Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

Things I'm not including here:
- my endless re-read of the Imperial Radch books (It got to the point where I was reciting them along with the narrator, and so I have given them a spell for a while. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it stopped working as a security read for me.)

- my endless re-read of the Murderbot books (I kind of want Murderbot and Jollybaby to go on a road trip, just a murderbot and its crane friend. Maybe they could go to the upcoming Conclave in the Radch novels?)

- books I started but noped out of in the first chapter. (There were quite a few, especially when I fell into a historical murder mystery well.)

- the number of times I had to go back and reread The Locked Tomb books just to figure out what the actual sweet hell was going on. (This was no chore, mind you.)

These are in chronological order, fwiw.

Stormsong by C.L. Polk, narrated by Moira Quirk
- part two of the "We're Wizards and Extremely Gay" series
- aka The Kingston Cycle but I like my title better because it explains EVERYTHING
- book two is lesbians
- there's a lot of sleigh rides with magic foot heaters and fur wraps and huddling for warmth
- also societal oppression of gay people magic users
- love interest is a flapper-adjacent journalist with grit and her own flat
- the first book was all nobility and riches and elves
- this one gets into the gritty reality of the single working woman
- thumbs up for a more developed world structure with social stratification
- bonus points for an underground immigrant witch society
- Moira Quirk, please come to my house and literally narrate anything because I love your voice

The Ghost Bride by Yangsze Choo, narrated by the author
- I'm normally wary of books narrated by authors? For me, the experience can veer into cringe, I don't know why. Maybe because author =/= professional voice actor?
- Yangsze Choo did great, though, and I am glad I read in audiobook format.
- 1890's Malacca was an amazing setting, and not one I knew much about. Many cultures jammed into a small space, with modernity looming but traditions in every corner. What a great time and place to set a story!
- Li Lan is a teenage girl stuck at home with her father who has let their family's prospects dwindle
- She receives an offer of marriage to the wealthy but dead son of a prominent family
- she doesn't like the dead son much (I agree, he's a big jerk) but it's a chance for her to have a secure future
- so many amazing characters in this. Aunties and cooks and demons and dragons and ghosts and a sweet little spirit horse
- beautiful language, imagery, magic, history
- the underworld! Creepy and systematic, with currency and obligations and oof. It was so good!
- I saw this in a review, and I agree 100%: The overwhelming show-stealer is the setting, the background, the history, the superstition and traditional beliefs of turn-of-the-century Malaya.


Archivist Wasp by Nicole Kornher-Stace, narrated by Abby Craden
- SECRETLY STARRING BUCKY
- okay, not really, but come on, there's a taciturn and traumatised super-soldier, can you blame me?
- the main character is Wasp, and her job as archivist is to catch the ghosts that kind of ooze out of the mountain. In return, she receives tribute from the village that she protects
- the village exists in a crapsack fall-of-civilisation dystopia and it's pretty fucking grim
- I nearly put it down, it was so grim
- Wasp has to fight, Hunger Games style, to retain her position, and it's getting more and more difficult as time and starvation whittle away her strength.
- But she has a plan and it's a smart plan
- She catches the ghost of said supersoldier and bargains with him to figure out why everything went so crapsack
- the front end of this book is really tough, but the back end has so many found family moments and triumphant fist pumping moments that I am glad I persevered
- it's one that I keep checking to see if the sequel is out
- and it is! but not in audiobook, bah.


Hench: A Novel by Natalie Zina Walschots, narrated by Alex McKenna
- massive side-eye for this book
- it's lots of fun
- very clever, knows its tropes
- has everything you'd expect from a Lower Decks-style story about superheroes and their minions
- I especially loved that there was a temp office for henchmen
- but
- it does not stick the landing
- you can't be a villain and the good guy at the same time
- and I understand the ACAB vibe that was going on with the Avengers-esque superheroes, I do
- but you either position your main character as nominally a villain who is more honourable than the superheroes, or an actual villain who does actual evil shit. You can't be both. You have to commit one way or the other.
- this book did not commit and it suffers because of that.
- this makes me sad because the characters were so interesting when they weren't being OMG DARK AND EVIL.
- plus there was a perfectly good femslash ship that never went anywhere and that makes me pouty.
- Warning for some intense (and frankly creative) body horror


Gearbreakers by Zoe Hana Mikuta, narrated by Catherine Ho and Cindy Kay
- elitist mech pilot school student versus vigilante mech-breaking rebels
- some hefty body modification descriptions that got a bit uncomfortable for me but if you like body horror, it will come across as mild, I think
- super sapphic
- really, so very very very charged
- starts out as enemies to lovers
- excellent world building, faboo supporting characters
- this was a regretful DNF for me
- but don't let it be a dealbreaker for you (A Gearbreaker Dealbreaker! ha!)
- I went through a stage of not dealing with bleak stories
- and this one got too bleak for me
- I think it was heading for a happy place? Maybe?
- but I'm pretty sure that if you like dark stories and struggles and bleakness (lots of people do!) you'll like this one
- it's very competent and engaging!
- I think I've talked myself into putting it back on my TBR to finish off.


Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, narrated by Carolyn McCormick
- Scientific team sent on secret mission to investigate a lush, abandoned weirdness
- big X-Files energy
- delightfully scientific ecosystems
- delightfully elliptic storytelling
- mind-warping on many levels
- quite sad, though? Like low-hanging cloud, there's a life-long sadness to the narrator's voice
- the emotionality is beautifully done, but it was too much for my poor brain, so I'm not planning on picking up the sequels just now
- I read this because I liked the movie well enough but felt that there was more story
- there was so much more story
- I worry about the overall pensiveness of the story dragging me down, so I'm stopping here with the series
- But I can see a time when a certain mood will take me, and it will be good to have that kind of book ready. The sequels aren't going anywhere.


Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows by Balli Kaur Jaswal, narrated by Meera Syal
- I didn't know anything about this book but it was certainly eye-catching
- I mean, what a title
- ostensibly it's a murder mystery
- but really it's a collection of microcosms that you are invited into: the world of a London Sikh temple, the world of a second-generation immigrant finding her way between two cultures, all the worlds of the Punjabi widows who tell their stories
- to be brutally honest, the murder mystery isn't anything to write home about
- but that doesn't matter, it's barely the point of the thing. It's just the wrapper that ties all these stories together
- Reading in audio made this a wonderful experience, and Meera Syal does amazing work voicing a huge range of characters, from teenagers to elderly widows
- absolutely overdue for a screen adaptation


The Bone Witch by Rin Chupeco, narrated by Emily Woo Zeller and Will Damron
- a world where magic is extremely codified and revered, with supporting industries like costumers and jewellers and so on that also use magic. (I love this kind of thing!)
- which naturally leads to outsiders and less-revered methods of magic, which includes our protag, who is a bone witch, which is a combination necromancer/demon fighter/soul stealer, and generally a Very Scary Person
- the world building is beautiful and rich, painted in broad and fine, and there are many, many details that were original and startling.
- THE MIDDLE IS LONG AND BORING
- I was so sad about this because it's a great world! The characters are fantastic! There's queerness and genderfuckery and dance (magic dance!)
- Because the middle dragged so badly, the one annoying thing about the audiobook version started to grind me down
- it was a thing that I told myself I could ignore, because I was enjoying the storytelling so much
- The main character's family all have noun names, right? Fox and Lily and so on.
- The main character's name is Tea.
- which, according to the stated system, would have to be Tea as in the drink, right?
- Not Tea, as in Tee-ah. Thea? Tia?
- I love Emily Woo Zeller. She reads the Machineries of Empire books, and made me love the characters intensely. But the way this book dragged made me need to take a break from her voice for a while, which is sad.
- DNF
- Might go back? When I'm a little calmer and needing less immediate distraction, perhaps.


The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune, narrated by Daniel Henning
- To be honest, I picked this book up because I'd just finished Wheel of Time on TV
- anyway TIL that Daniel Henning is not Daniel Henney
- but he's a good narrator
- headdesk
- The premise seemed a bit twee for my personal tastes - a bit Harry Potter/Lemony Snicket
( Cutting for a more unpleasant TIL )


The Library of the Dead by TL Huchu, narrated by Tinashe Warikandwa
- aaaaaah, this was wild and fun!
- near-future Edinburgh, in a kind of post-climate collapse situation, with many refugees living in various camps around the city.
- Ropa is the teenage protag, and she's tough as all get out. She's keeping it together for her family, which consists of her Zimbabwean grandma and her sister. School is an optional extra for her, as she needs to earn a living.
- which she does by carrying messages from the dead to the living
- She is devastatingly ruthless with the dead, and does not give her gift away for free
- She's also fiercely protective of kids younger than her, and demands justice from the bad world that hurts them
- as if this weren't enough
- there is a magical library run by an elitist sect of magicians
- they have nothing but scorn for her hedge wizardry
- it's that fantastic mix of learned magic versus instinctual/cultural/spiritual magic that I loved in Rivers of London
- I would die for Ropa's grandmother, who is a tour de force. And she knits! Knitting magic!
- A truly terrifying monster. I mean. Fucking unexpected and terrifying.
- You can tell from the number of points that this book is utterly jam-packed with plot. Like. Jammed in. So many plot.
- Narration starts a little wobbly, but settles in fast. I couldn't find out if Tinashe Warikandwa is actually Scottish, or just really good at Scottish? Either way, she was very listenable.
- I have the sequel in my TBR.

Oh hey, I can do the actual reading post instead of (as well as??) playing catch-up this time...

Just finished A Darker Shade of Magic by V E Schwab, narrated by Steven Crossley
- what a great world/set of worlds
- what a great collection of characters
- what a terrible choice of narration for Lila
- Stephan Crossley does a lot of classical lit, a lot of... ship lit, I guess? Naval adventures?
- he did not do Lila proud
- she can sound scruffy without sounding like... like a comedic cockney urchin
( Spoilers held each other like brothers )

Also just finished (because ADHD)
Tea and Murder: Stories of the Xuya Universe by Aliette de Bodard, voiced by Stefan Rudnicki and Kate Orsini
- oh!
- this is a beautiful universe
- narration is fantastic, voice are lovely, very suited to the world
- the author describes it as ...a timeline where Asia became dominant, and where the space age has Confucian galactic empires of Vietnamese and Chinese inspiration: scholars administrate planets, and sentient spaceships are part of familial lineages.
- I do love me a sentient ship
( Spoilers are sentient and possibly fleshy?? )
- first up is The Citadel of Weeping Pearls
- it's a mystery, with a tiny baby sentient ship (so good! I love the ships!)
- and the Imperial family having regular family issues while a war looms
- It was a good solid story to introduce me to the world
- leaving me free to fully appreciate story #2, The Tea Master and the Detective
- A GENDERFLIPPED HOLMES AU where Watson is a traumatised sentient warship
- Her name is The Shadow's Child and now she makes bespoke tea blends
- IT IS ALL FUCKING MAGNIFICENT
- where are my 5 seasons and a movie


Catching Up on Past Reads
An Unkindness of Ghost by Rivers Solomon, narrated by Cherise Boothe
- Look, this is an amazing book
- I can't overstate how wonderful and creative and amazing
- but it's a generation ship set up like an antebellum plantation society
- the main character is Aster, she's intersex, neurodivergent and brilliant
- I love her
( Spoilers come with all the warnings )


The Last True Poets of the Sea by Julia Drake, narrated by Tavia Gilbert
- got this for free, and downloaded it
- even though it pitches young for YA, the main character has led a wild life
- with lots of sex, drugs and musical theatre
- the language and vibe of the story still felt very adolescent
- but I've watched a whole season of Sex Education
- So I'm getting used to the idea that some teenagers have incredibly wild sex lives
( Spoilers are navigating a teenage storm )


Raybearer by Jordan Ifueko, narrated by Weruche Opia
- oh, wow. This was a wild ride!
- a west African inspired fantasy world
- lots of different nations and cultures
- wonderful narration
- I'm always on board when the reader sings the songs of the story
- magic and spirits and fairies and demons and genies and pretty much everything?
- a fantastic, tropey rulership system
- just a really solid fantasy story
- I will be rolling on to the sequel very soon


Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold, narrated by Grover Gardner
- finally getting to this
- it's been there on my TBR for literally a decade???
- I think I was hesitant because really smart people love these books
- behold my imposter syndrome
- I really liked it?
- I see those Trek bones
- I have a plan c/o branwyn for reading order
- next is Barrayar, then I'm skipping to Brothers in Arms
- this may be controversial to purists, idk


Catching Teller Crow by Ambelin Kwaymullina and Ezekiel Kwaymullina, narrated by Miranda Tapsell
- retitled in the US as "The Things She's Seen"
- I don't know why, and it doesn't work as well
- so if you buy it in the US, please think of it as "Catching Teller Crow"
- maybe change it with marker
( Not spoilers, just a lot to say about this one )

Fly by Night by Frances Hardinge, narrated by Lesley Sharp
- I didn't want to like this
- I didn't like the voice Lesley Sharp chose for Mosca
- I didn't like Eponymous Clent, he seemed creepy and predatory
- Damn it! She won me over. Or wore me down, which is a better fit for both Mosca and Clent
- In the end, I wouldn't have chosen a different voice for either of them
( Spoilers are dangerously clever )


Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand, acted by a bunch of people
- if you read this one, do it in paper, don't audiobook it
- they tried to make it into an audio drama
- but one voice would have been better
- so it didn't break that dreamy, creepy feeling, like Picnic at Hanging Rock
- it's a good and spooky story
- about a folk band
- a perfect afternoon in the seventies
- and why you shouldn't step in fairy rings

Light from Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki, narrated by Cindy Kay
- LISTEN UP
- THIS IS THE BEST THING I'VE READ ALL YEAR
- I'M CALLING IT AS MY FAVE FOR 2021
- trans protagonist
- queer characters every-fucking-where
- aliens run the donut store
- there's a Faustian bargain
- there's music theory and instrument making
- there's universal philosophy
- the professional reviews say "Pratchett!!!" and "Becky Chambers!!"
- but they don't need to
- this book is its own wonderful brand of amazing
- give it to everyone

Currently Reading
The Animals at Lockwood Manor by Jane Healey, narrated by Sarah Lambie
- set immediately pre-WWII
- Hetty is overseeing the evacuation of the mammalian collection from the Natural History Museum
- The daughter of the grand house is very mysterious and beguiling
- not sure if this is sapphic or just fraught
- there are lots of gentle touches and smelling of the other woman's skin, you know?
- very gothic
- has big Rebecca vibes so far


Phew. Made it! All caught up! CAN YOU BELIEVE???

Happy thanksgiving, my USian friends. Travel safe, be safe.

Locking down again for a week. I didn't have big plans. I just wanted to go to the gym and the pool. *sigh*

Via misbegotten and used_songs
Google "pulp book cover" + your name and post the results.

This is hilarious. I love it.



Apparently Tess is Andy Warhol's Marilyn smoking a pipe. Who knew?

I got a wonderful gift in the Exchange of Interest:

all I ever meant to do was keep you
It's John and Grace, both separately dealing with their grief - Grace helping out a friend with their art store, John occasionally using the store as a place to warm up. It's wonderful, and full of heart. And clever little plotty twists. It's basically everything I could ask for in a fic. I love my fandom.


Pertinent to the last post about We Are Lady Parts, here are some other medias I have consumed in the past months.

War of the Worlds (2019)
Set in contemporary France, this Anglo-French reimagining of H. G. Wells' classic in the style of Walking Dead follows pockets of survivors forced to team up after an apocalyptic extra-terrestrial strike.

Weird, sometimes terrible and sometimes wonderful. Very violent. I liked the scope of the story, I liked a lot of the survivor storylines, but some of them were just dire.

( spoilery )


Creamerie
Eight years after a viral plague decimated all men, three dairy farmers from Hiro Valley accidentally run over the last surviving male human on the planet.

*nervous gigglesnort* When NZ makes a dark comedy, it's... really dark. This is set eight years after a virus has killed 99% of men. The three main characters are dairy farmers. The ruling body is a group of beautiful blonde women straight out of Mean Girls. The show is very pointy, looking at peformative feminism, fertility politics, mental health. It's really funny, it's really smart, there is a lot of semen.

Basically a rollercoaster between laughing hysterically, dying inside, and wanting to weep. In a good way.

( spoilers )


Shadow and Bone
Very competently done, lots of fun to watch. Don't have fannish feelings about it in particular? But I did enjoy yelling BIN BONS every time Kirigan was on screen. I kind of felt sorry for the volcra, to be honest? And the CGI stag. Poor old stag.


Beforeigners
The series takes place in Oslo, where sudden flashes of light appear in the bay in Bjørvika. People from different time periods—the Stone Age, Viking Age, and the 19th century—suddenly appear in the present. Police officer Lars Haaland meets the first "time migrants", who speak Old Norse.

Nearly two decades later, the so-called "Beforeigners" struggle to integrate into modern Norwegian society. Some 19th-century individuals found work as journalists, office workers, and teachers, while most of the old Norse folk are homeless and sleep in parks. The Stone-Agers mainly live at the fringes and in forests. Some modern Norwegians perceive these "refugees" as a drain on society.

This sounded kitsch as fuck to me, and I avoided watching it for a few months after it came out, because subtitles mean I can't crochet while I watch, so I save those times for things for which I have higher expectations. But then! I figured out how to crochet and read at the same time, so subtitled shows were back on the menu, and I'm glad, because this series was fabulous. 10/10, would watch ten more seasons of this. Second favourite thing this year, next to We Are lady Parts.

( kinda spoilery )


Clarice
*sigh* What a strange confluence of things this was. So much of it was murky and oddly paced. And pointlessly stylised. It was Hannibal, with no plot. And yet, and yet. If the show had been called Ardelia, and been about Ardelia's career path in the shadow of her famous friend, I would have watched it forever.


Ted Lasso
This was sold to me as delivering good feels of a similar calibre to The Good Place, and I was not misled. It's the story of an American football coach imported to the UK to coach soccer, when he has no experience at all.

I was continuously ready to cringe, and I don't think I actually did once? The show is sweet and gentle, without being saccharine or maudlin. I cried, but in a good way. I love every single character, except for the one played marvellously by Anthony Head, and his character I love to hate.

It is truly lovely.

( spoilers )

Onwards and upwards, trying to be more posty!

I'm half-vaccinated, with Astra Zeneca, which has just this morning been restricted to over-fifties thanks to omg clotsplosion. At least I'll be over fifty when I get the second dose?

The first dose gave me the vagues and the shivers, and then on day 7, I got this all-over itch that I thought was psychosomatic until google saved me. Apparently it's more common with the Moderna, but it's a possibility with AZ.

I'm in the middle of organising consent forms and so on for staff members. The clinic suggested that they don't all come up on the same day for their vaccines which is smart. The workplace that vaccinates together will probably have to take sick days together, and that's not functional.

It's weird, the concept of vaccination. I know how it works, I know the science and I'm not an antivaxxer, but it's a strange feeling. I'm carrying a piece of this disease that brought the world to a halt for a year. That's philosophically quite intense, you know?



I've signed up for hurtcomfortex and I'm in a holding pattern for the annual Person of Interest exchange which is upcoming. I got my big bang posted!! I need to post it here, too, but it's over on the Archive, if you're interested in a Woman in the Suit fic. I got the most astounding art from aragarna



Fic is here:
The Mysterious Human Heart in New York (32488 words) by st_aurafina
Chapters: 13/13
Fandom: Person of Interest (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Jessica Arndt/John Reese, Jessica Arndt/OFC
Characters: Jessica Arndt, John Reese, Harold Finch, Peter Arndt, Lionel Fusco, Jimmy Stills
Additional Tags: Role Reversal, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Jessica is the assassin, John is the nurse, Harold is Harold, Intimate Partner Violence, Show-typical violence, Drug Use, Gunshot Wounds, Arson, Rescue, Suicidal Ideation, some stabbing
Summary:

Jessica Reese was never meant to survive Ordos. She might not survive long in New York, not with Kara's bullet in her belly, but she wants to see John one more time, to make sure he's safe and happy.

Harold Finch has a new number: John Arndt, a married ER nurse living with his husband in New Rochelle.

It's a partnership that was meant to happen.

(My art is so pretty!!)


The cats are starting to integrate! I did not expect this to happen. I really thought the house would remain split in half forever. But it's happening, slowly. Amity started to show this amazing, calm gentle body language around Chewie, and he responded with less yowling and more staring. Now, when they're in a room together, he sits quietly, with an astonished expression on his face, like "How did this happen?"

lilacsigil gives me excellent updates on her lunch break, when she tentatively lets them mix freely:


I do love them so much. lilacsigil included.

ETA: By the time that this got posted, we're out of lockdown. Masks only indoors or outdoors where social distancing is impossible. I am stiff and sorry from not being able to get to the hydrotherapy pool, but I'm otherwise doing okay.

We're slamming back into Stage 4 lockdown at midnight. So far, I've felt the introvert's euphoria of legitimately cancelled plans, and the horror of watching a perfectly balanced roster collapse as leave is called off. I saw someone on FB refer to this feeling as riding the coronacoaster. It seems right.

Poor hospitality businesses, who were all primed for Valentine's Day.

I could do without all the sniping at Dan Andrews, also. In the middle of a crisis, sniping and trolling is worse than useless. He's not doing a perfect job, but he's doing okay. Fuck sake.

*deep breath*

( The Equalizer )

( WandaVision - spoilers for episodes 5 and 6 )

( Clarice ep 1.01 )


Hurt Comfort Exchange 2021
I have four tabs open at the moment specifically dedicated to nomination for Hurt/Comfort Exchange 2021. It's a tricky sign-up! A high degree of difficulty! So many freeforms. I'm nominating The Black Tapes, the new Equalizer series and Person of Interest. Maybe WandaVision? Maybe Captain Marvel? Maybe Star Trek: Discovery? Oh, oh, maybe A Simple Favour, which was really incredibly gay and fun.

ETA: welp, since I wrote that, I got my noms in, and I'm working on my letter. It's still a really hard sign-up for me though? I never know if I should start with the tag or with the pairing or what the heck. Also I worry about ending up writing the fic in the request - the tags are so thorough. But this year, I'm going to be ready. I'm going to get that sign-up done. *cracks knuckles*


Festivids
A few that I really enjoyed from Festivids.

Monument Valley
A lovely, ticky-tocky vid for a beautiful game:
Sacred Geometry by findmeinthealps (General)


Mallory Towers
This vid is full of pluck! I haven't seen the series yet, but gosh, I really want to now.
try everything (sometimes we come last but we did our best) by itsanizzyb (General)


The Old Guard
Lovely vid with found-family themes. Oh, I love this movie so much!!
Never Look Awayby kaydeefalls (Teen)


Jelle's Marble Runs
This is marble runs and the William Tell Overture. It's a perfect match, and the timing is spot on.
The Marble Overture by cosmic_llin (General)

The Strange Case of Starship Iris
I love vids for non-visual media, because they're usually so clever. This one uses a particularly memorable scene in Season One, and gives you an external POV that somehow makes you feel like you're inside the cockpit of the Rumor. It's really good and made me love the podcast all over again.
Space Bees by cupidsbow (General)


Repair Shop
Two vids for Repair Shop, a show which was my favourite 2020 reality TV discovery. They're both by odessie which surprised me, because they're very different. The first is energetic and full of movement. The second is full of love for the making of things, and I love it.
Back It Up by odessie (General)
Time to Make Sawdust by odessie (General)


Vids!!

I will finish with this excellent kitty photo, with big demon/angel energy:

Congratulations, my USian friends. I hope the next four years bring some healing. You guys have fought the good fight. Don't stop? But maybe catch your breath a minute. You're all awesome and I'm glad to know you.


I am plodding along, having worked all the way through the pandemic so far. Australia is doing okay. I'm scared for my non-Aussie friends. These are very strange times. Right now, I'm very grateful that masks are not needed here at the moment except in certain circumstances (supermarkets, hospitals, public transport.)


Obligatory cat photos under the cut.

( A dozen cat photos under here )

A Brief and Incomplete Media Summary
She-Ra
I did not expect to be thwacked upside the head by a Catradora ship, but ( the moment when )

Also, how great was the representation in that show? So. Much. Queeritude.

Revolution of the Daleks
I try to enjoy Doctor Who without reading any reaction posts, because it stresses me out. I enjoyed this? Mostly? I really love Jodie as the Doctor, I love her dynamic with her fam, I love the way she could make friends with a wall. Or a camera. ( I will miss )

The Derry Girls GBBO episode
It was a delight! I love the way they all seemed to drift in and out of character - it makes me think that there's a lot of themselves in their characters. And omfg, Siobhán McSweeney is gorgeous when she's not dressed as a nun. Wow. Which leads me to...

The Great Pottery Throwdown 2021
I've only seen one ep so far, but I love it so far. Siobhán McSweeney is a host. And Richard the kiln master has stepped up to be a judge. I always liked him. And the new kiln master is adorable.

Oof. January. It's January. It's 2021. I feel like I've been sleeping under a hedge for a year.

Pandemic stuff is ongoing and tiring, but I'm alive and lilacsigil is alive. We are both alive.

We adopted two adult tonkinese cats. It was an exhausting round trip drive into Melbourne before the second lockdown, but it was entirely worth it. Their previous owner was rehoming them because they were not a good mix with the toddler, and now it seems the owner is moving back to Queensland. The kitties are six and five.

( cat spam )

I don't know when I'll have time for another update, as work has been really frantic since the pandemic hit, and doesn't show signs of slowing down. But this was important! And I wanted to note it.

Stay safe. Wear a mask, if you can.

Title: Some Assembly Required
Fandom: Person of Interest
Rating: Mature
Words: 3k
Characters/Pairings: Harold Finch/Grace Hendricks
Warnings/Content: Light bondage, sub!Harold, identity crises, kink negotiation
Notes: Thanks to talkingtothesky, lilacsigil and branwyn who all helped me get this fic done.

Summary: Harold is still putting Harold Martin's identity together, and now Grace wants to take it to pieces.

Also at the Archive

( How do you feel about letting me tie you up some time? )

BREAKING LINKSPAM NEWS
Leverage Revival Ordered, Noah Wyle to Star
Aaaaaah, I am so excited! More OT3!


It Came from the Twitter
From fail_fandomanon - museum curators post endless creepy dolls and Fiji mermaids, and a witch in a bottle.
#CreepiestObject
CN: there's also a lot of taxidermy here, and some 'this thing is full of worms!' type objects. And eyeballs and things that got eaten by other things.

Via walgesang for Bi in Sci day, a whole hashtag of beautiful queer science heroes:
#BiInSci Day

Via china_shop:
since I’m single in the quarantine I’ve decided to reenact moments from my favorite musicals so it feels like I’m in love — first is LES MISÉRABLES


Diverting Fictions
Via jenett - a lovely little urban fantasy story:
Little Free Library by Naomi Kritzer

Via podcastjoy
18 Fiction Podcast Debuts: March 2020

Via cofax7 who said that if you like murderbots and cat cafes, you'll probably like this. I can confirm that this is accurate:
A Guide for Working Breeds, by Vina Jie-Min Prasad

At Go Fug Yourself, just a bunch of people in the same boat talking about podcasts that are keeping them sane:
Your Afternoon Chat: The Most Diverting Podcasts for These Times

Via the BBC, a new Thirteenth Doctor short story by Paul Cornell:
The Shadow Passes

(There's actually heaps of extras at the BBC page for Doctor Who: BBC 1 - Doctor Who)

Via David Tennant's facebook, this is an fundraising initiative launched by Jennifer Garner and Amy Adams, the upside of which is lots of picture books read by celebrities on Instagram:
Save With Stories


Fictional People Co-Existing With Us in these Difficult Times
From... china_shop maybe? A playlist from the crew at Wellington Paranormal. ('2 Metres Please' is very earwormy!):
Important COVID-19 messages from Wellington Paranormal

You will laugh, you will cry, you will wonder if Amy really is just in the other room:
VIDEO: Arthur Darvill Returns as Rory Williams in ‘Rory’s Story’ – Doctor Who: Lockdown


Rando But Goodo
Vanilla Slice Jaffle:
The Vanilla Slice Jaffle Is Here To Up Your Isolation Snacking
This reminds me of cooking toasted cheese sandwiches on a steam iron wedged between two telephone books during the gas shortages after the Longford plant exploded in 1998. (Omg did I just tell an old person story? Did I just go "Back in the day, I think it was '98, and..." Shit, I'm that old person now.)

Via misbegotten - out-takes from Next Gen edited back into the original source, which made me laugh and laugh:
Star Trek INtakes

Via... not sure, sorry! You can buy girl scout cookies online, since they're not going to be out in public selling them:
Girl Scouts Cookie Care

Via lilacsigil (maybe via laylainalaska ?) handy hints on font choices (ostensibly for book covers, but I'm going to be using them for icons):
300+ Fool-Proof Fonts to use for your Book Cover Design (an epic list of best fonts per genre)

Via facebook, you can still get your Eurovision on this year:
Eurovision 2020 has been cancelled, but here's what you need to do to plan your own watch party

*lines up paper on lectern* I will now answer all your questions on jaffles, and why they are not the same as toasted sandwiches. There must be a complete seal, people! Or your baked beans will run out!