(no subject)
May. 28th, 2025 05:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flemmingsThe only way I will not drink is simply to have no alcohol in the house. OTOH if it weren't raining and I didn't ache from vaccines and gardening, I might not need alcohol at all.
Have several books on the go and don't much want to read any of them. Discover that yes, I did read Network Effect and Exit Strategy in dead tree last year, is probably why they made more sense then. Sent Meddling Kids ebook back to the library because it was clearly heading towards Lovecraft Land and I have very limited patience (read: none) with abominable eldritch horrors and elder gods and whatever else horripilated that very unpleasant man's skin. Also The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, because it was set sort of this-world, not the pleasant otherworld of Waggoner's first two books.
Have KJ Charles' Think of England which is clearly heading towards disaster! before I presume happi endo, and I don't want to be there for it. The mystery set in ancient Athens with a playwright is pedestrian, because anybody writing theatre in ancient Athens is up against Mary Renault, even if I *know* Renault was cheating. She cheats so plausibly, is all. The Path of Thorns is growing tedious for no good reason, just it is. Have yet to start The Scholar and the Last Fairy Door, simply because Perry and I are a bad fit. So I read Paarfi instead, and even Jhegaala, because I am loose-ended in the extreme.
Did dream pleasantly last night, or rather this morning, of cleaning up at daycare with Daycare Hugh who in RL is as retired as I, and about to become a grandfather. Which segued into me buying a dress at a dress shop on the second floor of a nondescript outlet, sort of hidden from the masses behind a special door. Dresses turned out to be hand-decorated by the middle-aged woman who let me in to the large room where the special dresses were.
Other reason I can't get out is that my feet crack deeply and constantly unless I pumice and moisturize them before the cracks get too deep. I have a crack across the instep of my right foot which is hard to get at with pumice, elbows and ticklishness being as they are, so I have essentially a deep cut on the sole of that foot which is taking its own sweet time closing up, in spite of first aid cream and bandaids and all. Have bolstered the bandaids with panty liners to cushion it, but it still hurts to step on. So yeah, couch potatodom it is.
Have several books on the go and don't much want to read any of them. Discover that yes, I did read Network Effect and Exit Strategy in dead tree last year, is probably why they made more sense then. Sent Meddling Kids ebook back to the library because it was clearly heading towards Lovecraft Land and I have very limited patience (read: none) with abominable eldritch horrors and elder gods and whatever else horripilated that very unpleasant man's skin. Also The Village Library Demon-Hunting Society, because it was set sort of this-world, not the pleasant otherworld of Waggoner's first two books.
Have KJ Charles' Think of England which is clearly heading towards disaster! before I presume happi endo, and I don't want to be there for it. The mystery set in ancient Athens with a playwright is pedestrian, because anybody writing theatre in ancient Athens is up against Mary Renault, even if I *know* Renault was cheating. She cheats so plausibly, is all. The Path of Thorns is growing tedious for no good reason, just it is. Have yet to start The Scholar and the Last Fairy Door, simply because Perry and I are a bad fit. So I read Paarfi instead, and even Jhegaala, because I am loose-ended in the extreme.
Did dream pleasantly last night, or rather this morning, of cleaning up at daycare with Daycare Hugh who in RL is as retired as I, and about to become a grandfather. Which segued into me buying a dress at a dress shop on the second floor of a nondescript outlet, sort of hidden from the masses behind a special door. Dresses turned out to be hand-decorated by the middle-aged woman who let me in to the large room where the special dresses were.
Other reason I can't get out is that my feet crack deeply and constantly unless I pumice and moisturize them before the cracks get too deep. I have a crack across the instep of my right foot which is hard to get at with pumice, elbows and ticklishness being as they are, so I have essentially a deep cut on the sole of that foot which is taking its own sweet time closing up, in spite of first aid cream and bandaids and all. Have bolstered the bandaids with panty liners to cushion it, but it still hurts to step on. So yeah, couch potatodom it is.
Welp, they've cast the main trio for the Harry Potter tv show
Jun. 1st, 2025 09:22 amconulyWhich, I'm told, has prompted all the usual gross comments about the girl playing Hermione. Ugh. Why are people so disgusting?
(Also, fuck JKR, but she's not the one being awful inside this complaint. Not to fear, I'm sure she'll find a way to outclass them soon enough.)
********************
( Read more... )
(Also, fuck JKR, but she's not the one being awful inside this complaint. Not to fear, I'm sure she'll find a way to outclass them soon enough.)
( Read more... )
A few short, middling reviews from the year so far
May. 28th, 2025 01:57 pmchestnut_pod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fffridayMetal From Heaven by August Clarke
But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo
The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands, by Sarah Brooks
Hopefully in the next few months I will read some new-to-me F/F which I can wholeheartedly love.
I recommend to everyone skygiants' review for a perspective from someone who enjoyed this book more than me. I respected it, but I can't say I liked it. However, it is clear to me that many people would like this very much! A violently purple, ambitious fantasy story about lesbians who hate each other and the workers' revolution (sort of).
I felt like it careened out of its own control around the 2/3 mark (which is also where one can audibly start hearing the Evangelion theme song). However, if you like swirly-marbled psychedelic books with 90s anime antecedents where every character can be described as The [attractiveness adjective] [morality adjective] Lesbian, evil blue tangerines, and other people's trip diaries, this is for you. It's very very different, ambitious, and fresh, which one likes to reward, so I hope it gets lots of attention, even if it wasn't totally for me.
skygiants' review for a perspective from someone who enjoyed this book more than me. I respected it, but I can't say I liked it. However, it is clear to me that many people would like this very much! A violently purple, ambitious fantasy story about lesbians who hate each other and the workers' revolution (sort of). I felt like it careened out of its own control around the 2/3 mark (which is also where one can audibly start hearing the Evangelion theme song). However, if you like swirly-marbled psychedelic books with 90s anime antecedents where every character can be described as The [attractiveness adjective] [morality adjective] Lesbian, evil blue tangerines, and other people's trip diaries, this is for you. It's very very different, ambitious, and fresh, which one likes to reward, so I hope it gets lots of attention, even if it wasn't totally for me.
But Not Too Bold, by Hache Pueyo
This was… basically okay. "Lady Mary and Mr. Fox" but lesbian horror-spiders. I appreciated how the Folklore Flavor details were specific in a way that I find sadly uncommon in this species of contemporary "monster" "romance" fantasy. It is stuck halfway between the broad strokes of a fairytale and the demands of a lengthier novella trying to have a mystery plot, and the romance is really just armature.
The Cautious Traveller's Guide to the Wastelands, by Sarah Brooks
This is a blown egg of a book. There's a shell of cool things, like trans-continental trains, eco-horror gaslamp-style, a quasi-Rusalki in ambiguous love with the orphaned Chinese train-foundling, and alt-history, but the shell is all there is. Bombastic but substanceless.
Hopefully in the next few months I will read some new-to-me F/F which I can wholeheartedly love.
Wednesday What I'm...
May. 28th, 2025 03:58 pmreeby10For the past two weeks, since I forgot to post last week!
Reading
Reading
- I read Gentle Writing Advice: How to Be a Writer Without Destroying Yourself by Chuck Wendig. I thought it was very good even if none of the advice was really an aha moment for me or anything. It was fun seeing how clear his blogging style is in the book, since I haven't read any of his fiction yet.
- I read Bleach Volume 4 and Bleach Volume 5, by Tite Kubo. Pretty fun.
- I finished You and Me and the Airbnb by Rena Butler. Pretty good! I liked the setting a lot.
- I finished Thrawn: Alliances by Timothy Zahn, book 2 of the Star Wars: Thrawn series. This was a reread because I wanted to read the third book, which I never got around to last time I was reading this series. A good book, and much funnier than I remembered it, though much of that might have been unintentional lol
- I started rereading Lirael by Garth Nix, because someday I'd like to read the newer books in the series and I wanted a refresh. Still great!
- Ficwise, I spent most of last week reading/rereading Toy Story fic because I had a sudden desire for Sid/Andy. Good stuff, and I finally read The Fic of the fandom. Otherwise, I've been reading Stobotnik. Right now I'm on a time loop fic that my friend recommended me and I'm... not loving it.
- The roommate made me watch The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons, which are some of her favorite movies. I did enjoy them a lot, though Angels & Demons more so. Very fun and silly.
- The roommate and I went to see Clown in a Cornfield in theaters. It was a lot more difficult than I expected bc apparently it didn't get a very big release. And I'm sad to say I didn't like it very much :( Like it was probably fine and there were some fun moments, but they changed so much from the book and the book is so fucking good that it didn't stand up for me at all.
- The roommate and I went to a GCW show in Maryland. The vibes were uhhhh not great, what with the guys near us shouting homophobic/sexist/racist shit. Also just a weird show compared to our admittedly amazing first, with no blood and few props.
- AEW as usual, plus a PPV on Sunday. I was not excited when I saw the card, but it ended up being a really good show! There were of course some annoyances (Mercedes winning, the men's Owen Hart final being treated as more important than the women's), but overall the matches were a lot of fun and had outcomes I was happy about. Plus Hook is back! And Toni and Mariah kissed!
- I was feeling nostalgic for some sad boy music, so I listen to Jack's Mannequin, We The Kings, and Yellowcard at various times over the past couple of weeks.
- I wrote my summerofhorrorexchange assignment way ahead of schedule. It was fun and I really hope my giftee likes it :D
- I've written most of my idproquo assignment. I'm not sure how much I have left, but I don't think I'll go much further with the story because I want to keep the focus on the main friendship, not their love interests.
- For my goal of writing a fic for every book I read this year, I wrote a fic for Wolf Wing by Tanith Lee.
- On the same goal, I wrote a fic for Clown in a Cornfield. I wanted to get it done and posted before seeing the movie, so you can read it here if you like.
The Last Hour Between Worlds by Melissa Caruso
May. 28th, 2025 03:45 pmlightreadsThe Last Hour Between Worlds
4/5. A single mother, just two months post-partum, gets out for one night to attend a ball in her fantasy city. Which gets complicated when the whole ballroom keeps falling through levels of reality each time the clock strikes, and when her former crush turned professional enemy, the hot lady thief, is also on the case.
This is a lot of fun, and very stylish. Visually, I mean – there’s a lot going on here with what people are wearing and carrying, and with the shifting esthetics of each layer of reality. And you know I’m in favor of adventure books about mothers, particularly very new mothers like this one.
If you’re paying even moderate amounts of attention, none of these plot twists will rock you. But they are all pleasing to unwind, as is the whole book.
Content notes: Violence, temporary character death.
4/5. A single mother, just two months post-partum, gets out for one night to attend a ball in her fantasy city. Which gets complicated when the whole ballroom keeps falling through levels of reality each time the clock strikes, and when her former crush turned professional enemy, the hot lady thief, is also on the case.
This is a lot of fun, and very stylish. Visually, I mean – there’s a lot going on here with what people are wearing and carrying, and with the shifting esthetics of each layer of reality. And you know I’m in favor of adventure books about mothers, particularly very new mothers like this one.
If you’re paying even moderate amounts of attention, none of these plot twists will rock you. But they are all pleasing to unwind, as is the whole book.
Content notes: Violence, temporary character death.
David Dastmalchian interview
May. 28th, 2025 02:29 pmmarthawellshttps://www.radiotimes.com/tv/sci-fi/david-dastmalchian-murderbot-dexter-resurrection-interview/
"Now I feel much more comfortable advocating for [what I need]. To give you an example, on the set of Murderbot, going to my directors and writers, the showrunners, Chris and Paul [Weitz], and saying, ‘I'm really sorry, but on Wednesday at 2pm - I know I'm on the schedule that day, but is there any way I could be in my trailer for 45 minutes to have a therapy session?' and them being so supportive and loving and saying, ‘Of course, we will get you a Wi-Fi booster,’ because we were out in the middle of nowhere.
"Now I feel much more comfortable advocating for [what I need]. To give you an example, on the set of Murderbot, going to my directors and writers, the showrunners, Chris and Paul [Weitz], and saying, ‘I'm really sorry, but on Wednesday at 2pm - I know I'm on the schedule that day, but is there any way I could be in my trailer for 45 minutes to have a therapy session?' and them being so supportive and loving and saying, ‘Of course, we will get you a Wi-Fi booster,’ because we were out in the middle of nowhere.
Freeform Indication
May. 28th, 2025 03:10 pmhurtcomfortexmod posting in hurtcomfortexThere seems to be a little confusion about what we're asking for when we say to indicate the freeform.
An example signup is made up of
Name - hurtcomfortmod
Fandom - Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Relationship(s) - Asseylum Vers Allusia/Slaine Troyard (hurt Slaine)
Work Medium - Fanfiction
Freeforms - A's adventuring party all killed; A must find their way back to safety while badly injured and alone
A's Been Hurting B to Keep B Safe; Finally A Gives in to Impulses (It Ends With Sex)
A's seriously injured on mission; B's ordered to leave A and proceed with the mission but disobeys
Those last three are the freeforms. They may also be called Optional Tags. If you go to AO3 Automagic App you can see the Freeforms/Optional Tags clearly for the signups.
In this exchange you must create for a requested fandom, a requested relationship within that fandom, a requested work medium, and a requested freeform/optional tag. None of these are optional.
The freeform can be tagged in the work you submit, or put in an author note. These can be removed before the exchange goes live, but must be present to count as a submitted assignment.
An example signup is made up of
Name - hurtcomfortmod
Fandom - Aldnoah.Zero (Anime & Manga)
Relationship(s) - Asseylum Vers Allusia/Slaine Troyard (hurt Slaine)
Work Medium - Fanfiction
Freeforms - A's adventuring party all killed; A must find their way back to safety while badly injured and alone
A's Been Hurting B to Keep B Safe; Finally A Gives in to Impulses (It Ends With Sex)
A's seriously injured on mission; B's ordered to leave A and proceed with the mission but disobeys
Those last three are the freeforms. They may also be called Optional Tags. If you go to AO3 Automagic App you can see the Freeforms/Optional Tags clearly for the signups.
In this exchange you must create for a requested fandom, a requested relationship within that fandom, a requested work medium, and a requested freeform/optional tag. None of these are optional.
The freeform can be tagged in the work you submit, or put in an author note. These can be removed before the exchange goes live, but must be present to count as a submitted assignment.
a small mystery
May. 28th, 2025 01:49 pmchazzbannerYesterday it rained lightly most of the day, today it is more like a mist. I went for a walk before circling to the library, and had to put up my umbrella for the last block or so. Well, 'had to' exaggerates a bit.
At 10:15, after my first library visit, I went to SJs and had coffee - just coffee - that's 'for once', lately! At SJs I can check FB and Yahoo on my phone, as well as google the odd thing that might come to mind. I started reading a library book that arrived for me yesterday: Byron: A Life in Ten Letters.
The tech doesn't start work until 2:00 today, but as I learned yesterday I don't need to be around the building in any event. It's just a normal day where I don't know what to do with myself -- except I can't listen to music on Yahoo, fall down a rabbit hole there, etc.
I looked at the next Spring in London letter to transcribe, and noticed something odd: our pub/B+B in Salisbury. I remember the conversation recorded in the letter, but I don't remember the upshot being that we stayed overnight where we had that conversation. In fact I wrote in here about my search for a Salisbury pub named after a crow-like bird (a Corvid) - and I found it, I even found a photo. (It's closed now.) I remember we knocked on the door, since it was closed midafternoon as usual then. A little girl opened the door and got her mother. Yes, they had some rooms to rent. How could I have remembered getting rooms at the pub with the Corvid name (dialect, btw), and yet name another pub in my letter? The Chough - here probably a jackdaw. I didn't pull that name out of mid-air.
-
At 10:15, after my first library visit, I went to SJs and had coffee - just coffee - that's 'for once', lately! At SJs I can check FB and Yahoo on my phone, as well as google the odd thing that might come to mind. I started reading a library book that arrived for me yesterday: Byron: A Life in Ten Letters.
The tech doesn't start work until 2:00 today, but as I learned yesterday I don't need to be around the building in any event. It's just a normal day where I don't know what to do with myself -- except I can't listen to music on Yahoo, fall down a rabbit hole there, etc.
I looked at the next Spring in London letter to transcribe, and noticed something odd: our pub/B+B in Salisbury. I remember the conversation recorded in the letter, but I don't remember the upshot being that we stayed overnight where we had that conversation. In fact I wrote in here about my search for a Salisbury pub named after a crow-like bird (a Corvid) - and I found it, I even found a photo. (It's closed now.) I remember we knocked on the door, since it was closed midafternoon as usual then. A little girl opened the door and got her mother. Yes, they had some rooms to rent. How could I have remembered getting rooms at the pub with the Corvid name (dialect, btw), and yet name another pub in my letter? The Chough - here probably a jackdaw. I didn't pull that name out of mid-air.
-
Fic: Murder, She Wrote/Teen Wolf: Maybe We Can Hope Tomorrow (Jessica & Allison; PG13)
May. 28th, 2025 02:40 pmspikedluvThis is the original idea I had for my prompt, but there was just enough time between me coming up with and me writing it that the story went from completely dark to just kind of dark and really sad, kind of? I hope you enjoy it? *g*
Title: Maybe We Can Hope Tomorrow
Author: Spikedluv
Fandom: Murder, She Wrote (tv)/Teen Wolf (tv)
Rating: PG13/Gen
Pairing/Characters: Jessica Fletcher & Allison Argent (cameo by Seth Hazlitt; appearance by Mort Metzger; original characters mentioned)
Length: 2,580 words
Spoilers: Takes place post-season four Murder, She Wrote and during season three of Teen Wolf.
Summary: Jessica Fletcher is confronted with a rogue werewolf and a rogue hunter.
Author’s Notes: Werewolf!Jessica. Show-level violence. Written for theintoabar prompt Jessica Fletcher goes into a bar and meets... Allison Argent!
Warnings: Character death before the story begins; implied character death post-story.
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.
Posted: May 28, 2025
Read Fic @ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65979859
Title: Maybe We Can Hope Tomorrow
Author: Spikedluv
Fandom: Murder, She Wrote (tv)/Teen Wolf (tv)
Rating: PG13/Gen
Pairing/Characters: Jessica Fletcher & Allison Argent (cameo by Seth Hazlitt; appearance by Mort Metzger; original characters mentioned)
Length: 2,580 words
Spoilers: Takes place post-season four Murder, She Wrote and during season three of Teen Wolf.
Summary: Jessica Fletcher is confronted with a rogue werewolf and a rogue hunter.
Author’s Notes: Werewolf!Jessica. Show-level violence. Written for the
intoabar prompt Jessica Fletcher goes into a bar and meets... Allison Argent!Warnings: Character death before the story begins; implied character death post-story.
Feedback: Would be greatly appreciated.
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me.
Posted: May 28, 2025
Read Fic @ AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/65979859
Links: Good Causes, Owls, & More
May. 28th, 2025 06:00 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
smartbitches_feed
Hello, everyone! How are we all doing?
I went bridal dress shopping last weekend and it was honestly a really great experience. I hate clothes shopping in general, and I was concerned that the pressure of finding such an important garment would only heighten those negative feelings. My stylist was so lovely and supportive. As someone bigger chested, I was also super dubious that I didn’t need a bra in these dresses, but she was absolutely right.
I probably tried on a dozen dresses during that appointment and my body was so sore the next day. Who knew it would be so physically taxing!
I did have my eye on one beautiful dress to try on and I did, but it didn’t make me feel special. In the end, I went with this one, which made me feel confident, a little sexy, and like myself. I also grabbed a beautiful metal floral headpiece.
If you’re in the New England area, I highly recommend Madeline’s Daughter Bridal in New Hampshire.
…
Are you in the Kansas City area? There are a few spots left for this cute book retreat! It also looks like there is one in the works for December in California.
I love this idea and some of my friends have hosted something similar (and for cheaper). However, if you prefer to sit back, relax, and let someone else handle all the planning, this may be a really fun option for you and a friend.
…
My partner sent me this one. It’s a gallery of rehabilitators wrapping owls in towels. That’s it.
…
Curious about why librarians make for good intelligence operatives? Thanks to Susan for this link!
…
I heard about the Proper Help Foundation on Instagram and thought it was a really simple and easy way to help local communities. You can donate to help pay off student lunch debt for students. It seems like a relatively new organization, but it is listed on Charity Navigator.
…
Don’t forget to share what cool or interesting things you’ve seen, read, or listened to this week! And if you have anything you think we’d like to post on a future Wednesday Links, send it my way!
one-pan ditalini and peas
May. 28th, 2025 04:46 pmsmittenkitchen_feed
Blood Over Bright Haven, by M. L. Wang
May. 28th, 2025 10:28 amrachelmanija
Sciona, the first woman ever admitted to the University of Magic, takes on Thomil, a janitor from a discriminated-against culture, as her lab assistant, and they both learn dark secrets about their world.
Thomil is introduced when his clan makes a desperate run across deadly ground to get to the safety of a city surrounded by a magical shield. The shield protects against bitter cold and the deadly Blight, which randomly zaps and dissolves people, but the area around the city is particularly Blight-infested. Only Thomil and his baby niece survive. When they arrive, they find that the city natives hate their race and has consigned them all as a permanent underclass.
Ten years later, Sciona, a well-to-do young woman in the city, is preparing for her magic exam to try to get into the sexist magic university, which no woman has ever passed. Though she does pass, all the male mages but her mentor hate her and hassle her. The only other person who's even remotely nice to her is Thomil, the janitor, who is assigned as her lab assistant as a cruel joke. But though Sciona is racist and classist, and Thomil is mildly sexist in an oblivious way, they find that they kind of get along...
Wang has an engaging, easy-read style for the most part, the intros to the two main characters are quite compelling, and despite the heavy-handed axes of privilege themes, Thomil and Sciona have a nice dynamic.
I said "for the most part." The exception is the magic system, which I think is basically computer programming via magic typewriters (spellographs). The wizards program a spell to access a specific area of the magical Otherrealm (which they can't see or sense in any way, so they're just plotting points on a grid) to grab magical energy or matter from it. But we get MUCH more detailed and lengthy descriptions of it, from long explanations to actual spells:
CONDITION 1: DEVICE is 15 Vendric feet higher than its position at the time of activation.
ACTION 1: FIRE will siphon from POWER an amount of energy no lower than 4.35 and no higher than 4.55 on the Leonic scale.
ACTION 2: FIRE will siphon within the distance of DEVICE no higher than 3 Vendric inches.
If and only if CONDITION 1 is met, ACTION 1 and ACTION 2 will go into effect.
The first half is Sciona and Thomil working on various spells, interspersed with very heavy-handed commentary on colonialism, sexism, and how Sciona totally gets feminism when it applies to her personally but is oblivious to all other isms. Sciona is an awful, self-centered person and Thomil is mostly perfect. Almost exactly halfway through, there is a shocking reveal. At least, it shocked many readers. It did not shock me.
( Read more... )
Despite what the plot description sounds like, Sciona and Thomil do not have a romance beyond occasional sexy feelings. It's a magical dystopia/dark academia, I think similar to Babel (which I could not get very far into) but less anvillicious in that it does not have literal footnotes saying stuff like "This is a racist comment and racism is bad." (In the bookshop, I have Blood Over Bright Haven tagged "If you like Babel you will like this.") Sadly for M. L. Wang, this comparative subtlety got them some reviews on Goodreads accusing them of condoning Sciona being a bad person and endorsing her beliefs.
I did not care for this book but I can see how it would work for many readers, especially if they're shocked by the twist at the halfway mark.
Wednesday has had more equestrian-products-related spam
May. 28th, 2025 06:03 pmoursinWhat I read
Vivian Shaw, Strange New World (Dr Greta Helsing, #4) (2025): somehow did not like this as much as the preceding volumes in the series.
Anthony Powell, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant (A Dance to the Music of Time #5) (1960).
Latest Literary Review.
Discovered entirely by happenstance that Robert Rodi's scathingly irreverent comedies of manners set largely in Chicago’s gay demimonde' are now available as ebooks at exceedingly eligible prices (I read them in the 90s/early 00s from the local library) so have downloaded all those and also:
Bitch In a Bonnet: Reclaiming Jane Austen from the Stiffs, the Snobs, the Simps and the Saps (vol 1) (2014), which collects and expands on his blogposts on Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice and Mansfield Park. which was quite addictive, the sort of thing I thought I'd be dipping into and in fact read end to end, even while dissenting from his take on Fanny Price and muttering that he was not exactly au fait with the discourse on JA's views on the slavery question.
On the go
This was perhaps at least partly motivated by coming to the point in Dragon's Teeth where we get the Reichstag Fire and its consequences, and Lanny is caught in the middle of a whole mass of cross-currents while trying to save those of his friends who think that they will surely be all right....
Bitch In a Bonnet vol 2 (2014): covers Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Up next
Well, KJ Charles, Copper Script is allegedly due to drop tomorrow....
Activity #94 - Technique Waterfall
May. 28th, 2025 07:18 pmtinny posting in icontalking
I don't feel up to Ask the Maker yet, so first we'll have a short activity until mid-June (and then Ask the Maker).
Now we'll make sets of icons following water down a waterfall! Under the cut, there is a list of techniques in the shape of a waterfall.
( technique waterfall! )
Rules:
* You have to start at the top (on any square that has no other directly above it, not necessarily the top left) and then go straight down or diagonally down. Make one icon for each square you come across (of course using that technique). It's your choice where you start, and whether you go straight down or diagonal on each step. You can go both left-down or right-down. Just never go horizontally or up.
* Each set of icons has to be of consecutive squares you come across on the way from top to bottom. You don't have to go all the way down - you can start at the top and only make two icons, that's okay. Minimum set size is two icons.
* If you want to make more than one set, you can. You can choose a new starting point (has to be one of the top squares) for each set.
Please ask me if you have any questions. Let me know if there's a problem with the graphic, I can also provide the techniques as plain text.
* You can make as many icons as you like (if you need a goal, five is a good number :))
* There is no minimum, 1 icon is enough to enter this activity
* Please submit your icons (and URLs!) to this post, all in one comment (if possible)
* Everyone can participate, you don't have to be a member of this community
* I will collect all the icons from the comments and make a result post
* Everyone can leave comments on the inspiration and activity result posts
* There is no voting
Deadline: Saturday, June 14 2025, your end-of-day
Unfortunate Timing
May. 28th, 2025 10:55 amstarwatcherSo, most of you know that I visit Cindy most afternoons. (She doesn't always feel well enough for a visit.) Somewhere in the past couple of years, we switched from watching Lucifer and me reading fanfic, to me reading novels.
Cindy prefers romantic suspense, or action-adventure-romance. Other genres are okay, if there's at least a little M/F love interest. Sometimes, of course, there's more than a little.
Now, picture this: Cindy's lying in bed. I'm reading aloud, with my voice a little louder than normal, because Cindy's hearing is decreased. Her husband Carl may be shopping, or at the shooting range, but is usually doing housework or woodwork. Occasionally he comes into the bedroom for something he needs, or to tell Cindy something.
So, he's barefoot, walking down a carpeted hall; we don't know he's coming until he appears in the doorway. And, far too often, he appears -- and has heard as he approaches the doorway -- just as I'm reading a slightly (or more than slightly) salacious line.
Yesterday, it was, "Locating a skull had been difficult, Amelia reflected, but finding a codpiece had been considerably more of a challenge." He literally appeared at the doorway just as I said, "codpiece."
*facepalm*
We all had a good laugh; Cindy and Carl aren't at all stuffy, and Carl likes to tease about things like that. (He said, "Yeah, it would be!") But still, I'd rather he walked in a couple of sentences earlier, when I was reading, "It showed another extremely handsome young man dressed in the ancient Italian style."
Good grief! Who knew reading aloud could be dangerous?
(The book is Second Sight by Amanda Quick, aka Jayne Ann Krentz. Set in the late 1890's, a woman photographer is making a series of art photographs of "Men of Shakespeare." The skull was for Hamlet, the codpiece for Romeo. That's not the point of the book, but the mystery centers around photography, so her work is discussed.)
Read-in-Progress Wednesday
May. 28th, 2025 09:52 amgeraineon posting in cnovelsThis is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!
For spoilers:
<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>
<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*
For spoilers:
<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>
<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*