lirazel | Reading

anais_pf posting in

1. What is your biggest waste of time in your home?

2. When at work, what is the activity that you find wastes the most time?

3. When getting busy with a date or significant other, what ritual could you do without?

4. What is the biggest waste of time on the Internet?

5. What do you do at a restaurant to waste time when waiting for your meal?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

pauraque

Jan Morris (1926-2020) was a Welsh writer known primarily for histories and travelogues published both before and after her gender transition in the late 1960s. In her time she traveled just about everywhere in the world; as a journalist she accompanied the Mount Everest expedition of 1953, waiting at a camp at 22,000 feet elevation to be the first to report that Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary had reached the summit.

Hav is one of her few published pieces of fiction, a travelogue of an imagined visit to an invented country. Morris placed her fictional land on a tiny peninsula jutting off Anatolia, and made it a crossroads where all the peoples and powers of the Mediterranean and beyond have come and left their mark through conquest and trade, and have continued to leverage its unique political position for their own gain. This omnibus edition includes the 1985 novel Last Letters from Hav and its sequel, 2006's Hav of the Myrmidons, which imagines a return visit to see how Hav has changed two decades on and where it sits in the post-9/11 world.

Apparently when Last Letters from Hav was first published, there was a bit of a "War of the Worlds" situation where many readers completely missed that it was fiction and ran right out to try to book a flight to Hav. I can understand how this happened, not just because Morris was known for nonfiction and before the internet people couldn't easily look these things up, but also because the book is so totally convincing as a depiction of a real place. Its episodic narrative gathers threads of all the real places Morris had been to and weaves them together elaborately but naturally into a multicultural knot—Turkish and Greek, British and Chinese, Christian and Muslim—that feels like it could have been, even though it never was.

The book doesn't make sweeping changes to real-world history to accommodate Hav's existence, but it makes tweaks and adjustments here and there to slip Hav in as an influence on all kinds of things. Morris creates connections everywhere (it's a common belief that Hav was the site of ancient Troy) and it seems that almost every interesting figure in history visited Hav at some point. Freud's stay in Hav as a young man inspired some of his later important works, and of course when Hemingway departed he took with him some of Hav's famous polydactyl cats. Sometimes Morris quotes passages about Hav from real writers' works, and in 1985, unless you had that exact book on the shelf, could you be sure that quote wasn't in there? I think some of them might even be real quotations that she has cleverly recontextualized to sound like they're about Hav, and with such forthright authoritativeness that you want to believe her.

( cut for length )

osprey_archer

At the end of April, I had just finished a draft of my secondary world fantasy novelette The Paper Bird.

asakiyume agreed to give it a beta read, and liked it! At which point my head promptly swelled to the size of the Goodyear blimp and I cheerfully informed everyone that I was finally going to write the dozen or so secondary world fantasies that have been knocking around in my brain for the last fifteen years, fifteen years ago having been about the time that I concluded I needed more life experience and primary world knowledge before I could attempt a secondary world fantasy again.

Since then my head has returned to its normal size (hot air balloon). I have recalled that it is not in fact possible to write a dozen stories at a time and have therefore settled on one that has been knocking around since my senior year of high school: the tale of Jess and Innis, which begins when Jess’s cousin (commandant of a prisoner of war camp) foists one of the prisoners of war on Jess, who objects that actually he doesn’t WANT a pet prisoner of war.

Cousin Commandant: Too bad! We have a big overcrowding problem! He can help you sail your little sailboat through the archipelago helping you collect folktales or whatever if is you do.

I’m not absolutely wedded to the folktale collecting of it all, mostly because it would definitely require me to write some folktales, not just for Jess’s people (the Naditai) but also for Innis the prisoner of war turned folktale gathering assistant. Obviously less work for me if Jess is collecting butterflies. However, probably also less thematic resonance.

ANYWAY obviously Jess and Innis fall in love, obviously there is culture clash, different expectations about what love is, for instance, marriage doesn’t exist in Jess’s culture and honestly they consider the whole idea kind of titillatingly weird. Romance genre imposes an ending to shoot for (happily-for-now in this case) which is very helpful to me; the challenge with a LOT of my other ideas is that I have what I consider a wonderful set-up but no actual vision for how to structure a story on top of it.

Among its other fine qualities, this is one that I could self-publish as a trial balloon to see how my readers feel about secondary world m/m. Hopefully positive? It’s just like my historical m/m, except this time the culture clash is between cultures I made up!

abyss_valkyrie

So, people who are into icon making and just interested in the fandom, would anyone be up for a Battle focused on The Chronicles of Narnia franchise? If so, I'd like to run one! :D

ninetydegrees posting in

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mific

I fell over this fic accidentally by clicking on the podfic to entertain myself while prepping dinner. I was then glued to it for 8 hours until after 1.30 am, so be warned, this story's an all-nighter!

At over 90,000 words, it's a full novel, and it's both one of the best post-Vegas penthouse "we didn't even kiss" AUs I've read and a fucking zombie apocalypse AU. It diverges from canon at that point but is otherwise firmly tethered in canon, and it's without doubt both one of the best explorations of Shane and Ilya's characters and relationship, and hands down the best zombie apocalypse AU I've ever read in any fandom, or even in profic.

It has aspects of the "forced proximity" trope, as they escape to Boston then get trapped in Ilya's apartment for 2-3 months when Boston goes to shit. But it's also a brilliant "crack treated seriously" story, as once you've handwaved the zombie situation, the author unfolds an extremely likely, indeed sensible series of events. They don't do anything rash or idiotic! Their competencies complement each other, and Shane's ability to hyperfocus and plan are an asset. They're still in moderate to severe danger at times because it's the zombie apocalypse so there's lots going on, but because they're in safe places for the vast bulk of the fic the reader isn't constantly stressed.

Then there's the character development and emotional aspect, which is incredibly well done. Shane goes from sub-drop spaciness to having to get it together and escape zombies as Yuna can't reach him and eventually gets to him in Vegas by calling Ilya. Throughout the fic they go through much of what the characters do in canon in terms of repressed feelings, believing their feelings are unrequited, some miscommunication (but no more than in canon), and eventual romance, all in the context of the zombie apocalypse and the collapse of the world as they knew it. That forces them together and (sadly for much of the world) speedruns their relationship and makes it possible, but the apocalypse doesn't stop Shane from struggling with internalised homophobia and denial, and it sure as hell doesn't stop Ilya from feeling depressed and nihilistic.

Both the fic and the podfic (really well read, and all in one sitting jfc) are wonderful. Can't recommend them highly enough. OMG THIS FIC!!! THIS PODFIC!!!

oh well, I guess we're gonna find out! By angel_deux
podfic read by DiabolicalWordreader

Content notes:
- zombie apocalypse so mass death mostly offscreen. A few gory scenes of zombies being killed but not many, and most of the horror isn't described, just learned from them listening to the news.
- Ilya is passively suicidal, esp. at the start, from the self-hatred that caused him to treat Shane badly in Vegas and from the weight of the apocalypse.
- They're both somewhat depressed and grieving at times later in the story, after the immediate battle to survive isn't as pressing. No one makes any actual attempts.

Also READ THE TAGS because they're hilarious!

jo posting in

tv_talk

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returns on July 23 for its penultimate season. Here's the official trailer.

Watch on YouTube

hunningham

1. I spent Tuesday dealing with dishwashers. Father-in-law needs a new dishwasher and one was ordered, it was duly dispatched and eventually arrived with 2 guys who were meant to remove old one and install new. But the dishwasher was wedged into place so tightly that they couldn't get it out. It looks as if the kitchen units and the floor were installed after the dishwasher was in place, and dishwasher was boxed in. No wiggle-room, no space to lift or maneuver, and installers are not allowed to start breaking apart your kitchen. So they left and took (new) dishwasher with them.

I wanted to have a go at moving dishwasher myself, but father-in-law was having fits about 'get a proper man' so I spent an hour with my phone to find another handyman. He has been and had to use an electric hacksaw, a large hammer, and a crowbar but success. Old dishwasher is now on the balcony pending collection, and I have arranged for new dishwasher to be re-delivered.

All very boring, but this is what is chewing up my time right now.

Father-in-law is grumpy. He finds this all very stressful and disapproves of the dishwasher on principal.

2. We're having a by-election (council, *not* the big by-election for Makefield), and we had canvassers to visit. First time ever. Opening question was "How's Charlie?" which was a trifle disconcerting. But yes, my cat is a big friendly highly noticeable white cat and he is best friends with all the neighbourhood. Once we had established that "yes Charlie was fine" and "no I wasn't going to vote for them" canvasser didn't linger, but it was interesting.

3. Also cat-related. My cat is snoring. It's the wrong time of day to chat up canvassers, so he's asleep on the bookshelf in my office. When I got myself out of bed, he (laboriously) got down off the bed, climbed from the floor into the armchair, clawed up the back of the armchair and cautiously did the stretch-step from top of chair to bookshelf so he can sit on his blanket by the window. Doesn't want to play or to be fussed, just the cat equivalent of focusmate where he likes to share a space with someone else.

vriddy

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Commented on

getyourwordsout.

landofnowhere

An Academic Affair, Jodi McAllister. Recommended by

cahn as an academia romance that gets the details right and also doesn't have a concerning power imbalance. It delivered on that: admittedly, since it's set in Australia, I'm not capable of nitpicking to the same extent that I would a book set in the US, but it generally rings true. There is a lot of wish-fulfillment in this book, but it doesn't sugarcoat the experience of being an academic without career security. There is also some very fun meta here, drawing on the author's background: she studies popular fiction and is a romance reader, while he studies Jacobean drama. That said, I didn't feel that the eucatastrophe in this book lived up to the expectations set by the meta -- but I have high standards for eucatastrophe. But on the other hand the male lead is a cinnamon roll who has some excellent pining, and over all it sucked me in.

Obstetrix, Naomi Kritzer. Novella about an ob-gyn who is kidnapped by a cult, written with Kritzer's usual empathy and attention to detail. A good book to keep me distracted during travel.

Everybody's Perfect, Jo Walton. Not yet officially published, but I acquired an advance copy at Scintillation. This is cozy fantasy, but the type that Jo has been writing and reading for a long while, not the type that's gotten trendy recently. It is set at a nexus between nine worlds populated by different species that are all humanoid enough to pass for a human wearing some sort of Venetian mask, and you get one chapter with a point of view from a member of each species. The magic is evocative but not fully explained; the way that people's will shapes the world is reminiscient of a collaborative storytelling exercise or a mechanics-light RPG. Reading it, I knew that at eventually we were going to get the POV of the character from our world, and when I got there I was not disappointed.

morbane posting in

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lavendre posting in

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snickfic

elasticella is running Filthy Femslash Fantasies Ficathon, an old-school commentfic meme with an emphasis on the filthy details. I love that the prompts get into the delicious nitty gritty, but there aren't many fandoms I know so far. Maybe go drop some prompts? 🙏

snickfic

Stoker (2013). Isolated, standoffish teenager India Stoker's life is disrupted first when her father dies in a freak car accident and then when her charming uncle that she didn't know existed comes to town.

This movie has so much interesting background. It was written by gay actor Wentworth Miller, who I guess starred in his own show but whom I know as That Guy From That One Buffy Episode, and directed by Park Chan-Wook as his only English-language film. It stars Mia Wasikowska, whom I've loved ever since I first saw her in... I think Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, of all things? And very importantly, it has nothing to do with Bram Stoker or vampires.

Anyway, I loved it. People have told me it's meant to be Southern Gothic, which I didn't catch on to because no one has a southern accent, but I'm fascinated by the timeless feel of the setting and the Stoker house. I spent quite a while trying to guess the time period and had tentatively settled on the 1960s and then it turns out it's set in the present day (of 2013). Regardless, it's gorgeous. The score is great, the vibes are immaculate.

I LOVE the dynamics between India and her mother and Uncle Charlie. I knew vaguely that people shipped the incest, but I did not realize the extent to which the movie ships the incest. Uncle Charlie is eyefucking India from basically the first scene. And overall the movie feels gothic in the way Thoroughbreds feels noir, and I enjoyed it for a lot of the same reasons.

I will say the one big reveal about two thirds of the way through felt pretty cliched. On the other hand, the ending and how it loops back around to the beginning of the movie was brilliant and made me want to rewatch immediately now that I better understand India's whole deal.

I've been watching a fair bit of female-centered fucked up shit lately, but none of them quite understood the assignment like this one. Overall a fantastic time. A++.

--

The Furious (2026). "Somewhere in southeast Asia" mute handyman Wang Wei's daughter is kidnapped by child traffickers, and he will go through anyone who stands in the way of getting her back.

This is a Hong Kong action movie, which is to say basically everyone is amazing at martial arts (but our handyman even better than everyone else). I went to see it on the strength of incredible word of mouth; I think the Rotten Tomatoes score was at 99%. I saw someone say on social media that it was dubbed, but no, it's just mostly in English, with occasional subtitled Chinese.

And indeed, I had a great time. The action scenes are the heart of the film, and they're spectacular. I also really enjoyed the alliance between our main guy and Navin, whose journalist wife went missing several months ago investigating the child trafficking ring. I liked them a lot ~~and kind of shipped them~~. After the constant quippiness of most American action movies these days, there was something really relaxing about half the main duo not speaking at all. This is not a quippy movie.

Also, ( spoilers )

I do wonder how many of the things I found refreshing or surprising feel like old hat to an audience familiar with this genre. And is it weird for a Chinese movie to be set "somewhere in southeast Asia"? I feel like a British movie set "somewhere in eastern Europe" would feel pretty weird. However, I don't know nearly enough about regional dynamics and movie tropes to know how this plays to its intended audience.

I will say the big climactic fight was about three times too long; in particular I feel like we did not need the one wildcard character to show up and make everything longer. I also felt like it made a lot less use of the space and the props than a big American fight scene would. Again, I don't know if that's standard for this kind of movie?

My real complaint, though, is that in literally the first scene, the daughter complains about having to practice kung fu with her father, and then they never do kung fu together. I waited all movie!! OTOH I really enjoyed how ( spoilers )

If you're into action movies and especially hand-to-hand fight scenes, you absolutely should see this.

umadoshi

...you make a post entirely to say hello to a whole bunch of people from an event you've never been to (but would love to go to someday, circumstances willing) and its associated Discord in which you mostly lurk, all of whom you're in the process of adding because so many lovely folks are talking about and, in some cases, newly joining DW.

Right? Or maybe just me? ^^; Things that happen when you spend time in many online places but mostly only lurk in all of them but this one?

I just realized I didn't do any kind of recent-readings etc. post on the weekend. My brain is very tired, between the heap of manga deadlines and some garden-related stress. At this point I'll probably put it off until this weekend again, even though doing it sooner would be a good reason to post a bit more.

Current Mood: dorky

osprey_archer

I trundled on in Three Moments of an Explosion until the story with three dead women (one of them died 500 years ago, but still) returned the ratio of stories to dead women to one to one. Then I decided enough was enough and I stopped.

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

Zilpha Keatley Snyder’s The Bronze Pen. A budding young writer acquires a bronze pen that seems to make what she writes come true. Propulsive while I was reading, but not very memorable aside from the fact that the main character is named Audrey Abbott - like Martha Abbott in The Changeling! - but evidently no relation.

Also Alexander Woollcott’s Two Gentlemen and a Lady, a trio of dog stories that I purchased in Bloomington in the interstices of the wedding I was attending. The stories were cute, but what I liked best were the illustrations by political cartoonist Edwina. Political cartoonists often make a very successful transition to illustration, I find. (See also Tenniel’s illustrations of Alice in Wonderland.

What I’m Reading Now

In The Romanovs, Nicholas I has just blundered into the Crimean War, which is going poorly because he has failed to modernize the Russian army since the Napoleonic Wars. Fortunately for him, the British and the French are catastrophically mismanaging their modernized armies, so Russia is not getting nearly as trounced as you might expect.

What I Plan to Read Next

I purchased two other books in Bloomington: Nigel Andrew’s The Butterfly: Flights of Enchantment, and Christopher Morley’s Parnassus on Wheels.

troisoiseaux

Read Kissing Girls on Shabbat by Sara Glass, a memoir of the author's journey from observant ultra-Orthodox/Hasidic wife to out lesbian and trauma therapist by her early thirties. For some reason, every non-celebrity memoir I read— and, honestly, most of the celebrity ones— end(s) up being about mental health, whether their own and/or others'...? In this case, on top of everything else, Glass grew up in a family where her mother and sister struggled with mental health issues, which motivated her to go into social work and later psychology as a career.

Otherwise on a mystery kick: reading Crimson Angel by Barbara Hambly, one of her Benjamin January mysteries— I'm not sure if I've officially run out of novels where they stick around New Orleans or if I've just happened to stock up on the travel ones: the last few I've read have taken place in Washington, DC, Mexico, and now Cuba (and Haiti?)— and just started Buffet for Unwelcome Guests, a collection of short stories by Golden Age mystery writer Christianna Brand, starting with "Cockrill Cocktails," or stories featuring her recurring detective Inspector Cockrill. (I assume the rest of the stories will be stand-alones? The other section titles are "Choice of Entrées," "Something to Clear the Palate," "Petit Fours," and "Black Coffee.")

abyss_valkyrie

Hi, all! Just wanted to bring it to attention that I'd been granted permission to run

stocklove_ic a few weeks back. Those of you who enjoy making stock icons bi weekly are welcome to join the community and participate by entering, commenting, voting etc.

The current round is:

H is for... over here at

stocklove_ic

muccamukk

(I think this is the only icon I have with a baby.)

(This probably should be a fic, but I don't have the brain space to write fic right now.)

Preamble

Firstly, this isn't vague-blogging or subtweeting or whatever, and I'm not intending to tell any specific person they're wrong on the Internet. It's something that I've been thinking about since I saw FF:FS last year.

I'm further not telling anyone they should like the film if they didn't, or that they're bad for not wanting to watch a Disney movie prominently featuring pregnancy and parenthood. I'm sympathetic to having had enough of that genre and/or have been burned by it too many times. Totally fair! If you don't like plots with babies, you won't like this movie. There is definitely a baby!

I do, however, intend this to be something of a rebuttal to the "I don't like that the only female character was just a mom" line of criticism, which I've run into since the trailer. I also want to explain why I think that framing Sue's role as primarily a mother is reductive, and ignores some of the more interesting things the film was doing with her character.

( This will be long, and will spoil the entire movie )