May Bingo Card

May. 3rd, 2026 10:18 pm
maraudersaffair: (Pinup Book)
[personal profile] maraudersaffair
My [community profile] allbingo card for May!

shield rivalry destruction beauty
capture animals chariot riddle
escape altar obsession loss
exile hunt metamorphosis betrayal

Some Tomodachi Life shenanigans

May. 3rd, 2026 07:41 pm
sapphicfairyoracle: (pic#18452813)
[personal profile] sapphicfairyoracle
One episode of Tomodachi Life nonsense that no one asked for? More likely than you think! At least I will keep the image dump behind a cut.

Read more... )

fannish musings

May. 3rd, 2026 06:11 pm
snickfic: Jess (Jess)
[personal profile] snickfic
* I finished that Gallaghercest fic at the beginning of April, wrote 100 words for my drabble assignment, and otherwise wrote nothing all month. I keep getting the vague urge to write but without any concrete inspiration.

* Probably doesn't help that I started a new Stardew farm. A week and a half later, I'm most of the way through fall of Year 1, so clearly that's where my time and brain have gone. Oops.

* OTOH I'm so impatient for [personal profile] summerofhorrorexchange, which doesn't even open noms for almost two weeks, that I might start my letter tonight. Current plans include Ready or Not, maybe The Housemaid, maybe Re-Animator.

* The other day I moved over 100 drables and ficlets to a separate AO3 account. The idea was to make me feel a little less overwhelmed by the number of works on my main, but I'm not sure how well that's going to work, given there are still over 300. But in case you're like "where did Snick put all her drabbles?!?" they're here.

* I've been dealing with the existential horrors by buying books. There are worst vices. In the past month or so I've bought more books, mostly used, than in the last year combined. Specifically:
Frisson - museum art exhibition book
A God in the Shed - JF Dubeau
In the Forest of Serre - Patricia McKillip (have now read)
The Enterprise of Death - Jesse Bullington
My Death - Lisa Tuttle (had already read)
Black Light - Elizabeth Hand
Silk - Caitlin Kiernan
Anathem - Neal Stephenson (already read)
Flyaway - Katherine Jennings (already read)
Knock Knock Open Wide - Neil Sharpson (already read)

At some point I was like, shoot, I need to start reading again to justify all these new books. And then I did... and so far it's been nearly all library reading. LOL oh well, that still beats not reading.
tigerlily: (Default)
[personal profile] tigerlily
Hi! Thank you for checking out my requests. This letter includes some prompts and other fannish thoughts, along with more likes. If you're into that, read on! If not, no worries; I'd be happy with anything you make.

If you spot anything that seems off or confusing, or thereโ€™s something youโ€™d like to know, Iโ€™ll be happy to answer through the mod.

Treats are enabled on AO3, and welcome.


AO3: LittleRaven


Likes:


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Horror Likes:


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Smut Likes:


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AU Likes:


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IF Likes:


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Art Likes:


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DNWs:


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W.I.T.C.H. (Cartoon)


Read more... )


W.I.T.C.H. (Comics)


Read more... )


W.I.T.C.H.


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Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)


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Daria (Cartoon)


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Black Magician Trilogy - Trudi Canavan


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Gods of Jade and Shadow - Silvia Moreno-Garcia


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InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale


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Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)


Read more... )


Thanks again for checking out my requests, and I hope you have a fun time with the exchange!

Seasons of Drabbles

May. 3rd, 2026 02:28 pm
snickfic: b/w still of Grace Le Domas in her wedding dress (Grace Ready or Not)
[personal profile] snickfic
Drabbles are revealed! I had hoped that this would kickstart my writing again after a month off and that I would write lots of treats, but in fact I only wrote my assignment, alas.

However, I got SIX incredible gifts, and I highly recommend them all. They are not getting enough love yet in my opinion. ;__; 100 words unless otherwise noted.

pickled, Oasis RPF, Liam/Noel. So cute in that specific Gallagher way.

Five Hauntings of John Pelham Ratcliffe, Kyle Murchison Booth stories, Booth/Ratcliffe. 500 words. Five drabbles about Ratcliffe before, during, and after "Drowning Palmer," and every one of them is perfect. What a great mix of tones, with some amazing lines.

Gilding, Kyle Murchison Booth stories, Booth & Claudia Coburn. A creepy/sweet/funny drabble.

Counterproposal, Ready or Not, Grace & Ursula meet before Grace marries Alex. The possibilities!! ๐Ÿ‘€

Field of Play, Ready or Not, Ursula & the Lawyer. I can SEE Elijah Wood's smarmy little lawyer smirk in the last line of this.

Down to My Last Cigarette, Ready or Not, Ursula/Grace. Another possible divergence, and full of hot little details. ๐Ÿ‘€๐Ÿ‘€๐Ÿ‘€

Movies!

May. 3rd, 2026 01:15 pm
snickfic: Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode in Halloween 1978 (Halloween Laurie)
[personal profile] snickfic
I've been to the theater a bunch recently!

(BTW, the reason I see so much in the theater these days is because I have a monthly subscription to one of the big theater chains, which means I get to see basically any movie I want for free. This works out to be worth the cost if I see at least two non-matinee movies a month, which is pretty easy when there's a new horror movie pretty much every weekend.

And between my local chain theater, which has an outsized number of screens for its location and therefore shows a lot of weird indie stuff just to fill space, and the slightly further away indie theater that also by definition shows a lot of weird indie stuff, it turns out I'm able to see just about anything with a 100+ US theater release.)

Over Your Dead Body (2026). Samara Weaving and Jason Segel star as a married couple who go for a weekend at their secluded cabin, each with the intention of killing the other, and are interrupted by the some escaped convicts (including Timothy Olyphant) and their equally unhinged former prison guard (Juliette Lewis).

This particular brand of "people hate each other, comedically" is not really my thing, but a friend wanted to go because the director was involved with Lonely Island, and in fact I had a good time. Samara Weaving is always delightful, and it was fun here to have her using more or less her natural Aussie accent. There were a lot of funny bits, both lines and slapstick. Things get quite gory at the end, in a fun way if you're into that sort of thing. The movie also did some things with nonlinear storytelling that were fun without feeling overly clever.

I will say I could really have done without the extended comedic scene of one of the convicts attempting to rape Segel's character. I also was both unpersuaded by the couple's motivations for wanting to kill each other and not entirely sold how things ended between them.

Still, it wasn't hard to just ride along with where the movie wanted to take me. If you're in the mood for a frothy, kind of mean-spirited comedy with occasional attempts at being heartwarming, you could do worse.

--

Hokum (2026). Writer Ohm Bauman (Adam Scott) is a writer haunted by his mother's death who takes his parents' ashes to the inn in Ireland where they honeymooned, which might be haunted.

This was directed by Damien McCarthy, whose previous movie Oddity I thought was just okay, mostly because I found it overly linear with no surprises. This, on the other hand, has enough moving pieces that it sometimes felt to me like it didn't leave itself enough room to be scary. There are for sure some jump scares and creepy bits, but overall my main interest was in how various plot obstacles would be solved, which, combined with the writer main character, made it all feel a bit Stephen Kingian.

I will say spoilers )

Overall I had a good time. The plot is engaging, Scott is great, and McCarthy does a good job of spooling out his plot at just the right pace. I just didn't ever feel a strong emotional connection to it.

--

Mother Mary (2026). Troubled pop star Mother Mary (Anne Hathaway) goes to her bitter former collaborator and fashion designer Sam (Michaela Coel) for a dress for her first performance in years.

On one level, this movie is absolutely magnetic. Sam is chockful of vitriol, and Coel acts her ass off. Even when other characters are present (all of which are women; I don't think there's a single man with lines), it feels like Sam and Mary are the only characters in the scene. Everything is filmed tight and close and claustrophobic, with dim lighting and lots of shadows. The psychological tension basically doesen't let up for the whole two hours.

All of which is good, because on another level, very little happens in this movie, lol. If you're game for toxic psychological drama between two women, this is For You. If you're not, boy are you going to be bored. The A24 experience!

The movie also has a lot of visual interest. We get to see a ton of Mother Mary's pseudo-religious costumes, some only for a shot or two. There are clips of her concert performances and an extended a capella modern dance sequence. As the movie goes in, the line between flashback and present, between reality and dream, gets thinner and thinner, and the imagery gets ever more surrealistic and dramatic.

On paper, all of this should be my jam. I think the main problem I have with the film is that Sam is borderline unhinged in her fury and resentment, and meanwhile Mary feels so defeated the whole movie, a bedraggled, exhausted person struggling for purpose. The huge difference in their energy makes the whole movie feel unbalanced. This isn't helped by how the source of Sam's all-consuming resentment is basically that Mary stopped answering her texts, or by how despite Mary's dramatic iconography, her actual music that we hear is the most basic, generic, nearly hookless pop music imaginable. (Also I thought it was super funny that when someone quotes the attendance figures at one of Mary's concerts, it turns out she's just playing arenas, not the stadiums one would expect from her supposed stature an artist.)

I think in writing this review, I've talked myself around to liking it more. I'm definitely not mad I watched it, and I really respect the director's ambition, even if it didn't all quite land.

Paint colors

May. 3rd, 2026 10:16 am
sholio: Hand outlines on a cave wall (Cave painting-Hands)
[personal profile] sholio
I was talking to The Husband last night about a video game he's been playing, an indie game that is apparently a two-person production (it's made by a husband and wife team of developers) and that segued into talking about Babylon 5 and Marvel, and he said something that I wanted to write down because I think it's always going to stick with me.

"Every person's brain emits a particular color of paint. If you mix too many of them together, you just get mud."

You can massage the metaphor in various directions - sometimes mixing together different paint colors is lovely! Or, if all you have to look at is suburban beige, any color really stands out. One person's garish or too pastel is another person's perfect hue. And so forth. It's just such a lovely way to look at it, and I will be thinking about that for a while. I like having different unique paint colors to look at, and refining my own.

Culinary

May. 3rd, 2026 07:06 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

Last week's bread held out remarkably.

Friday night supper: penne with Peppadew roasted red peppers in brine whooshed in the blender and heated.

Saturday breakfast rolls: eclectic vanilla.

Today's lunch: diced lamb shoulder casseroled in white wine with baby carrots, chopped leeks, bay leaf, thyme, white peppercorns and salt, with a sliced potato topping (blanched in boiling water for 5 mins, brushed with melted butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper, put on for the final 45 mins or so), served with white-braised fine green beans and baby courgettes.

Catching up, in bullet points

May. 3rd, 2026 04:06 pm
dolorosa_12: (summer drink)
[personal profile] dolorosa_12
I've been extremely busy, and consequently extremely tired, and haven't been around on Dreamwidth all that much in the past couple of weeks. Rather than one of my standard weekend wrap-up posts, I'm going to attempt to go through the various things that have been happening, in brief, in list form.

  • Two weeks ago, [personal profile] catpuccino came up to Ely to visit. She lives in London, we've known each other since the first day of high school, but what with one thing and another, I hadn't seen her in person since 2024. She's going through some tough stuff at the moment, so it was nice to be able to help her get away from all that for twenty-four hours, at least (and talk foodie things with someone who's even more plugged into that scene than I am).


  • Almost immediately after that, my father-in-law came over from Germany to visit for a week. He drove, and took the ferry, which meant he was a free agent, and could go out and do things while Matthias and I were at work, and he did catch up with some local friends a couple of times, but for the most part he seemed to just want to chill out in our garden, under the cherry trees. His regular daily life involves a lot of energetic grandchildren (my sister-in-law has three kids), and I think he viewed our place as something of an oasis of calm. My mother-in-law was the real Anglophile in the family โ€” she came over to England on exchange as a teenager, fell in love with the place, and the two of them basically visited the UK almost once a year for their entire adult lives, barring the Covid years and my mother-in-law's increasingly fragile health. So coming back here alone after her death was a bittersweet experience for my father-in-law, stirring up a lot of complicated emotions, but I think he was pleased to have made the trip.


  • He left on Wednesday, and on that evening Matthias and I went to an author event with Andrey Kurkov, hosted by the local independent bookshop. (Ely is a sleepy small rural town, but it definitely punches above its weight in terms of literary events due to this fantastic bookshop.) He read from and chatted about his latest historical mystery novel (set in 1919 Kyiv), and answered audience questions with patience. (My favourite, somewhat left-field answer: '[In the final decade of the Soviet Union,] I graduated with a qualification in Japanese translation, and they wanted me to do my military service as a spy listening in to the Japanese in the Russian far east, but I didn't want to do this, since it would have prevented me from being allowed to leave the country. I asked my mother, who was a doctor, if she had any well-connected patients who could get me out of this, and one of her patients, who was a senior military figure, was able to instead transfer me to doing military service as a prison guard in Odesa. When the other guards found out I was a writer, one of them asked me to write his speeches for his meetings with the leadership, so I spent my military service reading propaganda magazines and rewriting the articles for him to reuse in his speeches.' This struck me as the absolute peak absurd Soviet experience.)


  • I've had a run of lots of timetabled, lecture-style teaching, which happens this time every year, but is always a bit exhausting: it's in a huge, echo-y wooden lecture theatre (when the students come through the doors, they slam loudly and make a massive amount of noise), it's to groups of 75 students, repeated three times to different groups, and it's with undergrads rather than the postgraduates and researchers I normally teach (who are a lot more work to keep focused), and I always feel completely flattened by the time the Friday class is over. The one nice thing is that these classes are in central Cambridge instead of out on the hospital site where I normally work, and I can buy decent food and coffee afterwards. I guess it's a good thing I don't normally work in that part of town, because I'd be so tempted to eat lunch out every day, and end up bleeding money.


  • I read Innamorata (Ava Reid), and with Reid I think at this point it counts as hate-reading, since my expectations are always so low, and they're always confirmed. This is her take on a gruesome gothic novel, complete with purple prose, and the literary equivalent of a child hopping up and down going 'look! look! did you see what I just did?' Did I see her obvious and intentional allusions to Mervyn Peake? Yes, yes I did. Am I shocked at all the gore, bodily fluids and shock value edginess? Shocked that I keep picking up Ava Reid books, maybe.


  • Then I read Almost Life (Kiran Millwood Hargrave) and Testament of Youth (Vera Brittain), and was a lot happier in my choice of reading material. The former is a novel about two young women who meet, hook up and fall in love in 1970s Paris, then go their separate ways, but continue to haunt and fall in and out of each other's lives, in a mess of intense emotions, difficult choices, and lost chances. The latter is both a memoir of the author as an individual (fighting the parental expectation to marry and instead attend Oxford as a young woman in the 1910s, then serving as a nurse in WWI and watching all the young men in her life be swallowed up into the maw of that terrible war), and a portrait of the absolute wrenching collective trauma experienced by her entire generation, and how impossible it was to go back to civillian life and go on living afterwards.


  • Then I read The Red City (Marie Lu), which had a great premise (clandestine underworld alchemist syndicates fight a global battle for dominance, operating much like real-world organised crime), and an absolutely wrenching depiction of intergenerational immigration trauma, but was written for absolutely no reason in third person present tense, which for me is the literary equivalent of someone chewing audibly near my ear. I only like present tense when it's used to evoke a sense of stream-of-consciousness-like immediacy, as if you're getting a glimpse inside a character's messy, unedited interior monologue (I prefer it much more in the first person), but when the whole story feels as if it could work perfectly fine in past tense, the use of present tense is distractingly grating.


  • Yesterday was Eel Day in Ely, which involves, among other things, a giant cloth eel on a frame being paraded through the town, trailed by an incongruous juxtaposition of local groups (think Morris dancers followed by a girls' rugby club, followed by musicians playing steel drums, followed by a Scout group, etc). We were in the market buying vegetables, so missed the actual parade, but did witness all these various participants marshalling in front of the cathedral beforehand. We did a quick swing around the stalls afterwards, but it was pretty hot, and we'd already eaten lunch, so we didn't stay long.


  • We watched the recent Wuthering Heights adaptation yesterday, and I regret to report that it was 90 per cent vibes and dramatic scenery, and I was not particularly impressed.


  • As it's a long weekend, there was a food and craft fair outside the cathedral today, and Matthias and I wandered around, eating lunch from one of the stalls, people- and dog-watching, before meandering on home, having picked up a box of macarons to eat over the course of the week with our tea and coffee.


  • We've made a start at booking tickets, etc for our summer holiday, which makes it start to feel a bit more real. I love the planning stage โ€” investigating food, activities, transport, and so on, with the days of the holiday unfolding, and given greater shape.
  • (no subject)

    May. 3rd, 2026 12:45 pm
    oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
    [personal profile] oursin
    Happy birthday, [personal profile] forthright!
    vriddy: Anya from Spy x Family looking surprised with hugeky open eyes (surprised)
    [personal profile] vriddy

    I'm nervous about doing another of these log posts because when they happened somewhat weekly, it was massively depressing to have to drop them when the shit and the fan met for a torrid love affair... Yet here I am! Random stuff that doesn't feel particularly post-specific. I guess I just want to chat ;D

    General status/Last week:

    I not only discovered the "copyholder" function on Scrivener (basically an additional way to break down your screen, adding a little read-only window at the bottom of your editor pane), but also that you can show a previous snapshot in there. I'm doing A LOT of rewriting at the moment because I added a couple of subplots, and being able to restart a scene from scratch while having the copy of the previous version below + a preview of my bookmark of the updated scene outline in the Inspector side-pane is really super neat.

    Once again, I'm thinking I really should sit down with the Scrivener manual someday and have a good read. Then I remember it's nearly 800 page-long. But the number of times when I think "it would be really neat if..." for something small (or not!) and tadam! It's already somewhere in there! only ever increases.

    I'm enjoying this round of structural edits!! Obviously, it is only the beginning, and is going slowly. My pace tracker is saying at this pace, I'll probably be done at the end of December lolsob. But that's fine, I'm hoping that it'll pick up a bit once I find my feet with this new way of doing things.

    Additionally, something ultra cool that's happening is that I seem able to focus for longer periods than I have in a long time. I believe it's because I've done so much of the thinking work ahead of time and have such a detailed revision plan. A lot of the bigger questions already have answers, and it's about how to make it all fit into the current scenes (and a bunch of rewriting, clearly!) as well as a bit of puzzle solving as I move different character introductions and dialogues around. I think that'll calm down once we get past the intro chapters?? (Then there can be new types of problems XD)

    Projects:

    • Soul Thief structural edits!

    What's coming up next week?

    More structural edits, clearly :D And also I want to write to the folks who volunteered to beta the Cursed Witch to check if they're still up for it and confirm timelines. (Prepare thyselves!! >:D)

    Feel free to share your writing/creativity plans if any for the coming week, too, if you'd like! What's going on with you?

    Exchange things!

    May. 2nd, 2026 10:46 pm
    sholio: (Horseman)
    [personal profile] sholio
    I signed up for Season of Drabbles on an impulse under a new account called AltSholio (note my A+++ socking skills). In the past I've been slightly inhibited about signing up for some kinds of exchanges that I would've been more likely to try back on LJ - drabbles, fanart, that kind of thing, stuff that's a bit out of place on my main account - so I created this new account so I can play around with things that I might otherwise hesitate to try.

    Anyway, I had fun and I ended up writing 5 things across both that and my main account - two of which are for fandoms I've never written before! And I got two delightful gifts as AltSholio:

    Bygones (Agent Carter, 200 wds, Jack & Peggy)
    A sweet little season 2 coda, very much in character.

    We'll Meet Again (Biggles, 600 wds)
    Slightly AU next meeting for Biggles and EvS, set in the early 1920s. Great characterization and a delightful concept!

    Author reveals will be on Tuesday.

    Daily Happiness

    May. 2nd, 2026 07:45 pm
    torachan: (rainbow avatar)
    [personal profile] torachan
    1. We went down to the bike shop today and bought ebikes! We both got the Velotric Discover 3 in green (Carla's is a large and mine's a regular, so still easy to tell apart despite the same color). It's a fairly small shop, so they had to order them, but we should be able to pick them up by the end of next week.

    2. Across the street from the bike shop is a pizza place that looked enticing, so we went over there for lunch after. We got three slices to share, but their slices are huge and cut up into three pieces each, so we had some to take home.



    One was acorn squash, one was potato, sage, and truffle, and the last was proscuitto, pineapple, and jalapeño. All three were delicious, but the potato might be my favorite. I wish more places had potato pizza around here.

    3. A couple months ago I saw a post about how Microsoft was going to be raising the price of the Office 365 subscription due to all their unnecessary AI stuff, but that the non-subscription version of Office was on sale. Since I don't need more than the basics, the non-subscription version really is fine and I'm not sure why I didn't get that to begin with. So I bought it and then as it got closer to my renewal time, I went to cancel the subscription only to find I couldn't. I purchased this over ten years ago and did the subscription through the Excel app itself, which apparently charged me through Best Buy, but didn't actually set me up a Best Buy account or anything. I've been paying for it every year through auto-renew, but have no access to any subscriptions on Best Buy, and according to Microsoft, since it was purchased through them, that's the only way to manage my subscription. Best Buy chat and phone customer service was unable to help with this weird issue, and just suggested I cancel the credit card so that the next auto-renew bounces. So yesterday I reported my card lost and now I have the annoyance of having to redo the card info on any sites I was using it on, but at least I won't have this stupid subscription anymore.

    4. Speaking of subscriptions, I finally bit the bullet and cancelled Netflix. We really never use it but I keep thinking about some Netflix shows like Disenchantment that I want to watch again, but they raised their prices again and I really don't want to pay $20 a month just because at some point I might want to rewatch one or two shows. So it's done. If we want to rewatch something, we can torrent it.

    5. I put our old bikes up on Nextdoor last week and got a flurry of scammy responses about Carla's bike but no real takers (and none at all for mine), so I put them both up on Craigslist today and mine sold right away. I paid like $400 for it originally but it's been 12 years so even though it's in great shape, I just listed it for $100.

    6. One of the Little Libraries we passed on our walk tonight had some puzzles in it so I brought two of them home with me. Not so exciting that I would have bought them on my own, but for free puzzles, they seemed nice enough.

    7. It's hard to see, but Chloe's got a little blep going on.

    sapphicfairyoracle: ([Yuri on Ice] Viktor/Yuri. Husbands !!!!)
    [personal profile] sapphicfairyoracle
    I'll image dump my Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream shenanigans on here at some point. Just gathering the photos slowly but surely out of my switch.

    But I do love this game so much. Only with Tomodachi Life would you be able to say things like "Miku broke up with Markiplier and now has a crush on Shrek. But Shrek is dating Cloud from Final Fantasy 7".

    (Using this icon reminding me to make Yuri and Viktor miis for my island. Since it's the only continuation I'm ever gonna get since MAPPA cancelled their production of the Yuri on Ice movie. Ending a series for good, it seems. MAPPA, I will fly to Japan to beat your ass and never forgive you for that.).

    state of the Riella

    May. 2nd, 2026 06:01 pm
    autobotscoutriella: a large tiger shark swimming away (tiger shark)
    [personal profile] autobotscoutriella
    Made it to both the first farmer's market of the year and early voting this morning, which was really nice. I always end up spending way too much money, but the variety of croissant-adjacent things I end up bringing home is usually worth it. (Our farmer's market has a lot of bakeries along with the veggie stands.)

    I'm still working my way through Hades, but I've gotten the first ending and am in the fun "fulfilling prophecies and befriending random gods" stage, so it feels a little bit less intense. (And I got all the side character quests sorted out, which was extremely satisfying. We can fix these tragedies, after all!) I don't expect to write fic for it, but I've definitely been reading some.

    Writing...has not been going great, for a lot of reasons, but it seems to be improving. It's MerMay, so I'm tempted to poke at Currents (the mershark!Daryan AU) a little bit and see if maybe that'll get my brain up and running again, especially now that the weather's getting nice. (Why is it easier to write fun mermaid stuff when it's warm outside? Who knows, but it sure works for me.)
    flareonfury: (Kamala Khan)
    [personal profile] flareonfury
    at [community profile] mcu100:





    at [community profile] xmen100:
      




    I went with kinda a Mother theme (if it wasn't obvious) for the characters/"pairings" challenges. 
    rachelmanija: (Books: old)
    [personal profile] rachelmanija


    This picks up when Danny's been Dreadnought for a while, and is getting a bit too into the violent aspects of the job. This aspect is quite well done - you understand what's going on with her, but it actually is a bit unsettling. Also, Valkyrja reappears, sort of; an evil techbro wreaks havoc; a TERF is threatening the world; and Danny works on her relationships.

    I liked this more than the first book. Danny developed as a character and spent a lot less time being abused by transphobes. I'll grab the third book when it comes out.




    The sequel isn't as good as the first book, unfortunately. I'd have been happy with more of Zax, Minna, and Vicky exploring the multiverse, but this book is much more plot-driven and Minna and Vicky only show up three-quarters of the way through. Half or more of the book is narrated by a new character whose identity I'll leave out as it's spoilery for the first book. She was fine as a character but her storyline was less interesting. Zax gets a new companion, and I did quite enjoy his adventures with her. I also enjoyed Minna and Vicky when they finally appeared.

    But the plot-driven parts were less interesting, and the structure was really odd and not in a way that benefited the book. Instead of picking up where the first book left off, we get a retrospective summary of what happened some time after that point, then we get the entire backstory of the non-Zax narrator bringing her up to the point where she meets Zax in the first book, then it jumps forward and we get what's happening to her now, then we catch up with what Zax is doing now, and then, about three quarters of the way in, we finally get the story of what happened immediately after the first book left off. I think it would have worked better to tell the story more linearly. And also, to have much more Minna.

    It's not a bad book and it does have some really good parts, but there are some baffling choices made.
    adore: (boat)
    [personal profile] adore
    I didn't post yesterday because I was recovering from the upset stomach. And I still have to catch up on replying to comments. But here's a mini post for today. I came across some absolutely synapse-firing art and found out it's Mo Dao Zu Shi fanart. I don't even go here, but here I am.


    by @aimeeaprilpp on Twitter

    It's beautiful and so sensual. I could fawn over his fingers for paragraphs, about how delicate they are and how evident their expertise, but this is a mini post. He looks like he's climaxing, and I don't mean the plot. The arch of his neck is perfect. The trees in the background look like nerve endings. It all gets one thinking. Not aloud, but definitely Thinking. 100/10 would poke my head into this fandom again.

    Profile

    fffriday: A pair of white women's gloves (from Fingersmith) and the caption FFFridays (Default)
    FF Friday

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