esm8m | Network

I was rewatching Avengers: Infinity War and it, again, struck me how bloody hypocritical Steve's "we don't trade lives" line(s) is. Friend. Pal. Bro. My man. Do you really think no Wakandan is gonna die fighting Thanos' armies. Like. Get a fucking grip, omg.

runpunkrun

don't be like me
even though we're like the melon
split in two
-1690

Translation by Jane Reichhold.

( 俳句 )

rionaleonhart

Back to The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy! I played as far as the game would let me on the Mystery route, and now... well, I'm not sure what route I'm on now, but I can tell you that it contains the line 'I'll just have to make some counterfeit panties!'

( Notes on The Hundred Line. )

I'd seen it said that this game's script was long enough to fill sixty novels, which seemed implausible, so I investigated.

Riona: Yeah, I think that's an exaggeration, or at least they'd have to be short novels. Six million Japanese characters is apparently... maybe two point five or three million English words? It's probably more like thirty novels, if we're looking at average novel length. Five or six times the length of The Lord of the Rings.
Tem: Oh, God, we'll be here forever. We're stuck in a time loop.
Riona: I always knew this would happen.
Tem, simultaneously: We were always going to end up here.

I can't believe The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy exists. The scale of it just does not feel like anything that would be created with commercial intent. It's a passion project; it's an Umineko, it's a Homestuck. Any sane studio would have stopped at the first route or two. But somehow here this game is, in all its sprawling, ridiculous glory.

As if the game weren't vast enough already, Kodaka has said he wants to add more routes, possibly consulting the fans on what they want to see.

I think we should all petition him to make my orgy fic canon. I think that would be right up his street.

azurelunatic

I got the standards and brackets for that shelf system, and we are currently at Home Depot, after buying what I sincerely hope is the right configuration of board feet for eight shelves. It's secured to the roof and we're using surface streets.

It's too close to bedtime to start on repair plating the 8 foot boards to the 2 foot boards, probably.

aerica13 posting in

intoabar

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lassarina

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watersword

Over the course of about six hours this week, the weather went from "pleasant warm early-summer" to "holy bananas, it is hot and sticky high summer" and I was not emotionally prepared for it. But I am promised thunderstorms today, and I got cucumbers at the farmer's market, and will finish swapping out the cozy linens for the crisp ones, and all of that will help.

marinarusalka

We're back!

Got back yesterday around noon, after a rather brutal return trip that involved a red-eye flight from San Jose to LAX, then a 2-hour shuttle bus ride from LAX to San Diego, then a Lyft home from the shuttle stop.

Costa Rica was amazing. As I said to The Boy at one point, it felt like we've spent two weeks living in a David Attenborough documentary. So green! So full of wildlife! So gorgeous! I'll be sorting through pictures for a while, and The Boy even longer, but here are some birds to start off with.

Keep in mind, these were all taken with my phone, so not nearly a complete list of what we saw, just what I could get a decent photo of.

( birds!birds!birds! )

There were also toucans, and scarlet macaws, and tons more hummingbirds and lots of other stuff that will have to wait until The Boy sorts through his photos. Stay tuned!

Current Mood: tired

silveradept posting in

intoabar

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lightreads

Asunder

4/5. For reasons, an isolated death speaker, who gained her powers through a deadly compact with an eldritch demon thing, gets bound at the soul to a man from another culture. Their attempts to separate take them on a long road trip across this strange fantasy world with a complicated recent political/religious history.

I liked this. It is about many kinds of joining and sundering – social, political, romantic, familial, religious. But the heart of it is the relationship that forms between two people unwillingly joined and forced to trust each other. Our protagonist is the sort who has a really hard time understanding when people are kind to her, because she’s had almost no experience of that. She doesn’t really figure it all out in this book, but she does come a long way.

I will say, there is supposed to be a sequel to this book, but my understanding is that the publisher didn’t buy it. Yet, hopefully? This got a surprise award nomination, so. But my point is, if the sequel happens, then great. If it doesn’t, then this ending is really not okay.

Content notes: Recollections of child abuse/domestic violence, a threat of . . . forced pregnancy by a demon is I guess what you’d call it.

rmc28

I'm playing an ice hockey game tonight in Cambridge, a charity fundraiser between Warbirds and Tri-Base Lightning. But until then I have a strangely unscheduled day. I might sleep or read or something.

I could post about what I've been up to lately!

Work:

spoke on a panel about effective 1:1s, it seemed to go well
played my usual Senior Tech Woman role for a colleague's recruitment panel, and am happy that our preferred candidate has apparently just accepted. (a frustrating number of timewasting applicants more or less obviously using LLMs to write their applications and generate their free-text statements on suitability for the role; I really resent having to wade through paragraphs of verbose buzzword bilge to ... fail to find any evidence they actually know how to do the job)

Hockey:

KODIAKS WON PLAYOFFS on the bank holiday weekend oh yes they did. So proud of the players, and definitely earned my share of reflected glory managing the team this season and running around half the weekend. League winners, Cup winners, Playoff winners, promotion to Division 1 next season, utter delight.
Very much an Insufficient Sleep weekend, we topped off the playoff win with a night out in Sheffield, I got back to my hotel as the sky was getting light, good times.
Kodiaks awards evening last night: lots of celebration of the hard work and lovely camaraderie of this group of players, A and B teams both. I got to announce and hand out the B team awards, and I received a really nice pair of gifts for me as manager: a canvas print of a post-final winners photo, and a personalised insulated travel mug (club logo and MANAGER on it). I love this team.
I'm still enjoying also playing with Warbirds, and have now been to a few summer Friday scrimmages run by Tri-Base. I went to a couple of Friday scrims at the end of last summer and felt everyone was very kind but I was pretty outclassed. I'm pleased to feel like I'm keeping up a bit better now after training a lot harder this last season.
I trained three days in a row this week (Warbirds Monday, Haringey Greyhounds tryouts in Alexandra Palace on Tuesday, Kodiaks Wednesday) and that was Too Much and I was pretty sore Wednesday evening and Thursday. Rest days are important even if I am much improved in fitness compared to this time last year.

Other:

I did a formal hall at my old College! Using my alumna rights and having a nice evening hanging out with old friends (who were the ones to suggest the plan). Good times, will do again but probably not this term.
I had an excessive number of books out from Suffolk libraries that needed returning, so I did a flying visit to Newmarket by bus last Saturday, this turned out to be the cheapest/quickest way across the county border. I managed to stick to my resolution not to borrow any more physical books but slipped and fell on the "withdrawn books for sale" stand. Managed to only come home with four.
I did a little indoor cricket the Friday before playoffs (it's now finished due to exam period), and some nets practice last Sunday, but I keep being too busy to actually play any of my team's games. I'd like to do more nets practice though, that was intense but also felt like I was beginning to improve.
I did a little table tennis with Active Staff but that's also now suspended for exams. I'm considering getting a cheap set of bats and balls for me and the family to go use at the local rec ground, or in the free indoor tables at the Grafton Centre.

Coming up: my summer is full of ice hockey camps and tournaments (Prague, Hull, Sheffield, Biarritz) and my old club Streatham have just announced all their summer training sessions will be "Summer Skills Camps" open to all interested WNIHL players, so I'm looking at going to London regularly again in July and August.

cornerofmadness posting in

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Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Midsomer Murder

cahn

I know I owe a bunch of comments/replies, sorry, I will get to them; I have spent all my time this week (including time I should have been working... took a nontrivial amount of vacation time this week) on the following:

- looking around at schools for A in case his school gets utterly consumed by the drama (yep, third teacher did leave, now we are screwed unless the Head can find someone really quickly, which to be fair he is working SUPER hard at), unfortunately all my friends who have kids at the local public school were like "if it were ten years ago we'd recommend it, but now we are telling you not to go there"

- talking (and TALKING) to people who are affected by the drama, or who are not directly affected but still angry about the drama, or who are in some cases causing the drama. There is some mean girl stuff going on and it is like, uh, we are all in our 40's and 50's, this is STUPID?? I have been on the phone A LOT this week, to the extent that E has to write a poem for Spanish about a member of her family and told me she was thinking about writing about her mom and how she was on the phone all the time.

- helping E with her final papers/projects in English and Media Arts; for the latter she sometimes needs someone to say things like "if you are making a commercial you probably need a script for it" and for the former she needs someone to be more like, "so... your thesis is made up of two sentences that seem unrelated, and also the way you're structuring this with all your lemma examples and then all your other lemma examples does not really flow very well, and also you begin several sentences in a row with 'This shows'" (some of these are the limits of approaching a paper like a proof, I guess)

Her teacher lets them rewrite after grading multiple times but does not give them any comments on their draft except for the ungraded rough draft, which means that E is on Rewrite #3 and counting, we have worked on drafts every night this week except last night, as her teacher has not graded #3 yet, which I am hoping is a good sign but might just mean that her teacher is tired of her turning in rewrites

(I do like that her teacher is a bit harsh on grading but lets them rewrite -- Rewrite #3 is quite a bit better than her original graded paper, and I think she's learned a LOT about writing a literary analysis paper, admittedly quite a bit more than I knew at her age. But more feedback would have been really nice, and then maybe she could have done fewer rewrites.)

She also has another final project in English with involves writing and illustrating a kid's story about racism, only using animals or objects or shapes instead of people. Of course when "shapes" were mentioned E jumped at that option. Her story is really sweet and involves tessellations of triangles, squares, and hexagons, but she is definitely a "tell not show" kid and also is having trouble with the part of the assignment that directs them to use descriptive language, which just goes to show you that she is legitimately D's and my kid.

In conclusion: ugh, drama. The only good things about all the drama:

- I may actually finish the crochet blanket for E that I've been working on for uh two years but have been making lots of progress on during all these phone calls? (Also getting lots of time to work on it during tutoring E, but at least that has other good things about it besides the blanket.)

- man I appreciate the other non-dramatic parts of my life a LOT more now! Including DW and all of my non-dramatic friends (the vast majority of them!) but I've also been thinking a lot of my church which is my other big social structure. There was one day where I just looked at my phone texts I'd gotten that day and half of them were school-related and were all drama, and the other half were from my church and things like "Hey, can you play piano for us?" and "I haven't forgotten about the D&D group we were talking about with E!" <-- dude and wife had a BABY last week -- and my favorite, this sweet older lady that we are friends with texting me that she went to her eye appointment and they said everything was great, and she was just happy about that. That totally brightened my day <3 And this morning they had the "morning seminary" party (these kids go to 7am scripture study five days a week -- E does it 3 days a week) and these people just give SO much <3

(edited bc cannot do math)

qian

I enjoyed watching bits and bobs of this 1980s BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, dramatised by Fay Weldon (!) -- I saw it recommended on my network though I can't remember by whom. As might be expected of a novelist's adaptation, it makes good use of Jane Austen's own perfect sentences (the screenplay for the 2020 Emma, written by Eleanor Catton, did this too), and it dramatises some scenes you don't get to see in the famous more recent adaptations.

Despite my unswerving affection for Jennifer Ehle's Elizabeth Bennet, I think this is genuinely the best Lizzy Bennet I've seen -- at first I thought she was too pretty, but she absolutely has the sweetness and archness "which made it difficult for her to affront anybody". Jane is not prettier, which she should be, but she is at least as pretty (though her eyebrows strike me as distractingly modern). But I find the Darcy a let-down: a friend recently remarked that Colin Firth is not good-looking and that is why she doesn't like the 1995 series, but actually this Darcy, who is better-looking, is a reminder of why Firth works in the role. Colin Firth manages to convey the sense that he is fundamentally a decent guy underneath it all and that's why he works; there's a vulnerability to him which makes his Darcy very sweet and human. The 1980s Darcy too kayu lah.

Are there any (relatively) obscure Austen adaptations you'd recommend? In my top tier are the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice miniseries, the 1995 Persuasion film, the 2020 Emma and Ang Lee's Sense and Sensibility. I don't like the Keira Knightley P&P film. And I thought the Romola Garai Emma was, like, fine, though that's mostly because I find Johnny Flynn's Mr Knightley more fanciable than Jonny Lee Miller (though fair dues to both of them for making him fanciable at all -- one of the least sexy heroes Austen ever wrote, only slightly less sexless than Edmund Bertram). I would love to watch a really good Mansfield Park adaptation some day ...

lassarina

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rachelmanija

This sequel to one of my favorite books of last year, a young adult post-apocalypse novel with a lovely slow-burn gay romance, fell victim to a trope I basically never like: the sequel to a romance that starts out by breaking up the main couple or pitting them against each other. It may be realistic but I hate it. If the main thing I liked about the first book was the main couple's dynamic - and if I'm reading the sequel, that's definitely the case - then I'm never going to like a sequel where their dynamic is missing or turns negative. I'm not saying they can't have conflict, but they shouldn't have so much conflict that there's nothing left of the relationship I loved in the first place.

This book starts out with Jamison and Andrew semi-broken up and not speaking to each other or walking on eggshells around each other, because Andrew wants to stay in the nice post-apocalyptic community they found and Jamison wants to return to their cabin and live alone there with Andrew. Every character around them remarks on this and how they need to just talk to each other. Eventually they talk to each other, but it resolves nothing and they go on being weird about each other and mourning the loss of their old relationship. ME TOO.

Then half the community's children die in a hurricane, and it's STILL all about them awkwardly not talking to each other and being depressed. I checked Goodreads, saw that they don't make up till the end, and gave up.

The first book is still great! It didn't need a sequel, though I would have enjoyed their further adventures if it had continued the relationship I loved in the first book. I did not sign up for random dead kids and interminable random sulking.

rionaleonhart

My gaming partner Tem has been away for a few days, so I've been taking an enforced break from ludicrous child soldier simulator The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy.

I was itching for something else to play in the meantime, so I've picked up Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. I'm having a really good time with it!

The central concept of Clair Obscur is so interesting. This is the main reason I took an interest in this game; I looked up the central premise and went, 'Huh, that's really unusual and fascinating.' The fact that a lot of people I follow on Dreamwidth are playing and enjoying it definitely helped to recommend it! But just learning the premise was the first thing that tempted me to play this game.

I'll pop the premise behind a short cut, just in case anyone wants to go into this game knowing nothing at all. This cut only contains the basic concept of the game; there's a more spoilery cut further down the post.

( The premise of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. )

I was a little nervous about the battle system, but I'm enjoying it! It's challenging - more than once I've had my party wiped out during a regular enemy encounter - but I'm having fun. I tend not to like games that really expect you to be able to parry with precise timing, but it turns out that's a demand I'm a lot more comfortable with in a turn-based battle system; I only have to focus on parrying during the enemy's turn, rather than having to worry about it all the time.

The scenery is gorgeous. I love how weird and dreamlike the landscapes are. Incredible soundtrack, too.

Major spoilers below the cut! I've just reached the Forgotten Battlefield.

( Spoilers for Clair Obscur: Expedition 33. )

As a final note: Clair Obscur is perhaps the Frenchest game I've ever played, which is saying something, given that I've played Assassin's Creed: Unity.

lassarina

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ysobel

(see tag for details)

I got an email from the art dude announcing that he's temporarily opening registration to his courses.

(Still full price, just you usually can't sign up, just get on the waiting list. Which I had not explicitly done.)

I unsubscribed. Grumpily.

I can understand his logic -- entering a contest to get X indicates interest in X -- but this wasn't opt-in, and it should have been '

kitewithfish

I skipped last week because, while I had done a lot of reading, I hadn't actually finished anything. I was burned out by the past few weeks at work and personal life, so I didn't write anything up.

What I Have Read

If you were a Mythical Thing by Kangofu_CB - Re-read bc I love this author. Solid romance between gym teacher Clint and Bucky, who is also a were wolf.

He Who Drowned the World - Shelley Parker-Chan - Book Club Re-Read. THis book rewards rereading. The characters all feel so real and could be main characters in their own stories. I had completely forgotten the last third of the book. Edit after book club: It also has a fascinating set of comparisons between many different characters - Zhu has so many connections and parallels in other characters, and in her relationships with other characters, that I loved to re-read and get a better sense of them. So many pairs of brothers in this set of novels and so many of them are vicious struggles for power; Zhu's closest friend and near-brother is willing to die for her, over and over. Deeply fractured and unequal marriages between men who disdain their wives - Zhu's wife adores her and is a trusted ally. Revenge is a continuing theme and every time someone gets it, it destroys them. Zhu wants a different kind of world and she's willing to be ruthless for it, and it's clear that is the only way out of a cycle of repeated revenge and power struggles.

My Favorite Thing is Monsters vol 1- Emil Ferris - Well written and the art is beautiful, however, the conceit is that the book is a handwritten child's notebook and so it's literally on lined paper and HARD TO READ. The POV of a young lesbian main character in 1960s Chicago and is deeply lovely -her fascination with classic movie monsters is so charming and so recognizable. Not a Hugos nominee this year, but the second volume is.

The Hunger and The Dusk vol 1. by G. Willow Wilson - A romance and adventure story - an orc healer is set to work with a team of human adventurers to face an enemy to both human and orc society, and fulfill a peace treaty between the enemy societies. I think this is mediocre, unfortunately . The art is lovely, but the writing is thin. They refer to tropes but don't actually depict them, so it feels very lazy and informed rather than characterized. Neither main romantic lead seems to have been really written, just assembled from tropes - and while I love romance novels and tropes, this isn't even using the tropes in the writing, it's just having the characters mention the tropes in their informed backstory. As a sidebar, I think the alliance between orcs and humans is supposed to be a commentary on racism in DnD settings - orcs are often treated as nonsentient and racially evil in gaming settings, while this books fleshes out orc society and culture and makes the secondary pairing into two really interesting people. If you want to pick it up, they are actually pretty interesting! However, the common enemy just.... evil hive mind nonsentient elves? Who maybe actually have a horrible king and a shared cunning plan? It kind of undercuts the exploration of orcs as sentient and worthy of attention and care if you turn around and assign the name traits to a different random fantasy species. Hugo award nominee, does not merit the award.

We Called Them Giants - Kieron Gillen - I read this immediately after The Hunger and The Dusk and contrast is striking. This book is also working hard from some tropes, but really works them and digs right in. The POV character is engaging with a terrifying and inhuman opponent, only to discover slowly that there is intelligence, compassion, and even communication. Overwhelmingly well done, great character work, the art is haunting and the pacing is excellent. It is a much tighter story with a simpler premise and delivers on it.

What I'm Reading
The Ministry of Time by Kailane Bradley – 25% ish,
Hunting Toward Heartstill by Blackkat -about 45%
The Antarctica Conspiracy Derin Edala – slightly on hold.
Someone You Can Build a Nest In – John Wiswell – 15%

What I'll Read Next
Hugo Nominees are out!
Track Changes
The Deep Dark
My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Book 2
The Tainted Cup
Alien Clay
Service Model
The Ministry of Time
Someone You Can Build a Nest In
Star Trek: Lower Decks: Warp Your Own Way
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

Profile

October 2024

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Page Summary

dhampyresa - "We don't trade lives" sure, man
runpunkrun - #659, Bashō
rionaleonhart - Thank You Very Macho.
azurelunatic - The Shelves
aerica13 in intoabar - Fic: the magical things you can do [Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves/BBC Merlin]
lassarina - May Wrap-Up, June Goals
watersword - (no subject)
marinarusalka - Costa Rica highlights: birds
silveradept in intoabar - Fic: Surprise Me (Kiki's Delivery Service / Calvin & Hobbes)
lightreads - Asunder by Kerstin Hall
rmc28 - A mostly-free day
cornerofmadness in intoabar - Fic- Somebody's Eyes The Owl House/Hazbin Hotel
cahn - (no subject)
qian - Austeniana
lassarina - Clair Obscur Liveblog Part Fourteen
rachelmanija - The Only Light Left Burning, by Erik J. Brown: DNF
rionaleonhart - We Continue.
lassarina - What Are You Playing Wednesday
ysobel - followup on the art thing
kitewithfish - Wednesday Reading Meme for June 4, 2025

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