findthatbook | Member Posts

whumpex revealed tonight! (And H/C-ex is supposed to in a few days, if it's not delayed. All the hurtcomfort all the time.)

I got:

Staying Power (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 4200 wds)

I asked for (among other things) Londo reacting to something bad happening to Vir, or Vir taking a hit for him, and my Mysterious Gifter took me up on it most delightfully!

As usual, there is a fic or two of mine running around loose in the collection as well.

conuly

I don't want this getting lost in the links: A Journey Through the Dystopiaverse (some of those poems hit hard)

In personal news, how many nos is one expected to get before they get a yes?

********************

( I managed to find some non-doom-and-gloom links to shove in here as well )

dine

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delphi

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conuly

Watch on YouTube

hannah

At some point in between sitting down to write and finishing the night's wordcount, something went nasty on the right side of my neck. Suddenly and without any seemingly inciting cause, too. Not even lifting more weight than I should've tried or falling and landing badly. The oddness of it doesn't help the pain, but at least it seems to point to an acute cause that should, ideally, clear up after a hot shower and some sleep.

Waking up to hail this morning was a surprise; getting out of the subway after the day's rains had all passed to leave the air in one of those hauntingly fragile summer afternoons was just as much a surprise, if a far more pleasant one.

Current Mood: sore
Current Music: nothing now

mildred_of_midgard

Getting settled in Brazil is complicated! I mean, I have my own horror stories of bureaucracy being chaotic here, but I hear from my partner that it is so much worse there.

Here are some funny stories from the last week or so, around settling in and also the massive decluttering project I got left with. Context/inside jokes: "igneous" is our word for something we disapprove of; "furs and hairspray" are code for the amount of junk she left behind; Mari is her name; Rio de Janeiro is where she lives.

( Trying to order food in Brazil )

( Trying to get rid of stuff in Boston )

( Still trying to get rid of stuff )

( So much stuff )

( Kitchen sinks are hard )

( The lightbulb has to want to change )

( Does anything in this country work? )

On the plus side, the food is better in Brazil, and the pools are actually heated (the pool in our complex here nominally got heating last summer, but after all the hype, it was very ineffective heating that didn't make a bit of difference).

Hopefully things calm down soon! I have been having a heck of a time with donation pickups, and I don't have a car, but we'll get there. I'm glad I left myself 5 months to deal with this stuff; I would have had to pay a junker to remove everything! I've taken out upwards of 50 30-gallon bags of trash so far, and I've got upwards of 100 bags, boxes, and small furniture items to try to get picked up by charities. 2 pickups have happened, but I need at least 3 more. Then larger furniture items go to freecycle, then the junker can take the rest (mostly mattresses and broken electronics).

ETA: Oh, and once the amount of stuff is dramatically reduced some more, I need to do a lot of sweeping/vacuuming/dusting/wiping/mopping. I've already started, but it's hard with still 70-ish bags and boxes and furnitures lying around, plus a bunch of time-consuming decluttering logistics to deal with.

I'm mostly just letting the house get dirtier than I would like until I have time and space to clean. I was really looking forward to enjoying this house when it looked nice, without all the clutter and filth of living with two borderline hoarders, but at this point I'll just be happy to leave it in a good state when I move out. But at least I've started being able to do some intermittent cleaning.

I was similarly hoping to be able to focus on my fitness this summer and enjoy walking to all my favorite spots and maybe some new spots before I leave, but at this point I'll be happy if my knee allows a normal (for me) amount of walking, and maybe some fitness efforts when I arrive in LA. Oh, well!

conuly

( Read more... )

runpunkrun

They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center, edited and translated by Shelley Baker-Gard, Michael Freiling, and Satsuki Takikawa:

An anthology of senryū poetry written in spring and summer of 1942 by Japanese Americans held captive at the WCCA Assembly Center in North Portland, Oregon. Senryū shares haiku's 5-7-5 sound unit form, but deals more directly with the business of being human, whereas haiku's focus is on nature and only tangentially references, or implies, human emotions.

The WCCA is the Wartime Civilian Control Administration, the government body set up to implement the mass forced removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. From the Densho Encyclopedia: "In addition to engineering the logistics of removing some 110,000 people from their homes and businesses in a short period of time, the WCCA also quickly built and administered a series of seventeen temporary detention camps to hold those who had been removed through the spring and summer of 1942, before overseeing their transfer to more permanent camps administered by the War Relocation Authority by the end of fall 1942." In North Portland, the temporary facility was previously the Pacific International Livestock Exposition Center, the horse stalls converted into living spaces for those detained there.

This book has a thoughtful design and a conscientious attempt to put this poetry—and the people who wrote it—into context, providing historical background and examining the cultural relevance of poetry in Japanese communities, including an exploration of the individual poets incarcerated at the camps as well as the poetry groups held at WCCA camps, and an explanation of the form itself. The book has several introductory pieces, an afterword, two essays on haiku/senryū, a timeline of relevant events, end notes for references, a full bibliography, and biographies of the poets. The one thing it doesn't have is an index, which I found myself wanting multiple times over the six months it took me to read this.

The poems are presented with the Japanese script given prominence in a bold vertical line down the center of the page, one poem per page, and then a transliteration of the Japanese and, finally, the poem translated into English, in three lines. Each poem has a footnote with a "literal" translation and any translation notes, including occasions where kanji have been simplified since the writing of the poem, or instances where the poet (or transcriber) seems to have made an error. However, the literal translations are anything but. They're of a more conversational nature than the actual choppy bits of language you usually get when Japanese is translated literally into English, and in some cases, I found them more interesting or nuanced than the final translations, which could feel a little melodramatic at times. But it's entirely possible that's just my bias for haiku showing up. Here's a poem by Jōnan that really struck me because of the way it mimics a common structure in haiku and through that offers an extreme understatement of human misery:

even autumn
comes on command here—
assembly center

This book was published in 2023 by Oregon State University Press, and I checked it out of the Multnomah County Library.

fred_mouse

Today (Tuesday)

second day of uni - more focused. Met two other PhD students, and a said hello to another who didn't actually talk to me, so I'm not sure if they are staff or student (we are in a locked office space, because of research reasons, which is quite nostalgic. The card scanner makes the same beep as the ones at the Telethon Institute did)
I'm kind of keeping up with other parts of my life, but not in any way that makes it look like I have my shit together. The lounge has a teetering mound of clean washing, there is a pile of stuff on the bed I need to sort before I can go to sleep (by which I think I mean 'dump back on the floor'). I've taken some of the necessities in to the new office, and tomorrow I'll organise a locked cubby for keeping things in, which means I can bring any books in that make sense.

Yesterday

Didn't quite make it to bed before 11pm last night, but it was close. Awoke naturally at 6:50am, which meant that I could relax for a little bit and laze about until the alarm went off. I didn't, in the end, getting up after about 2 minutes, and getting in the shower.
Past me had a work day morning packing checklist, which was greatly appreciated this morning, as there were a couple of things that I would otherwise have forgotten. There are a couple of items that I've managed to misplace, and maybe I'll have time to sort them tonight, but I'm not optimistic about that. I was enough slow getting ready that I missed the 7:45am bus, so artisanat dropped me at the train station. Youngest gave me two options for public transport from there--either the circle route (longer, relies on Leach Hwy not being clogged), or train to Canning Bridge and either the 100 or 101 bus. I did the latter, and once I found the right stand at the interchange, got the first bus that came past.
Good meeting with supervisors, I have ideas of what is to come. I spent more time sorting out logging in to things than I had allowed for, including a trek to the library IT help desk, where it turned out that what I was assuming was one problem turned out to be four separate issues, one of which was solved by changing my password in Outlook. I also went and asked questions of the Library Helpdesk person, who gave me a personalised tour of all the things on the Library Webpage that might be of use to me, and pointed at things to follow up.

Sunday

Went boating on the river with buggs_jenny, their partner P, and their parents (G, K). This was a somewhat last minute invite, they organised for there to be a kayak for me to use, and I had a lot of fun. I hadn't allowed for the timing of how it would all fit together with the fact that it was a recorder group Sunday so it was a bit of a rush to head off and I didn't help with the clean up. I now have to work out how to get involved and go more often (this is not an every weekend thing; I could at best do the off weeks from recorder) given that the car we are looking to sell is the one with the roof racks, but I can't get our kayak on to it on my own. Although, having said that, it is some years since I've moved that kayak and I have no idea how heavy it is relative to my current strength--it is possible that all the shoulder work that I've been doing would be enough.
Recorder with G and ariaflame; L has injured their shoulder and P isn't yet back from visiting their sibling in the eastern states. G is now calling us the A minors; I gather this is a joke that is related to the name of another group they are in. We worked through several trios that I'm not sure that aria has seen before, with some swapping around of parts so that they were sight-reading the easier of the C recorder parts (ie. soprano or tenor).
Dinner with chaosmanor. One of those weeks where it turns out that we have gone through the veggie stash much faster than usual, and I under measured the amount of cabbage to cut to fill the gap for the stir fry. Fortunately, chaosmanor wasn't all that hungry, artisanat was out dancing and got dinner there, and Youngest and Eldest are able to raid the fridge if they are still hungry. And I had had one serve of each of the options at afternoon tea at recorder - G had made two things, and aria had brought one, and I have no ability to resist that kind of temptation. Particularly when G had made a serving specifically for me, because they had made a Bakewell tart (which is similar to the version I make but didn't have coconut in, which might mean that I've conflated two recipes) but had realised at the last minute that their pastry wasn't GF, and had cooked a generous serve in a ramekin.

vriddy

...Just the preps, I haven't started on the actual edits yet XD But I have a roadmap and an extensive list of actionable steps, and I'm glad I do. Working offline using Pomodoro, like I mentioned the other day was super effective.

A disadvantage, I suppose, is that I can't have conversations back-and-forth in GoogleDoc comments, which is something I dearly enjoy doing with fanfic (either as beta-reader or beta-readee!). I think maybe it's just too much, on a turnaround of 40k words at once. Also because I needed to let it rest, folks might not be so interested in a reply 6 months later on a reaction they don't remember having about a story they fuzzily recall 😅 Having said that, I did write to folks after chopping their feedback into the roadmap, to thank them again and share a general reaction to their reactions :D

( Stuff to ponder )

It took me 17h41 to go through all 7 beta-readers' feedback. (Thanks again everyone for offering, I am so grateful :D). I'm going to have a brief interlude now (well, brief is the plan XD). Ideally, I'd like to use that time to write something original but SHORTER so I can bask in the self-indulgence of inventing fun worldbuilding, which I loooove doing. But on the other hand, Wind Breaker Volume 22 just came out and drove me insane with the OT5 vibes so I may have to write something for that instead XD

I 100% intend to break down the work and take regular breaks when I start actually following the roadmap, if only to make the structural changes then giving it a bit of space so I can make sure the major changes didn't break something else important. I expect overall it'll likely take longer than the 17h41 prep time, so I better pace myself! I think I should learn very interesting things throughout the process. I'm already thinking about what to be careful about in the Soul Thief story, when I get back to it.

Current Mood: contemplative

amaebi

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sholio

justmarriedexchange nominations close tomorrow (the 10th).

I will almost certainly be signing up for this one, I'm just saying. And you do need three distinct fandoms for this exchange.

*my existing assignments side-eye me*

dine

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delphi

Fandom 50 #20

Untitled Ouizzy Neighbor AU by

derekstilinski
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Relationship: Frenchie/Izzy Hands
Medium: Gifset
Length: 3 gifs
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: romance, happy ending, getting together, constructed reality, au: modern, domesticity, nature

Description:

In the first gif, Izzy wanders out into a field and happens upon Frenchie, who's sitting alone and obviously having a bad time alone with his thoughts. In the second, the two men are each in their houses, looking out the window at each other's places. In the third, they've finally come together, Frenchie handing a wary Izzy a cup of tea.

I am such a sucker for constructed reality graphics and vids, and all the ways a little tactical harnessing of the Kuleshov effect can bring us the crossovers, AUs, and visual adaptations we crave. I've got a few from this same creator to rec, but I'm starting with this Neighbor AU that imagines a modern day Frenchie and Izzy living next door to each other in the country and catching each other's eye.

First off, I just love how it's put together, from the progression of running into each other by chance, then scoping out each other from their houses, to finally coming together for tea. But I also love how the choice of sources colours the story being told here. I'm pretty sure the Con O'Neill clips are from Vengeance Is Mine and the Joel Fry ones are from In the Earth. These are both harrowing movies where the actual characters are going through some awful things. I appreciate how those scenes get recontextualized here into something cozier that nonetheless paints a picture of both characters having gone through some rough times.

You can easily imagine that this modern Frenchie has just as many terrible things locked up in that little box in his head as his 18th century counterpart had, and that this Izzy has just been through an emotionally and/or physically traumatic breakup with Ed, and now here they are, a little bruised and cautious but finding some potential comfort and love in their own backyard.

hannah

The day's major accomplishment was getting some hand-holding for my hard drive problem and getting the man on the other end to laugh a bit when I said I knew enough to get myself into trouble but not how to get out of it. Hopefully I can get my act together enough to send it out for repairs in a day or two.

The secondary accomplishments were taking the stairs to the gym, and making an attempt to reach out when I felt myself going down a spiral.

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: You Turn Me On I'm A Radio (live) - Joni Mitchell

svgurl

This is the second part of the questions from the 72 Multifandom questions to ask a fangirl.

Fandom Participation:

1. Do you keep up with any official or fan-authored wikis or encyclopedias about your fandom?
I don't think so. I've definitely used them as resources when I want to write fic and I don't remember specific details or if I want to find out more about, say, DC fandom/characters when I was writing Smallville fic.

#2-12

2. How do you stay updated with the latest news and information concerning your fandom?
I follow people who share my fandom on Tumblr and figure out things from others who post what is going on. Also sometimes, I follow the cast on IG and see if they post anything. Before, I used to be more active in reading fansites and the like, and take more of an initiative in posting news I find as well, but now I tend to take more of a relaxed stance. If I get really curious, I will look into things myself.

3. Are there any forums, social media groups, or online communities you frequent to discuss your fandom?
Back with Smallville, it was Livejournal. There were a lot of ship and fandom specific communities but mainly my journal and the journal of friends. Also, I used to go to some sites, like Divine Intervention, which was a Clois fansite. I was mostly a lurker at Kryptonsite.

These days, it's mainly Tumblr. I'm active on here, but I don't know how much I actively discuss fandoms. Not a fraction as much as I used to do on LJ for sure. I'm on Discord as well, but I tend to prefer one on one conversations. With servers, I tend to lurk more than actively participate.

4. How would you describe the overall atmosphere and culture within the fan community?
Good, as long as you know how to curate your experience. There are ups and downs to every type of fandom. There's drama and fighting, no matter how big or small the fandom is - it's just the type of fighting feels differently and I imagine it's more frustrating when you start out with fewer people and you have to block or worry about cliques since there is a chance of more overlap. It just depends what you want out of fandom and fortunately, there a lot of tools to help make it more pleasant and fun (blocking/muting/etc), which it should be.

5. Have you attended any fan conventions or meet-ups? If so, what was your experience like?
No, I used to want to, but I didn't want to go alone and since I've always tried to keep my online and real life separate, I didn't have anyone to go with.

6. What’s the significance of fan art, fan fiction, or fan videos in your community?
Really significant. I came to be part of fandom because of fanfiction - I had been reading it for years and then I eventually started writing. I started out writing for a very small ship in a big fandom and over the years, I've shipped bigger ships in bigger fandoms (MCU namely and I was able to see Sam/Bucky really grow into something bigger, which was nice). Now my main fandom is pretty big/active and there is a lot of content of all the above. I love looking at fanart and fan videos, though I do feel like I used to watch the latter more in the past. It seems a bit harder to find these days, unless you specifically search it out but the one way the algorithm on YouTube was useful is that if I find one I like, it starts to give me more so I have found some great creators that I wouldn't have otherwise, since I wasn't sure where to look.

7. Are there any charity or social causes your fandom community supports?
Currently, I've seen people participate in the Fandom Trumps Hate, which is obviously multifandom, and also, I think there's a 911forGaza one too.

8. How do fan theories or headcanons contribute to your enjoyment of the fandom?
As with fandom as a whole, there's good and bad. I like reading about other people's theories and headcanons and I enjoy coming up with my own. It's a fun surprise when you can theorize and speculate and end up being right - it has happened a couple of times over the years. However it is frustrating when a certain headcanon or theory can spread and take over and gets treated like canon. Sometimes, it's just mildly annoying because it's hard to avoid and others, when the fans get entitled and throw tantrums when they're not getting what they feel like they "deserve" or something happens that goes against their theory, it's downright frustrating.

9. Are there any rituals or annual events that your fandom community participates in each year?
There were plenty of ship specific events - I remember there being exchanges and the like for Clark/Lois in Smallville (and other ships but I can't tell you about those), both on a now deleted community and the fansite. Also there were Smallville fanfic awards with ship and general categories but that was in the later years. With my current fandom, I've seen annual events on Tumblr. Character/ship/theme specific weeks and a summer ship event that people are into. I haven't actually made anything for them yet but I'm still fairly new to 9-1-1 and am not yet comfortable with doing more than lurking.

10. What is the craziest or most dedicated thing you’ve done for your fandom(s)?
I don't think I've done anything too crazy. Online, I've ran communities and an exchange. Ran to the store to get a copy of the TV Guide that had Tom Welling & Erica Durance on it. Did the whole midnight bookstore visit to get my copy of the 7th HP book. Just fun stuff like that. Nothing too wild, or at least nothing I can think of.

11. Have you created any content or resources that have contributed to the fan community?
I've written fic and in the past few years, made some icons. Earlier on, back in Smallville fandom, since the ship I was writing for was so small and didn't have many other people writing for it, I did make a list of Clark/Oliver ships that I could link people when they expressed interest in the ship and didn't know where to find fic. I hope it helped.

12. Are there any well-known fan community leaders or content creators that you admire?
There are lot of great writers and vidders whose worsk I enjoy and subscribe to but I can't say I'm aware these days of who is "big" in fandom. Obviously you can tell by AO3 stats and who does numbers on Tumblr but I don't pay attention to that.

conuly

Every day is perfect, if
when you wake, you hear birds
in the garden, in the yard. Birds

up and down, ushering in one more day
in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds
on telephone lines, light posts. Birds

twit, twittering on trees
hailing fellow birds
with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;

top-hatted, streamertail
tuxedoed, doctor bird—
busy-bodied hummingbird

tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras
punch-drunk in love. Birds
preening for, chatting up other birds—

the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song
on the lawn, in a dance of birds
an all-day-long conference of bird;

red-headed woodpecker
—drummer boy, or girl bird
in this daily symphony of birds

—an orchestra on Shaker Way
in serenade of each perfect day with birds—
from the very first mockingbird

heralding, in solo warble
one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:

precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.

Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.

***********

_Link

conuly

Rok continues to be the best at everything, and deserves all the hugs. Though I remain baffled how ST thinks they can on one hand have post-scarcity nearly everywhere (including, one presumes, in places just outside of the Federation where they can easily abscond with probable Federation citizens) and also have seedy underbellies everywhere as well. The problem is that they never actually worked out how it all works, and I think the only solution is to ditch the idea that even the Federation really has no currency and is totally post-scarcity. Everybody has their basic needs met, I'll agree is supported by the writing. Anything past that, no.

Anyway, Rok's friend in her tragic backstory was clearly no more able to leave that situation than she was and though I can see there's too much plot for that to happen in canon I really hope they could rescue him.

Speaking of tragic backstories, I cannot believe a. that Dal tried to say his was the worst and b. his version of being "the worst" absolutely skips past the part where ( Read more... ) But seriously, dude, you grew up as a slave on a mine full of child slaves. It's not a situation people get into because their life was just so great beforehand. If everything was hunky-dory, none of you would've been targeted in the first damn place. You all have a terrible backstory, you don't need to prove it!

Moving on, Murf continues to also be the best, but ffs, can somebody get him an AAC? Or a whiteboard, at least? Teach him sign language? This is a solved problem even in the real world, surely Starfleet can figure it out!

Nothing to say about Jankom, he's just there. *shrug* And I feel kinda ditto about Zero, tbh. I mean, I like them, but....

Ma'Jel, between her cool hair and her increasingly consternated expression as the turbolift got more and more crowded, is clearly not one of the most unemotional Vulcans out there. (I don't care what Vulcans say, the opposite of "logical" is not "emotional", it's just "illogical".) I feel like she and our darling T'Lyn would have a lot to talk about.

The adults on the ship - this show is clearly trying to walk a fine line between keeping them competent and allowing the kids to run circles around them. I'm not sure it always works, but I appreciate the effort, and also I appreciate how they were careful to make it clear that the adults, whether they're being strict or a bit Too Much, are only acting the way they do because they're sympathetic. (Frankly, all the kids could stand to appreciate their new situation a bit more - except Rok, she already gets it - but I understand why they're struggling a bit.)

( Gets a bit spoilery )

**************

( Ugh, the news )

calzephyr

I'm happy and a little sad--our adventure into the Abomination Vaults is over!

It's hard to believe that my hubs, some friends, and I started playing the Pathfinder adventure in October 2022! Being a very casual gaming group, we met every couple of weeks, as it was hard to find dates that worked for everyone.

Instead of pen and paper, we used Foundry software, which presented a learning curve, along with learning Pathfinder. It has many similarities to Dungeons & Dragons, but often uses different names. For example, haste is called quickening, and the Dungeon Master is called Game Master.

Abomination Vaults is a multi-level dungeon crawl with monsters, treasures, and several mysteries to solve. Our party consisted of:

Azurial, half-elf sorcerer and merchant; tallest of the group😄

Bloodblade, a brave catfolk fighter

Gnak, a goblin rogue who brought a lot of flavour to the campaign

Mauve, Halfling ranger and scholar

Skigim, young ratfolk monk fighter

Like all RPGs, it was wonderful to see how our party progressed from running away from mitflits to battling large groups of monsters and taking down the Big Bad with ease at the end.

Our party was a little unbalanced for the adventure, especially since we didn't have a cleric. Mauve became the default healer for the first few levels and often implored party members to have a sense of self-preservation. She excelled at ranged attacks for this reason and finally got around to trying melee after level five. Mauve started out with a pony, Swifty, but he ended up staying in town for the duration of the adventure. The GM and I weren't quite sure how to integrate the pony into the action. A dungeon is no place for a pony anyway!

Hubs struggled with playing a magic user. He often played Azurial as a barbarian, rushing into rooms and into danger :-D

The next adventure is set in more open worlds with travel between towns, but I bowed out. Hubs is returning though with a dromaar fighter. I think he'll enjoy it much more.

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Member Posts

Whumpex reveals!

Why do things always go from bad to worse? Why can't they go from bad to somewhat less bad?

our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter

What I'm Reading: Hello Darkness, vol. 1 (2025)

(no subject)

Aches.

Adventures in moving

Prodigy

They Never Asked: Senryū Poetry from the WWII Portland Assembly Center

Daily notes

Beta edit preps: COMPLETE

For protesters

A quick note for me and others

the difference between insanity and genius is success

REC: Untitled Ouizzy Neighbor AU Gifset by emilee (Our Flag Means Death, Frenchie/Izzy Hands)

Dial in the number.

multifandom questionnaire pt 2

Birdsong of Shaker Way by Ann-Margaret Lim

Trying to rapidly finish Prodigy, on Season 2

Abomination Vaults

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