sid_guardian | Member Posts

Intro/FAQ

My check-in: 750 words, in which I introduce the requested characters. Murky waters ahead; I might have to consult with the Shower Fairy or the Dishes Fairy to determine what happens now that I have everyone in the same place.

Day 7:

china_shop,

sanguinity

Day 6:

acorn_squash,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora

Day 5:

acorn_squash,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

luzula,

sanguinity,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

( More days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

sabotabby

After having taken a wee break to watch some movies and the Great Pottery Throwdown (excellent telly btw), I am officially Back On My Bullshit.

Okay episode four of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent, entitled "Forget Me Not," was...good? That's two decent episodes in a row. Granted I'm grading on a curve because, and I can't say this often enough, this is low-budget trashy copaganda, but I actually enjoyed this one as a story. And this is the first time that neither I nor Reddit have been able to determine what this is based on, so it's possible that the writers actually made up a story.

Also this deals with care homes and dementia, so if this is a sensitive topic for you, maybe skip it.

( Forget Me Not )

alisx

This is definitely satire but, also, a little part of me hopes it turns out to be the trailhead for an ARG . . .

Leave a comment.⁺

spindizzy

Okay, so we're talking about this. Cut for discussing mental illness and self-harm, caveat emptor.

(I AM FINE.)

( Read more... )

alisx

Leave a comment.⁺

$radiantfracture: Small painting of Penguin book (Books post)$

radiantfracture

Hello! Do you have opinions on this year's Hugo nominees? I would enjoy hearing them -- not for any reason other than the sheer pleasure of thinking about books. Comment freely with your opinions, predictions, and recommendations.

The Backstory

sabotabby got me hooked on the Ancillary Review of Books' podcast A Meal of Thorns via her post on the MoT episode about Ready Player One, and I've been traipsing through the back catalogue.

Last year, host Jake Casella Brookins and frequent guest Roseanna Pendlebury hashed through the Hugo short lists book by book in great toothy detail. The episode was a sublime listening experience as I wandered through the wooded trails around Pkols / Mount Doug a few weeks ago, mostly because I agreed with almost everything they said. (At least about the books I'd read.)

(Last year I happened to do pretty well on Hugo reading. Without trying very hard, I read half the books -- 3/6 novels and 3/6 novellas. This year, not so much -- I've only read Amal El-Mohtar's novella The River Has Roots.)

(NB El-Mohtar's episode of MoT on The Traitor Baru Cormorant is also excellent.)

On precedent, I've been eagerly looking forward to the MoT Hugos episode this year, but so far they don't seem to have one planned.

Hence my rough approximation. Let me interview you about the Hugo noms you read and your takes thereon.

I guess I'll go first:

I liked The River Has Roots a lot. I'm shocked to discover it's El-Mohtar's first solo long-form fiction -- her voice has, to my ear, such assurance, both here and in This is How You Lose the Time War. She knows what she wants to do with this story and she does it, piece by piece. For such a small book, the story feels spacious. It's economical but doesn't feel rushed or compressed to me. I would have liked to know a little more about how she was imagining the phenomenon of grammar. I enjoyed the chicken.

Now you! (If you want.) -- Any Hugo short lister is fair game, whether I have read it or not.

§rf§

sanguinity

Intro/FAQ

My check-in: I added 2k to the new fic since last we spoke! Apparently now that the groundbreaking ceremony is over, I decided to bring in a backhoe.

Day 6:

china_shop,

sanguinity

Day 5:

acorn_squash,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

luzula,

sanguinity,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 4:

acorn_squash,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

china_shop,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

glinda,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

alisx

A thousand blessings be upon all fanfic writers who seem to think catching international flights is like showing up for the inner city bus.

Leave a comment.⁺

lacommunarde

Dear DMBJ: Small-Med Pairing Exchange Writer or Artist!

Thank you for writing for me! I would love a variety of fics mostly centered around our beloved Zhang Rishan Fu Guan and/or Qi Tiezui Baye and their relationships with each other or with either Foye or Liang Wan (or both, I am always up for them having several relationships across their time alive).

I would love to have a fic influenced by the fact that Zhang Rishan is qilin blooded, and that in the novella M9: What Happened in Xiangxi, Baye is mentioned as having a family rule about not doing readings for qilin tattooed individuals.

General likes:
I tend to like fairly dark things with a happy or bittersweet ending (ok, who am I kidding, I love crying my heart out as well)
Chinese Civil War, Second-Sino Japanese War are fine
post 1949 is absolutely fine too. (If you want to go full "Foye wtf?"/Mystic Nine extras while Baye and Zhang Rishan watch, either in a FuBa or a FoBa or both situation, I would love that)
I am absolutely fine with age gaps.
I am also absolutely fine with past they count as an adult because they have undergone the coming of age ritual and passed with flying colors.

Potential prompts listed under the relationship, (although you in no way have to do one of these)!

1. Zhang Rishan x Qi Tiezui Baye - both negotiating and dealing with Zhang Rishan qilin blood and Baye's family's rule that they are really not supposed to read qilin tattooed individuals, how do they both bend that rule so they can be together. When did they first meet? How do they deal with the Zhang family ancient manor declaring Baye functionally a Zhang or has enough Zhang blood (via soup in the book!) or bodily fluids in him to count as a Zhang. (Does Foye afterward when he hears the story assume it's one bodily fluid when it's actually the other? Which one would it be more fun if Foye assumed for it to actually be the other?) How does Baye deal with the fact that he's now considered Zhang enough by Zhang family ancient manor what with his family prohibitions?

1b. On that note, does heating Zhang Rishan's qilin blood and trying to transfer its bug-proof properties accidentally do to Baye the same transfer as was done in Southern Archives? How would he find out? What would his reaction be?

1c. Trans man Zhang Rishan x Qi Tiezui - Zhang Rishan is trans. Potentially he and Qi Tiezui are Qi Yu's parents (maybe the Qi family rule against reading qilin tattooed individuals interacting with qilin blood is why Qi Yu is so bizarre). But also, how does Zhang Rishan react when he first sees Wu Xie, given that Qi Yu looks exactly like him and writes exactly like him and even puts his books exactly like him?

1d. Zhang Rishan gets partially tianshou'd at Siguniang. This can be as angsty as you like and can involve Golmud while Zhang Rishan recovers himself.

1 and/or 2 idea: Someone finds out Zhang Rishan is qilin blooded and kidnaps him, and Foye and Baye team up to get Zhang Rishan out of there. Could involve Foye x Baye, could involve Rishan x Baye, but either way, both of them care about Rishan a lot and he's kidnapped (either by the Leader of "IT" or the Wangs up to you)!

2a. Zhang Da Foye x Qi Tiezui Baye

Baye dealing with Zhang Da Foye's Zhang Da Foye-ness, however you would like to interpret that.
Foye seems to disregard Baye's fengshui and prediction a whole lot to his face, but he's still over there asking for them all the time and having Baye come along.
Baye can canonically only read Foye some of the time. Other time he get a sometimes catastrophically wrong prediction. (Aka, exploring the What Happened in Xiangxi novella with its implication about their potential weirdness). Does Baye have any thoughts about why? Has he told Foye he's having a tough time reading him? Does Foye know Baye's family's rules? Does Baye know how closely Foye's is related to a qilin tattooed Zhang?

3. Zhang Rishan x Liang Wan - Potential ideas include:

3a. Zhang Rishan reveling in the fact that he is marrying a Wang (though one who didn't know she was a Wang, but still, converting a Wang to their side!), and giving Liang Wan training so she is at least able to work out next to the Zhangs at any family get togethers. Picture her going into a Zhang family event where the Hai branch is working out topless or in the outfits Haixing (or A-Ning) wear, so their tattoos are visible, and just she starts working out too and her phoenix tattoo becomes visible and everyone else is like "must you, Zhang Rishan?" and he is like "yes."

3b. Could involve pregnancy and Zhang Rishan being a very overprotective soon-to-be- dad about that, and telling her about qilin blood and how rare and absolutely secret that is.

3c. Could involve whatever Zhang marriage rituals you want to come up with because Zhang Rishan wants to make it official. (Are there even weirder ones for qilin blooded individuals?)

3d. Might involve Zhang Qiling blessing the wedding and then cornering her and being like, "tell me everything that went down with Wu Xie, and I will tell you what I know about the Wang family" because he strongly suspects Wu Xie will not tell him what he wants to know. (Maybe it's before Wu Xie actually tells him about what he did)

3e. Or could involve Zhang Haixing doing an "I'll make a Zhang (branch) furen out of you" and sets about training her (and potentially only then does Liang Wan find out that nobody in the Hai branch realizes Zhang Rishan is qilin blooded).

Any of these or anything you write of these relationships would be awesome!

DNW:
no omegaverse
no Yan Sanxing
no Liu Sang in a relationship with either Zhang Rishan or the Iron Triangle

green

I'm 48 today! I made a hummingbird cake but it looks boring so I won't post a pic. but it's gonna be delicious. the texture is just right so I KNOW this.

Current Mood: grateful

china_shop

(Photo credit: Andrew.)

trobadora

Via

china_shop:

This week I'm reading: the new Murderbot book (came out today)! I'm also rereading Memory (from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga).

My favorite book of all time is: I'm with

china_shop here: "Completely impossible! I can't even name a favourite author."

My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is: I just yesterday finished rereading Mirror Dance (from Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan saga) and remembered how much I love that one!

The last book I bought was: volume 3 of the German translation of Guardian by priest, in a gorgeous hardcover edition.

The first book I bought with my own money was: I'm sure I bought some book or other as soon as I had enough pocket money. How am I supposed to remember that?!

The first book I received as a gift was: I must have been a toddler, how should I know?!

The last book I received as a gift was: I can't even answer this one, LOL. I don't get a lot of gifts, and even if I did, I wouldn't really want books. Book recommendations, definitely! But - how do I explain this? I love books; I read a lot. And I have a long, long list of things I want to read at some point - but what I don't have is enough time or energy to get to most of it any time soon. I can't even manage to consistently keep up with my favourite series these days, and am many, many instalments behind. So I prioritise pretty ruthlessly. I read new things when I have energy for them; I pick out exactly what appeals in that moment. And I'd feel pretty bad leaving a gift book just lying around indefinitely until I eventually get to it.

The last book I borrowed from the library was: IIRC the Judge Dee books by Robert van Gulik, a while ago, for a binge-reread. I used to carry huge stacks of books to and fro all the time, and now (see above) I can't find enough time to get to much any more.

The book physically closest to me right now is: the fifth volume of the Perry Rhodan hardcover edition.

This or that:
Physical book, e-book, or audio: physical book for comfortable rereading, ebook for trying new things or for fanfic canon revision. Never audio; I can't do audio, my attention will drift immediately. (I'm not sure if that's because it's audio, or simply because the speed is so much lower than my reading speed, it's like reading in slow motion. Also, I don't have the spare time!)
Used, new, or fell off the back of the internet: any way I can get my hands on what I want to read
Fiction or non-fiction: mainly fiction
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: neither; I do read when out and about, but that's generally just rereads of things I've read many times before, where I don't mind reading it in snatches. Otherwise, I want to comfortably settle down at home for a proper reading session. (I usually don't like reading things bit by bit! All in one go if at all possible is my preferred method for most fiction.)
Paperback or hardcover: paperbacks are so much easier to handle! I really only get hardcovers for collecting reasons, and that exceedingly rarely.
Romance or Crime: Crime! I like romance in combination with other things, but on its own it doesn't often work for me. Whereas crime fiction is fun in its own right.

Yes or no:
Literary fiction? yes
Sci-fi/fantasy? my one true love! (sci-fi more than fantasy)
Poetry? yes!
Memoirs? hardly ever
Philosophy? yes
Thrillers? absolutely
Chronicles? not sure what that means here
Travel logs? not really
Dialogue heavy? sure, why not

sabotabby

Just finished: Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story Of the Jewish Bund by Molly Crabapple. God this is amazing. I don't know what to add; I think iI get a similar thrill with the sense of political and cultural recognition that other people get when they see a character like themselves in fiction for the first time (who knew representation was important???). This is one of those "read this book if you want to better understand me" type things for me. Obviously it's not just therapy for curmudgeonly anti-Zionist anarch-ish middle-aged Jewish women—the history is important, knowing about the strategy and failures are important, the narrative of fighting in the face of defeat is important. But it also helped reset some of my despair.

BTW it's a long slog but about halfway through when they hit the end of WWII I was like, huh, half the book is left??? half the book is footnotes.

Wake Up! (Seasons, Book Winter) by Ryszard I. Merey. Ah, let's read something short after the big, detailed history book—oh no this one is fairly brutal too. This is the third book in the Seasons project (the first two are a + e 4ever and Read and then Burn This, which I also highly recommend), all of which have to do with toxic relationships and gender fuckery, if you like that kind of thing. I do. This is about Tian, a down-on-her-luck tattoo artist. Her fiancée has left her after she's come out as trans, and she's left with an apartment she can't afford. Al, a man she rescues one night, has rent money, but that's because he's a high-stakes mahjong player in deep with some sketchy characters. It's a hallucinogenic fever dream with an unreliable narrator and a shifting, capricious timeline. Beautifully written, absolutely tragic, and if you want you can get a special German edition on sparkly paper that's tiny.

Currently reading: Nothing, starting Five Points On an Invisible Line by Su J Sokol next.

nnozomi

Too much boring work to do (better than no work at all, but still), so of course I am escaping reality and posting here instead. (Also owe some comments on other people's posts! Soon, I hope!)

I went to the thrice-yearly used book fair* in Kyoto, which is always fun and frustrating in equal measure; it’s the usual used bookstore problem writ large, i.e. I know there is something I want there, but there are so many books arranged in such random order, there’s no real way to come across it other than dumb luck. Still, I found one book for me (oral history in Japanese) and one for my mom (Hamerton’s Paris, architectural essays published in 1892, in amazingly good condition and not at all expensive), as well as some cute postcards from past book fair posters, see below. In the past I’ve also come across things like a set of Chujo Yuriko’s complete works at about 2 dollars a volume (there are a lot of volumes, but still), some art I still have up on my wall, at least one of the books I use as a source for

senzenwomen, and my favorite piece of ephemera ever, have I mentioned it here before? a school directory for a Kyoto public junior high school from 1955, containing not just students’ names and addresses but also parents’ names, ages, and occupations, like a sociological map of the neighborhood at the time.
*(Of the three yearly used book fairs, the May one is the only one held inside; I usually skip the August one, because even in the shady precincts of the Shimogamo Shrine, Kyoto in August is too damn hot and humid to wander around outside for any length of time, and one doesn’t want to sweat on the books. October at Chionji (or is it Chion-in, I always forget) is much nicer.)

I’ve been watching a bunch of people doing reaction videos to songs/concerts on Bilibili, and found myself thinking, I could do this! Not showing my face, God forbid, just my voice and my terrible Chinese. I have things I want to say! It would be such good speaking practice! (she said innocently). Probably nobody would watch them, but so what? Except, I couldn’t do it, because I don’t have the relevant software/hardware and have never made a video in my life. Is that something you can just, like, download and learn? (Also I’d have to actually sign up to B站, but presumably that can be done…)

Considering some of the more varied uses of the character 美 in Chinese. 美甲, painted/polished/manicured nails; 美瞳, cosmetic contacts; 美声, bel canto (used, I think, as a metonym (?) for Western-opera singing in general, to distinguish it from Chinese opera). Also the phonetic ones: 美乃滋, Taiwan-Chinese for mayonnaise (the mainland uses 蛋黄酱, egg yolk sauce); 美式 is American-style and a 冰美式 is an iced Americano.
Other random Chinese stuff: 大肠发卷, a really delightful word which is literally “large intestine hairband,” ie a scrunchie; and the frequent online use of the English “ing”to mean, appropriately, “currently doing ~~” (I’ve seen “排练ing” and “考虑ing” among others).

Jiang Dunhao song of the post, 好的晚安, because the 转音 (melisma? do you call it melisma in a pop song?) get to me; also a bonus Zhou Shen version of the same song, up an octave of course (or rather JDH is taking it down an octave, Zhou Shen covered it first).

For the last orchestra concert, we had a different tuba player (the one before was a slight, fresh-faced young man who looked as if he might get sucked into his own tuba, a la Alice in Orchestralia); this one was a tall thin guy about thirty, with glasses and a short ponytail (still unusual in mainstream Japan). He looks like someone, I kept thinking, but I couldn’t pin it down until I saw him in his concert suit: Liu Sang!

Rereading the diaries of Nella Last, a mid-20th-c. housewife from Northern England, vibrant as always.

5/13/41: Men are so odd. I often feel I give up trying to understand them at all. Perhaps they feel like that about us!!
6/8/41: Today at Morecambe Bay two carfuls of happy people sat within earshot and I caught scraps of conversation…the rest of the talk seemed to be of ‘whether our Margaret should stand so much of Bill’s nonsense—girls were daft nowadays to bother about things like that.’ I was so curious about Margaret’s particular daftness!
4/23/42: Mrs Waite started off about ‘crawling snakes’ and ‘tricks her mother would have done’ and suddenly I got angry and said ‘If I wanted to leave I’d leave. Nothing would stop me. But if you want to make me grow tired of Hospital Supply, you will start bickering and nagging. What I do when I’m not at Hospital Supply is my own concern and to talk of “liking to be where men are” in that nasty insinuating way you did when I said I would rather work in the men’s Canteen than change over was quite uncalled for. I do like men best—I’m more used to them and anyway I’ve never heard a man say as many stupid childish things to another man as you did to Molly Diss. You are a very peevish cantankerous old thing and I will not be spoken to like that.’ There was dead silence and then Mrs. Waite said mildly ‘I cannot see us doing without a bit of fire for a week or two’ and Mrs. Higham got up and went out. Later she said ‘I went off to have a mild attack of hysterics…’
12/18/45: And there’s a thing people tend to forget. One of the strongest cornerstones in American society as a whole is bitter resentment, either to their own country or another, which compelled them to seek a fuller life overseas.
3/7/47: Shan We [Siamese cat] seemed to lose his head—he took a header [from the window] into the deep snow and disappeared, except for the tip of his brown tail. I leaned forward and heaved and we both fell backward into the hall, bringing a pile of snow. The cross-eyed look of reproach he gave me and the anxious look he gave his tail, as if surprised to find it still on, nearly sent me into hysterics of laughter—helped by the same ‘Why should this happen to me?’ look on my husband’s face as he shovelled snow.
2/3/50: Then the elephant keeper ‘had a go’ [on the eponymous radio program] and in a perfectly serious voice, answering Wilfred’s ‘Why do elephants marching along a street hold on to each other’s tails?’ said ‘It keeps them decent’! not pausing to realise he meant decent in the Northern Irish idiom meaning ‘tidy.’ … I was in the lounge and my eyes fell on a little carved coconut wood elephant. I felt chuckles begin in my throat and a vision of five or six elephants swinging down the Strand, with their ponderous yet ‘mincing’ tread, so smug and confident in their ‘decent’ appearance as trunks gripped tails! My husband put his head round the door and said ‘What are you laughing about?’ and I said ‘Decent elephants’ and he laughed too.
2/27/50: Luckily I didn’t mention going to Ireland, for my husband said quickly ‘Ah, Nell can have a good rest [while he would be away]. I’ll soon be back and she will have to write lots of letters to me…’. I sniffed as I said to Mrs Howson ‘So, if you see a cheap line in chastity girdles, let me know.’ He wondered why we both set off laughing. He said ‘You’ve just got new corsets. What do you want another girdle for?’
6/26/52: I’d have awarded top place for oddity, though, to a gentle old world type of man who could have been a country parson or doctor. In Lyons he had a glass of lemonade with ice cream dropped in, and a double portion of ice cream, with four wafers, and by his look enjoyed his odd lunch.

Photos: Miké-chan in the park; two from the regional jazz festival over Golden Week, one mostly sky and one a performance in a shrine (look close to see the sax and trumpet); iris, maple, and strawberries, the latter from my veranda; two from a recent Gaudí exhibition, because I can’t resist dragons, or mosaic (especially as a tiny model); and four postcards of past used-book-fair posters. Maybe the Heian lady is that girl whose name I can never remember who was so thrilled when her aunt gave her the latest chapters of the Tale of Genji?

Be safe and well.

china_shop

Previous poll review
In the Search engine recs poll, 49% of respondents use Google, 46.9% use DuckDuckGo, and 10.2% use StartPage. There were two write-ins for Kagi, a paid search engine that apparently works like it's 2004.

In ticky-boxes, apocalypse fatigue came second to the inevitable winner, hugs, 42.9% to 69.4%. Clumsy parrots came third with 42.9%. Hugs to you all, and thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
Andrew and I finished Bujold's The Vor Game, and I've downloaded Cetaganda but we haven't started it yet. I've also grabbed the new Murderbot, which might save me from my swamp of easy-listening podcasts.

Still dipping into Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell. Really need to pick up a novel and devour it with my eyeballs sometime, but I accidentally filled my spare moments with something else (see Language Learning below).

Kdramas
Finished Phantom Lawyer, which was enjoyable enough. I wasn't invested in the romance, but the general vibe was good-hearted and cosy.

The Red Sleeve is heavy on the palace politics, so I don't know how long I'm going to last. Ot1h, Junho; otoh, a hundred scheming ministers and princesses. Maybe I should rewatch The King Loves instead?

Absolute Value of Romance is on a collision course with my DNWs, so I have my fingers crossed that it isn't going where everyone seems to thinks it is.

Other TV
We finished Dark Winds season 4 last night. It is a great show with very charismatic leads.

Still watching Rooster, Fringe, Bluey, Deadloch season 2 (no spoilers, please!) and People of Earth. Also original flavour Scrubs, though the comedy is wearing thin on the workplace bullying and constant misgendering, hmm. (Does the reboot keep those elements?)

Not sure what we're replacing Dark Winds with -- probably the latest season of The Lincoln Lawyer.

Audio entertainment
Like, just way too many episodes of Bill and Frank's Guilt-free Pleasures. /o\ Writing Excuses and half an ep of Cross Party Lines, which is diminished by the loss of one of its hosts to offline politics.

Online life
I'm really enjoying

polyamships' prompts for

3weeks4dreamwidth and, similarly,

maevedarcy's memes. Continuing to struggle with keeping up with my reading page, but that's probably the new normal.

The Slo-Mo Rewatch on

sid_guardian has quietened down a little, but it still absorbs about a quarter of my fannish/writing time, and I love it.

Writing/making things
I'm being incredibly slow to make beta edits to my 520 Day fic. Where do the hours go? Never mind, I'm working reasonably steadily, and that's more important to me than output rates.

Life/health/mental state things
Sleep is improving, but my shoulder's been sore for a week... since I downloaded certain apps. Hm.

I have a number of political submissions on my to-do list, each of which require me to think coherent thoughts.

For those following the saga of my car, we called NZAA on Monday 4 May, took it for a long drive (and finished The Vor Game while we were at it), and it's now snuggled against the bank at the bottom of my path, with the trickle charger theoretically doing its thing. I've only driven it once for non-battery-recharging reasons since the oil crisis started, and that outing was at least partly motivated by keeping the battery charged. I'll see how the Warrant of Fitness goes on Monday.

House
The reputtying is complete, and the builders have decamped with the scaffolding, hooray! The next big job will either be [paint upstairs, replace the 1960s gas oven with electric, and refloor the kitchen] or [replace the toilet with a non-cracked, less water-hungry model, and refloor the bathroom]. Neither of these is super urgent, and both require research, decisions, and expenditure, blah, so I'll catch my breath first.

In the meantime, Andrew is filling some gaps in the kitchen wall, and I've ordered an IKEA shelving unit for the built-in wardrobe in my spare room. Which means soon there'll be less random clutter around the living-room, woohoo! In theory, it won't all go into the cupboard; I'm hoping to dispose of some of it while tidying away the rest.

Language Learning
I've spent the last eight years in a Chinese drama fandom, going, "Sunk cost, sunk cost, Korean is my One True Asian Language Love ♥ ♥ ♥" and "I wouldn't have the first clue how to even start with Mandarin" and "argh, tones! argh, characters!" Now, thanks to

starandrea's inspiring/encouraging post about starting their Chinese-learning journey, I have nine-day streaks for both Duolingo and Hello Chinese.

I prefer Hello Chinese: it has a good mix of speaking/listening/reading/writing, a variety of practice options, and occasional audio lessons about usage. I like its focus on teaching grammar-adjacent words like "to be", "this", "possessives", etc, rather than Duolingo's noun clusters (though of course you need both). But I've finished the free portion and am now wrestling with whether I'm actually doing this ~~and whether tracing characters on my screen is what's messing up my shoulder~~. Also, I had a moment of extreme outrage about stroke orders yesterday, lol.

Idk. I'm not sure how much of this I can cram into my aphantasic little head. *dithers with finger hovering over the "one month" (ie, lowest commitment, least cost-effective) option*

Good things
The re-puttying is complete! My sister's coming over tonight. My lemon tree is singing a song of a hundred lemons. My 520 Day fic is nearly done. Guardian, fandom, Dreamwidth.

Poll #34569 Sailing the seas

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

For ship fic, I prefer to:

View Answers

get straight to the romantic smooshing
5 (14.3%)

untangle a thicket of character issues first...
24 (68.6%)

... and/or during...
23 (65.7%)

... and/or after
18 (51.4%)

I don't care for ship fic
4 (11.4%)

other
5 (14.3%)

ticky-box full of giant bumble bees playing trombones
13 (37.1%)

ticky-box full of bananas, nuts, crackers, and fruitcake
14 (40.0%)

ticky-box full of language-learning apps
11 (31.4%)

ticky-box full of baking
21 (60.0%)

ticky-box full of hugs
25 (71.4%)

sanguinity

Intro/FAQ

My check-in: Broke ground on the new fic to the tune of 650 words. This post went up later than planned because I kept getting distracted by the arithmetic of pounds, shillings, and pence. (And guineas. And crowns. And…)

Day 5:

sanguinity,

ysilme

Day 4:

acorn_squash,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

glinda,

goddess47,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

ysilme

Day 3:

acorn_squash,

badly_knitted,

carenejeans,

cornerofmadness,

dswdiane,

glinda,

sanguinity,

sylvanwitch,

the_siobhan,

trobadora,

china_shop

#mybooks meme via

maevedarcy, adapted by me to suit myself.

This week I'm reading: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner; Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell; and a bunch of Kdrama subtitles... ;-p

My favorite book of all time is: What kind of question is this? Completely impossible! I can't even name a favourite author.

My current favorite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is:

Since February, I've read a bunch of new-to-me Bujold in audio, narrated by Grover Gardner (from the Vorkosigan and Penric series), some Courtney Milan in ebook (Wedgeford series), The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman (hardback from the library), The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley in audio, narrated by Sid Sagar, Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell in ebook, Good old-fashioned Korean spirit by Kim Hyun Sook (paperback from the library), and half of Siren Queen by Nigh Vo in audio, narrated by Natalie Naudus.

Of those, my favourite was The Bookish Life of Nina Hill by Abbi Waxman, mostly because I chose it fairly randomly, and it was delightful, enjoyable, thoughtful, and unexpected. (I love random library finds!) Runner up goes to The Hymn to Dionysus (thanks to

profiterole_reads for the rec).

If we went back another six or eight weeks, it would be Swordcrossed by Freya Marske (secondary-world high-society m/m, with guilds).

The last book I bought was: The Earl Who Isn't by Courtney Milan, in ebook.

The first book I bought with my own money was: LOL, no idea. At all.

The first book I received as a gift was: We're talking 50+ years ago. I do remember having an older (20-something?) penpal who would send me books when I was in my early-teens. In particular, she sent me I Am David and The Hobbit.

The last book I received as a gift was: Siren Queen by Nghi Vo, in audio.

The last book I borrowed from the library was: Hine Toa: a story of bravery by Ngāhuia Te Awekōtuku. I only read the prologue before I had to return it. /o\

The book physically closest to me right now is: assuming ebooks don't count, it's Getting Bi: Voices of Bisexuals from Around the World, edited by Robyn Ochs and Sarah E. Rowley, which is at this end of the bookshelf behind me, in the queer section natch.

This or that:
Physical book, e-book, or audio: ebook or audio, depending on the book, the narrator, and my mood.
Used, new, or fell off the back of the internet: Any.
Fiction or non-fiction: Mostly fiction, but I go through NF phases.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: In ebook, mostly on the couch at home or while I'm stretching after exercise; in audio, while I'm doing dishes, stretching after exercise, walking, folding dumplings, etc.
Paperback or hardcover: physical books can be pretty hard on my hands/wrists/arms/neck, so if I'm reading in hard copy, anything that will lie flat on its own.
Romance or Crime: Romance.

Yes or no:
Literary fiction? Sure.
Sci-fi/fantasy? Yes, please.
Poetry? Not as much as I used to, but sure.
Memoirs? I'm not opposed to them, but rarely pick them out.
Philosophy? Yep. Also, science and pop psych.
Thrillers? Only if there's another aspect to draw me in.
Chronicles? I don't know what this is.
Travel logs? No.
Dialogue heavy? Sure.

Also, I thought I'd add a note on what makes me try a book:

I have a google doc of recs from offline friends and my reading page; I'm definitely influenced by recs. There are some authors and audiobook narrators that will lure me in. I am predisposed towards SF/F and romance, often in combination. I enjoy narrations with a sense of humour and queer rep, and I will generally try Korean books in translation, if I encounter them. As mentioned above, I love browsing the library, semi-randomly choosing a book, and discovering something unexpected and great. But I don't do it very often, because hard copy...

kat_lair

***

Title: Late Night Live Set
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: ATEEZ
Pairing: Hongjoong/Seongwha
Tags: Inspired by Music, Canon Compliant, Pining, Horny Pining
Rating: M
Word count: 1,252

Summary: The music is not something Seonghwa would’ve picked for himself, a mix of house and EDM, but he can feel the appeal, the way it fits the mood Hongjoong has captured here; the late hour, the sprawl of the city that is very much still awake, even Hongjoong’s clothes, the colour of the hoodie so clearly matched to the room that Seonghwa knows it’s on purpose. This isn’t just a DJ set, it’s art, an intimate moment of creation that Hongjoong has invited the world into.

Author notes: So, Hongjoong dropped a surprise DJ set without any fanfare, and I got three minutes into it before I was pulling up a blank word doc onto another window. It's been a hot minute since I wrote anything in one sitting inspired by music. I guess this is the spiritual sequel of Volcano (SKZ) and like what you (don't) see (K.A.R.D.). What can I say, the spirit of the ~~Captain~~ music moved me. So, amma gonna do like Hongjoong and drop this fic without so much as a beta (if you do spot a mistake, you should tell me about it). Caveat: absolutely no idea about Seonghwa's actual whereabouts during the recording, we're applying artistic license to sate my desire for some horny pining, m'kay? Oh, the title is very much the title of Hongjoong's set video.

Late Night Live Set on AO3

( Late Night Live Set )

***

alisx

I think Naoki Yoshida, a man in his 50s, dressing up in game cosplay for major fan festivals for Final Fantasy XIV is cringe. And yet no one ever calls it that because he isn’t ashamed of himself. Why should he be? He’s producer and director of the game.

He doesn’t need to do this. He does it because it builds community. It’s authentic. Why am I cringing? Why should I be embarrassed by this? Why should anyone?

You can say that it’s too authentic or too revealing. You can say “well, Amazon hired this person and she has to act enthusiastic” and the fact is that it’s just not true. This is cringe, yes, because cringe has come to mean a situation wherein someone is just being unvarnished and getting up on stage with absolutely no seeming shame about how they are supposed to be embarrassed.

And it’s beautiful.

On the beauty of the unvarnished self.

Leave a comment.⁺

rogueslayer452

As many are celebrating Star Wars on this day, I wanted to give attention to something that I hadn't seen much acknowledgement on in terms of this franchise.

An Ewok Adventure (a.k.a. Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure) (1984) and its sequel Ewoks: The Battle for Endor (1985). Both were live-action made-for-television movies set in the world of Star Wars focusing on the Ewoks and their human companions, mainly the little girl, and other creatures and antagonists.

Although I grew up on the original trilogy, I have always been a casual fan of Star Wars. I liked the story, but that was about it, I didn't dig deeper into anything else beyond some of the following movies (and later with The Mandalorian) nor have I been part of its fandom. With that being said, I do remember these two Ewok movies. I recall seeing commercials for them on television, especially on The Disney Channel in the 90s, and we must've recorded them on video during that time too because this was very memorable to me, especially the little girl and her friendship with an Ewok. And truthfully, I didn't even know these were two separate movies because I just kind of lumped them together, which is why my memory is kinda fuzzy on the plot itself although I do recall certain moments here and there. I just find it interesting that every single time people talk about Star Wars media, from the movies to shows or even that infamous Christmas special, I rarely see anyone reference these two Ewok movies. It's become kind of obscure and forgotten, which is a shame, because this kind of gives us a look into Star Wars media before the prequel trilogy and definitely before Disney bought it.

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Sleep Token - Dangerous

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