magycmyste | Network

Title: 'The Setup'
Fandom: Friends
Rating: G
Notes: Crossposted to

whatif_au. ( Challenges used cut due to length. )

( The Setup )

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

Also I'm low on eloquence and the tireds are setting in, so forgive the rare brevity.

a Covid vaccine booster in the arm=:)
a fantastic musical performance (Hairspray, which my family loves pretty much to a person)=:)
walking the Horicon Marsh main trail=:)
*not* losing a glove on the very same trail thanks to a reasonably brief search, whew!=:)
not getting to pet the black labby who whimpered at me out a slow-moving car's open window=:( - I had to settle for saying "Awwww, baby," as the friendly fuzz and their possibly-a-golden sibling went by. They were clearly well-loved, but still. I would have so pet both puppydogs, had I been given the chance and the okay.
Storm damage=:( - not us, but other parts of Wisconsin, yikes
Merlin IDs=:)
Cardamom in black coffee=:)
Neighbors being excellent to each other=:)
Oldtime radio streams=:)
Synaesthesia=:)
The chance to, potentially, audit a summer course on the literature of the U.S. women's suffrage movement=:) the professor is making sure to include PoC voices in her selections, too
A family and friends political zoom getting zoombombed by that same professor's 50-pound short-haired pointer deciding to be a lap dog=:) there were pets by proxy
Daylilies overwintering successfully and returning from a dormant state=:) Yay! Little green shoots are go! I thought she was a goner for a second there.

Aaaaand not conking out in my chair is probably a good idea. I'm going the heck to bed!

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Antioch OTR - The Whistler

This is the first part of my book club notes on This All Come Back Now, an anthology of speculative fiction by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors. I was glad to see that the introduction included the editor's thoughts about each piece (something that has been lacking in some of the anthologies we've read). The editor says that Aboriginal authors of SF have have historically had more success publishing their work as literary fiction than in SF outlets, suggesting a disconnect between white and Indigenous understandings of what "speculative" looks like. They point out, for example, that a time travel story may look very different through a cultural lens that doesn't see time as entirely linear in the first place.

The editor also says that they solicited several stories for the collection from writers who had never written SF before. Perhaps it is unfair that my reaction was to brace myself; I'll strive to be open minded. (It was also pointed out in the discussion that the Indigenous population of Australia is pretty small, so the pool of potential authors may not have been as deep as the editor might have wished.)

Some group members were not thrilled to learn that the book includes some excerpts from novels. We've run into this before and it tends to frustrate our purpose as a discussion group because we end up having the same conversation over and over, which is just "this didn't feel complete... because it isn't complete." The first three pieces we read are actual short stories, though!

"Muyum, a Transgression" by Evelyn Araluen (2017)

( A ghost travels the ruins of the world, finding that what seemed dead can come back. )

"Clatter Tongue" by K.A. Ren Wyld (2020)

[Note: The book lists this story under the author's former name Karen Wyld.]

( A grieving girl literally vomits the detritus of colonization when she is threatened. )

"Closing Time" by Samuel Wagan Watson (2020)

( In the early days of covid, a man wanders aimlessly. )

I am currently not allowed to purchase any further emotional support notebooks until I use up a substantial amount of the emotional support notebooks that I have. This is actually fine, because for the first time in ages I can get to most of my notebooks. At the very furthest reaches of my bedroom shelves are a bunch of old and battered spiral notebooks, quite a few of which suggest they're leftover from my first stabs at college and university. Any remaining pages in these can be used for things like Accidental Advent, rough logging possessions before sorting properly, and general notes. Use once and destroy. (well, recycle)

I have, multiple times over the years, found absolute notebooks upon notebooks filled with my old fantasy novel. The last plan was to stuff it all into the back of my file cabinet, which I apparently then never did because I just found it all again. This time, it'll get filed for reals. (hopefully)

But I have also found some blank or blank-enough notebooks for projects, which is good. Also found the beginnings of a Serpent Tail timeline, probably from the big timeline that came with the serialized version of Frame Astrays, pre-smartphone... I remember working painstakingly with my kanji dictionary on my lap and now I can just point, poke, and probably have the whole thing translated and corrected in an hour. ;_; (this is mildly untrue because the amount of cross-referencing I'd start doing would turn it into a weekend project and then I'd start adding in information and whoops)

((I wonder if a newer whole-series timeline exists in any form.))

In today's case of remarkable timing, I grabbed a book from the little free library in my parents' basement - David Bowie: The Last Interview - before heading to the gym twelve floors up. I was pretty sure the library had a copy and I didn't need the physical object, but it looked worth grabbing and carrying around.

Partway through my workout, a guest comes into the gym. From seeing him last week, I know he's the son of a resident and is only here another few days before leaving for LA to return to life as a working musician.

I think the library's probably got it. I think books are great for long trips in metal tubes. I think he's a musician and would get a lot out of it.

I don't know what went through his head when I offered it to him - he didn't see me go and get it from my backpack, just that it more or less materialized out of thin air - but once he got over the surprise, he was quite happy with it. And the library's copy is checked out, which is fine, since I know it'd have taken me ages to get around to it anyway, while he'll be reading it this Thursday.

Current Mood: exanimate
Current Music: nothing now

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

Title: 'Black Widow'
Fandom: Original Fiction
Rating: PG (Warnings for implied serial murder)
Notes: Crossposted to

anythingdrabble and

vocab_drabbles. Using Challenge #239: Shakespeare VIII, and Challenge #466: Collection.

( Black Widow )

Title: Simple and Cruel
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Characters/Pairing: Spike (implied Buffy/Spike)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: none
Word count: 100 (Ellipsus)
Setting/Spoilers: Set between S5 and S6.
Summary: Life goes on. Without her.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction created for fun and no profit has been made. All rights belong to the respective owners.

Prompt: #247 - Remember [Amnesty Week]

Crossposted:

drabble_zone, My journal

—
( READ: Simple and Cruel )

$radiantfracture: Gouache portrait of my face with jellyfish hat (Super Jellyfish 70s Me)$

Congratulations to everyone who made the ballot for the Aurora Awards, but really mostly to Rachel A. Rosen for rocketing into three (3) (three!) (3!!) categories:

Best Novel - Blight, second book in the Sleep of Reason series
Best Short Story - “What If We Kissed While Sinking a Billionaire’s Yacht?“
Best Fan-Related Work, Wizards and Spaceships Podcast

Tribute to her excellent writing (and talking) and also to the uncrushable grit of small press publishing.

§rf§

Would you like your mind blown?

To imagine the number of ways a standard pack of playing cards can be uniquely shuffled, follow these simple instructions:

Go to the equator with a deck of cards and start shuffling them. Shuffle them so that every second you produce a new and unique ordering of cards. Keep shuffling them over and over, a new ordering, every second, for a billion years.

At the end of a billion years take a single step forward.

Keep shuffling.

Every billion years keep taking a single step forward.

Once you have circumnavigated the Earth, take a single drop of water out of the Pacific Ocean. Keep shuffling. Keep taking a single step every billion years. Keep taking a single drop of water out of the Pacific Ocean each time you walk around the Earth.

Once the Pacific Ocean is dry, refill it and place a single piece of paper on the ground.

Keep shuffling.

Keep taking billion year steps. Keep taking a drop out of the Pacific Ocean with each return to your start point. Keep refilling the Pacific Ocean once dry. Keep building your tower of paper one sheet at a time.

Once your tower of paper is as tall as Mount Everest, throw it away and place a single grain of sand on a weighing scale.

Don't stop shuffling.

Don't stop taking a step every billion years.

Don't stop emptying the Pacific Ocean and refilling it to build an Everest of paper.

Don't stop throwing your paper tower away to place another grain of sand on your weighing scales.

On the other side of your scale is a bull elephant. When it raises off the ground you will be half way done.

To see the maths behind this, click here.

(With thanks to my brother Mike, who saw a version of this which wasn't as good, rewrote chunks of it and did the maths.)

(context: i was diagnosed with diabetes a couple months ago and the new diet suuuuuuuuuuucks and i kind of want to walk into the sea with rocks in my pockets and a stomach full of cheesecake)

1) I have to outlive That Fucking Guy. I cannot walk into the sea without having done something incredibly tasteless to mark the occasion.

2) Haunted Chocolatier isn't out yet. I need to persist for a couple of years so I can play it.

3) I want to see what they do with the next mainline Zelda game. I hope they keep the open-world format; I'm terrified that the fandom have been such whiny babies about it that they'll backtrack into the dungeons-and-items comfort zone and open world Zelda will just be the Switch era's gimmick. So I guess that's a "to be determined" on the reasons to live front.

4) I got fic to write.

......so i guess i will keep eating like this but i will absolutely not have a ~*~*~Positive Attitude~*~*~ about it

goreswap is a multifandom exchange for fic and art, featuring gore. Assignments must be at least 500 words or a sketch on unlined paper, and contain significant gore content.

Rules | AO3 Collection

Current Pinch Hit Post

For details or to claim, see the pinch hit post above. These assignments are due April 23 at 11:59 PM EDT.

Pinch Hit #3: Art, Fic - 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018), 镇魂 | Guardian - priest

Pinch Hit #5: Fic - Night Prince - Jeaniene Frost, グノーシア | Gnosia (Visual Novel), Dracula Rising (Cartoon)

Pinch Hit #13: Art, Fic - Stranger Things (TV 2016), 지금 우리 학교는 | All of Us Are Dead (TV), The Walking Dead (TV)

~~Pinch Hit #16: Art, Fic - NoPixel (Web Series), Runescape (Video Games), Iron Lung (2026), Video Blogging RPF, MiSide (Video Game), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs~~

Pinch Hit #18: Fic - 炎の蜃気楼[ミラージュ] | Honoo no Mirage | Mirage of Blaze, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Dexter (TV), Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (TV)

Title: 'Emergency'
Fandom: Original Fiction
Rating: G
Notes: Crossposted to

anythingdrabble and

vocab_drabbles. ( Challenges used cut due to length. )

( Emergency )

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

Thanks to neighbors moving out of their apartments, not only do I have enough laundry pods to last at least another six months, I've got more lentils than I know what to do with. No, really. There's six kinds of lentils in my apartment right now, not counting the dried chickpeas, unroasted peanuts, and dried red beans. It's going to be the summer of lentils. My strategy's going to be to work through the smaller amounts first before moving onto the larger ones - there's enough red lentils for one or two meals, but the green ones will keep me fed for weeks.

I'm checking the usual websites, looking through my cookbook shelf, thinking of how to make them interesting and palatable when I'll be eating so much of them. I figure that once I'm done with Rome, a dive through the rest of Steven Spielberg's movies should be good enough distraction to carry the lentils those last few days when I don't want to pay too much attention to what I'm having for lunch.

I've also got some quinoa and rice and black soybeans, if I want to shake things up somewhat. Farro, too, down in a bag somewhere.

Current Mood: thankful
Current Music: Red Weather - Jack Harris

Now that it's time to go back to work for the week, the brainweasels of "you didn't get enough done this weekend" have come to circle. Could I have done more? Probably. But did I do an absolute lot? Sure did! (Just ask my back!)

While digging through stacks of books that I didn't realize I had, I came to two conclusions. First, swapping out the short, long bookcase in degrading condition would be a good plan. There have been two tall, thin bookcases at the 'rents that were 'given' to me years ago that I just didn't think I had space for. If those will fit in the same spot, it'll be perfect. And second, I completely fell off with Accidental Advent, which is fine and not terrible surprising. I'll see about re-starting in the near future because I did enjoy the nudge. (The old bookcase can probably go to the garage if I can get it up on cinderblocks. It's still fine to hold non-book things but if the bottom shelf has started a chemical reaction I don't assume it'll magically stop.)

I suppose plans for the rest of spring/summer are going to involve clearing every shelf, cleaning it, and checking conditions of things. I also need to get fresh air into the place more often. I'd wanted to get things opened up already but it's also rained every day for like two weeks now. Except right now, because it's snowing heavily. (WTF)

Also got a good percentage of my gunpla logged. I want to eventually have a good list of what I have both unbuilt and built. While just my backlog sounds like a slightly better time, I definitely know that I've built things and then forgotten about them as time passed. (In my defense, I mean built in like ~2010.)

I stirred up a lot of dust, which mostly means that I have a lot of dust and need to do some work tetris-ing things around so I can do a more thorough vacuum and whatnot.

I know I declare every year as the year I finally sort through everything but I'm feeling the motivation and am going to try to run with it.