findthatbook | Member Posts

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Chit-chat on bnha_fans.

Signal boosts:

worderlands' next event at the end of the month will be a daily 3-sentence flash fiction challenge. I know a few people in my circles enjoy that kind of event!

dine

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petrea_mitchell

Encouraging news about Penguicon and GeekGirlCon.

hannah

In chatting about arbitrary divisions into two groups and applying that to the internet, we came up with the binaries of good internet and bad internet, and young internet and old internet. I then suggested algorithmic internet and end-user internet, and I stand by that. I often say I only use social media on my computer where I have a full keyboard, big screen, mouse, and browser extensions, all of which help me curate my experience - while it's not perfect, I'm still largely in control of things. I haven't ceded ground to an app or control to a set of suggestions. I'll often see complaints but rarely what's being complained about, which gives me both a skewed view of what's going on and satisfaction in being so well-curated I barely glimpse what's being touted as a widespread problem.

Keeping the internet on a computer, where it belongs, fixes a lot of problems before they start.

Also of note today was someone on my floor moving out and I got some fancy imported Korean sea salt they weren't going to bother hauling around with them. I don't know how fancy it is, but it tastes quite nice. I'm thinking I'll use it in soup.

Current Mood: sympathetic
Current Music: Brian Wilson (live) - Barenaked Ladies

isis

What I've recently finished reading:

Heartstone by C. J. Sansom, the fifth Shardlake book. Looking back at my reviews, I think the author must have got his feet under him better as he went on, or else he just shifted to things more to my taste, because I had said the fourth was my favorite so far, but I think I liked this one even better! This story is set mostly distant from court intrigue, though it comes in at the end; Matthew is given a legal case by Queen Catherine Parr, and it intertwines with his own interest in the situation that led to Ellen Fettiplace's commitment to Bedlam. I'm not going to mention my favorite thing about this book, because it is a spoiler, but - this book contains one of my favorite things. :-) Also I like the way the various plots and sub-plots wind around each other: the legal case, Ellen's history, Barak's relationship with his wife Tamasin (complicated by her pregnancy), Matthew's problematic new steward. Okay, I lied, this book contains two of my favorite things, and the other one is a fascinating and detailed endnote about the real historical events that this book is built around. I loved this in Bernard Cornwell's Last Kingdom books, and I love it here.

The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko, which is related to the Raybearer series, and which several people in my circle read and enjoyed, so I got it from the library despite my having been disappointed in the series. And as the other reviews said, it was rather heavy-handed issuefic (so was the Raybearer series), but also had clever worldbuilding, charming characters and, I thought, better pacing than the series. (Also was in past rather than present tense, which I prefer.) However, will someone please tell Ifueko that "monotone" is NOT A SPEECH VERB DAMN IT?!?!

What I'm watching now:

We've got three episodes left to go of Andor S2, and gosh isn't it ironic to be watching

Spoiler you can probably guess if you have seen the show

a manufactured riot as pretext for government crackdown while a riot is being manufactured as pretext for government crackdown

I did read the interview with the showrunner about how no, he wasn't inspired by current events (that is, recent events, obviously the show was written well before current events!) but it's definitely inspired by historical fascist governments and fights against them, and wow, we are just proving that what goes around comes around, that human foibles are universal, etc etc, but still, holy shit, right? Yeah.

But as I have said before, this is the wonderful thing about SF, that it can recast real issues in ways that make them easier to understand than when you are right in the middle of them argh.

severina

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reeby10

Reading

I read more of Lirael by Garth Nix. I'm about halfway through now I think!
I listened to more of In an Absent Dream by Seanan McGuire. I am enjoying the goblin market parts, though I do wish there was a little more about the world outside of Lundy.
I read Slammed In The Butt By My Sentient Plant Based Vegetarian Cheeseburger by Chuck Tingle. I bought this one years ago and finally got around to reading it. A good time!
I read I'm In Love With The Handsome Mummy Racecar In My Butt by Chuck Tingle. Some very interesting worldbuilding going on in this, and that's saying something for Tinglers lol
I started Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead (Vampire Academy #5). It's been quite awhile since I read the fourth book, but it's been really easy to get back into. So many Dmitri feels!!
Ficwise, I was reading more Will/Ethan until I got a sudden craving for Gradence, so I've been doing some rereading of my faves. For such bad movies, the fic writers really have done a lot to create a great world and characters.

Watching

For the Mission: Impossible marathon, the roommate and I watched the last one before the current movie, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning. It was fucking terrible?? I don't know how it has such good ratings on IMDb and such because the dialogue was awkward and stilted, 90% of it was exposition that they kept unnecessarily repeating, they threw in a random backstory and seemed to forget everything else from previous movies, the fight scenes were boring and badly choreographed, they screwed both Rebecca Ferguson and Hayley Atwell in different ways... I could go on, but I think that's enough ranting lol
The roommate and I caught up on Game Changer. Very fun!
AEW as usual. Vaguely intrigued by the possibility of more Swerve/Hangman, but otherwise mostly pretty meh.

Listening

Nothing.

Writing

I wrote some poetry. I really failed at writing for NaPoWriMo, but I'm trying to work my way through the prompts still.
I edited a fic, which has now joined the giant backlog of fics I have to be posted :)

kitewithfish

What I've Read
All Systems Red by Martha Wells - Watching Murderbot the show with some friends led us into a discussion of differences between the show and the book, so I ended up re-listening to the book. It just keeps holding up - it's tightly written with a narrative voice that is just so clear and so dry and sometimes so scared - I love this book. I'm not sure where I land on the show exactly, but this did confirm that at least some of the plot differences are from the show removing the drones that SecUnit uses to see things remotely.

What I'm Reading
The City and the City by China Mieville - audiobook narrated by John Lee (not my fave but perfectly competent) - This is the first time I'm reading China Mieville after all the online awareness of the accusations and it's for a book club. The book does lean pretty well into the weirdness of the two cities arrangement - where you might have something pass in front of your eyes but you unsee it, because it's in a different city than the one you live in . It's a mureder mystery, so a lot of my final read will depend on how the story resolves

My Favorite Thing is Monsters Book 2 by Emil Ferris - still weird!

Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%
The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.
The Ministry of time - on hold.
Someone you can build a nest in -on hold

What I'll Read Next
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
The Tainted Cup
The Deep Dark

Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

flo_nelja

7 juin : Jamais sans le T
Twin Peaks, Denise Bryson, G
Une de nos meilleurs agents sur AO3

8 juin : Première prise d’hormones
Black Butler, Grell, T
Une invention des plus utiles sur AO3

9 juin : Réécriture des broccolis
Dungeon Meshi, Falin/Marcille + groupe, M
On le mangera de toute façon sur AO3

leecetheartist

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Current Mood: contemplative

amaebi

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flo_nelja

Hello, fellow writer! Thanks for participating to this exchange. Time for the dirty content!

All prompts are optional. I just love to imagine prompts. Also, a ship having less prompts doesn't mean I like it less! I love them all!

( Read more... )

conuly

As always, Evil!Janeway is hot, though less so than the Living Witness version. It's the eyes - our main characters all have huge eyes, so the somewhat more realistically animated adult human characters look slightly uncanny valley, even though their eyes ought to make sense.

Also, damn, Chakotay has got some arms! Is this true IRL? I don't remember ever seeing the live actor ever without sleeves....

Also also, I honestly love every time Gwen gets a moment of happiness, no matter how small. She really has had a miserable life. Every second chasing replicated pie over the ship, or squirting whipped cream into her mouth, or, one hopes, finally spending some time playing goofy holodeck games, is a second worth living. And so, I will say, I appreciate that the animators took the time to let her smirk a little when Evil!Chakotay proposed starting his torture session with "the cute one", aka Murf the Indestructible. You gotta find those moments of joy when you can, sweetie!

(Question: Are mirror tribbles... nice? What about their new team pet, Bribble? Would Bribble have a goatee and be evil in the mirror verse? How sapient is that thing, anyway?)

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( Read more... )

sholio

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?

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( 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!

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