Oh hey I can make polls!
Sep. 6th, 2025 08:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dhampyresaUpdate: I can create polls, but not make them useable (I have a free account which means I shouldn't even be able to do this much, if I understand this correctly).
dhampyresa
Tomorrow's Lunar Eclipse
Sep. 6th, 2025 06:59 pmffuturesI was reminded last night that there's a total lunar eclipse tomorrow evening - seen from the UK the moon will rise at about 7.30PM already fully eclipsed, totality will continue until 7.52 PM, with a partial eclipse continuing until 8.56 and the penumbral eclipse until 9.55. Weather permitting some of it will be visible from London, but I wouldn't want to bet on it, it doesn't look too bad right now but London is not the best place for accurate meteorology, too much pollution etc. Now very glad I tested the micro 4/3 plus 2x converter plus 500mm mirror lens on Thursday night, I know roughly what to expect to go wrong...
https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wildlife/countryside/a65989948/september-blood-moon-lunar-eclipse/
https://www.countryliving.com/uk/wildlife/countryside/a65989948/september-blood-moon-lunar-eclipse/
Write Every Day September 2025 - Day 6
Sep. 6th, 2025 11:02 amcarenejeansQuote of the Day:
"I am serious about the images I make. That is a given. I never waver from my ambition – indeed, my compulsion – to do something significant. Yet I cannot just walk into my studio and "do something significant." I have had to develop a way of getting down to work that is probably best thought of as a way of playing."
— Miriam Schapiro, "Notes from a Conversation on Art, Feminism and Work," in Working it Out, edited by Sara Ruddick and Pamela Daniels (1977)
Today's Writing:
I had a frustrating writing day! I gave up, called what I had done an alibi sentence, and spent the rest of the time reading and moving files around so I could FIND them later. Erg.
Tally
( Days 1-4 )
Day 5:badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme
Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
"I am serious about the images I make. That is a given. I never waver from my ambition – indeed, my compulsion – to do something significant. Yet I cannot just walk into my studio and "do something significant." I have had to develop a way of getting down to work that is probably best thought of as a way of playing."
— Miriam Schapiro, "Notes from a Conversation on Art, Feminism and Work," in Working it Out, edited by Sara Ruddick and Pamela Daniels (1977)
Today's Writing:
I had a frustrating writing day! I gave up, called what I had done an alibi sentence, and spent the rest of the time reading and moving files around so I could FIND them later. Erg.
Tally
( Days 1-4 )
Day 5:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, cornerofmadness, goddess47, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilmeLet me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
(no subject)
Sep. 6th, 2025 12:42 pmeye_of_a_catReading/writing/thinking a lot about Andor at the moment. I liked S1 but it didn't spark any hugely fannish impulses for me in terms of transformative fandom; S2 I had some bigger issues with and also some bigger likes with, and now I've written a few fics already and have 43,000 words and counting of a genfic that will not let me out of its grip.
Many Star Wars feelings now, though.
My ongoing Star Wars sorrow is that I have loved it so much for so long and YET always felt like there’s a voice - canon, fan discourse, creators - saying “just fyi this is a Boy Thing :) You can visit, that’s cool, but if you want a story FOR you you’ll have to sketch it in round the edges.” and I know this and yet like clockwork every few years there’ll be a new Star Wars thing where I fall back enough in love with it to let myself forget. “Oh no, this has a compelling female lead with an interesting story! Surely it’ll all be fine now, the canon won't let me down and I'll be able to read things about it without grumbling like Muttley!” Star Wars as the eternal "baby I've chaaaaaaaanged" ex.
Anyway Andor s2 was the first Star Wars thing for ages that hit the exact right code to trigger my personal Star Wars I Am In Love With brain setting, but it has also switched on the So Many Unresolved Feelings About Star Wars brain setting. alas.
Many Star Wars feelings now, though.
My ongoing Star Wars sorrow is that I have loved it so much for so long and YET always felt like there’s a voice - canon, fan discourse, creators - saying “just fyi this is a Boy Thing :) You can visit, that’s cool, but if you want a story FOR you you’ll have to sketch it in round the edges.” and I know this and yet like clockwork every few years there’ll be a new Star Wars thing where I fall back enough in love with it to let myself forget. “Oh no, this has a compelling female lead with an interesting story! Surely it’ll all be fine now, the canon won't let me down and I'll be able to read things about it without grumbling like Muttley!” Star Wars as the eternal "baby I've chaaaaaaaanged" ex.
Anyway Andor s2 was the first Star Wars thing for ages that hit the exact right code to trigger my personal Star Wars I Am In Love With brain setting, but it has also switched on the So Many Unresolved Feelings About Star Wars brain setting. alas.
Almost a month since my last post
Sep. 6th, 2025 10:09 amruricI really need to get back into the habit of posting rather than just reading along!
Update Chez Ruric:
I had 2 weeks off at the end of August where I had plans to achieve things but did nothing because I was mentally and physically exhausted. Then I looked back at the end of 2024 and saw a similar kind of entry and things must change in late 2025/26. So I am making adjustments.
#project65days is plodding along - things are very slowly being sorted. I've started tackling my main Gmail account which at the beginning of the year had some 26,000 archived emails. I've had the account for 15 plus years and there's important stuff to keep in there along with everything else. I'm down to 16,500 stored emails and feeling quite proud of my progress! I mentally lighter with every 100 deletions.
Flat - between #project65days and the current round of #orjenise100 which has just started things are improving. I've started chipping away at the chaos in my bedroom, have bought a load of new houseplants as Lidl had large and medium sized pants at good prices which will make things feel greener. The ex is away mid September which means I can commandeer his washing machine and catch up on a backlog of washing.
Front garden - I got my act together last week and tidied the tiny front garden and pruned the roses. And I resolved not to try and do all my autumn window box and basket planting in one hit - which stresses me out and takes all the fun out of it - but rather space it out and do a few things at a time. So far I've planted a pot of pinks, a hanging basket, a window box of pinks for outside the kitchen window, bought and potted a new hebe.
Still to plant - 2 window boxes and 2 pots and sort out the raised bed in the front garden, 3 window boxes for in front of the living room windows, 2 window boxes and 4 large pots for the porch roof.
Winter prep still to do - sand and varnishing the exterior of the stable door into the garden, sand and paint the front gate and front door, touch up the White paint in the porch exterior and interior.
Back garden - so much pruning and sorting to do. Not worrying about that until October!
Allotment - harvesting and winter prep. I'll be down there for what's left of today, all day tomorrow and Tuesday.
Right - off to make coffee and then down to the lottie.
Update Chez Ruric:
I had 2 weeks off at the end of August where I had plans to achieve things but did nothing because I was mentally and physically exhausted. Then I looked back at the end of 2024 and saw a similar kind of entry and things must change in late 2025/26. So I am making adjustments.
#project65days is plodding along - things are very slowly being sorted. I've started tackling my main Gmail account which at the beginning of the year had some 26,000 archived emails. I've had the account for 15 plus years and there's important stuff to keep in there along with everything else. I'm down to 16,500 stored emails and feeling quite proud of my progress! I mentally lighter with every 100 deletions.
Flat - between #project65days and the current round of #orjenise100 which has just started things are improving. I've started chipping away at the chaos in my bedroom, have bought a load of new houseplants as Lidl had large and medium sized pants at good prices which will make things feel greener. The ex is away mid September which means I can commandeer his washing machine and catch up on a backlog of washing.
Front garden - I got my act together last week and tidied the tiny front garden and pruned the roses. And I resolved not to try and do all my autumn window box and basket planting in one hit - which stresses me out and takes all the fun out of it - but rather space it out and do a few things at a time. So far I've planted a pot of pinks, a hanging basket, a window box of pinks for outside the kitchen window, bought and potted a new hebe.
Still to plant - 2 window boxes and 2 pots and sort out the raised bed in the front garden, 3 window boxes for in front of the living room windows, 2 window boxes and 4 large pots for the porch roof.
Winter prep still to do - sand and varnishing the exterior of the stable door into the garden, sand and paint the front gate and front door, touch up the White paint in the porch exterior and interior.
Back garden - so much pruning and sorting to do. Not worrying about that until October!
Allotment - harvesting and winter prep. I'll be down there for what's left of today, all day tomorrow and Tuesday.
Right - off to make coffee and then down to the lottie.
fests and exchanges
Sep. 5th, 2025 11:36 pmtrobadoraAfter not writing anything more than alibi sentences for ages - my last fic was in May (The Consultant, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan), and the one before that in March (Beyond the Gates, the Mountain, Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan) - I'm signing up for a lot of stuff now! Deadlines are usually very effective at making me write, so now that I'm not so busy any more and it's actually possible, that should get me back to where I want to be, writing-wise. I hope. *g*
In order of reveals:
What fests or exchanges is everyone else doing?
In order of reveals:
- There's
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rarepairexchange, which has its deadline a little over two weeks from now, though reveals aren't until October. I've been poking at my assignment, and I have a bunch of things I know I want to be in it, but so far I haven't managed to pull it all together into a coherent narrative. Hopefully once I've conquered this one, things will be flowing again! - Then there's guardian_wishlist, for which I just finished my sign-up last night - and we've only just posted the first batch of wishlists. (Mine is here; I'm requesting Guardian drama and RPF, as well as Guardian/Grimm and Guardian/Stargate crossovers.) And there are so many tempting prompts already! Reveals are on 6 October, and I hope to make a bunch of stuff before then.
- Next comes ficinabox, with a deadline in October and reveals in November - assignments aren't out yet, but should come soon. I won't seriously tackle that one until after Rarepair Exchange, though. Plenty of time if I brainstorm and have a plan by then!
- There's also the Guardian Bonus Bingo grace period in November, for which I hope to finish at least some of the things I started and didn't finish so far. *g*
- Yuletide is of course gearing up again as well, so that's what I'll be working on in December. Can't wait to find out which rare fandom I get to write this time!
- Then, hopefully fandomtrees will also run again this year, and I'll get to make a bunch of stuff for that too! Reveals are genearally early to mid-January.
- And finally, there's fffx which doesn't have its deadline until the second half of January. I still need to finish my sign-up for that (planning on doing that this weekend), but that deadline is so far away, there'd still be plenty of time even if I didn't start thinking about it until after Yuletide ends. (Though I hope to have a plan before then!) Of course, an idea might grab me right away and I might be working on this in parallel to everything else, you never know! *g*
What fests or exchanges is everyone else doing?
Write Every Day September 2025 - Day 5
Sep. 5th, 2025 02:10 pmcarenejeansQuote of the Day:
On following a writing schedule and "finishing for the day:"
"Writing is obsessional and in many ways the hardest work is done when it's buzzing around in your head and you suddenly realise how things should be, and so going back to the typewriter and putting that right is actually easier."
— William Trevor, interview with Tom Adair, The Linen Hall Review (1994).
Today's Writing:
Almost 245 words, and some alibi editing. I sprained my ankle (not badly! It's better!) and was cranky.
Tally
( Days 1-3 )
Day 4:badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme
Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
On following a writing schedule and "finishing for the day:"
"Writing is obsessional and in many ways the hardest work is done when it's buzzing around in your head and you suddenly realise how things should be, and so going back to the typewriter and putting that right is actually easier."
— William Trevor, interview with Tom Adair, The Linen Hall Review (1994).
Today's Writing:
Almost 245 words, and some alibi editing. I sprained my ankle (not badly! It's better!) and was cranky.
Tally
( Days 1-3 )
Day 4:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, falkner, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilmeLet me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
Hockey RPF: Game Plan by thehoyden
Sep. 5th, 2025 11:21 amdenynothing1 posting in fancakeFandom: Hockey RPF
Pairings/Characters: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Rating: Explicit
Length: 10,281 words / 1hr podfic
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3, exmanhater on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking
Summary: Unlike Nealsy, Evgeni can cook his own food when he has it. He’s perfectly capable of making breakfast. His kitchen is well-equipped, and he’s got some good basic cooking skills down. In short, he is not going to starve to death if left to his own devices.
None of this seems to matter to Sid.
Reccer's Notes: This is a story about seduction by breakfast. As the title says, there is a clear game plan at work here -- possibly more than one. Much of the charm of the story is in how oblivious the determined seducer is to the effect he is having and how bewildered his target is that it's not clear how willing he is to be seduced.
Bonus: the descriptions of the ever-more-elaborate breakfasts are fantastic.
There's an accompanying podfic by exmanhater that is a delicious listen as well.
Fanwork Links: story on AO3, podfic on AO3
Pairings/Characters: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni Malkin
Rating: Explicit
Length: 10,281 words / 1hr podfic
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3, exmanhater on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking
Summary: Unlike Nealsy, Evgeni can cook his own food when he has it. He’s perfectly capable of making breakfast. His kitchen is well-equipped, and he’s got some good basic cooking skills down. In short, he is not going to starve to death if left to his own devices.
None of this seems to matter to Sid.
Reccer's Notes: This is a story about seduction by breakfast. As the title says, there is a clear game plan at work here -- possibly more than one. Much of the charm of the story is in how oblivious the determined seducer is to the effect he is having and how bewildered his target is that it's not clear how willing he is to be seduced.
Bonus: the descriptions of the ever-more-elaborate breakfasts are fantastic.
There's an accompanying podfic by exmanhater that is a delicious listen as well.
Fanwork Links: story on AO3, podfic on AO3
For Sale: Nintendo Switch games
Sep. 5th, 2025 09:20 amsettiaiI'm still trying to raise some more money to throw at debts, so would anyone be interested in any of the following Nintendo Switch games?
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way. I managed to sell the Echo Show from yesterday, which definitely helped, but I could still really use another $150-200 and managing to sell these games would take a chunk out of that.
Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu! (example on Amazon)
Spyro Reignited Trilogy (example on Amazon)
TemTem (example on Amazon)
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way. I managed to sell the Echo Show from yesterday, which definitely helped, but I could still really use another $150-200 and managing to sell these games would take a chunk out of that.
SGA: Clean Plate Club by yin_again
Sep. 5th, 2025 12:52 pmmific posting in fancakeFandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Evan Lorne, Simpson, Radek Zelenka, Laura Cadman, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Stackhouse/ Markham
Rating: Explicit
Length: 7963
Content Notes: no AO3-type warnings apply
Creator Links: yin's old site on Wayback, yin_again on AO3, yin on LJ
Themes: Food and cooking, First time, Complete AU
Summary: Rodney looked at the prep area and nodded decisively. "How do you feel about waffles?"
"I love waffles," John said with a grin.
Reccer's Notes: This is the initial and main story in yin's Clean Plate Club 'verse, in which John's a sought-after photographer and Rodney's a chef turned food stylist (he prepares and arranges food for perfect photo shoots). It's a fun meet-cute with clever dialogue, great characterisation and a very hot first time. It's enormous fun, even if the "hero food" meticulously arranged by Rodney is actually dressed with glycerine and motor oil!
Fanwork Links: Clean Plate Club on Wayback (scroll down a little and you'll see this fic and the others in the 'verse.)
And yin also recorded it as a podfic, here.
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Evan Lorne, Simpson, Radek Zelenka, Laura Cadman, Sam Carter, Daniel Jackson/Jack O'Neill, Stackhouse/ Markham
Rating: Explicit
Length: 7963
Content Notes: no AO3-type warnings apply
Creator Links: yin's old site on Wayback, yin_again on AO3, yin on LJ
Themes: Food and cooking, First time, Complete AU
Summary: Rodney looked at the prep area and nodded decisively. "How do you feel about waffles?"
"I love waffles," John said with a grin.
Reccer's Notes: This is the initial and main story in yin's Clean Plate Club 'verse, in which John's a sought-after photographer and Rodney's a chef turned food stylist (he prepares and arranges food for perfect photo shoots). It's a fun meet-cute with clever dialogue, great characterisation and a very hot first time. It's enormous fun, even if the "hero food" meticulously arranged by Rodney is actually dressed with glycerine and motor oil!
Fanwork Links: Clean Plate Club on Wayback (scroll down a little and you'll see this fic and the others in the 'verse.)
And yin also recorded it as a podfic, here.
Yuletide
Sep. 4th, 2025 09:42 pmsettiaiIt's been a stressful kind of day because Capitalism™, so let's try to pull my brain over to fandom for at least a little bit tonight.
The Yuletide team posted an announcement that they're going to experiment this year with letting people have more nominations and requests. It's up to 5 fandoms per nomination and 8 fandoms per request for 2025, and they'll make decisions on future years once they see how much chaos is unleashed this year.
I'm very excited, because that means I have extra spots to play with! On the other hand, my current list of possible Yuletide fandoms is at 30something at the moment. Which, you know, is probably less than helpful. I really need to start narrowing it down, huh?
The Yuletide team posted an announcement that they're going to experiment this year with letting people have more nominations and requests. It's up to 5 fandoms per nomination and 8 fandoms per request for 2025, and they'll make decisions on future years once they see how much chaos is unleashed this year.
I'm very excited, because that means I have extra spots to play with! On the other hand, my current list of possible Yuletide fandoms is at 30something at the moment. Which, you know, is probably less than helpful. I really need to start narrowing it down, huh?
I'm going there no more to roam
Sep. 4th, 2025 07:11 pmmusesfoolThere's so much TV coming back soon:
- the new season of Only Murders in the Building starts on 9/8
- the new season of Slow Horses starts 9/24
- the new season of Abbott Elementary starts 10/1
And it's not tv, but the new season of Batman: Wayne Family Adventures also starts 10/1 - there was a new mini episode last night, featuring Alfred being the best. <3
Meanwhile, I still have not watched:
- season 2 of Andor
- season 2 of Wednesday
- season 2 of Poker Face (though I did watch the first episode - the one with Cynthia Erivo, who was fantastic)
And of course, China Beach is finally available on a streaming service I do not have, and without some of the iconic music they used, but it would definitely be worth checking out if I wanted to pay for another streamer, which I don't.
Instead, I seem to have fallen into another Elementary rewatch. Despite some of the ghastly murders, it is a very comforting watch and I love Joan and Sherlock's relationship so much. And I might be feeling a Killjoys rewatch coming up soon too. I guess we'll see.
There are other shows I keep meaning to check out but have not as of yet - there is just too much to watch and too little time.
*
- the new season of Only Murders in the Building starts on 9/8
- the new season of Slow Horses starts 9/24
- the new season of Abbott Elementary starts 10/1
And it's not tv, but the new season of Batman: Wayne Family Adventures also starts 10/1 - there was a new mini episode last night, featuring Alfred being the best. <3
Meanwhile, I still have not watched:
- season 2 of Andor
- season 2 of Wednesday
- season 2 of Poker Face (though I did watch the first episode - the one with Cynthia Erivo, who was fantastic)
And of course, China Beach is finally available on a streaming service I do not have, and without some of the iconic music they used, but it would definitely be worth checking out if I wanted to pay for another streamer, which I don't.
Instead, I seem to have fallen into another Elementary rewatch. Despite some of the ghastly murders, it is a very comforting watch and I love Joan and Sherlock's relationship so much. And I might be feeling a Killjoys rewatch coming up soon too. I guess we'll see.
There are other shows I keep meaning to check out but have not as of yet - there is just too much to watch and too little time.
*
The more time I spend talking to elderly people and reading history ...
Sep. 4th, 2025 04:10 pmbeatrice_otter... the more often I notice little details that are wrong in movies and books.
Like, most recently, I watched a few minutes of Saving Private Ryan, which included the delivery of the telegram about most of her sons dying to Mrs. Ryan. She is doing dishes in the kitchen when she looks out the window and sees a car driving up. She is wearing an apron. She goes to the door to greet the Official Men who are coming.
Me: ... why isn't she taking off the apron, or replacing it with a clean one, or flipping it around?
I have heard stories from multiple women about their mothers working really hard to always have a perfectly pristine apron whenever unexpected company showed up, the 1930s version of "we can't let anybody know we live here!" So, for example, women who would wear their aprons inside out, so that they could flip it around whenever the doorbell rang, and know the pretty side would be perfectly clean. Or women who would take their aprons off and stuff them in a drawer when they saw a car drive up, and pretend they hadn't been working in the kitchen or scrubbing the floor or whatever. Or run to the kitchen and swap out their everyday apron for the fancy one with the ruffles and embroidery or whatnot. In every case, the idea was for the apron to look like a fashion statement, and not an actual functional garment.
But the thing is, no piece of fiction is ever going to be 100% perfect in its presentation of the past, no matter how much they try for accuracy; if for no other reason than that lots of the past simply gets forgotten about. Nobody can possibly know every detail about what life was like in an era before they were born, even if they've studied it extensively. (And the further back in time you go, the less stuff it is possible to know.) And even if you could be accurate, the accuracy might not fit with the story you're trying to tell; it might distract from an emotional moment, or it might signal something completely different to modern eyes, or it might just not register to modern people unless you took the time to stop and explain what's going on. All of which interfere with telling the story you're trying to tell.
Like, most recently, I watched a few minutes of Saving Private Ryan, which included the delivery of the telegram about most of her sons dying to Mrs. Ryan. She is doing dishes in the kitchen when she looks out the window and sees a car driving up. She is wearing an apron. She goes to the door to greet the Official Men who are coming.
Me: ... why isn't she taking off the apron, or replacing it with a clean one, or flipping it around?
I have heard stories from multiple women about their mothers working really hard to always have a perfectly pristine apron whenever unexpected company showed up, the 1930s version of "we can't let anybody know we live here!" So, for example, women who would wear their aprons inside out, so that they could flip it around whenever the doorbell rang, and know the pretty side would be perfectly clean. Or women who would take their aprons off and stuff them in a drawer when they saw a car drive up, and pretend they hadn't been working in the kitchen or scrubbing the floor or whatever. Or run to the kitchen and swap out their everyday apron for the fancy one with the ruffles and embroidery or whatnot. In every case, the idea was for the apron to look like a fashion statement, and not an actual functional garment.
But the thing is, no piece of fiction is ever going to be 100% perfect in its presentation of the past, no matter how much they try for accuracy; if for no other reason than that lots of the past simply gets forgotten about. Nobody can possibly know every detail about what life was like in an era before they were born, even if they've studied it extensively. (And the further back in time you go, the less stuff it is possible to know.) And even if you could be accurate, the accuracy might not fit with the story you're trying to tell; it might distract from an emotional moment, or it might signal something completely different to modern eyes, or it might just not register to modern people unless you took the time to stop and explain what's going on. All of which interfere with telling the story you're trying to tell.
So for me, it's a lot of "they're not wrong to do it that way, that I find it annoying is totally a ME issue and not an objective problem with the story.
Another Night, Another Moon
Sep. 4th, 2025 11:02 pmffuturesNot quite full moon but a nice clear sky for London, so I dug out my trusty 500mm mirror lens and a 2X converter and put it onto my micro 4/3 camera, so effective magnification was about equivalent to 2000mm on full frame 35mm. At some point I really do need to sort out a tripod that I can use from my bedroom window, which is fairly high up, for this one the camera was resting on a pillow on the window sill and probably not completely motionless. This is uncropped and has not been edited in any way.
Larger versions here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/150868539@N02/54764983482/in/dateposted-public/
Larger versions here
https://www.flickr.com/photos/150868539@N02/54764983482/in/dateposted-public/
ONE DIRECTION: LEAVE IT TO THE BREEZE
Sep. 4th, 2025 11:28 amdenynothing1 posting in fancakeFandom: One Direction
Pairings/Characters: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Zayne Malik
Rating: Explicit
Length: 81,459 words / 9.5hr podfic
Creator Links: hattalove on AO3, frecklebomb on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking
Summary: Louis couldn’t be prouder of his bake, but there’s something—there’s something. Something about Harry Styles and the earnest way he measures, pours, mixes, scrapes. Something about the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he knocks the air out of his batter.
Or, a Great British Bake Off AU in which Louis cares about winning and winning only, Harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and Niall sticks his nose into other people's business. Also featuring Liam as Louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and Zayn as a macaron connoisseur.
Reccer's Notes: I love GBBO AUs to pieces and this is one of the very best I've found. This story features characters in their early 20s who love baking for a variety of reasons. They are mostly charming but can be very stressed and vulnerable. They find joy in being good at what they can do with batter and dough, but can also be tough on themselves as well as others. IOW you've seen these characters on the show itself at times. : )
There's an enemies-to-lovers progression happening for one half of the main pairing that is exasperating and very human until it reaches the point where it's also very hot and very fun. The writer deserves a cake stand and a big bouquet for managing to weave all these elements together into a very satisfying story.
There's a marvelous podfic version of the story by frecklebomb as well. It's one of my favorite listens.
Fanwork Links: Leave It To the Breeze by hattalove, podfic by frecklebomb
Pairings/Characters: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Zayne Malik
Rating: Explicit
Length: 81,459 words / 9.5hr podfic
Creator Links: hattalove on AO3, frecklebomb on AO3
Theme: Food & Cooking
Summary: Louis couldn’t be prouder of his bake, but there’s something—there’s something. Something about Harry Styles and the earnest way he measures, pours, mixes, scrapes. Something about the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he knocks the air out of his batter.
Or, a Great British Bake Off AU in which Louis cares about winning and winning only, Harry is made of sunshine and rainbow sprinkles, and Niall sticks his nose into other people's business. Also featuring Liam as Louis's best friend-slash-concerned mother, and Zayn as a macaron connoisseur.
Reccer's Notes: I love GBBO AUs to pieces and this is one of the very best I've found. This story features characters in their early 20s who love baking for a variety of reasons. They are mostly charming but can be very stressed and vulnerable. They find joy in being good at what they can do with batter and dough, but can also be tough on themselves as well as others. IOW you've seen these characters on the show itself at times. : )
There's an enemies-to-lovers progression happening for one half of the main pairing that is exasperating and very human until it reaches the point where it's also very hot and very fun. The writer deserves a cake stand and a big bouquet for managing to weave all these elements together into a very satisfying story.
There's a marvelous podfic version of the story by frecklebomb as well. It's one of my favorite listens.
Fanwork Links: Leave It To the Breeze by hattalove, podfic by frecklebomb
Write Every Day September 2025 - Day 4
Sep. 4th, 2025 11:37 amcarenejeansQuote of the Day:
"For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can."
--Ernest Hemingway, interview in Writers At Work, Second Series, edited by George Plimpton (1963)
Today's Writing:
Reminded of a tip bygoddess47 (thanks!), I skipped to writing the middle of my essay. This worked! Not enough new words to count, but a goodly amount of rewriting and rearranging and etc. ;-)
Tally
( Days 1-2 )
Day 3:badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, the_siobhan, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme
Day 4:china_shop
Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
"For a long time now I have tried simply to write the best I can. Sometimes I have good luck and write better than I can."
--Ernest Hemingway, interview in Writers At Work, Second Series, edited by George Plimpton (1963)
Today's Writing:
Reminded of a tip by
goddess47 (thanks!), I skipped to writing the middle of my essay. This worked! Not enough new words to count, but a goodly amount of rewriting and rearranging and etc. ;-)Tally
( Days 1-2 )
Day 3:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, chanter1944, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, the_siobhan, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilmeDay 4:
china_shopLet me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
i made a(n embarrassing) thing
Sep. 4th, 2025 01:20 pmlirazelSo because I can listen to podcasts while I'm working, I listen to...a lot of podcasts. And a lot of them have connections with each other via hosts guesting on other people's podcasts. I have at times mentioned the Sarah Marshall-Michael Hobbes podcast universe...and I decided to map it out.
Honestly, this web could be much bigger--I've limited it to things I have listened to a least a few episodes of. I only listen to 5-4 (about the US Supreme Court) now and then because it's depressing but it's SUCH a good resource when a big ruling gets handed down. I only listen to Sentimental Garbage, Ordinary Unhappiness, and 16th Minute now and then, but I've listened to all of them enough to be fond of the hosts.
As for the rest of the podcasts mentioned here...I listen to them regularly. Most of them I listen to every single episode.
This doesn't encompass all the shows I listen to, just the ones that can be connected in this way. But the connections made me happy, so I thought I would share.
Podcasts I listen to regularly that couldn't be worked in: Dear John and Hank, Straight White American Jesus, On the Nose (the Jewish Currents podcast), Rock That Doesn't Roll, the Ezra Klein Show, You Must Remember This, and This American Ex-Wife.
Honestly, this web could be much bigger--I've limited it to things I have listened to a least a few episodes of. I only listen to 5-4 (about the US Supreme Court) now and then because it's depressing but it's SUCH a good resource when a big ruling gets handed down. I only listen to Sentimental Garbage, Ordinary Unhappiness, and 16th Minute now and then, but I've listened to all of them enough to be fond of the hosts.
As for the rest of the podcasts mentioned here...I listen to them regularly. Most of them I listen to every single episode.
This doesn't encompass all the shows I listen to, just the ones that can be connected in this way. But the connections made me happy, so I thought I would share.
Podcasts I listen to regularly that couldn't be worked in: Dear John and Hank, Straight White American Jesus, On the Nose (the Jewish Currents podcast), Rock That Doesn't Roll, the Ezra Klein Show, You Must Remember This, and This American Ex-Wife.
For Sale: Echo Show (2nd Generation)
Sep. 4th, 2025 12:10 pmsettiaiI'd be willing to accept any reasonable offer, as I really need to come up with some extra money as soon as possible. It's used but in good shape. There's no listings on Amazon since it's an older model, but there are some available on eBay for comparison. I could have it in the mail either this weekend or early next week at the latest.
For payment, I have CashApp ($Settiai), PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle (nancy.lynn.foster@gmail.com).
If you know anyone who might be interested, please point them my way.
And it's gone!
Bohemian Rhapsody (Zulu version)
Sep. 4th, 2025 03:09 pmtrobadoraVia brithistorian: the South African Ndlovu Youth Choir has translated Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody into Zulu. It's gorgeous - and after I saw the video, I just had to share it. It's completely stunning:
brithistorian: the South African Ndlovu Youth Choir has translated Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody into Zulu. It's gorgeous - and after I saw the video, I just had to share it. It's completely stunning:The Death of Vivek Oji by Akwaeke Emezi (2020)
Sep. 4th, 2025 08:59 ampauraqueIn turn-of-the-millennium Nigeria, an Indian immigrant named Kavita is married to a Nigerian man. They have one son, young adult Vivek. On the same day that rioters burn the local marketplace to the ground, Kavita finds Vivek on her doorstep, naked and wrapped in cloth, dead of a head wound. From there, the progression of the novel is nonlinear, moving among Kavita's desperate search for answers, Vivek's life as a kid who was always different, and the perspectives of Vivek's friends and family in this complex multicultural community.
Like Emezi's earlier novel Freshwater, this one clearly draws inspiration from their own life and childhood, and it benefits from the same keen eye for the reality of what culture and tradition look like on the ground. But it's not as directly autobiographical, reading less like a memoir and more like an actual novel. The prose style and handling of the themes really worked for me. Vivek is queer in a country where homosexuality is illegal, but Emezi hasn't written a story where queer people are tragic victims, nor have they written a one-note condemnation of Nigerian culture. They include a variety of queer characters who are flawed and human, some of whom are pretty well-adjusted given the circumstances, and some of whom make terrible mistakes. Despite the difficult subject matter, the book orients itself towards a world where some of these kids will grow up okay, some of the ignorant will learn, and the future of queer Nigeria hasn't been written yet.
But "almost certain" is the operative phrase. As it turns out, Vivek wasn't murdered. He died in an accident that could have happened to anyone at any time, and it had nothing to do with his presentation or his queerness at all.
This subverted expectation turns the entire book on its head and makes it land in a completely different place than I thought it was going to. The message of the book is not that being queer will get you killed in this terrible, terrible world; it's that nobody knows what the future will bring, so you shouldn't let fears of what might happen hold you back. You should be yourself—and allow yourself joy—while you still have time.
This ending really stunned me and it took me a bit to process it. I think it's the right ending, but I didn't see it coming at all, and it made me feel the book had turned a sobering and much-needed mirror on me and my own assumptions about queer stories and about the world.
I don't know what I think about Osita (Vivek's cousin/boyfriend) keeping the full truth to himself. Letting Vivek's parents believe he was murdered opens the door for them to feel empathy rather than disgust, but can that be a justification to tell such a massive lie by omission? I don't know, it's messy, but so was Osita and Vivek's relationship from start to finish.
The book is not long (250 pages) and I think it could have benefited from being a little longer and spending some more time with each character and their arc. Some threads seemed to wrap up too quickly at the end. But overall I found it a thought-provoking read and I'm up for more of Emezi's work. Next I'll probably go for their YA novel Pet.
Like Emezi's earlier novel Freshwater, this one clearly draws inspiration from their own life and childhood, and it benefits from the same keen eye for the reality of what culture and tradition look like on the ground. But it's not as directly autobiographical, reading less like a memoir and more like an actual novel. The prose style and handling of the themes really worked for me. Vivek is queer in a country where homosexuality is illegal, but Emezi hasn't written a story where queer people are tragic victims, nor have they written a one-note condemnation of Nigerian culture. They include a variety of queer characters who are flawed and human, some of whom are pretty well-adjusted given the circumstances, and some of whom make terrible mistakes. Despite the difficult subject matter, the book orients itself towards a world where some of these kids will grow up okay, some of the ignorant will learn, and the future of queer Nigeria hasn't been written yet.
spoilery thoughts
It was clear to me fairly early on that Vivek was some flavor of transfeminine (anachronistic labels aren't used, but bigender seems about right, and 'he' and 'she' are both accepted). Circumstantial evidence leads you and many of the characters to suspect he was killed in a hate crime. Towards the end, this scenario seems almost certain when you learn that he went out presenting as a woman on the night of his death, even though his friends tried to stop him because they thought it was too dangerous.But "almost certain" is the operative phrase. As it turns out, Vivek wasn't murdered. He died in an accident that could have happened to anyone at any time, and it had nothing to do with his presentation or his queerness at all.
This subverted expectation turns the entire book on its head and makes it land in a completely different place than I thought it was going to. The message of the book is not that being queer will get you killed in this terrible, terrible world; it's that nobody knows what the future will bring, so you shouldn't let fears of what might happen hold you back. You should be yourself—and allow yourself joy—while you still have time.
This ending really stunned me and it took me a bit to process it. I think it's the right ending, but I didn't see it coming at all, and it made me feel the book had turned a sobering and much-needed mirror on me and my own assumptions about queer stories and about the world.
I don't know what I think about Osita (Vivek's cousin/boyfriend) keeping the full truth to himself. Letting Vivek's parents believe he was murdered opens the door for them to feel empathy rather than disgust, but can that be a justification to tell such a massive lie by omission? I don't know, it's messy, but so was Osita and Vivek's relationship from start to finish.
The book is not long (250 pages) and I think it could have benefited from being a little longer and spending some more time with each character and their arc. Some threads seemed to wrap up too quickly at the end. But overall I found it a thought-provoking read and I'm up for more of Emezi's work. Next I'll probably go for their YA novel Pet.
more than your average bear
Sep. 4th, 2025 08:53 amlirazelI had to contribute a few "things I know more about than your average bear" for a thing, and unfortunately I am me, so my list kept expanding, so I thought I'd share them.
These are not things I do professionally, and they are not things I am an expert on (and I know that many people in my social circles know much more about many of them than I do), just things I have been interested in enough at some point in my life to know more about them than most people do.
What are some things you know a lot about? Your list does not have to be as long as mine, but I would love to hear about anything at all! I would be delighted to start a meme!
These are not things I do professionally, and they are not things I am an expert on (and I know that many people in my social circles know much more about many of them than I do), just things I have been interested in enough at some point in my life to know more about them than most people do.
ancient Egypt; Victorian literature; the Bible; 2nd generation kpop; 90s and 2000s scripted TV of a certain kind; 90s and 2000s online Western media fandom; 90s and 2000s evangelical culture; the Bloomsbury Group; golden age mystery novels; 20th century books about plucky teen and pre-teen girls; the oeuvres of George Cukor and Defunctland; the works of L.M. Montgomery and Ursula K. Le Guin; the Bronte sisters; the music of Vienna Teng, Paul Simon, Loreena McKennitt, and the Indigo Girls; film noir; screwball comedies; honestly just classic Hollywood in general; 2nd wave feminists in the southern US; the Sarah Marshall-Michael Hobbes extended podcast universe; classic Star Trek; movie musicals; the comedy of Chris Fleming; British panel game shows [probably only more than your average American; I assume your average Brit knows more than I do]; movie scores; Ecuadorian national politics; gothic fiction; the history and culture of fin de siècle Vienna; the Star Wars expanded universe novels; and 90s PBS kids shows
What are some things you know a lot about? Your list does not have to be as long as mine, but I would love to hear about anything at all! I would be delighted to start a meme!
Books and comics read in June, July and August 2025
Sep. 4th, 2025 01:01 pmusuallyhatsHow the World Made the West - Josephine Quinn
The Incandescent - Emily Tesh
A Song of Legends Lost - MH Ayinde
The Maid and the Crocodile - Jordan Ifueko
Rakesfall - Vajra Chandrasekera
The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley
Heavenly Tyrant - Xiran Jay Zhao
The Tusks of Extinction - Ray Nayler
The Breath of the Sun - Isaac Fellman
Vox Machina: Stories Untold
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Forest of a Thousand Eyes - Frances Hardinge
The Rose Rent - Ellis Peters
Motherland: A Journey Through 500,000 years of African Culture and Identity - Luke Pepera
The River Has Roots - Amal El-Mohtar
The Mercy Makers - Tessa Gratton
Death of the Author - Nnedi Okorafor
City of All Seasons - Oliver K Langmead and Aliya Whiteley
The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects - Bee Wilson
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain - Victoria Mackenzie
Some Body Like Me - Lucy Lapinska
The Death of Mountains - Jordan Kurella
The Dragonfly Gambit - AD Sui
Pluralities - Avi Silver
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman trans Ros Schwartz
A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel
Box Office Poison: Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops - Tim Robey
The Deep Dark - Molly Ostertag
Wheel of the Infinite - Martha Wells
Remember You Will Die - Eden Robins
Pagans - James Alistair Henry
Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
Witch Week - Diana Wynne Jones
Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
The Night Parade of 100 Demons - Marie Brennan
Penric's Mission - Lois McMaster Bujold
We Were There: How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain - Lanre Bakare
The Memory Hunters - Mia Tsai
All Systems Read - Martha Wells
Artificial Condition - Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells
Exit Strategy - Martha Wells
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells
This is a three month round up because August happened to me so much. But! It did also feature me discovering that I could reread Murderbot, so I had a great time with that. (Still not sure I've recovered my ability to reread in general, but nice to add in something else I can handle rereading.)
I read a lot of things that I loved these last few months, but the words for most of them are not coming, so here we are. I do want to try and get back in the habit of writing stuff up as I go along, and maybe even actually posting monthly again - we shall see if I manage it.
I wasn't sure as I was reading this whether or not I liked it, but I blazed through it at a rate of knots and I think I've come down on the side of yes. It's near-future sf about a woman who becomes the liaison to a time-displaced polar explorer (and also makes a lot of bad choices, just so many, I loved her so much and had such a low opinion of her decision making skills), but it's also a thriller and a romance and has a lot of stuff about climate change and the experience of being an immigrant... and yet it somehow manages to make all of that work together incredibly well. And it's very funny, and the characters are all beautifully drawn - yeah, I think I loved it.
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
I would have liked this a lot more if it had been shorter. It's a satire on the dangers of letting automation take over from humanity, and it makes its points well, but it makes all of them over and over and over again and it gets quite frustrating. I was invested enough in the main characters and their relationship to finish it, and I did like that it resisted the trope of the robot who inevitably becomes human, but it really needed to be half the length.
Didn't finish:
I've really enjoyed some of Jiang's shorter fiction, but this one really wasn't coming together: it was just deeply unclear all the time how anything in its world actually worked ("the trees are people!" "all of them? How tree-y are they? How TALL are they?"), and while shorter fiction in particular can often get away with worldbuilding on vibes, the fact that I was questioning it suggested that the writing wasn't fully taking me with it. It did also feel like it was tipping from "protecting the environment is important" into "we should live in the woods, eschew all technology and eat only plants" in places.
When the Tides Held the Moon - Venessa Vida Kelley
As we know romance is more miss than hit for me, but I was intrigued by the setting of this one. I started off quite enjoying it, but the pace was so slow that it gave me time to notice that the characters and world were on the thin side, and ultimately I got bored and wandered off about halfway through. I did love the illustrations, though, and I think if the pace had been tightened up a bit I would probably have finished and liked it.
The Incandescent - Emily Tesh
A Song of Legends Lost - MH Ayinde
The Maid and the Crocodile - Jordan Ifueko
Rakesfall - Vajra Chandrasekera
The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley
Heavenly Tyrant - Xiran Jay Zhao
The Tusks of Extinction - Ray Nayler
The Breath of the Sun - Isaac Fellman
Vox Machina: Stories Untold
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
The Forest of a Thousand Eyes - Frances Hardinge
The Rose Rent - Ellis Peters
Motherland: A Journey Through 500,000 years of African Culture and Identity - Luke Pepera
The River Has Roots - Amal El-Mohtar
The Mercy Makers - Tessa Gratton
Death of the Author - Nnedi Okorafor
City of All Seasons - Oliver K Langmead and Aliya Whiteley
The Heart-Shaped Tin: Love, Loss and Kitchen Objects - Bee Wilson
For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain - Victoria Mackenzie
Some Body Like Me - Lucy Lapinska
The Death of Mountains - Jordan Kurella
The Dragonfly Gambit - AD Sui
Pluralities - Avi Silver
I Who Have Never Known Men - Jacqueline Harpman trans Ros Schwartz
A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel
Box Office Poison: Hollywood's Story in a Century of Flops - Tim Robey
The Deep Dark - Molly Ostertag
Wheel of the Infinite - Martha Wells
Remember You Will Die - Eden Robins
Pagans - James Alistair Henry
Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones
Witch Week - Diana Wynne Jones
Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones
The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
The Night Parade of 100 Demons - Marie Brennan
Penric's Mission - Lois McMaster Bujold
We Were There: How Black culture, resistance and community shaped modern Britain - Lanre Bakare
The Memory Hunters - Mia Tsai
All Systems Read - Martha Wells
Artificial Condition - Martha Wells
Rogue Protocol - Martha Wells
Exit Strategy - Martha Wells
Network Effect - Martha Wells
Fugitive Telemetry - Martha Wells
This is a three month round up because August happened to me so much. But! It did also feature me discovering that I could reread Murderbot, so I had a great time with that. (Still not sure I've recovered my ability to reread in general, but nice to add in something else I can handle rereading.)
I read a lot of things that I loved these last few months, but the words for most of them are not coming, so here we are. I do want to try and get back in the habit of writing stuff up as I go along, and maybe even actually posting monthly again - we shall see if I manage it.
The Ministry of Time - Kaliane Bradley (four stars), Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky (three stars)
The Ministry of TimeI wasn't sure as I was reading this whether or not I liked it, but I blazed through it at a rate of knots and I think I've come down on the side of yes. It's near-future sf about a woman who becomes the liaison to a time-displaced polar explorer (and also makes a lot of bad choices, just so many, I loved her so much and had such a low opinion of her decision making skills), but it's also a thriller and a romance and has a lot of stuff about climate change and the experience of being an immigrant... and yet it somehow manages to make all of that work together incredibly well. And it's very funny, and the characters are all beautifully drawn - yeah, I think I loved it.
Service Model - Adrian Tchaikovsky
I would have liked this a lot more if it had been shorter. It's a satire on the dangers of letting automation take over from humanity, and it makes its points well, but it makes all of them over and over and over again and it gets quite frustrating. I was invested enough in the main characters and their relationship to finish it, and I did like that it resisted the trope of the robot who inevitably becomes human, but it really needed to be half the length.
Didn't finish:
A Palace Near the Wind - Ai Jiang, When the Tides Held the Moon - Venessa Vida Kelley
A Palace Near the Wind - Ai JiangI've really enjoyed some of Jiang's shorter fiction, but this one really wasn't coming together: it was just deeply unclear all the time how anything in its world actually worked ("the trees are people!" "all of them? How tree-y are they? How TALL are they?"), and while shorter fiction in particular can often get away with worldbuilding on vibes, the fact that I was questioning it suggested that the writing wasn't fully taking me with it. It did also feel like it was tipping from "protecting the environment is important" into "we should live in the woods, eschew all technology and eat only plants" in places.
When the Tides Held the Moon - Venessa Vida Kelley
As we know romance is more miss than hit for me, but I was intrigued by the setting of this one. I started off quite enjoying it, but the pace was so slow that it gave me time to notice that the characters and world were on the thin side, and ultimately I got bored and wandered off about halfway through. I did love the illustrations, though, and I think if the pace had been tightened up a bit I would probably have finished and liked it.
And then there's this
Sep. 3rd, 2025 04:20 pmtwistedchickI sent copies of my exchanges with my former aunt to my cousin Susan, the only one on that side of the family whom I'm in contact with. She told me in response that she nearly snorted her coffee when reading them. She hasn't gotten along with that aunt for decades, and manages to avoid dealing with her by being the youngest of her sibs (the aunt likes the two older ones.)
She and I are now the Two Black Sheep of the family, which makes me happy.
She and I are now the Two Black Sheep of the family, which makes me happy.
Fannish Stuff
Sep. 3rd, 2025 04:22 pmsettiaiThe brain weasels have been out in force the past few, uh... well, I was going to say days, and then I realized that it was more like weeks, or months, or years. So let's just leave it as "quite a while" and be done with it.
Anyway, it's September. Autumn is around the corner, which is my favorite time of the year, and I'm desperately going to do my best to force myself to remember how to be a person instead of a constant ball of panic. It's easier said than done with some of the money and work stress going on, but hey! I'm gonna attempt it anyway.
One of the things I'm going to do is really properly attempt to make at least one or two at least fannish-adjacent posts a week. I'm still hoping to make some video game posts like I mentioned in the past (Baldur's Gate? Dragon Age? Mass Effect? something else entirely?) but Critical Role is coming back for its fourth campaign next month so I'm hoping that will pull me back into on that front. Not to mention The Mighty Nein animated series starts Season 1 in November.
Plus exchange season is coming up! There several ongoing and upcoming Dragon Age exchanges, Yuletide is just around the corner, and Holly Poly will be shortly after that. And who knows? Maybe there will be something new that catches my eye.
I just need to focus on the little things and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 🤞🏻
Anyway, it's September. Autumn is around the corner, which is my favorite time of the year, and I'm desperately going to do my best to force myself to remember how to be a person instead of a constant ball of panic. It's easier said than done with some of the money and work stress going on, but hey! I'm gonna attempt it anyway.
One of the things I'm going to do is really properly attempt to make at least one or two at least fannish-adjacent posts a week. I'm still hoping to make some video game posts like I mentioned in the past (Baldur's Gate? Dragon Age? Mass Effect? something else entirely?) but Critical Role is coming back for its fourth campaign next month so I'm hoping that will pull me back into on that front. Not to mention The Mighty Nein animated series starts Season 1 in November.
Plus exchange season is coming up! There several ongoing and upcoming Dragon Age exchanges, Yuletide is just around the corner, and Holly Poly will be shortly after that. And who knows? Maybe there will be something new that catches my eye.
I just need to focus on the little things and keep putting one foot in front of the other. 🤞🏻
YULETIDE!!!!
Sep. 3rd, 2025 09:56 pmtrobadoraIt's that time of year again!
Yuletide is still my favourite multifannish exchange, and this year's schedule is out - nominations start on the 15th. And they're running an experiment with giving us more nominations and requests this year! Very cool, and I hope it works out well!
What's new this year:
Who else is doing Yuletide? Have you thought about what you're going to nominate/request/offer this year?
Yuletide is still my favourite multifannish exchange, and this year's schedule is out - nominations start on the 15th. And they're running an experiment with giving us more nominations and requests this year! Very cool, and I hope it works out well!
What's new this year:
- The deadline is 12 hours earlier than it was the last few years. (First time in a while that the deadline will be when I'm actually awake, but I'll try not to cut it too close. *g*)
- Reveals are also 12 hours earlier than they've been the last few years. (First time in a while that I'll be awake when the collection opens!)
- We get 5 fandom nominations instead of 4. (Woohoo!)
- We get 8 requests instead of 6! (And again, woohoo! It's so hard to choose between rare fandoms.)
Who else is doing Yuletide? Have you thought about what you're going to nominate/request/offer this year?
Life is being only moderately odd today
Sep. 3rd, 2025 03:37 pmtwistedchickI seem to live between odd dichotomies these days.
It's hard to go to sleep, in part because of lack of noise. I have just enough tinitis that when I can't hear the traffic it's hard to sleep; think of permanent mosquito in your ear. I found a technique in FB reels for tapping hard on the bone behind the ear that gets rid of the worst of it, but it doesn't always work. So I use an app called Calm, which has 'soundscapes' including things like six different kinds of rainfall, waterfalls, forests of various kinds and white, pink and brown noises, find whatever works for me that night and leave it on all night. That helps. Or I could stay awake till nearly 4, when the noise from the Capital Beltway a quarter mile south of me cranks up to its general daily roar.
A friend suggested that I get a night light for the bathroom in the shape of a capybara, or in her words, 'an imperturbable capybara'. So I did get it, and have it set to the lowest level of light, but I am not yet used to any light there. Normally I have my Kindle nearby, and when I need to get to the bathroom I flip the cover open and use it as a night light. Last night, the capybara was sitting imperturbably on my toothbrush holder, but its light shone out on a wall that I'm not used to having lit, so I had to remind myself that I had a friendly and non-aggressive critter there shining the light (I need reminders when I'm almost asleep but my body discerns something different.)
That meant that I slept on my left side last night, with my face away from the lit wall. Which, for most other people, would not be a problem, but I have all my life had a slightly curved spine, leaning to the left. (During the 2000s, I was doing deepwater running twice a week and the supported floating combined with gravity straightened my spine out, but I have not done it in several years now bcC (because Covid) and it is leaning a little. When I sleep on that side it leans more. As a remedy my husband put up a bar in one of the doorways that I can reach up and grab and dangle myself from, and my own weight straightens my back out painlessly. A side effect of the bar is that my grip strength has increased a bit, so I could do better at pulling out vines yesterday.
Much more of this balancing and I may start thinking of Philippe Petit balancing on the rope between the Two Towers, long ago.
It's hard to go to sleep, in part because of lack of noise. I have just enough tinitis that when I can't hear the traffic it's hard to sleep; think of permanent mosquito in your ear. I found a technique in FB reels for tapping hard on the bone behind the ear that gets rid of the worst of it, but it doesn't always work. So I use an app called Calm, which has 'soundscapes' including things like six different kinds of rainfall, waterfalls, forests of various kinds and white, pink and brown noises, find whatever works for me that night and leave it on all night. That helps. Or I could stay awake till nearly 4, when the noise from the Capital Beltway a quarter mile south of me cranks up to its general daily roar.
A friend suggested that I get a night light for the bathroom in the shape of a capybara, or in her words, 'an imperturbable capybara'. So I did get it, and have it set to the lowest level of light, but I am not yet used to any light there. Normally I have my Kindle nearby, and when I need to get to the bathroom I flip the cover open and use it as a night light. Last night, the capybara was sitting imperturbably on my toothbrush holder, but its light shone out on a wall that I'm not used to having lit, so I had to remind myself that I had a friendly and non-aggressive critter there shining the light (I need reminders when I'm almost asleep but my body discerns something different.)
That meant that I slept on my left side last night, with my face away from the lit wall. Which, for most other people, would not be a problem, but I have all my life had a slightly curved spine, leaning to the left. (During the 2000s, I was doing deepwater running twice a week and the supported floating combined with gravity straightened my spine out, but I have not done it in several years now bcC (because Covid) and it is leaning a little. When I sleep on that side it leans more. As a remedy my husband put up a bar in one of the doorways that I can reach up and grab and dangle myself from, and my own weight straightens my back out painlessly. A side effect of the bar is that my grip strength has increased a bit, so I could do better at pulling out vines yesterday.
Much more of this balancing and I may start thinking of Philippe Petit balancing on the rope between the Two Towers, long ago.
wednesday reads and things
Sep. 3rd, 2025 01:02 pmisisWhat I've recently finished reading:
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio went back to the library, because my hold on Summer in Orcus came in. Sorry, Chris, I might try it again sometime.
Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher - again a book that someone on my flist recommended. 11-year-old Summer gets whooshed to another world by Baba Yaga, supposedly to find her "heart's desire", though she isn't really sure what that is or how to get it, and oops, the world she's ended up in, Orcus, is in crisis. Other reviews compared it to Narnia (as a more-realistic version), although I didn't really see that - though that's probably because I'm not super familiar with Narnia other than having read it ages ago and mostly forgotten it, as the author's afterword actually mentions the Narnia influence. To me it felt almost like a skewed retelling of The Wizard of Oz: a girl and her pet dog (er, accompanying talking weasel?) pick up companions with issues on a road trip (following a road of a particular color!) to see a powerful being who turns out to be a lot less powerful than everyone thinks. It's even precipitated by a witch and a house! Anyway, I enjoyed it okay, though I kinda wish
What I'm reading now:
I'm rereading Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, which was given to me by a friend years ago, and I read and enjoyed, but after trying and failing to find the sequels at my library, gave up on. Now one of my library systems has the sequels, so I am going to read them, but I figured I should first reread the first book since I've mostly forgotten it.
What I recently finished watching:
The Leopard, the Netflix miniseries, which is apparently a remake of a 1963 movie; both are based on a historical novel published (posthumously) in 1958, by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It's basically one noble family's drama around their (for the most part) inability to cope with the 1860 revolution that led to the consolidation of Italian states into the Kingdom of Italy. The family and the titular "Leopard", a minor Sicilian prince, are fictional but apparently based on Lampedusa's ancestors.
It's a costume drama with gorgeous dresses, heaving bosoms, and horses, mostly, plus a little history. It was enjoyable enough to watch, anyway, and it did inspire me to look up some of the actual history.
What I'm watching now:
Just started S2 of Wednesday! We giggled through the entire first episode.
Empire of Silence by Christopher Ruocchio went back to the library, because my hold on Summer in Orcus came in. Sorry, Chris, I might try it again sometime.
Summer in Orcus by T. Kingfisher - again a book that someone on my flist recommended. 11-year-old Summer gets whooshed to another world by Baba Yaga, supposedly to find her "heart's desire", though she isn't really sure what that is or how to get it, and oops, the world she's ended up in, Orcus, is in crisis. Other reviews compared it to Narnia (as a more-realistic version), although I didn't really see that - though that's probably because I'm not super familiar with Narnia other than having read it ages ago and mostly forgotten it, as the author's afterword actually mentions the Narnia influence. To me it felt almost like a skewed retelling of The Wizard of Oz: a girl and her pet dog (er, accompanying talking weasel?) pick up companions with issues on a road trip (following a road of a particular color!) to see a powerful being who turns out to be a lot less powerful than everyone thinks. It's even precipitated by a witch and a house! Anyway, I enjoyed it okay, though I kinda wish
spoiler
the Forester (or Summer, or Baba Yaga, or even Reginald) could have actually helped the Queen-in-Chains - I felt sorry for her, trapped by a rash wish made as a teenager. Some people, like the Forester, can grow (maybe literally!) to live with their limitations. Some need help.What I'm reading now:
I'm rereading Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, which was given to me by a friend years ago, and I read and enjoyed, but after trying and failing to find the sequels at my library, gave up on. Now one of my library systems has the sequels, so I am going to read them, but I figured I should first reread the first book since I've mostly forgotten it.
What I recently finished watching:
The Leopard, the Netflix miniseries, which is apparently a remake of a 1963 movie; both are based on a historical novel published (posthumously) in 1958, by Italian writer Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. It's basically one noble family's drama around their (for the most part) inability to cope with the 1860 revolution that led to the consolidation of Italian states into the Kingdom of Italy. The family and the titular "Leopard", a minor Sicilian prince, are fictional but apparently based on Lampedusa's ancestors.
It's a costume drama with gorgeous dresses, heaving bosoms, and horses, mostly, plus a little history. It was enjoyable enough to watch, anyway, and it did inspire me to look up some of the actual history.
What I'm watching now:
Just started S2 of Wednesday! We giggled through the entire first episode.
Write Every Day September 2025 - Day 3
Sep. 3rd, 2025 10:30 amcarenejeansQuote of the Day:
"It is a mysterious business, creating worlds out of words. I hope I can say without irreverence that anyone who has done it knows why Jehovah took Sunday off."
--Ursula K. LeGuin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy (from the introduction to Rocannon’s World, 1977).
Today's Writing:
351 sort of mostly okay kind of meh words. 8-/
Tally
( Day 1 )
Day 2:badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, the_siobhan, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilme
Let me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
"It is a mysterious business, creating worlds out of words. I hope I can say without irreverence that anyone who has done it knows why Jehovah took Sunday off."
--Ursula K. LeGuin, The Language of the Night: Essays on Writing, Science Fiction, and Fantasy (from the introduction to Rocannon’s World, 1977).
Today's Writing:
351 sort of mostly okay kind of meh words. 8-/
Tally
( Day 1 )
Day 2:
badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, goddess47, luzula, the_siobhan, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, yasaman, ysilmeLet me know if I missed you, or if you wrote but didn't check in yet. And remember, you can join in at any time!
The Gilded Age: Ward McAllister
Sep. 3rd, 2025 03:09 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
historian_movies_feedNathan Lane’s Ward McAllister plays a secondary but still important role in The Gilded Age, so I thought that this rather interesting guy deserved his own post.
Who was Ward McAllister?
Samuel Ward McAllister was an entirely real person, and the show’s depiction of him is reasonably accurate for the most part. He was born into a Southern family that had been attorneys for two generations. He was related to Julia Ward Howe, the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and he was distantly related by marriage to the Astors of New York. His family was not rich by any means, but they were able to afford to spend their summers in Newport, RI, where many Southerners liked to vacation to escape the summer heat.
After studying law at Harvard, he spent some time in California during the Gold Rush, where his father had opened a law firm. But it seems likely that he was already craving a more cosmopolitan life than California could offer. Prior to working in California, he had moved in with an elderly relative in New York City, hoping that he would inherit her estate. When she died, he only received $1000 (around $40,000 today); he reportedly spent the whole sum on a single set of evening dress, because he knew that if he looked the part, elite society would assume he had inherited a great deal more. (I am, however, skeptical that he could actually have spent that much money on one man’s suit in pre-Civil War New York, unless there was a LOT of jewelry and accessories associated with it. Men’s clothing was far more understated by the late 1840s, whereas women’s clothing could be much fancier, as the show demonstrates.)
In 1853, he married a woman named Sarah Gibbons, who had more money than he did, but who seems to have been very poorly suited to him in other ways. She was extremely reclusive and did not attend society events at all; in fact when he died, she didn’t even attend his funeral service (although whether that tells us more about her distaste for public events or her husband I don’t know). He used her money to go on a tour of Europe, and this event was life-changing for him. He seems to have had an impressive ability to absorb matters of etiquette and social practice, and he returned from the trip probably the leading American expert on European etiquette and dining practices.
His real rise to social prominence happened in the early 1870s. New York in the post-Civil War era was a society in flux. The old Knickerbocker elites were beginning to be eclipsed in business and political life by the Robber Barons and politicians like Boss Tweed, who excelled at organizing the new Irish and Italian immigrants as voting blocs. The Civil War had shaken up American society, pulled down the old Southern landed aristocracy, and created an opening for a new social system. In Europe, social rules were largely set by the courts of the various monarchs, but the United States lacked anything comparable.
Ward McAllister was well-placed to act as the arbiter of social manners because of his deep knowledge of how Europeans did things. But he lacked the wealth and social connections; he and Sarah lived in a very modest house quite unlike the mansions of the rich, and he certainly didn’t have the resources to throw elaborate balls. His distant cousin by marriage, Carolina “Lina” Astor had exactly those things, but she needed someone to guide her. So they were a perfect pair to restructure New York’s elite society in a way that aped European high society (which is one reason why opera was such an important concern for the Knickerbockers). Mrs Astir led New York society and held a kind of court, and he advised her and acted as something of an enforcer, gossiping about faux pas and vulgar behaviors and poorly-executed parties as a way to make clear what the social rules were. A lot of the complex social protocols that you see in the show (the use of calling cards, the rules about who is announced by what name, the elaborate table settings and complex dining manners, the fashion rules) are really the product of Ward and Lina’s efforts.
The Society of Patriarchs
In 1872, McAllister, along with three wealthy Knickerbockers, founded the Society of Patriarchs, an exclusive social club of 25 (later 50) men who mostly represented Old New York money, although it also included J. Pierpont Morgan and Cornelius Vanderbilt II, both New Money, and August Belmont, a Jewish financier, diplomat, and eventual chairman of the Democratic National Committee (today he’s mostly remembered as the man who founded the Belmont Stakes, the third race in the horse-racing’s Triple Crown). The Patriarchs were intended to represent the men who had the true esteem of society.
In 1885, the Society began hosting an annual Patriach’s Ball. Each member was entitled to invite 9 guests (4 women and 5 men), which meant that invitations were hard to get and highly sought after. The Ball received considerable newspaper coverage, and it wasn’t long before it was inspiring imitators; the wives of the Patriarchs began hosting the Assembly Ball. The Patriarchs also informally policed each other’s choices, discouraging behaviors that they considered vulgar or overly-friendly to the lower classes. Lina Astor was invited to ‘advise’ the Patriarchs.
McAllister was one of the early New York proponents of vacationing in Newport. The Southerners no longer came up in the summer, thanks to the destruction of the Civil War, which created an opening there, but he remembered it from his childhood and bought a small farm there. He couldn’t afford to throw large balls and lacked the space to do so, but he could invite small groups to picnic with him, thereby helping make himself a social arbiter and drawing attention to Newport. Thus a lot of ‘the Newport season’ was his creation, and by the 1870s, everyone was buying or building ‘cottages’ in Newport (basically summer mansions).
The 400
McAllister and Astor together created the idea of the 400, New York’s social elite. Reportedly, the term was created when McAllister remarked to a journalist that “there are only 400 fashionable people in New York”. These were the men and women who really mattered, the taste-makers who belonged in high society balls and exclusive Newport picnics. The number is sometimes also linked to the supposed capacity of Mrs Astor’s ballroom. But the number 400 turns up elsewhere as well–the maximum capacity of Delmonico’s restaurant and so on.
In the 1880s, the 400 were the definitive group of New York high society, and the number became symbolic; journalists used the term to refer to high society collectively, and other cities began to develop their own 400s. Balls might intentionally be decorated with 400 roses and things like that. But in the 1880s, the term was intentionally vague–there was no definitive list of who the 400 actually were. In theory they included only those who had three generations of wealth, a rule that excluded most of the Robber Barons, who tended to be first-generation money. But McAllister could not claim a truly moneyed ancestry, and he was still considered part of the group, and Alva Vanderbilt’s husband came from generational wealth, but she was not accepted until 1883.
“Calling” played an important role in all this. Society women stopped by to visit. In some cases they just dropped off their card, as a signal that they intended to call again later, but more commonly they waited as the butler took the card in to the lady of the house, who could decide if she wanted to receive the visitor; generally there were particular hours of the day during which this happened. As the show demonstrates, the butler could also be instructed that the lady of the house “wasn’t home” or “was indisposed” when particular callers came by. The truly powerful women in society were not called on uninvited. One had to wait for them to call, which was a signal that the new woman was being accepted into society. This is why Bertha’s trick with Carrie’s invitation to Gladys’ debutante ball worked; she was forcing Mrs Astor to call on her.
Another trick Alva Vanderbilt pulled in 1883 was to throw a massive costume ball; the guest list was reportedly 1,000 people, which absolutely dwarfed Mrs Astor’s annual ball, but the newly-constructed Vanderbilt ‘Petite Chateau’ on Fifth Avenue could handle that. New York society was abuzz for weeks with discussions of what sort of costume various guests would wear, thereby creating a huge buzz. That meant that Mrs Astor and her family could not afford to miss this ball. By the time the ball happened, the police were having to control the crowd that formed outside the Petite Chateau. This is the ball I mentioned in my first post–the one where Alice Vanderbilt’s dress was wired for electricity, and it’s the ball Gladys’ debutante ball was modeled on. As a result, by the end of 1883, Alva was part of the 400 despite Mrs Astor’s best efforts to keep her out.
McAllister’s Downfall
Although McAllister wielded a lot of influence, he was not necessarily a popular man. Those he snubbed or gossiped about understandably disliked him, and it must have been quite noticeable to many that the “Autocrat of the Drawing Room” (as he was nicknamed) didn’t actually have the wealth or ancestry that the 400 were expected to have. He wrote articles in the New York press commenting on social matters, and that too earned him enemies.
Things began to come to a head at the so-called ‘Fish Ball’ in 1889, when Mamie Fish threw a dinner at which there was not enough wine and the chef chose to serve a white wine sauce with one of the dishes. McAllister later sniffed that it should have been a brown sauce. Fish retaliated by excluding McAllister from leading a quadrille at a later ball at which President Benjamin Harrison was expected to dance; Harrison dropped out and Fish blamed McAllister
Fish was a major rival of Mrs Astor’s. She had a quick wit and was famous for greeting guests with witty insults; “Make yourself perfectly at home, and believe me, there is no one who wishes you there more heartily than I do” is one of her better zingers. Her parties were more outrageous than Astor’s, which tended to be more formal affairs at which Mrs Astor held court seated on a couch. There is a dubious story that she once gave a party in honor of a pet monkey at which the monkey got so drunk that it proceeded to climb into a chandelier and throw light bulbs at people. At another, guests were given peanuts they could feed to an elephant as they danced past it. Her parties were often staged by Harry Lahr, who was emerging as a rival to McAllister. (Lahr, incidentally, married for money, telling his wife on their wedding night that he didn’t love her but would treat her with affection in public.) So when Fish started to exclude McAllister, it was a way of hitting at Astor. Fish was only in her early 30s at the time The Gilded Age is set, and so would have been a much younger woman than the actress who plays her, Ashlie Atkinson.
McAllister chose to respond to Fish’s accusation in 1890 by writing Society as I Have Found It. (Note that in The Gilded Age, the book is published half a decade too early and without the context of his spat with Fish.) The book was a gossipy memoir about New York’s high society, filled with anecdotes that allowed McAllister to paint himself in a good light, but without actually naming names. But many New Yorkers recognized who these stories were about. Embarrassed about the gossip and pointed critiques of their taste, and incensed that McAllister would do something as vulgar as tell indiscrete stories, the book catalyzed the already-negative attitudes toward McAllister, and people began to exclude him from society events (although not Mrs Astor initially). The following Patriarch’s Ball was poorly-attended; even Mrs Astor found an excuse to not show up.
Writing Society as I Have Found It was a mistake, but McAllister was clearly worried that Mamie Fish’s exclusion of him from her parties was a sign that he was already losing his clout and the book was an effort to re-assert his indispensability. Instead, the publication of the book made him look bad, and Town and Country magazine began calling him “Mr McHustler”.
But he wasn’t totally shunned the way the series seems to suggest. He was invited to write a regular newspaper column commenting on New York society, and in 1893 he was offering advice to Chicago hostesses on how to host Europeans during the Columbian Exposition. In 1892, he published a definitive list of the 400 in the New York Times. Despite the traditional number, it only offered 265 names (if you’re curious, you can find it here). He left a number of people off it in what can only be an intentional snub, including Alva Vanderbilt, John D. Rockefeller, and JP Morgan. The list accelerated the decline of his reputation, earning him the nickname “Mr. Make-a-Lister”.
But even when he died, his funeral at New York’s Episcopal cathedral was still a major society event; Cornelius Vanderbilt II acted as a pall-bearer. However, by that time, things were changing. The last Patriarch’s Ball was held two years later and the Society of Patriarchs disbanded soon afterward out of general disinterest. Mrs Astor was beginning to retreat from society because of poor health. Harry Lahr had stepped in McAllister’s role as the organizer of fashionable parties. The growth of private ballrooms meant that exclusionary balls were no longer the social force they had been, and the younger generation wanted a more open, less rule-bound society. The Knickerbockers had lost much of their real power to the Robber Barons.
And in 1896, Alva Vanderbilt scandalized the 400 by divorcing William Kissam Vanderbilt on grounds of adultery. It was a shocking thing to do, and it threatened her social ruin. But not only did she push through with it against the advice of her lawyer (winning a $10 million settlement plus several mansions), but she was also determined to not let it break her position. This is the context for her choice to push her daughter Consuelo into a marriage with the Duke of Marlborough against Consuelo’s wishes. The marriage was such a massive social event that it enabled Alva to keep her dominant position in society. Alva’s divorce opened the door to the possibility of other divorces and within a year a number of other women among the 400 had divorced their husbands because their marriages had been miserable. Alva actually boasted about being a trailblazer for divorce.
So Ward McAllister’s death was not exactly the end of an age, but it was one of several signs that the cultural rules of the Gilded Age were beginning to collapse. Agnes van Rhijn would undoubtedly have had something very trenchant to say about it all.
what i'm reading wednesday 3/9/2025
Sep. 3rd, 2025 09:31 amlirazelI don't have a ton to write about today, so I thought I would ask y'all a question! The weather is unnervingly autumnal here right now (just in the sense that it's unseasonable--that actual weather is delightful), and it's got me in a Fall Mood. (I have been listening to Loreena McKennitt, which tells you everything if you've known me for a long time.)
So: what is your favorite autumnal read? When the weather starts to turn, what do you start itching to read?
And now back to our regularly-scheduled program.
What I finished:
It's mostly been mysteries around here lately, which are the one thing I can always read, even when I'm too frazzled to focus on anything else. Over the past week or two I have read:
Sleeping Murder and The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie, The Confession and Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd, and The Religious Body by Catherine Aird. All enjoyable but I don't have much to say about them except to say that the Aird was set in a convent and I am always here for a book set in a convent!
The only other thing I read was Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey. This one I picked up at one of my visits to Persephone Books some time ago, and I will be honest, I mostly picked this one out of a sea of pretty grey Persephone books because of her last name. I was like, "Lytton's sister???" (His niece, actually.) Because I am nothing if not a Bloomsbury Group girlie.
I wasn't crazy about this? I didn't dislike it, and Strachey was a good writer with a real knack both for physical description of locations and for characterization (the mother figure in the book is apparently based on her mother-in-law and is VERY well-drawn). I also thought it was cool that it takes place over the course of a couple of hours right before and after a wedding, so the aperture is very small in a way that I typically really appreciate.
But I also felt held at a distance from the characters, none of them were very likeable nor unlikable enough to be really compelling, and there didn't seem to be much of a point. Virginia Woolf raved about it, though, so I guess I am just wrong.
Still, it was very short, so I don't feel like I wasted my time reading it.
What I'm currently reading:
I started A Forgery of Fate. It's very readable and even though it's got the kind of first person POV that I often associate with badly-written YA books, there's enough going on that I think it will turn out to be worth reading.
So: what is your favorite autumnal read? When the weather starts to turn, what do you start itching to read?
And now back to our regularly-scheduled program.
What I finished:
It's mostly been mysteries around here lately, which are the one thing I can always read, even when I'm too frazzled to focus on anything else. Over the past week or two I have read:
Sleeping Murder and The Body in the Library by Agatha Christie, The Confession and Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd, and The Religious Body by Catherine Aird. All enjoyable but I don't have much to say about them except to say that the Aird was set in a convent and I am always here for a book set in a convent!
The only other thing I read was Cheerful Weather for the Wedding by Julia Strachey. This one I picked up at one of my visits to Persephone Books some time ago, and I will be honest, I mostly picked this one out of a sea of pretty grey Persephone books because of her last name. I was like, "Lytton's sister???" (His niece, actually.) Because I am nothing if not a Bloomsbury Group girlie.
I wasn't crazy about this? I didn't dislike it, and Strachey was a good writer with a real knack both for physical description of locations and for characterization (the mother figure in the book is apparently based on her mother-in-law and is VERY well-drawn). I also thought it was cool that it takes place over the course of a couple of hours right before and after a wedding, so the aperture is very small in a way that I typically really appreciate.
But I also felt held at a distance from the characters, none of them were very likeable nor unlikable enough to be really compelling, and there didn't seem to be much of a point. Virginia Woolf raved about it, though, so I guess I am just wrong.
Still, it was very short, so I don't feel like I wasted my time reading it.
What I'm currently reading:
I started A Forgery of Fate. It's very readable and even though it's got the kind of first person POV that I often associate with badly-written YA books, there's enough going on that I think it will turn out to be worth reading.
can't run out the clock
Sep. 2nd, 2025 09:25 pmmusesfoolI made this sheet pan pancake for dinner last night (pic) and it was good, but I don't know that I'd call it a pancake - it is much thicker and not particularly fluffy. The texture is more "cake" than "pancake". But it was good with butter and syrup and will also provide several days of breakfast so I can't complain. It's super easy to throw together, too - no buttermilk needed. The handful of strawbs I had left had gone moldy in the fridge, but I had about 3/4 cup of frozen berries left in the freezer that I folded in and also about 1/4 cup of mini chocolate chips that I sprinkled on top, so that worked out.
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Galumph!
Sep. 2nd, 2025 05:24 pmazurelunaticIt turns out that there is a timeout to the "let's test your equipment" for the browser-based telehealth appointments with my therapist. That timeout is 5 minutes. I had to switch to my phone, which is always vexatious for me.
Recently, Belovedest hauled Dad's old machine (dubbed Galumph, after the imaginary draft horse stallion Dad always talked about as his preferred riding beast) out to test it and see if it would run. (The massive monitor that came with it did not run, but I have found a suitably crusty-looking TV and other screen based appliance repair shop to attempt a repair.) Galumph ran. Belovedest looked at the specs. "That's a freaking RACK SERVER masquerading as a desktop!!!" they said, or words to that general effect.
So after we returned from the Michigan trip, I told Belovedest that it was time to take them up on their offer to rebox my poor old suffering machine.
I accidentally gave them the wrong figures for my C: and D: drives, so there was a bit of a flurry at first, but after they switched them, they were able to get to a login screen. I opened my Chrome / User Data / Default / Sessions folder, copied the most recent Tabs_* and Session_* files to a subfolder that I've named "Explicit Distrust" and launched my browser.
All 1,5XX tabs opened.
I've been trying to decrease them a little bit ever since, starting with my Main window, where the tabs tend to proliferate with abandon. (Trying to do this on the old hardware took forever, in addition to me getting distracted by shiny things.)
Recently, Belovedest hauled Dad's old machine (dubbed Galumph, after the imaginary draft horse stallion Dad always talked about as his preferred riding beast) out to test it and see if it would run. (The massive monitor that came with it did not run, but I have found a suitably crusty-looking TV and other screen based appliance repair shop to attempt a repair.) Galumph ran. Belovedest looked at the specs. "That's a freaking RACK SERVER masquerading as a desktop!!!" they said, or words to that general effect.
So after we returned from the Michigan trip, I told Belovedest that it was time to take them up on their offer to rebox my poor old suffering machine.
I accidentally gave them the wrong figures for my C: and D: drives, so there was a bit of a flurry at first, but after they switched them, they were able to get to a login screen. I opened my Chrome / User Data / Default / Sessions folder, copied the most recent Tabs_* and Session_* files to a subfolder that I've named "Explicit Distrust" and launched my browser.
All 1,5XX tabs opened.
I've been trying to decrease them a little bit ever since, starting with my Main window, where the tabs tend to proliferate with abandon. (Trying to do this on the old hardware took forever, in addition to me getting distracted by shiny things.)