kiranwearsscienceblues

alierak posting in

We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

greghousesgf

Had some Celebration tea. Yesterday I went to my favorite cafe and got a slice of chocolate peanut butter roll cake, it was yummy. Since L. is busy today I've been trying to get some other friends of mine to go with me to trivia night tonight at my neighborhood pub but I don't know if they're interested.

Current Mood: restless
Current Music: Rush

runicmagitek

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lassarina

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rocky41_7

I'm on Witness for the Dead but I'm still thinking about Chenelo and how she was turned into a political football as a teenager and punished for things she had no control over and so incredibly fucking lonely and then dead at the ass end of the world at the age of twenty-six because no one cared enough about her even to make sure the guy left raising her only child didn't treat the kid like shit

That's why I've spent all day making a fanmix for her

greghousesgf

Had some cardamom cinnamon tea. My mother called me yesterday with some bad news, my sister's husband had to have heart surgery, I didn't even know he had any heart problems. This cancelled their vacation, I hope he's going to be OK, I absolutely love him.

Current Music: the Cars

liminalovertea posting in

addme_fandom

Name: Holly
Age group: Mid-30's
Country: United States (West Coast)
Subscription/Access Policy: Anyone can subscribe, but all access list people are vetted beforehand! Prefer 25+, but 18+ is an absolute must.

Main Fandoms: The Elder Scrolls (Arena, Daggerfall, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, ESO), Baldur's Gate 3, The Legend of Zelda ( Ocarina of Time --> Twilight Princess), Silent Hill (1-4)

Other Fandoms: The Witcher (books up to The Tower of the Swallow and Witcher 3), Dragon Age (Origins --> Inquisition), Fallout (3, New Vegas, 4, Prime Video series), Dishonored (1&2), The Evil Within/Psychobreak (1&2), The Longest Journey trilogy, The Devil Came Through Here trilogy, Bridgerton, The Sims (1-4), Ancient Magus Bride, Apothecary Diaries, Arcane (Netflix, I've never played LoL and I never will), Once Upon A Time (up to Season 5 I think???), Harry Potter (I do not support the author's stance against trans people, I just enjoy the fanworks at this point), Life Is Strange (1 & Before The Storm).

Fannish Interests: Playlists, writing, art, moodboards, theory essays, character studies, fan-OC discussions, psychology

OTPs and Ships: Halsin/Astarion (BG3), Gortash/Durge (BG3), Severus/Lily (HP), Tom/Bellatrix (HP), Harry/Draco (HP), Ganondorf/Zelda (LoZ), Jayce/Viktor (Arcane)

Favourite Movies: Kiki's Delivery Service, Spirited Away, Pan's Labyrinth, Death Becomes Her, Shaun of the Dead, Forrest Gump, The Witches of Eastwick, Practical Magic

Music: Classical, classic/hard rock, symphonic metal, folk music, grunge

Before you follow: I write lengthy annotations of novels I'm reading that may be intended for 18+, and some of my creative works veer in that direction as well, so PLEASE no minor interactions! 🙏🏻 I also curse a lot, and talk about some heavy subjects that occur in my own life (under cut and with content warnings in the Reason for Age Restriction field, like a civilized netizen), so if that's not your cup of tea, we might have issues connecting.

greghousesgf

Had some caramel vanilla tea. I want to make spaghetti for dinner tonight so I went to the grocery store to get sauce, decided to try a brand called Italian Market, I got the tomato sauce w/artichokes. I often buy the Paul Newman but they only had the bigass jars and I'm only making spaghetti for myself so I don't need that much.

Current Music: Peter Gabriel

reeby10

a queen for all seasons by
Selkit
Word Count: 4,212
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Midsommar (2019)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Dani Ardor, Hanna (Midsommar), Siv (Midsommar)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Misses Clause Challenge, Yuletide 2021, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Worldbuilding
Summary:

In her dreams, dark smudges crowd the edges of the world. One looms larger than the rest, twisting into impossible shapes, morphing into a figure with many faces, all of them howling with rage.
When she jolts awake, the dream-figure lingers. She tries to ignore it. She’s no stranger to nightmares. Her whole life has been one ever since her family’s deaths.
But things are different now. This is a new life. A new family.
Right?

━━━━━━━━━▼━━━━━━━━━

I love seeing what happens with Dani after the events of Midsommar, and this is such a good look at the continued ritual of being the May Queen! I am a ho for ritual after all, but especially building off of the existing worldbuilding in such a believable way. I really enjoyed seeing more of Dani interacting with the other women of the Hårga as she learns to be part of her new family and culture. Plus the parts with Maja’s (and Christian’s) daughter were just perfect.

greghousesgf

I want to be a good ally but I don't go to Pride anymore because somebody hit or kicked me in the ass when my back was turned, so I'm not doing anything this weekend other than watch more CSI DVDs.

Current Music: the Turtles

rocky41_7

The day after finishing The Traitor Baru Cormorant I had to rush over to the library to pick up book 2, The Monster Baru Cormorant, which I finished earlier today.

The second book of a fantasy series of any kind often bears a very difficult burden. It is most often the place where the scope of the story grows significantly. A conflict which before was local to the protagonist's home and surrounding area may expand, often to the extent of the known world. New players are often added to the cast, bigger and scarier problems and challenges arise. The protagonist may have gone up in the world, wielding new power and influence, with new responsibilities. As a result, this is where many series lose their footing; a tightly-woven book or season 1 may give way to a muddled, watered down part 2 as the writers struggle to juggle this expanded focus.

The Monster suffers from none of those things. It is the place where Baru's story expands—in The Traitor, her focus was almost entirely on Aurdwynn; it was the full field of play and outside players mattered only as they influenced events on Aurdwynn. In The Monster, Baru has become a true agent of the Imperial Throne of Falcrest, and with these new powers, the entire field of the empire is opened up for her play, and it is fascinating to watch.

In The Traitor, Baru was narrowly focused on managing the situation in Aurdwynn; everything she did was to that end. In The Monster, Baru can do whatever she wants, and we get to see her finally on the open field. Even where she flounders and flails, it's delightful to watch the machinations of her mind constantly at work. Her cleverness rows against her bursts of sentimentality to produce some impressively chaotic effects, but she is as slippery as an eel to pin down, even when her rivals think they've gotten the best of her.

The new players added to the game—Baru's fellow agents of the Throne, various elements of Falcresti and Oriati society, and Farrier, now on paper a peer of Baru—never overpower the story, and it was really interesting to see Baru from more outside perspectives. She is certainly someone who generates strong feelings in others, and Dickinson doesn't shy away from the vitriol that many other characters hold for Baru—and understandably so! Baru played a magnificent gambit at the end of The Traitor--but it's marked her to everyone as a person who is incredibly dangerous and cannot be trusted, even when she seems entirely genuine. No one who knows the story of Tain Hu is willing to trust Baru as far as they can throw her, and that impacts her ability to maneuver. Force is her only way of getting through to many people now--fortunately, she still knows how to wield it.

The characters of The Monster are in most cases, even more morally gray or outright amoral than those in The Traitor, as Baru has now entered the big leagues, so to speak. No one gets to where Baru is without having been willing to spill a considerable amount of blood, literal or metaphorical, and most of her peers are just as bound by guilt and the threat of remorse as Baru.

As in The Traitor, the schemes of others are at play here too, and Dickinson does a particularly good job of showing how players of this great game think they've put together the situation, but they've done it wrong—yet you can fully track their logic and understand how they came to the wrong conclusion. There are simply so many factors at play here that it's very easy for someone to become focused on a specious truth, and many of them are acting on these false conclusions, which muddies the waters even more.

Baru is a mess in The Monster though, leave no doubt. Tain Hu's death has marked her forever, but Dickinson avoids becoming maudlin, with every page rife with Baru's laments for her lost lover. Hu is often in her thoughts, and acts as a kind of guiding light, but Baru is still consumed with her own plots and plans (and drinking ever more heavily). Another ghost of Baru's past is haunting her as well—Aminata returns in The Monster, and Baru's grief for her lost(?) friendship with Aminata plagues her almost as much as the memory of Tain Hu. I really enjoyed the weight their friendship is given, and that it is not eclipsed by Baru's romance.

I also enjoyed that Baru pursues other sexual encounters. It might've been easy to have her simply closed off to such things in light of what happened with Tain Hu, but it makes sense that someone at Baru's age, with her limited sexual and romantic history, is simply not ready to forgo sex, even in the throes of her grief. And given the intensity of the rest of her life, it also makes sense that she occasionally seeks respite in these things, in spite of her lingering fear over her own sexuality.

The tone of The Monster has shifted slightly. Baru is much more open about her attraction to women, both to others and in her own internal narration. In fact, the book is franker about sex as a whole. It also gives more POVs than The Traitor, including a historical glimpse at the Oriati Mbo, but I never felt that these things distracted from Baru's story. On the contrary, the perspectives here serve to give a rich and three-dimensional look at the world Dickinson has created and help us understand the field on which Baru is operating. The new characters are interesting as well—I really enjoyed watching the foibles of Tau-indi in the Mbo, even outside of how these events set the stage for present relations between Falcrest and the Mbo.

Baru is also questioning herself more than in The Traitor. As the costs of her crusade against Falcrest mount, she is more and more often asking herself if it's really worth it, if she even has the right. (Does she even know Taranoke anymore? she wonders in some of her more reflective moments. Would they even thank her for what she's trying to do?)

I enjoyed the extra bits of worldbuilding we got here too, particularly how Dickinson plays with gendered expectations within the Empire--for instance, it's explicitly stated what was hinted in The Traitor that only men traditionally wear make-up, and the scene where Aminata compliments her male companion on his make-up for the evening was a little delight in seeing a moment where men were expected to make themselves nice for the appreciation of women. Sure you can call it just a reversal of some of our own gendered norms--in this same scene, Aminata thinks to herself that it would be "unfeminine" of her not to pay for the meal of herself and her companion--but I still find it interesting how it subtly shifts the dynamics to something other than what they would be in our own world (and perhaps culturally appropriate, given, for instance, how much of Falcrest's navy elite is made up of women).

Dickinson is dealing with a great many more and larger moving pieces in The Monsters, but he manages them deftly, and I was racing through the final chapters of the book, eager to see where we'd be left before The Tyrant Baru Cormorant, book 3, which I will be picking up ASAP this Saturday. I need to know how Baru's story ends...I have no doubt the wait for the fourth book will test my patience!

Crossposted to

books and

fffriday

greghousesgf

I just did some grocery shopping but I screwed up and bought raisins when I already had raisins, I just forgot I had them and didn't check before I went to the store. I'm going to go swimming this afternoon.

Current Music: Queen

reeby10

On Thursday, whoops.

Reading

Still reading Lirael by Garth Nix, but I'm super close to the end now.
Also still reading New World Witchery by Cory Thomas Hutcheson. It feels a bit like I'm reading a textbook, but in a good way. I feel like I'm learning a lot! And getting some fic inspiration, but that's beside the point lol
Ficwise, I'm still in Gradence land. Currently rereading the Picture Book series by dontyoudarestiles and pineapplegraveyard . Such a good fic, especially since I'm usually extremely not into infidelity.

Watching

The roommate and I finished The Following! Love this show so much and I remain forever disappointed it didn't get a fourth season and it never got very popular in fandom spaces. I really should write more fic for it, like my version of what would happen in the next season we never got. Hmm.
The roommate and I watched Midsommar in celebration of... well, midsummer. This was a rewatch for me, but she'd never seen it before, so that was very fun. Still a wonderfully beautiful and upsetting movie <3
AEW as usual. They're starting to announce more of the All In card, which is very exciting since I'll be there in person.

Listening

Nothing.

Writing

For my goal of writing a fic for every book I read this year, I wrote a fic for Wolf Queen by Tanith Lee and one for Go Luck Yourself by Sara Raasch.
Also wrote a couple of poems. The Gradence fics I've been reading have me all in my feels, and it shows in what I'm writing lol

lassarina

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

quailfence

Title: i've been wanting to ask you out
Length: 200 words
Fandom: ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Marcille Donato/Falin Touden
Characters: Marcille Donato, Falin Touden
Additional Tags: POV Falin Touden, Post-Canon, Love Confessions, Getting Together, hints of arospec falin touden, hints of autistic falin touden, (as in there's a few lines that can be taken as evidence for either/both of those things), Cheek Kisses, Kissing, Girls Kissing, Romantic Fluff, Double Drabble, Seasons of Drabbles Exchange Spring Round 2025, Gift Fic, Gift Exchange
Summary: “Falin.” She turned around to see a very nervous Marcille. “Um, I need to- I think you should know that, that I-”
Notes: Written for

worldunbent in the Spring 2025 round of

seasonsofdrabbles . Originally posted 3 May 2025

“Falin.” She turned around to see a very nervous Marcille. “Um, I need to- I think you should know that, that I-”

Falin tilted her head and asked, “What?”

“ThatI’mInLoveWithYou!” came out all in a rush.

“Oh, really?” Falin asked. She hadn’t noticed before, but looking back it wasn’t exactly a surprise either. “For how long?”

“I, well, I’m not sure when it started, but I only realized when we were bathing together after we rescued you the first time,” Marcille admitted. “I was still trying to figure out what to do when, well…”

Falin nodded in understanding. “I’ve been a little in love with you for a while, myself,” she said. She’d actually thought about asking Marcille out beforehand, but had decided against it - they were already quite close and happy with each other, as friends, so what would dating really change that much about their relationship? She wouldn’t mind being proven wrong now, however. “So, if this is your way of asking me if you want to date…?”

“I- yes! Absolutely!” Marcille grabbed Falin’s hand. “I, Marcille Donato, would absolutely love to be your girlfriend!”

Falin grinned and kissed Marcille’s cheek. She blushed, but happily returned the favor.

End Notes: Bonus info/headcanons that I couldn't figure out how to fit into the fic: Senshi, Chilchuck, and Laios all managed to figure out Marcille's feelings (I'm basing Laios being able to figure that out on the changeling section). Chilchuck told Izutsumi right after she joined, but she probably wouldn't have figured it out on her own even if given time

Current Location: Home
Current Music: Phantom - Unknown from the Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies soundtrack

rocky41_7

I don't actually remember where I saw Catriona Ward's Sundial recommended, but it was somewhere and convincing enough to get it on my TBR. I finished the audiobook this week so it's time to reflect.

Sundial is a domestic psychological thriller which focuses on the relationship between the protagonist Rob and her eldest daughter Callie. Or at least, that's what the novel summary claims. A good 50% or more of the book is actually about Rob's youth and her relationship with her childhood family, primarily her twin sister, Jack. I didn't get that at first, which led to me being slightly frustrated by the length of the "flashback" sections until I realized that they were at least half the true focus of the story.

Ward excels in capturing the petty toxicity of a domestic environment gone sour. Especially deftly handled are the ways in which a partner can wound in such seemingly mundane ways. Many of the exchanges between Rob and her husband, Irving, come off as completely innocuous to an outsider, but to the two people in the relationship, who have the context for these seemingly nothing interactions, the full cruelty of them is on display. This adds completely believably to the tension between Rob and Callie, who has long favored her father, and who sees her mother's responses as hysterical overreactions, because she doesn't have the context that Rob does. Ward also very neatly portrays a truly vicious marriage, where both parties have given up pretending they want to be together, at least to each other, and where the entire relationship has become an unending game of oneupsmanship, trying to get one over on your spouse.

Adding to this suffocating atmosphere is Callie, a very strange 12-year-old who is starting to exhibit some very troubling behavior, particularly in her interactions with her 9-year-old sister, Annie. Rob has always struggled to connect with Callie—in contrast with Irving, who happily spoils her to force Rob to be the bad guy enforcing boundaries—but when Callie is thought to have attempted to poison Annie with Irving's diabetes medication, Rob decides it's time she and Callie have a real heart-to-heart.

So she takes Callie on a mother/daughter trip to Rob's childhood home, Sundial, an isolated family property out in the Mojave desert.

This book is at times difficult to read, because tension suffuses every page. At some point, I was waiting with baited breath for the next terrible thing someone was going to say or do. Not everyone in the book is bad, but they are all struggling, and they all do ugly and selfish and hurtful things.

The miscommunication and missed connections between Rob and Callie also felt woundingly believable, not the sort of outlandish refusals to talk that appear in less well-crafted dramas. Rob is understandably troubled by much of Callie's behavior, but she's also intolerant of any behavior that seems outside the norm, so even Callie's more harmless habits get her in trouble. Callie, at that tender preteen age, views much of her mother's scolding as an attack on her as a person, and reasonably misconstrues her mother's emotional upset as proof that she is unstable, and possibly a threat to Callie (concerns heartily reinforced by her father).

In order to give Callie clarity and context, Rob has decided to reveal the truth of her family history, which kicks off the lengthy "story-within-a-story" section about Rob's childhood and youth. Even when I grasped that this was meant to be the majority of the story, I still felt these sections dragged at times. There were more detail that necessary to explain things, and I was at times impatient to get back to Callie and Rob in the present. Still, as Rob's tale unfurls, it casts increasingly horrifying light on everyone in the family—Rob, Callie, Irving, and Rob's parents (now deceased).

The book goes some pretty twisted places, which I'll warn for because having skimmed reviews, some people definitely were not prepared for the darkness of the story. As for me, I enjoyed it, and Rob's backstory absolutely recontextualizes much of her early-book behavior towards Callie and Irving. There was cruelty in Rob's past, but there were also situations in which there just seemed to be no winning, and people doing their best but causing harm in the end anyway.

My only real complaint is about the ending. The ambiguousness of it I can forgive, because I think in the long run, it doesn't really matter whether route A or route B was the "real" ending—the pieces set on the board won't significantly change one way or the other. As Callie points out, her and Rob's lives are now both governed by the truth Callie revealed before they left Sundial. For me, it was the final twist that left a bad taste in my mouth, in part because it felt like just one twist too many, coming in what I expected to be the denouement, and because it sucks almost all of the triumph out of the final confrontation.

On the whole though, I thought Ward did a great job with the slow reveals and although I think the flashback sections could have been trimmed a bit more, it was never so bad that I was tired of the book. None of the characters here are very likeable, but boy they are trying to get through life without causing too much harm. Also, the audiobook narrator does such a good job of making Irving sound absolutely loathsome—his lines just drip with patronizing contempt. I wanted to shake him every time he spoke.

Crossposted to

books

greghousesgf

Had some apple pie chai tea. Nothing going on today.

Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: the Beatles

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kiranwearsscienceblues

January 2022

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a connecticut yankee in queen charlotte's court

yearning is a gift

Reading

Rebuilding journal search again

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June Media Roundup

theoretically I do things but what do I do

Short Straws Aplenty

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Hello~

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Fic Rec: a queen for all seasons by Selkit (Midsommar, gen)

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Recent Reading: The Monster Baru Cormorant

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Wednesday What I'm...

What Are You Playing Wednesday

I’ve been wanting to ask you out

Recent Reading: Sundial

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January 2022

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