird mortality, damn!
Is Japan losing its umami? is a very clickbaity title for a genuinely really sad piece about heritage methods of food production in danger of being lost.
Neat: Plagiarism Software Unveils a New Source for 11 of Shakespeare’s Plays (not something he plagiarized, but something he almost certainly read and was influenced by.)
Two cool small articles with lots of pictures of China's "bicycle graveyards"--I have never seen so many bikes in one place in my life, holy crap. First link, second link. I'm used to the concept of airplane boneyards, because I grew up in Tucson, but this is so much more dense and disarranged and plants growing through and--just wow.
Entry tags:
Aaaargh.
I've got what seems to be a pinched nerve in my right wrist, and holding my phone or using my mouse aggravate it and send vicious spikes of pain into my hand. This is not great. Presumably the ideal treatment would be to rest it and give it a chance to heal, but what on earth can I do that doesn't involve using my hand to fill that time?! (I will probably try and figure out a way to prop up my phone to read on it without holding it and scroll with my other hand. Might borrow Alex's wrist brace to remind me to leave it be. Though really, the ideal would be that after I've slept and not used it in that time it goes back to normal. I'm not holding my breath, though :P )
Entry tags:
The Husband Hunters
I've just finished reading The Husband Hunters by Anne de Courcy. It was a really interesting look at the social scene of the time in New York, and the forces that led so many (454!) American girls to marry titles overseas. The individual chapters had stories about specific girls who married into the European nobility, which ranged from delightful (Victoria and Tennie Claflin, first women to own a stockbroker's, Victoria the first female candidate for the presidency, advocates of women's rights) to the horrifying (poor Consuelo Vanderbilt, who was locked in her room by her mother and her letters destroyed, all contact with the world denied her until she agreed to marry a Duke instead of the man she loved).
The absolutely staggering conspicuous consumption of Gilded Age New York is also heavily detailed and just... wow. The final party thrown by the Bradley-Martins before they left America for Britain (in the face of being expected to pay more taxes on their flaunted wealth) cost $116,000 a head, which a currency conversion site informs me is $3,424,653 in today's dollars. At the party that spurred their increased taxation, one woman, Caroline Astor, was noted as wearing $250,000, or $7,380,717 today, worth of jewelry. Cigarettes were handed out at parties wrapped in hundred dollar bills instead of paper, which is like $3000 now.
So basically what I learned was that rich people have always been completely stupid about spending money. One guy was noted as having a yacht on which he kept a milk cow in a fan-cooled stall, an entire acting troupe, and a motorcar. A cow. Because, I suppose, he couldn't possibly go without having fresh milk available at all times.
I also hadn't been aware of how American agriculture basically knocked the bottom out of the British economy. America's enormous amount more space--and different climates meaning harvests could occur at multiple points of the year--apparently destroyed British wheat farming, and upon the advent of refrigeration, American livestock farming also destroyed British livestock farming. Just completely took the bottom out of the market. And then all the aristocracy's incomes were ruined, because they came from tenant farms, and they couldn't afford to upkeep their homes even, many of which were apparently saved by the infusions of cash that came with American heiress brides. So the whole socioeconomic milieu on that side of the Atlantic was really interesting. As opposed to the American side, where people were just competing to throw the most lavish possible parties to show off how rich they were, and if they were snubbed from society having a daughter marry into a title would add to their cachet and let them into Mrs Astor and McAllister's set.
The absolutely staggering conspicuous consumption of Gilded Age New York is also heavily detailed and just... wow. The final party thrown by the Bradley-Martins before they left America for Britain (in the face of being expected to pay more taxes on their flaunted wealth) cost $116,000 a head, which a currency conversion site informs me is $3,424,653 in today's dollars. At the party that spurred their increased taxation, one woman, Caroline Astor, was noted as wearing $250,000, or $7,380,717 today, worth of jewelry. Cigarettes were handed out at parties wrapped in hundred dollar bills instead of paper, which is like $3000 now.
So basically what I learned was that rich people have always been completely stupid about spending money. One guy was noted as having a yacht on which he kept a milk cow in a fan-cooled stall, an entire acting troupe, and a motorcar. A cow. Because, I suppose, he couldn't possibly go without having fresh milk available at all times.
I also hadn't been aware of how American agriculture basically knocked the bottom out of the British economy. America's enormous amount more space--and different climates meaning harvests could occur at multiple points of the year--apparently destroyed British wheat farming, and upon the advent of refrigeration, American livestock farming also destroyed British livestock farming. Just completely took the bottom out of the market. And then all the aristocracy's incomes were ruined, because they came from tenant farms, and they couldn't afford to upkeep their homes even, many of which were apparently saved by the infusions of cash that came with American heiress brides. So the whole socioeconomic milieu on that side of the Atlantic was really interesting. As opposed to the American side, where people were just competing to throw the most lavish possible parties to show off how rich they were, and if they were snubbed from society having a daughter marry into a title would add to their cachet and let them into Mrs Astor and McAllister's set.