spatz | Network

You know how sometimes you enter a fandom by the fanfic doorway?

That's me these days.

I mean, it was me back 20 years ago reading my way through Mulder/Scully fic in the X-Files fandom, which I hadn't watched since around S2. (The alien 'oil' freaked me out at the end of S2 and I never ended up going back. Horror and suspense are not my oeuvre.)

But I have very fond memories of reading my way through...golly, I can't even remember the fic archive anymore. But there were a number of "Virtual Seasons" and some fics that were very good - full episode types. Some better than others, obviously, but I still carry the gist of them here and there.

Anyway, more recently, I've read a Heated Rivalry fic or two, but my latest 'go through all the fic' obsession is Avatar: the last Airbender but specifically Zutara fic. And since I haven't seen the series all the way through (I watched Book 1 and maybe got a little way into Book 2, but never got to Book 3), then the AU doesn't bother me. Not that AU has ever bothered me when I'm talking about a pairing I like.

For this, I'm mostly blaming Pinterest, which has turned out to be more addictive for me than Tumblr. I go to FB because I want to know what's going on in my 'real life' friends lives; I go to Threads because it keeps me up to date with world events...and educated about the milieu of life beyond my experience. I scroll through Insta for pictures and sometimes 'turntables' of information and crafts and art and oddities.

But Pinterest has turned into my fandom exploration space. Mostly because all the Tumblr theories end up there, but algorithm'd, not just off a friends feed.

And, after a decade of Maria/Steve and maybe 700 fics, about 1/6th of which I either wrote myself or inspired, it's so nice just to wander into a fandom, plonk myself down, and get to read the best of some 8000 fics without having to create anything myself!

It's true that I've belonged to other fandoms with pairings with a decent amount of fic about my favourites (BBC Merlin: Arthur/Gwen had a reasonable amount, and Bridgerton: Kate/Anthony still has its proponents), but this is ~8000 worth of fics where people have extrapolated four seasons (and a lot of tie-in material) of a non-canon relationship and come out with some beautiful results!

I don't read much in the fandoms I write anymore - as I had to say in the

3weeks4dreamwidth friending meme - "specifically [insert female character here]" because so few of thoe fandoms had a focus on the (usually secondary) female character.

It's true that I'm not getting much sleep, cos I'm too busy reading 100,000 word fics. But this? This is fun.

I feel like I haven't had fun in fandom for a while...

sakana17

Late to the party, but I finally watched the 2021 Korean drama The Devil Judge | 악마판사 and wow! I thought it was great. Very intense, completely unhinged, and spectacular acting. The setting is a modern dystopian AU Korea and Ji Sung plays the "devil judge" Kang Yohan perfectly: magnetic and disturbing and keeping the viewer (and young judge Kim Ga'on, played by Park Jinyoung) on edge, never knowing what to believe or expect next.

The most recent series I finished was Live Up to Your Youth | 冬去春来 (2026), a 32-episode romance drama starring Bai Yu and Zhang Ruonan. It's set in Beijing in the mid-1990s, as a group of young, artistic/creative hopefuls move to Beijing and live in the same hostel and try to find success. Some of them find romance instead. Many of the side characters speak with noticeable regional accents, which was kind of interesting.

This was a perkier role for Bai Yu than the recent family dramas he's been in, and I liked the romance between his character, Xu Shengli, and Zhang Ruonan's Zhuang Zhuang. I thought they were sweet together. What frustrated me about the drama was that there is a second romance storyline that gets equal screentime that I didn't care for because it was more tropey and melodramatic.

Slight spoilers:

I didn't mind the odd detour the drama took for the last few episodes into "doing business in Russia in the 1990s & trying to defend the quality of Chinese goods." Bai Yu got a bit more to do, and it was kind of fascinatingly preachy about the ills of selling counterfeit goods (i.e., Chinese-made clothing with foreign designer labels placed on them to sell at a higher price) while making the statement that Chinese goods are well-made and should be proud to carry Chinese labels! I dunno, it was weird. And part of the sobering conclusion of the series where none of the young hopefuls end up making a living doing what they set out to do. Economic realities force them all into different jobs.

Another thing I watched *heavy sigh*... A couple of weeks ago I opened the iQiyi app on my Roku device and noticed a costume BL from Taiwan, so I clicked on it out of curiosity and watched its 3 short, weird, jumpy episodes and thought it must not be finished and must be a low-budget minidrama. Last night, I checked the iQiyi website to see if it had finished, saw there were still only the same 3 episodes, and saw that *now* it's clearly titled as being AI-generated! ARGH. I was fooled into watching slop! But at least that explained how weird and jumpy it was, and why nothing about the story made sense. Yuck. I'm so grumpy about this I don't remember the exact title, but I think it's something like "Butterfly and Iron," so caveat emptor.

In better iQiyi news, the farmboys are back! Become a Farmer 4 | 种地吧第4季 started airing a few days ago. They've started off the new season in Medog (Motuo) in Tibet, in a place so remote there wasn't a road to get there until 2013. It's got a moderate climate that supports agriculture and they grow bananas there! Who knew (not me). Even more exciting, Wang Yang apparently made another guest visit to their farm this season -- I'm looking forward to that.

Also currently airing on iQiyi is Voices of Youth | 超燃青春的合唱, where a bunch of entertainers are brought together to form a chorus. It's not an elimination competition, as far as I can tell. It's more about how to train to sing together as a chorus, how to match everyone's varying levels of vocal training (from "can carry a tune but never formally trained" to "formally trained singer with choral experience"), and how to bring them all together to perform. The most interesting parts to me have been the vocal training drills and practices. The team-building games are kind of fun & silly, if also a bit awkward. I only started watching this because one of the farmboys, Lu Zhuo, is on it, but I recognized a couple of the others from seeing them in dramas. Zhang Xincheng (who played Pei Su in Justice in the Dark) is in it, and I'm impressed with him. (I'd heard he was a singer but hadn't heard him sing before.) I doubt I'd watch this without Lu Zhuo in it, but I'm enjoying it.

Speaking of Lu Zhuo: This is not the best representation of his voice (more rock than ballad, and utilizing a vocal effect) but it is a representation of the emotional intensity he performs with, so I like it for that (and for shallower reasons): Gone with the Metro (live in Beijing). From the same concert, this is more representative: 无声电影. Here he is on Voices of Youth, displaying what he can do and this is an impromptu "美声" performance of one of his pop songs on a 2025 Lunar New Year livestream (with an arm around the farmboys' 大哥 Jiang Dunhao 😆) -- he wobbles a bit here, but it was an on-the-spot display so I cut him some slack. ~again ponders a Lu Zhuo dissertation~

catherineldf

Where in the world has Catherine been? Working mostly. Trying to keep track of ill, injured or moving out of the country friends (please stop with all this and the dying :-( ). Writing, reviewing SO MANY grant proposals, having a yard sale. In short, all the things. Had a very nice day tabling at Rochester Pride yesterday. And at the end of the day, the mom of a teen trans kid who I talked to at Rochester Pride some years back and gave some advice to about venues and marketing for her son's artwork (which was good even then - I still have one of his stickers). Turned out they took the advice, the son now has a burgeoning commercial art career, got a residency with TC Pride and all and is thriving. So that was lovely to hear. :-D

Anyhoo, this weekend is virtual WisCon!

Here is my Friday and Sunday schedule:

What's New in Queer Speculative Fiction

Online Zoom Room 3 • Reading, Viewing, and Critiquing Science Fiction • Fri 7:00 PM–8:15 PM

A discussion of everything new and exciting in queer science fiction, fantasy, and horror over the last two years. What great new stories are being told? Who are the exciting new voices to look for? What themes and tropes are popular right now? Panelists will share recommendations and analysis, as well as their thoughts on what they'd like to see more of in the future.

Never-Too-Late Futures

Online Zoom Room 7 • The Craft and Business of Writing • Sun 4:00 PM–5:15 PM

Publishing discourse loves "30 under 30," but many speculative fiction authors publish their first novel in their 40s, 50s, 60s, or later. This panel invites older debuts and late-blooming writers to talk about craft, career realities, disability and energy, caretaking, and ageism in the field. What pressures and freedoms come with starting "late," and what does a sustainable, politically engaged writing life look like beyond the hustle?

Queen of Swords Press will also be in the virtual Dealer's Room with books and deals! Come say hi!
And now to bed in hopes of kitty letting me sleep in a bit past 4.

musesfool

Usually, I shower at night, but last night, I stayed up too late reading and didn't feel like delaying bedtime so I put the shower off until this morning. While I was in there, I noticed a spider, but it was on the far wall, and I was naked and without my glasses, so I let it live and it disappeared somewhere (the whole room is tiled, floor to ceiling, so I don't know where? but also. I don't want to know where).

This evening, I had to wash my hair, so there I was back in the shower, and I turned off the water and stepped back while I was lathering the shampoo, and there was the spider, dropping down from god knows where right in the middle of my shower!

So I had to get out - with my hair still full of shampoo - grab my glasses and a paper towel, so I could kill it, because come the fuck on, spider, that is not okay! The shower is sacrosanct!

It's a good thing I still have to stay up for an hour to detangle because I would not have been able to go to sleep right away after that, omg.

*

Current Mood: shocked
Current Music: if it's a mess you're in, i'm in

hannah

Along with strawberries and rhubarb, sticky nights have arrived. Not each night, not yet, and I'm savoring that - another couple of weeks and it'll hit, but for now, there's still a few where it's simply gentle.

Continuing with my Steven Spielberg kick, I've now seen all his kids-focused CGI stuff and say with some confidence it's only going to get better from here. The Tintin movie felt uncannily like I was watching a movie-length video game, down to the inventory puzzles and room searches. After this, it's people. Well, people and a horse.

Current Mood: listless
Current Music: Pressure's On - James

kitewithfish

Busy season at work - had to come into my remote job for the first of two weekends doing semi-useful gruntwork for our annual constituent conferences. It's a long ass drive, plus overnights, on the weekend - I felt like a squeezed lemon slice by the end of it.

I do get time off to compensate, but I have not used much of it since most of next week is also quite busy for work and personal travel reasons.

All this is really to say, I got to sit at a desk and be asked repetitive questions and answer them, and was unbothered the majority of the time, so I got some reading time!

lightreads

Children of Strife

3/5. Fourth book in this loose series about uplifted spiders etc. in a spreading galactic civilization that only functions because humans have been infected with an empathy virus. This is the shrimp one, nominally, though that is not terribly important to what is going on aside from on the thematic argument level.

A good if overlong entry. I have the opposite opinion of many, apparently. I thought the last book (Children of Memory) was tight and poignant and layered. And I thought this fourth book was bloated and pretty obvious. Whereas a lot of other people did not like the third book and are calling this a return to form. Shrug.

Anyway, yes, he needed to cut a huge amount of the villain POV here, as he could have done just as much with half as much. I do think this book is making a more nuanced argument about the empathy virus than he’s made before. It’s this weird thing where he pitches a very dystopic idea in utopic terms. I.e. that humans would be incapable of participating peacefully in a multi-species society of explorers without having our brains permanently altered. He’s always been to ‘isn’t that just such a great solution?’ about something that I think is complicated at best. Anyway, this book lets it be more complicated, and lets us live more in the state of being unable to fit in, unable to get along. It's by way of tearing down the idea that only through conflict can we grow, which is fine if obvious, but still.

Content notes: Violence, attempted human sacrifice, alien body horror stuff

musesfool

Yesterday, I made these ricotta cheesecake bars, for which I had to shell 62g of pistachios (oh, the humanity!), and they are okay, but either there is not enough butter or I had too much graham cracker crumb because the crust does not cohere. (I used pre-smashed crumbs because that is what I had and probably used too much. Recipes really should give you some sort of measurement beyond "7 or 8 graham crackers, crushed" for these things.)

I also made KAB pretzel rolls (half the recipe) and as always, they are delicious, even if the whole boiling step is annoying. I definitely recommend them, and if like me, you never remember that they have a small amount of butter (2 tbsp) that needs to be softened ahead of time, you can always just substitute the same amount of olive oil, also like me. *wry*

With the LIRR on strike, I'm not going into the office this week (I had already decided that anyway), so I didn't have to do any other baking, and I just bought some spring mix and grilled chicken strips so that'll be lunch for the week.

*

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: the way you changed my life, no no, they can't take that away from me

serrico

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

Current Mood: flat

the_shoshanna

... before I fall over.

We got down to the hotel's cellar bar and restaurant a few minutes after the announced gathering time; the hotelier met us and showed us to where about twenty people were sitting in a circle and announced, "We have some Canadians!" He and his family are Dutch -- according to the hotel website, he/they moved here and started running it in 2004 -- and there are a whoooole lot of Dutch folks staying here! We fitted two more chairs into the circle, a waitress asked if we'd like drinks and I asked for a glass of merlot, and then I started chatting with the Dutch woman on my left. (I assume Geoff was chatting with the Dutch man on his right, but tbh I wasn't paying attention.) She said that she and many of the other Dutch guests were from the northern Netherlands, and there's a nearby airport with direct flights to Guernsey, so why not? And I imagine the fact that the hotelier is a native Dutch speaker doesn't hurt.

But we had only a few minutes to talk before everyone having tapas that night was called to go find their table: we're assigned tables here for meals, you look for the one with your room number on it. We were in a back corner of the cellar bar/restaurant area, right beside the actual bar (but this morning for breakfast we were assigned a different table, on the other side, next to big windows out onto the back garden that our room overlooks). The tapas dinner was excellent: hummus and rocket-and-herb salad and nice crusty bread; olives; patatas bravas; shrimp scampi (which I got all of, because of Geoff's aforementioned dislike of shellfish); lemon-roasted chicken; wee crispy Vietnamese spring rolls with a sweet chili sauce that leaned very pleasantly toward the "chili" side of that rather than the "sweet"; and for dessert, cream-filled profiteroles with chocolate sauce. And you could ask for seconds of anything; Geoff asked for one more piece of chicken and they brought him another whole dish of three. I refused to help him finish them, because I had to manage all the shrimp by myself, oh the horror.

And then we staggered off to bed.

Today we decided to do what is generally agreed to be the island's most challenging hike, along the southern coast. We started with an excellent breakfast (and I confess it's a bit of a relief not to be the only people in the breakfast room, with Elena our previous host chatting energetically at us and pressing food on us; she was very warm and friendly and enthusiastic, but at home Geoff and I don't even talk much to each other at breakfast, she was A Lot). We were shown to our pretty window-side table -- I would have been okay tucked into the dark back corner again if we had been, but I was very happy not to be -- were brought delicious coffee that would not punch Superman through a wall, and had our choice off a menu of about six different cooked breakfasts plus the spread of croissants, pains au chocolat, and white rolls; fresh watermelon, slightly stewed berries, and what I think were canned mandarin oranges and some other fruit; various cold cereals; packaged yogurts; and slices of cheddar, wedges of brie, and three kinds of cured meat. It was great, and I confess I wrapped a roll and a wedge of brie in my napkin and smuggled them out for trail food later. 😈

We planned to catch a bus from in front of the hotel to our hike's starting point, Portelet Harbour, just north of the island's southwest corner. Geoff's blog entry for today chivalrously fails to mention that I waved off the first bus that came because I misread the schedule and misremembered the route number and basically just screwed up and waved off the bus we actually wanted. No big deal, though; a different but equally suitable bus was supposed to follow in twenty minutes.

Please note the phrase "supposed to." It is load-bearing.

The other bus didn't come. We spent an hour waiting in chilly damp weather, while I vainly tried to shake bus information out of both Google Maps and the Guernsey bus app. I still have no idea if I misread that schedule too, or if the bus just didn't run for some reason, or what, but it wasn't a fun hour. Not that Geoff got cranky at me, he didn't, just that I was cold and frustrated and embarrassed! But finally a suitable bus showed up, and I was at least able to track our progress and know when we should get off. (So far the Guernsey buses also have electronic display screens, but the only thing we've seen them show is the time and the URL of the bus company, harrumph.)

The bus stop seemed a fairly bustling place, with a big hotel and a big bay and a snack kiosk and some very welcome public toilets, and also a welcome/refreshments tent for what seemed to be a fairly major organized run; when we set off along the coastal trail, counterclockwise, for the first while we met many runners in running vests and race pinnies/bibs coming the other way. A few of them were running with the help of poles, which I'd never seen runners do before. But considering some of the inclines they had had to run up, I can see why they'd want them!

It rapidly got sunnier and warmer, and I peeled off a lot of layers as we went, and in general it was the usual gorgeous hike, with spectacular views along the cliffs and over the ocean, and several German defensive emplacements (one with a biiig gun still mounted), and lighthouses and occasional signs explaining the historic thing we were looking at. (In general I've been impressed with the authorities on both Jersey and Guernsey who maintain these things: the trails have been in great shape and pretty clearly marked even though I've been glad to have GPS backup, and the signage of historical markers has been good.)

The trail wasn't challenging in the sense of being technically difficult, but it had a lot of ups and downs, as it navigated its way through places where the ocean has gouged deep bays into the cliffside. And the ascents and descents got longer and steeper and more common as we we went on, especially after we reached the southernmost point and turned to follow the coast east. At one point, as we stood staring up at what must have been at least our fifth extremely long and extremely steep stairway roughly cut into the face of a cliff, I told Geoff, "There will be a short delay while I pause to hate everything." He allowed that that was perfectly reasonable.

(Another conversation:

Geoff: Why do we have to go up and down and up and down and up and down all the time? Why can't we just only go down?

me: Next year we'll go to Escher Island. We just have to make sure we only walk around it counterclockwise.)

But there were also amazing views of those cliffs, and frequent benches on which to sit and admire the views, and profusions of flowers growing on the south-facing banks next to the path, and sweet-faced cows grazing or resting by the fence that separated their field from our pathway (one was industrially licking another one's ear! Other than mother cows with calves, I don't think I've ever seen cows groom one another), and five ponies of which two were flopped on their sides asleep and looking kind of ridiculous. And plenty of walkers coming the other way to say hello to, especially if they had friendly dogs. Plus we had plenty of trail mix and I had my bread and cheese from breakfast, and two full water bottles; I like the tap water here, thank goodness.

But after almost four hours we were ready to call it. So when our cliffside trail reached a German observation tower that could be accessed by road, we cut inland to walk the roads home to our hotel. It took us another 45 minutes to get there, but at least cars, unlike hikers, insist on reasonably level transits! And the roads (other than the main ones, which we were not on) are so small, and have so little traffic, that it's no problem to walk along them even though there's no sidewalk. At least, in daylight.

We staggered in, and I generously let Geoff have first shower, because that meant that I could spend twenty minutes not standing up. Anyway he's faster than me, so I usually want him to go first anyway -- but the prospect of just being able to collapse was very nice too.

Them it was back to the pub down the road for their Sunday carvery dinner -- slab o' meat! slab o'meat! as the VividCon gang used to chant. We had our choice of any or all of beef, lamb, gammon, and chicken, plus Yorkshire puddings, roasted carrots, roasted parsnips, potatoes both roasted in chunks and baked whole, cauliflower and cheese, broccoli and some other greens I wasn't sure of, a sort of mash of I think carrots and turnips, and other veggies that I don't even remember, plus two kinds of gravy and about six sauces. It was amazing. Also the barman gave me a guided tour of their draft ciders; I was sorry that I disliked the local one, which was quite dry, but I very much liked a hazy cider from an English brewery and had a whoooole pint of it.

We sat near several tables of other Dutch guests at our hotel; I mean, the pub is the closest restaurant and it has that 15% off deal! The couple next to us started chatting with us, which was nice except that I occasionally had trouble understanding their English (and of course we have no Dutch). She told us that one reason so many Dutch people were at the hotel was that there had just been a newspaper article on it back home, so she and her husband, and presumably a bunch of other folk, had figured: easy well-recommended vacation at a hotel run by a countryman, why not?

And then back home and omg to bed. Geoff went to sleep at 8:45, he was really wiped; I have stayed up to finish writing this, and also because I don't want to wake up at four am!

In news that may not surprise you, we are not doing a long ambitious hike tomorrow. I'm not sure what we're doing, in fact; my collapsing this evening took the form not of falling asleep before nine but of declining to do any planning or logistics. Whew!

bluedreaming

I saw this little meme via chestnut_pod and thought it looked really fun!

Take five books off your bookshelf. (I tried to take a book from each of my sections, whether formal or informal (old & not yet catalogued, new arrival, reading pile, etc.).)
Book #1 -- first sentence: "[The daily quest has arrived.]" --Solo Leveling: The Novel Omnibus written by Chugong, translated by Hye Young Im and J. Torres.
Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty: "Ares Feng is an extremist whose early life experiences have made him reclusive, moody, and distrustful of everyone." --The Defectives: Book II written by Priest, translated by Xiaou and Mu
Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred: "Then, suddenly, right in the middle of it all, they stop with the banter and the whole gang looks at me." --The Glister written by John Burnside
Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty: "Even he didn't know why he'd come here, after all this time." --Hell is Dark with No Flowers: The Snake-Eating Inn written by Yoru Michio, translated by Taylor Engel
Book #5 -- final sentence of the book: "And the Kel stood still only for a moment more, then walked faster and faster to meet them, with the kel'anth and Duncan far in the lead." --The Faded Sun Trilogy (Omnibus) written by C.J. Cherryh
Make the five sentences into a paragraph:

[The daily quest has arrived.] Ares Feng is an extremist whose early life experiences have made him reclusive, moody, and distrustful of everyone. Then, suddenly, right in the middle of it all, they stop with the banter and the whole gang looks at me. Even he didn't know why he'd come here, after all this time. And the Kel stood still only for a moment more, then walked faster and faster to meet them, with the kel'anth and Duncan far in the lead.

The use of the first person in only one of them is a little jarring when it goes back to third, but it's the tone shift that's more curious I think: the first three are very "close" while the last two are more removed. Nothing much has happened, but it's kind of interesting!

tozka

oursin

Last week's bread held out pretty well.

Grocery delivery came early enough that I had time to get going dough + tomato topping for a sardegnera for Friday night supper, with Salame Milano added before baking.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, 4:1 white spelt/dark rye flour, dried blueberries.

As I was going to an afternoon gathering chez coughingbear and hano, and time did not permit of making foccaccia, I made cornbread (plain white flour + baking powder, half and half with mixture of fine/coarse cornmeal, since sourcing medium cornmeal remains impossible) to take instead.

Today's lunch: had seabass fillets, and for the wild variety, cooked them thus, which worked quite well, served with baby Jersey Royal potatoes roasted in goosefat and asparagus steamed and splashed with lime butter.

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7072 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 37 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1010.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

the_shoshanna

I forgot to say that, as we were making our way along the wooded trail south, I saw a little spur track jut off it to the left (i.e., toward the edge of the sea cliff) and peering down it I saw a small building with a historical-marker sign, so we went to look. It turned out to be a stone two-room hut built as a watch post against the French in, iirc, the late seventeenth century -- and right behind it (that is, on the landward side) was a 4,800-year-old passage grave! Just minding its business and its dead for almost five thousand years. (This is it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Couperon_dolmen) It's so cool to be somewhere where we can just stumble upon such things!

mekare

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

larryhammer

A seven-step book meme that’s going around, which I first noticed from

chestnut_pod:

1. Take five books off your bookshelf. (I used physical bookshelves, one per.)

2. Book #1 - first sentence: “It happened quickly, as if a diviner’s staff had struck the ground.”

3. Book #2 - last complete sentence on page fifty: “You might, for instance, include the total number of volumes in a multivolume publication.”

4. Book #3 - second complete sentence on page one hundred: “And he knew that it was in Kurtzburg’s Saloon on the Lower East Side in 1919 that his mother had fallen in love with Alter Klayman, newly arrived in this country and working as an iceman and freelance mover of pianos.”

5. Book #4 - next to the last complete sentence on page one hundred fifty: “One’s sense of honour is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one’s fellow men.”

6. Book #5 - final sentence of the book: “They spent the rest of the morning at work, sorting through the endless details that had to be settled before the men of the King’s Own rode north to war.”

7. Arrange the five sentences into a paragraph:

One’s sense of honour is the only thing that does not grow old, and the last pleasure, when one is worn out with age, is not, as the poet said, making money, but having the respect of one’s fellow men. You might, for instance, include the total number of volumes in a multivolume publication. And he knew that it was in Kurtzburg’s Saloon on the Lower East Side in 1919 that his mother had fallen in love with Alter Klayman, newly arrived in this country and working as an iceman and freelance mover of pianos. It happened quickly, as if a diviner’s staff had struck the ground. They spent the rest of the morning at work, sorting through the endless details that had to be settled before the men of the King’s Own rode north to war.

Hrm. Maybe I should have stuck to a single bookcase, which are sorted by genre/subject.

(In case you’re wondering: #1: House of Rain, Craig Childs; #2: MLA Handbook, 8th ed.; #3: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon; #4: History of the Peloponnesian War, Thucydides tr. Rex Warner; #5: Squire, Tamora Pierce)

---L.

Subject quote from The Critic as Artist, Oscar Wilde.

runpunkrun posting in

fancake

Poll #34603 round 187 theme poll

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: Just the Poll Creator, participants: 100

Pick the next theme of fancake:

Just Like Canon
41 (41.0%)

Power Dynamics
37 (37.0%)

Whump
22 (22.0%)

annabeth_roses posting in

fandom_icons

45 Doctor Who icons from The Time of Angels and Flesh and Stone
Eleventh Doctor. I found a particular scene inspiring and made about 38 variations.

Teasers:

see them all here @ my journal

mithriltabby

Here are links to the resources I used to figure out how to fill out my ballot. I give my conclusions, and I invite you to come to your own, and I hope this effort saves you a headache. $ means an order of magnitude of money backing a candidate, starting at the thousands, so $$$$ means a candidate has single-digit millions of dollars in their campaign.

I’m not thrilled with some of the candidates, but I keep in mind that a vote is not a valentine. You aren’t confessing your love for the candidate. It’s a chess move to get closer to the world you want to live in. If you would like to have a better choice of candidates, I commend your attention to FairVote and Californians for Electoral Reform. You can try ranking the candidates for governor yourself or try out proportional ranked choice voting.

I will not be linking to Republican candidates’ web sites. The party of Lincoln and liberty has become the party of corruption and chaos, being a member should be disqualifying for any elected office, and the party needs to go the way of the Whigs. Any remaining Republicans with integrity should start putting together the infrastructure for a new party, because the current one does not look salvageable. I have voted for Republicans in the past; I do not expect to ever see a good reason to do so again.

( If your vote didn’t matter, they wouldn’t spend so much on influencing and suppressing it. )

Comments are screened. I’m not in a mood to argue.

Current Mood: tired

Profile

spatz

AO3

Page Summary

tielan - "everything I learned about [fandom] I learned from fandom..."
sakana17 - Recently watched/watching
catherineldf - WisCon Schedule! And stuff!
musesfool - maybe take me with you, we can hide
hannah - Face of self-control.
kitewithfish - Blorp
lightreads - Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky
musesfool - the way you hold your knife, the way we danced til three
serrico - Also staying up late safe in the knowledge that I don't have to be accountable in the morning.
the_shoshanna - Saturday night, and as much of Sunday (today) as I can write up
bluedreaming - book meme!
tozka - starting the week like
oursin - Culinary
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #7072 ]
the_shoshanna - one more thing about Friday's hike
mekare - One Piece, or my anime past is revealed
larryhammer - “There are as many Hamlets as there are melancholies.”
runpunkrun in fancake - Round 187 Theme Poll
annabeth_roses in fandom_icons - 45 Doctor Who icons from the Weeping Angels two-parter
mithriltabby - Hold Your Nose and Vote by Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

May 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
					1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19	20	21	22	23
24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31

all mimsy were the borogroves

Network

"everything I learned about [fandom] I learned from fandom..."

Recently watched/watching

WisCon Schedule! And stuff!

maybe take me with you, we can hide

Face of self-control.

Blorp

Children of Strife by Adrian Tchaikovsky

the way you hold your knife, the way we danced til three

Also staying up late safe in the knowledge that I don't have to be accountable in the morning.

Saturday night, and as much of Sunday (today) as I can write up

book meme!

starting the week like

Culinary

[ SECRET POST #7072 ]

one more thing about Friday's hike

One Piece, or my anime past is revealed

“There are as many Hamlets as there are melancholies.”

Round 187 Theme Poll

45 Doctor Who icons from the Weeping Angels two-parter

Hold Your Nose and Vote by Tuesday, June 2, 2026

Profile

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags

May 2026

Most Popular Tags