Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

It's been a minute. I'm okay. Just trucking along day by day in this weird post-COVID world. There has been some major depression. I'm still living in Pelican Town pretty much full time. (Where would we all be without Stardew Valley?)

Every day at work is incredibly frantic and I don't really understand why? It's numerically not much busier, but everything is more difficult. It's like someone turned the gravity up, and all tasks are effortful. Not just for me, but for everyone at work. We're all getting mystery illnesses that I can only put down to stress. Kidney stones and cellulitis and shingles. I've cracked two teeth this year.

In better news, the cats are getting friendlier and friendlier, though they're still acquaintances rather than friends. As of today, though, they're acquaintances who sniff each other's butts. Huge strides in cat society.

( Tenuous cat harmony under the cut )

This is technically a reading post. Reading is a thing I can do while working out or crafting or just staring at the wall, so I've actually read a fair bit!

The Just City by Jo Walton, narrated by Noah Michael Levine (Book 1 of the Thessaly Series)
- amazing premise: Athene creates a planned community based on Plato's Republic, then grabs idealists from all parts of the timestream to govern and raise orphan children in perfect platonic conditions.
- did not stick the landing, and the closer I got to the end, the more I felt the whole story start to collapse.
- was still a worthy read, because wow, what a concept.
( spoilers are a thought experiment )

This Poison Heart by Kalynn Bayron, narrated by Jordan Cobb
- AAAdorable
- a perfect gift for queer nerdy teenagers
- protagonist is a queer nerdy POC teenager
- who happens to have magic plant abilities
- and a weird affinity for poisonous plants
- really creative ideas in this
- tone pitches at the younger end of YA
- without being patronising or saccharine
- kind of a cross between X-Men stuff and magic
- don't usually see mutant/magic kids coming from happy homes
( Keep spoilers out of reach of children )

Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe, narrated by Joe Jameson
- Soldier is kidnapped by a grief-mad ship
- Yes, this is a plot in Radchaai dramas
- I think it was probably done better in the Radch
- They would certainly say so, anyway.
( Spoilers saw the target as they went whistling past )

Circe by Madeline Miller, narrated by Perdita Weeks
- gorgeous, dreamy writing
- Real Housewives of Mythology but in a good way
- Circe is compelling, empathetic, a great character voice
- Narration is intimate, enfolding, beautifully done
- Scylla will be in my nightmares forever
- Wtaf happened to Madeline Miller that she thought of this?
- I bet she met something very nasty in the garden, with too many legs and possibly mucous
- Old gods are great and terrible and make the worst relatives
- And new gods are that newly rich family with the big big house and a swimming pool
- while you're stuck in your cave with all your cousins who are also your sisters somehow
- You can tell I devoured this book like it was a big messy delicious peach
( Cut is delicious right up until the last mouthful )

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, narrated by Kyle McCarley
- First up, I liked this book a lot, jsyk
- but it's not a good one for audio
- not because of the narrator, he was fine. He was great.
- The problem was the abundance of Elvish words
- It took me 2/3 of the book to figure out what was terminology or titles of address, and not actual names
- SO MANY DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE COURT all with different elvish names
- ALL THE SEXY YOUNG THINGS ARE CALLED MIN WHY
- (Min is a pretty sexy name, much sexier than Miss)
- It seems obvious when I write it down
- but at the time I was very confused
- I did enjoy it very much once I realised
- Maia is a true cinnamon roll
- Might go back and relisten now I have a better idea of the language


Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, narrated by Yetta Gottesman
- Ohhhhh lovely
- Okay. I think I found a new author to follow
- (Oooh, she has so much to read!)
- This is set in Jazz-age Mexico
- starring a clever maid on a quest
- alongside an ancient Mayan god of death fighting to regain his throne
- and a supporting cast that will dazzle and delight you
- and yet retain historical context
- it's honestly so fucking good
- cannot endorse more highly
- where are my five seasons and a movie???


The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells, narrated by Kevin R Free
- caught myself all the way up
- but read the last two out of order, I think?
- didn't matter, I figured it out
- I like Kevin R Free's narration, it reminds me that I have a tendency to slide into a head voice for Murderbot that is distinctly feminine, and kind of pulls me back into an ungendered POV
- Huh, I didn't read them out of order, now that I look on Audible
- Network Effect (the novel) is fantastic, omg, how far our little murderbot has come!
- It still seems to me like Fugitive Telemetry (the novella Audible calls #6 in the series), is set before the novel. There's none of the consequences we see in Network Effect. It's weird.
- I love the series but I am confuse.

The Jasmine Throne by Tasha Suri, narrated by Shiromi Arserio
- *screams in happy lesbian*
- this is very beautiful and very gay
- it has all the fairytale tropes, and an Indian-inspired world
- only gay
- gorgeous gorgeous gorgeous magic system
- I love everyone in this bar novel
- cannot wait for the sequel
( this content warning cut is on fiyah )


The Angel of the Crows by Katherine Addison, narrated by Imogen Church
- First comes the moment when you realise you're reading Sherlock Holmes wingfic
- Then comes the moment when you say 'fuck it, I'm enjoying it'
- Confused as to why names had to be changed
- and frankly, calling Watson 'Doyle' is a little on the nose
- This is not a Jam Watson though
- He will certainly fuck you up a lot if you cross him
- The good thing about Holmes AUs is picking up on which canon stories are being used
- This was well done in the book! Comfy and familiar, but with interesting twists
- Angel society was beautiful and layered and weird
- It was very clear that this came from the hand that wrote The Goblin Emperor
- Narration was a bit odd, with heavy emphasis on the LAST. WORDS. OF. EACH. SENTENCE.
- It took a while to get used to, but fortunately the drama of the book rose to a point that NEEDED. EMPHASIS.
( Spoilers have unexpected twists )

Stories of the Raksura Book 1 by Martha Wells, narrated by Christopher Kipiniak
- Short stories
- These books are always fun
- I love these poly matriarchal dragon folk
- not much else to say? These books are a known quantity to me
- but if you're into found family, non-human dynamics, magic
- you're probably going to like this series
- and there's a bunch of them yay


Welp, this post has taken me a week to write. I'm going to cut it short here and keep going on a new post that will probably take me a whole week again.

It's still nice to post, I have to say. *waves*

The secret wedding I'm not supposed to know about is this weekend. From a vast distance (the wedding is in Sydney) I can feel my family unit quivering with anticip-ation. My Canadian aunt has been quietly smuggled into the country. What will happen next? How will my mother find a balance between keeping the wedding a secret from her two prodigal daughters and yet maintain bragging rights on Facebook? Stay tuned and I will tell all, except I won't because it's all a secret because that's COMPLETELY FUCKING NORMAL OKAY?

My dad is obviously also in a confused state because he's randomly dropping into places where the secret cadre of relatives aren't, and reorganising things. ( text screencaps of confusion under here )

I just don't understand.

Books!

( Master and Commander, Altered Carbon, Blue Remembered Earth, A Rare Book of Cunning Device, Les Liaisons Dangereuses )

Yay books!!

Linkspams

Exchanges/Challenges
There's a lot of these right now, yay.
- Write Every Day is at auroracloud's place for the first half of the month

- wipbigbang has sign-ups open for artists and authors: 2018 Sign-ups
This is a Big Bang with one goal in mind: to clean out your drafts folder. These are stories that were unfinished for whatever reason, that authors returned to and completed, and the art that goes with them! All fandoms welcome!

- There's going to be a Person of Interest exchange!!
poi_fanworks

- turingfest, an exchange for robotic characters
("Robotic" characters, for the purposes of this exchange, are characters in the realm of AIs, robots, androids, mecha, machines, cyborgs, and any other technology-focused characters.)

Ben Daniels round-up
Because he has amazing hair and a flippy coat from Jesus Christ Superstar. And because we are rewatching S2 of the Exorcist at the moment.
From his instagram:
bendanielsss: Somehow my Pilate coat flip didn’t make the live tv cut. Here it is in all its flicky plum leather glory
bendanielsss: It’s a Pilate/Caiaphas/Faceoff/Hairoff
bendanielsss: Because I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to rock one again here’s my mohawk for posterity before it’s all gone sour.

Producer Sean Crouch's mohawk fanfic on twitter: INT. BEDROOM - NIGHT. A Mowhawked Marcus performs an exorcism.
More JCSS costume porn: the purple leather bulge
This splendid scene from S1 ep1 of the Exorcist: It's just Marcus in a chair looking sassy
This video from 2013 when Ben was playing a character on The Paradise, mostly because he looks so dapper and prim with his cravat: Ben Daniels introduces the alpha male Tom Weston - The Paradise - Series 2 - BBC One

Rando sh*t
- Neural network-named tomatoes you won’t find at the farmer’s market
Any of these imaginary tomatoes has to be better than the Aunt Ruby's Green I have fostered love upon since LAST FUCKING AUGUST and yet has produced not a single fruit. Aunt Ruby is the second worst aunt. (Flo is, of course, forever the worst aunt.)
- Once again, on the internet we are all xkcd: xkcd 1976: Friendly Questions
- via miss_s_b, this lovely analogy for finally getting an ASD diagnosis: Candidly Autistic: Sparrows and Penguins
- This excellent Very Hungry Caterpillar rendered in crochet. You push the foods into its mouth! Very Hungry Caterpillar


In other news, I am doing Camp Nano, and since this post rounds out at 2100 words, I am going to count it.

It snowed! In my profile, anyway. Thank you everyone for the snowflake cookies - I think I had as much fun sending them as receiving them. It was quite the flurry on LJ yesterday.

It's actually deliciously cold today, and we're lounging around, eating the remains of lilacsigil's birthday pavlova, and playing Mario Kart. (We weren't supposed to open it until we'd finished our NaNo, but since we're both now over 56K and still going, it seemed fair to get our reward. We're saving the new Super Mario Bros for when we actually type "The End".)

I'm reading the Luxe series by Anna Godbersen, and it's made me think about why I can't engage with Gossip Girl, when basically both stories have the same premise, setting, and character archtypes. Luxe and its three sequels are set about a hundred years before Gossip Girl, though, and this apparently makes the difference for me. With Gossip Girl (the TV series, not the books), I keep trying to connect with the characters, but end up frustrated with their terrible ennui, and shout at the characters a lot. ("If your life is so unfulfilling, go, volunteer in Sierra Leone or something!") But with the Luxe series, even though the characters are just as privileged and pointless, I am engaged and interested in them. lilacsigil gruesomely suggests that it's because they could all die of cholera or polio at any minute. I would like to think that I'm not that morbid. Maybe the historical setting gives me something else to focus on besides the terrible, dreary ordeal of being rich and white in New York? Or perhaps it's the elaborate descriptions of corsetry.

Or maybe it's the fact that Gossip Girl apparently has early 80's Debbie Harry in the cast and this scares me:

( My Debbie Harry is pastede on yay! (Do we still say that?) )

On the other hand, I'm still really enjoying Mercy. It seems that the best thing for me to watch while riding the exercise bike is medical dramas, and there's well and truly enough to keep me going through the week: House, Mercy, Three Rivers, and I'm catching up on Nurse Jackie which is hilarious but not quite long enough to see me through one workout. Is Hawthorne any good? Are there any others I'm missing? (The soapier shows like Grey's Anatomy are too slow for exercise.)

Considering that I had zero expectations, Three Rivers is surprisingly watchable. It would be better if it were the Doctor Zero (from Wolverine) and Doctor Shane (from The L Word) show, but it works for me. It's incredibly self-indulgent and syrupy with its issue of the week - this week, racism!, next week - healthcare funding for refugees! And it does have unintentionally hilarious moments (the sight of the dewy ER intern sobbing as she washed the blood from her young patient's sneakers, or the heart-transplant Leader of the Pack storyline) but at least it entertains. And the medicine isn't too bad.

Oh, oh! Do you know what? We may actually have succeeded in our pathetic attempts at horticulture! We have tiny tomatoes on our tomato plant! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT? They're only the size of a fingernail, but they're there. On the vine. We may even get to eat them. And Project Eggplant 2.0 is going quite well so far - the plants are as big now as last year's were in February. I am hopeful that these skills we are nurturing will serve us well in the grim apocalypse times. (Because three fingernail sized tomatoes will surely feed us for weeks!)

What is wrong with me that I am drunk on two glasses of wine? I have to type very slowly right now, because I AM SPELLING OUT IN MY HEAD! I hope I can make my spoiler cuts work because otherwise I will make the internet angry.

wizefics, I promise to be sober before I look at that thing you sent me. I promises.

( Spoiler cut hopefully here for Middleman: The Clotharian Contamination Protocol *crosses fingers* )

I have to go back to work tomorrow after two weeks off. This may be the reason I have hit the bottle TWO TIMES tonight.

( This is (hopefully) spoiler space for Victory of Eagles )

Do you think the womens Olympic trampolining finalists are really an international band of superheroes? I can't not think this.

I really don't want to go back to work. I wish something could be arranged. *sighs* And now I'll have to go with a tiny hangover.

ETA: Alcohol is a funny word to type when you're drunk. It's hard to stop. Alchohohohol.

Still reading Summerlands, because it's my at-work book, and I only get about 20 minutes lunch break. I'm nearly finished, and I sure have learned all lot about baseball, and although I'd probably never play it, watch it or go to a game, I can certainly appreciate the meditative aspects of playing that kind of team sport.( It's a good book )

The reason it's taking so long to read this book is partly because I'm really trying to read slowly and thoroughly, and work on the whole visualising of the first person point of view. I think it's really important. I think I'm enjoying the book because of it. I also think it's slowing my reading speed right down, and I make myself go back and read things if I've skimmed ahead. It makes me nervous to do this, because it feels like I'm learning to read again (which I am, really) but there's no competition, and it's not a school issue, and I can read slowly if I damn well want to. It doesn't make me an idiot. (I'm cursing you bastard teachers. Curse you teachers, and your accursed trade! You exist but to mess up minds up big time! If there are any good or even well-intentioned teachers in the world, I apologise, and wish you well.)

Also, I'm reading other things at home. Prisoner of Azkaban came and went since April, and I signed onto a_chapter_a_day so I didn't have to read right through Goblet of Fire again, since I only read it recently. I'm starting on Order of the Phoenix now.

I splurged on an Amazon order, and then surprisingly got a big voucher for my birthday, which was great. More presents for me! So I get to read the incredibly trashy but fun Tales of the Slayer 2. The first story was very off putting, but the rest so far is a rollicking read, with pirates and girls cutting their hair and binding their bosoms and so on. Heaps fun.