thisbluespirit: (jeremy northam)
thisbluespirit ([personal profile] thisbluespirit) wrote2025-08-27 09:31 pm

Fic: Revisions (A Fatal Inversion)

I was feeling a bit better yesterday and typed up this, which I've had in my notebook since spring, for A Fatal Inversion. It of course ended up less shippier than planned and maybe even darker than canon warrants, idk. But it was where my brain went when I rewatched it. (The first time around it's a sort of reverse murder mystery; the second it's an intense character study of the fallout in those involved.)

For [community profile] genprompt_bingo, [community profile] allbingo, [community profile] 100fandoms & [community profile] 100ships, because if I'm going to write super obscure fic that probably won't make sense if you don't know canon, I might as well make it count!


Revisions (1529 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: A Fatal Inversion (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Rufus Fletcher/Adam Verne-Smith
Characters: Adam Verne-Smith, Rufus Fletcher (A Fatal Inversion)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Dark, references to murder, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Flashbacks, Community: 100fandoms, Community: genprompt_bingo, Community: allbingo, Community: 100ships, Pre-Canon, Past Trauma
Summary: Adam and Rufus try to resume their friendship where they left off. It's not the best idea.


Tomorrow I go to have my eye test, so no doubt I'll be around a bit less again, although I'll try to post the last AU_gust bits still if I can - they add up to a bingo line for [community profile] allbingo and it would be a first if I actually got it completed within the month, lol. (We'll see).
silversea: Blonde girl laying (Default)
silversea ([personal profile] silversea) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-08-27 03:33 pm
Entry tags:

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

Last Wednesday of August, what are everyone reading? Any nice summer-y books? 👀
bleodswean: (Default)
bleodswean ([personal profile] bleodswean) wrote2025-08-27 07:55 am

LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 7 - BAT

 

He lay beside her

Listening to her breathe

For two

played that over in his mind and thought no

For three

For each of us

she breathes

When he fell into sleep he dreamt

He was inside the earth, inside a cave

Dark but safe

A hearth fire

Flame light flickering on the walls

Blood red and illuminating two figures seated beside it

Naked and on all fours crawling forward

The distance was exhausting

On his belly pulling 

Across the floor of the earthen womb

The two were women

Mother

Crone

paying him no attention

Murmuring to each other

In voices muffled to his ear

But familiar and for a long moment

He lay content and felt the world expand

In the dream he became aware

It was time to wake

He pulled his body upward to a lotus and watched the two

Through slitted eyes as though the dim

Fire light was sun light

Here’s the secret

Keep it secret

I cannot

You must be able to

Don’t tell me

Please don't tell me it

The mother held her newborn to her breast

This is the weaver, she told him

She showed him the cord

anchored inside her body

Tethered to the child

this is the measure

the crone reached across with glinting shears

and cut

bleodswean: (Default)
bleodswean ([personal profile] bleodswean) wrote2025-08-27 07:38 am

LJ Idol - Wheel of Chaos - Wk 7 - Oxytocin Loop

 

She was asleep, dreaming. And in the dream

there was a girl child,

innocent but serious, opened but mysterious,

blonde ringlets and bare footed

Running to and fro

A forgotten joyousness ensouled

They were upstairs, in his front room, all of them

Herself and himself,

her summer girls and their goat boys,

his messenger and boatman,

and even the moon. Lounging as was their wont,

drinking and smoking, bantering and laughing

listening to the grandmother clock tick the seconds

as though each minute was a favourite song

The child a focus of no one’s attention

but her own

and she was fiercely focused

because somehow

the girl child had found her secret heart,

clutching it against her body with both hands as she scampered

Let me see, she told the child,

show me what you have there

Imploring and intentful

Aware she did not want to frighten her

When at last she heeded,

Solemnly obeying,

Coming forward, leaning against her knees,

she gently gently lifted her heart from the offering hands

and settled back into a rocking chair

beside a hearth

She opened her blouse to offer her breast

because her heart was a nursling daughter,

slick with blood and vernix and

new born.


Wake up, he whispered.
penaltywaltz: (Default)
penaltywaltz ([personal profile] penaltywaltz) wrote in [community profile] pinchhits2025-08-26 02:19 pm

UPDATED: WIP Big Bang/WIP Reverse Bang Pinch Hits Needed!

Event: WIP Big Bang & WIP Reverse Bang
Event link: Dreamwidth | Tumblr
Pinch hit link: WIPBB (authors looking for artists) | WIPRB (artists looking for authors)
Due date: Pinch hitters can collaborate with their WIPBB authors/WIPRB artists for an earlier posting date to post at the same time, but pinch hitters are allowed to post throughout the month of December without having to claim a posting date.

We have extended sign-ups to at least August 31st is the hopes of getting everyone in both events paired off!

Pinch hitter guidelines and links to the summaries are up here on our Tumblr

We have 27 WIPBB fics up for art claims. The fic available for claiming is in the following fandoms:

All For the Game, Captive Prince, Death Note, Formula 1 RPF, Formula 1 RPF/Motorcycle RPF/Motorsports RPF, Harry Potter, Hetalia: Axis Powers, Invisible (2022), Invisible Inc., Lego Monkie Kid, My Hero Academia | Boku No Hero Academia, Professional Wrestling (Please note there are not WWE wrestling fics), Project Wingman/Ace Combat, Saiyuki, Ted Lasso, The Order of the Stick, Zero Escape, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, Bangtan Boys | BTS


We have 8 WIPRB art projects up for fic claims. The art available for claiming is in the following fandoms:

Doodle World (Roblox), Invisible Inc., JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind. Naruto/Naruto Shippuden, One Piece, The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System
thisbluespirit: (b7 - jenna)
thisbluespirit ([personal profile] thisbluespirit) wrote2025-08-26 09:49 pm

Ficlet: Green For Danger (B7)

I managed to post one of the other AU-gust ficlets I did - this one for the prompt "Dragons" for B7. (Also for [community profile] 100_women prompt #68 fire & [community profile] allbingo Crime Classics square "Green For Danger.")

Green For Danger (751 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Blake's 7
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Roj Blake, Kerr Avon, Liberator (Blake's 7), Zen (Blake's 7)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Ficlet, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Episode: s01e02 Space Fall, Community: 100_women, Liberator/Zen is a dragon, Alternate Universe - Fantasy
Summary: There's freedom or death waiting at the end of this tunnel...
jasmasson: (cookies)
jasmasson ([personal profile] jasmasson) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-26 04:19 pm

Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed: The Simplest Way Forward by harriet_vane

Fandom: Mo Dao Zu Shi/The Untamed
Pairings/Characters: Lan Zhan | Lan Wangji/Wei Ying | Wei Wuxian
Rating: Explicit
Length: 70,972 words
Creator Links: harriet_vane at AO3
Theme: Marriage of Convenience

Summary:

It’s a really unfortunate thing, developing a crush on your husband. Wei Ying had assumed this would be easy. Lan Zhan had been so icy and unpleasant to him, it had never occurred to him that he might end up spending the next however many years with this dumb, burning feeling in his chest whenever he looks at him.

“Okay,” says Wei Ying. “But tell me if I
if the pretending gets to be too hard, okay?”

“It will not,” says Lan Zhan, quietly certain.

Reccer’s Notes: Is it redundant to rec a fic that has 31,682 kudos (and counting)? And has already been recced on this community (although 5 years ago and for a different theme?) Probably. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes. Yes, I am.

Because it is fabulous.

It’s kidfic with Yaun at his most adorable, it’s a modern AU, it’s beautifully written and even if you’ve read it before I’m sure now is a great time for a reread.

Lan Zhan is his impeccable, smitten, useless at communicating self and Wei Wuxian is, as always, just doing his best in the circumstances he finds himself in.

An absolute classic. BTW, If you haven’t dipped a toe in MDZS canon or fanon, you could read this anyway due to its AU nature, and then perhaps be hooked
 31,682 AO3 users can’t be wrong, right?

Fanwork links: The Simplest Way Forward
mific: (Steve and Danno)
mific ([personal profile] mific) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-27 01:08 am

Hawaii five-O: hoʻokāne by Siria

Fandom: Hawaii five-O
Characters/Pairings: Danny Williams/Steve McGarrett, Grace, Kono, Chin
Rating: Explicit
Length: 13,614
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: Siria on AO3
Themes: Marriage of Convenience, First time, Fake marriage, Action/adventure, Family, AU: fork in the road

Summary: As active as Danny's imagination was, however, as strong as all his fears could be at the thoughts of his little girl being taken away from him again, he'd forgotten to factor in one very important element: Steve.

Reccer's Notes: This take on the marriage of convenience trope centres on Danny's devotion to his daughter, Grace. His ex moves to the US mainland with her husband and the only way Danny can get custody is if he's in a stable relationship - a marriage. Steve tells the judge they're about to marry and Danny stumbles through it, baffled at the way his team fully accept the situation and only berate him for keeping the affair a secret. The story takes us through the usual enjoyable dilemmas of a fake marriage like the need to share a bed, made more pressing with Grace in the house as she believes the marriage is genuine (which of course it is - Danny just doesn't know it yet). They're clearly married in the show and in this fic, but in Danny's case, massively oblivious (Steve not so much, having masterminded the marriage plan), and it all works out happily, as expected. Along the way there's lots of amusing snark and backchat, and it's wonderfully written, and a thoroughly good read.

Fanwork Links: hoʻokāne

quillpunk: screenshot of Isagi Yoichi from the anime Blue Lock; he is grinning. (isagi happy)
Ren the Ghost ([personal profile] quillpunk) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-08-26 02:39 pm

[Sale Promotion] Queer Bookblast Aug 26

Aug 26 is queer bookblast day! https://yearofqueerlit.wordpress.com/

books are .99c or free! (though of course double check before you buy)

alias_sqbr: (happy dragon)
alias_sqbr ([personal profile] alias_sqbr) wrote2025-08-26 08:42 pm
Entry tags:

Martha Wells/Murderbot book bundle

Martha Wells' Murderbot & More is about $30AUD (so $20USDish?) for a whole heap of her books. It's available for the next 18 days. I had no trouble downloading them as DRM free ebooks in Australia.
rocky41_7: (Default)
rocky41_7 ([personal profile] rocky41_7) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-08-25 05:44 pm

Book review: The West Passage

Title: The West Passage
Author: Jared Pechacek
Genre: Fantasy

Today I finished The West Passage by Jared Pachacek. This is a fantasy novel about a massive palace that encompasses the entirety of the state where the protagonists live and is ruled over by the godlike and somewhat tyrannical Ladies. The ancient Beast, the enemy of the Ladies, is threatening to rise again, as it has done in the past, which leaves our protagonists, Pell and Kew, youths of the Grey Tower, to try to raise the alarm.

I’m usually a fan of stories that throw you right into things, but The West Passage did leave me turned around for a while. I struggled to conceptualize what was being explained, and it’s definitely a book that asks a lot of your powers of visual imagination regarding the palace.

However, I loved the general creativity of this book. I don’t think I’ve ever read a fantasy novel so firmly and intentionally grounded in the medieval. A lot of Western fantasy is generically medieval/pseudo-medieval (a la the Ren Faire), but The West Passage clearly took time to more securely set itself in this era. The technology is not always strictly medieval, as this is a fantasy world with all manner of fantastical beasts and tools, but the medieval setting is far more than window dressing here. To cap off the mood, the book is peppered with charming medieval-style illustrations at the start of each chapter and separating each “book” within the novel, showing our protagonists on their adventure.
 

Read more... )

 

enchantedsleeper: rainbow hello kitty (rainbow kitty)
enchantedsleeper ([personal profile] enchantedsleeper) wrote in [community profile] smallweb2025-08-25 11:04 pm
Entry tags:

Small Web September: Coming back to a comm near you! (...This one. It's this comm)

Hi, everyone! Though I can't really believe it's almost September, we're fast approaching the month in question and that means it's nearly time for... Small Web September! \o/

I'm pleased to say that I'm bringing back SWS for another year and I hope you'll join me in doing small web stuff for the month of September! If you aren't familiar with Small Web September or can't remember exactly how it works, that's okay: all the information you need will be in this post!

What is Small Web September?

Small Web September is a month-long event run right here on [community profile] smallweb, and it's designed to be a chill, friendly and accessible event for anyone to make progress on a small web project. This can be anything from a personal site/indie archive to a shrine or directory, or maybe it's a list of resources you've always wanted to put together, or a set of graphics for small web projects! Whatever you'd like to work on, as long as it's small web-related (by the helpful definition in our comm intro post), it belongs in the event and we'd love you to bring it to Small Web September.

How does the challenge work?

Read more... )
littlefics: Three miniature books standing on an open normal-sized book. (Default)
littlefics ([personal profile] littlefics) wrote in [community profile] pinchhits2025-08-24 09:42 pm

Seasons of Drabbles: Post-Deadline Pinch Hits due August

Event: Seasons of Drabbles is an exchange for the creation of drabbles and drabble variants. The minimum is 100 words.

Event link: Dreamwidth | AO3 Collection

Due date: Friday, August 29, noon Eastern time (Countdown), though we can be flexible if needed.

Pinch hit link: Please view the details and claim it at this post.

PH 4 - Fireworks (1947)/Succession (TV 2018), O Fantasma (2000), O Fantasma (2000)/Succession (TV 2018), The Sergeant (1968), Succession (TV 2018)

PH 13 - Storm Hawks (Cartoon), Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Cookie Run (Video Game)
skygiants: the princes from Into the Woods, singing (agony)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2025-08-24 01:59 pm

(no subject)

Once upon a time, I read Exiled from Camelot, the novel-length Sir Kay angstfic by Cherith Baldry that Phyllis Ann Kar politely called 'one of the half-best Arthurian novels that I have yet read,' and then launched it off to Be Experienced by [personal profile] osprey_archer and [personal profile] troisoiseaux.

Now my sins have come back upon me sevenfold, or perhaps even fifteenfold: [personal profile] troisoiseaux has discovered that, not content with the amount of hurt and comfort that she inflicted upon Kay in exiled from Camelot, Cherith Baldry has written No Less than Fifteen Sad Kay Fanfics and collected them in a volume called The Last Knight of Camelot: The Chronicles of Sir Kay.

This book has now made its way from [personal profile] troisoiseaux via [personal profile] osprey_archer on to me, along with numerous annotations -- [personal profile] osprey_archer has suggested 'drink!' every time Baldry mentions Kay's 'hawk's face,' which I have not done, as I think this would kill me -- to which I have duly added in my turn. I am proud to tell you that I was taking notes and Kay only experiences agonized manly tears nine times in the volume. That means that there are at least six whole stories where Kay manages not to burst into tears at all! And we're very proud of him for that!

The thesis of The Last Knight of Camelot seems to be that Kay is in unrequited love with Arthur; Gawain and Gareth are both in unrequited love with Kay; and everyone else is mean to Kay, all the time, for no reason. [personal profile] troisoiseaux and [personal profile] osprey_archer in their posts have both pulled out this quote which I also feel I am duty-bound to do:

"Lord of my heart, my mind, my life. All that I'll ever be. All I'll ever want.”

He had never revealed so much before.

Arthur leant towards him; there was love in his face, and wonder and compassion too, and Kay knew, his knowledge piercing like an arrow into his inmost spirit, that his love, this single-minded devotion that could fill his life and be poured out and yet never exhausted, was not returned. Arthur loved him, but not like that.

He could not help shrinking back a little.


However, I also must provide the additional context that this tender moment is immediately interrupted by the ARRIVAL OF MORGAUSE, TO SEDUCE ARTHUR, TO MAKE MORDRED, leading me to believe that Baldry is suggesting that if Kay had instead seized the chance to confidently make out with Arthur at this time, the entire doom of Camelot might have been averted. Alas! instead, Arthur dismisses Kay to go hang out with Morgause, it all goes south, Arthur blames Kay for Some Reason, and Kay spends a week on his knees in the courtyard going on hunger strike for Arthur's forgiveness until he collapses on the cobblestones and wakes up to a repentant Arthur tenderly feeding him warm milk.

If the stories in this volume are any judge, this is a pretty normal week for Kay. I also want to shout out

- the one where Lancelot and Gaheris set up a Fake Adventure for Kay to prove his courage, which destroys Kay emotionally, and kitchen-boy-squire Gareth runs after him and tries to swear loyalty to him and ask Kay to knight him, but Kay is like "you cannot AFFORD to have Kay as a friend >:(( for your knightly reputation >:(((" and Gareth shouts "you can't make me your enemy!!" and then Lancelot finds them arguing and is like 'wow, Kay is abusing this poor kitchen boy' and sweeps the lovelorn Gareth away, leaving Kay's reputation worse than before
- the one where Arthur gets kidnapped by an evil sorcerer who demands Excalibur as Arthur's ransom, and then Kay decides to try and trick the evil sorcerer with a Fake Excalibur even though Lancelot is like 'FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE,' and then Kay rescues Arthur from being magic-brainwashed by pure power of [brotherly?] love, and as soon as their tender embrace is over Arthur is like 'wait! you brought a FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE'
- the one where Kay is accused of rape as a Ploy to Discredit Arthur and has to go through a trial by ordeal where he walks over hot coals while on the verge of death from other injuries and Gawain flings himself into the fire to rescue him but it turns out it's fine because Kay is So Extremely Innocent of the Crime that they both end up clinging together bathed in golden light that heals their injuries

Again: FIFTEEN of these. Baldry is truly living her bliss and I honestly cannot but respect it. The book is going to make its way back from here whence it came, but if anyone else is really feeling a shortage of Kay Agonies in their life, let me know; I'm sure an additional stop would be welcomed as long as whoever gets it pays the annotation tax.
thisbluespirit: (agatha christie)
thisbluespirit ([personal profile] thisbluespirit) wrote2025-08-23 08:05 pm

(no subject)

I've not been posting or even keeping up with people so much because I've largely been wiped out for one reason or another or prioritising something else with the reduced summer PC time - sorry. This will continue for a little while yet, until it is eventually replaced by my usual slightly less flakeyness.


* The other week I managed some flash fic/scribblets for AU_gust (AU August) on tumblr. I've only managed to tidy up and post one of them since, & there are 2 others to follow once I tweak them a bit, as well as 1 more that I don't know if is worth proper posting & a drabble I still need to type up. But this used up my posting energy for now, so they can wait.

Anyway, in a shocking attempt at pandering to what might pass as popular demand among my works, I committed another Miss Marple + supernatural fic(let):

Tea on Sunday (572 words) by thisbluespirit
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Miss Marple - Agatha Christie
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Jane Marple, Griselda Clement
Additional Tags: Ficlet, Alternate Universe, Witchcraft, AU-gust | August Writing Challenge, Community: allbingo, Community: 100_women, Community: 100fandoms, Miss Marple is a witch
Summary: Miss Marple's secret is out.


* In other writing, before summer got underway, I typed up the bulk of the longest continuous sequence I'm doing for the current arc at [community profile] rainbowfic, and then ever since have been scraping away at finishing it and editing it, and I am nearly there, although I suspect it'll still take another week or two before I have the first section ready to post. (I knew this would happen, so I also started two shorter pieces, but one of them, which is more or less done, has just been even harder to edit because tiredness etc. and the other one is still stuck at only two paragraphs, so that plan went well. Summer brain is not up to much. That was why I had to silly no-pressure AU ficlets my way back to life and even then summer rudely and immediately interrupted all over again). But there has been writing of sorts even so.

(The long sequence was one of the very first bits of this arc that I drew up, which is very funny because I essentially set up a sort of grand house murder mystery affair except that then everything changed so much that now my main characters aren't bothering taking part in the murder bit so am not sure if it will read ok (hopefully when edited) or if I committed Worst Murder Mystery ever as a result. I think probably I will also write a note on the header when we get there saying that One Day I Will Come Back, yes, one day I will come back, until then all 2 or 3 of you should go forward in all your beliefs about how people shouldn't wave a murder mystery at you and then literally run away from it, and I will eventually demonstrate that what is going on is in fact an Apocalyptic Overarching Plot, so there. And edit, of course.)


* I am currently listening to: a 1989 BBC Radio adaptation of Wilkie Collins's No Name I was delighted to find, starring Sophie Thompson as Magdalen, Jack May (as Captain Wragge), Eleanor Bron (as Mrs Lecount) & Robin Ellis (as Captain Kirke). I'm going slowly, but have just started part 3. It's very good and they're making excellent use of the epistolary bits, which is where radio has an advantage over TV. Mrs Lecount and her sinister toad have just turned up and Eleanor Bron is obviously a v good choice.


* I have watched some things, which, aside from what I've already mentioned, and a ridiculous amount of TV detectives, includes these:

The Tribe (1998), The Halfway House (1944), A Matter of Life and Death (1946), The Admirable Crichton (1957), Creation (2009), Cause Celebre (1988) & Eye in the Sky (2015), all of which were either v good or worth talking about anyway. (Creation and Eye in the Sky have brought me very nearly to the end of my Jeremy Northam's viable CV, so I'm a little bit in mourning now; I suppose a new blorbo will come along in time. Talking of which, I found that the iPlayer had the BBC 1970s All Creatures on it, so finally got around to seeing Suzanne Neve's episode of it, which would be the one thing I would certainly have watched with her when I was a child to see if I had shadowy feelings and indeed, as soon as she appeared, before even I saw her, the set was suddenly Significant in the back of my head, so yeah. I think I can prove childhood imprinting on all my top faves and that's what the thing is about, and why even when I'm so ill they reach me in ways that other people, no matter how much I enjoy them in things, don't unfortunately.)

(Hopefully I will get to talk about some of them properly, but I am happy to attempt such talk in comments if wanted, although sense is not guaranteed, and it is true that at least one or two I watched in a fugue state that all I can say is, well, it was good and I watched it very slowly in bits and there we are, but, yes it was good /o\)


* Also random funny thing. My old housemate N lent me a DVD (!!) of The Residence (was not joking about the sheer amount of detectives watched this summer), which I enjoyed so much I recced it to my Dad. A couple of weeks later we had this conversation:

Dad: I've been watching that medical drama you recommended, but it's not that great, really, so I've stopped.

Me: ... Medical drama??

(It turned out he'd found The Resident on one of the back Freeview channels, so I emailed him a trailer of the 2025 Netflix detective show that I magically got lent on DVD as if it was 2015 or something. He found a pirate source and then lost it again, but he definitely liked what he watched so far a lot better than the Resident).
fred_mouse: pencil drawing of mouse sitting on its butt reading a large blue book (book)
fred_mouse ([personal profile] fred_mouse) wrote2025-08-23 10:24 pm

Reading notes

It is a mere 20 days since my last reading notes post. I do occasionally wish that I had it together to do this weekly, and write more comprehensive reviews, but eh, when it happens, it happens.

finished

  1. My Throat an Open Grave (Tori Bovalino) - teenager from Evangelical Christian small USA town wishes their younger brother away. Much darker than Labyrinth, does some very clever things with traditional story tropes. 4.5 stars. review
  2. What Feasts at Night (T Kingfisher) - reread. Not the Kingfisher I was planning on reading, but eh. 4 stars. review
  3. Of Melodies and Maledictions (Maddox Grey) - prequel novelette, good world building and characters, but I resented being treated as if I couldn't see the plot detials shaping the story. 2 stars. review
  4. Within Prison Walls: Being a Narrative of Personal Experience During a Week of Voluntary Confinement in the State Prison at Auburn, New York (Thomas Mott Osborne) - very well written kinda long form journalism, kinda memoir, about the social experiment of a prison reformer spending a week in prison. 5 stars. review

active

(started or progressed)

  1. The Siege of Burning Grass (Premee Mohamed) - this is on my phone, and I haven't been on the bus, so I got about a third in and then haven't touched it in a week
  2. Unmasked: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism and Neurodivergence (Ellie Middleton) - finding this much less readable than the Aussie one that was specifically about ADHD, and thus struggling to maintain momentum. Also, I keep stopping to write grumpy reading notes. Such as "late diagnosed". Sweetie you are 25. (which, yes, is late diagnosed using specific definitions, but this hasn't been defined, and I've a lot of friends getting diagnoses in their 40s and 50s. Possibly 60s).
  3. After Story (Larissa Behrendt) - continues to be emotionally hard going; I've read a chapter in two weeks

there are also several for uni that haven't made it into the reading record.

paused

  • The Spider and Her Demons (Sydney Khoo) - forgot I'd borrowed this, got a 'return or else you are out of renewals' notification, got about 2/3 read in the time before I could get to the library. Very annoyed that I can't opt out of automatic renewals, but not enough that I'd done anything other than be annoyed at a librarian who kept trying to tell me it was a good process.

abandoned

nothing! For a value of nothing that includes the fact that I've taken two books from the little free library near the office, looked at the first few pages, and then returned them. One was about the Corn Laws in the UK, and while it might have reached the point that I agreed with the author, the way the whole thing was being framed was very much 'these stupid people didn't understand what was being done for their own good'. And the other was a history of Singer (I don't remember if it was the sewing machines specifically or the company) that I decided was probably really interesting but I have too many other things I want to have read in my life, and I'd rather read something else (at which point I think I started Siege of Burning Grass, and I am still of the opinion that was the right choice even if I've stalled on that one)

skygiants: C-ko the shadow girl from Revolutionary Girl Utena in prince drag (someday my prince will come)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2025-08-23 09:40 am

(no subject)

[personal profile] genarti and I both recently read Leonora Carrington's 1974 surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet, about a selectively deaf old lady whose unappreciative relatives put her into an old age home, where various increasingly weird things happen, cut in case you want to go in unspoiled )

Beth found the pace and tone of plotting very Joan Aiken-ish and I have to admit I agree with her.

BETH: But I understand that The Hearing Trumpet is like this because Carrington was a surrealist. Is it possible that Joan Aiken was also a surrealist this whole time and we've simply not been looking at her work through the right lens?
ME: I don't think her life landed her in quite the right set of circumstances to be a surrealist properly ... I think she was a little too young when the movement was kicking off .... but I do think that perhaps she believed in their beliefs even if she didn't know it ....

Anyway, The Hearing Trumpet is in some ways has elements of a classically seventies feminist text -- she wrote it while deeply involved in Mexico's 1970s women's liberation movement, and the whole occultist nun -> holy grail -> icepocalypse plot has a lot of Sacred Sexy Goddess Repressed By The Evil And Prudish Christian Church running through it -- but Marian Leatherby's robust and and opinionated ninety-year-old voice is so charmingly unflappable that the experience is never in the least bit predictable or cliche. My favorite character is Marian's best friend Carmella, who kicks off the book by giving mostly-deaf Marian the hearing trumpet that allows her to [selectively] understand the things that are going on around her. Carmella plays the role often seen in children's books of Friend Who Is Constantly Gloriously Catastrophizing About How Dramatic A Situation Will Be And How They Will Heroically Rescue You From It (and then I will smuggle you a secret letter and tunnel into the old-age home in order to avoid the dozens of police dogs! etc. etc.) which is even funnier when the things that are actually happening are even weirder and more dramatic than anything Carmella predicts, just in a slightly different genre, and then funnier again when Carmella shows up towards the end of the book perfectly suited to surviving the Even Newer, Weirder, and More Dramatic Situations that have Arisen.

The end-note explains that Carrington based Carmella on her friend Remedios Varo, a detail I include as a treat for the Varo-heads but also as an illustration of how much the novel builds itself on the connections between weird women who survive a largely-incomprehensible world by being largely incomprehensible themselves. Carrington herself was in her late fifties when she wrote this book, but she too lived into her nineties; her Wikipedia article describes her in its header as "one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s." It's hard not to inscribe that back into the text in some way, which is of course an impossible reading, but one does like to imagine the ninety-year-old Carrington with just as much presence as the ninety-year-old Marian.
jasmasson: (cookies)
jasmasson ([personal profile] jasmasson) wrote in [community profile] fancake2025-08-23 01:37 pm

Die Hard Movies: Pre-Existing Condition by Helenish

Fandom: Die Hard 4.0
Pairings/Characters: Matt Farrell/John McClane
Rating: Not Rated (I would say Gen or Teen at most)
Length: 13,139 words
Creator Links: Helenish at AO3
Theme: Marriage of Convenience

Summary:

“Anyway, he’s staying with me for a while,” John says.

“My place got firebombed,” Matt says, reflexively.

Reccer’s Notes: This fic is absolutely note perfect. The characters feel completely on point and the marriage of convenience trope feels totally natural. An exploration of how to be normal after something absolutely crazy has happened to you.

It feels very warm and true and absolutely delightfully done in Helenish’s brilliant way of writing.

Fanwork links: Pre-Existing Condition
tanaqui: Illumiinated letter T (Default)
tanaqui ([personal profile] tanaqui) wrote in [community profile] booknook2025-08-23 12:37 pm

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