I just put up in my profile the banners I've received for various contests and challenges, and I thought I should add them onto my journal as well, so people who don't have a reason to randomly go look at my profile can see them if they like. At the moment they aren't terribly numerous, so if I get new ones I'll add them to my profile as well. But if in time I somehow end up with loads of banners, I'll start to only post select ones on the profile but keep updating all of them in this journal entry. At least, that is the intention! I've made it sticky so that it's easier to find (for me as well).
( Who Contest banners )
( TARDIS library reccing banners )
To everyone: merry Christmas, happy holidays, or just nice last Friday of December, whichever feels the best for you! This year has been a long, difficult one, but I hope we all can find some hope and comfort, whether in connection to the midwinter holidays or something else.
I am well, and well-fed, and things are peaceful here.
Also, it's Yuletide! I got a lovely This Is How You Lose the Time War story as my gift fic. I'm also very pleased that I didn't default the challenge, despite December having been a mad scramble for me scheduling-wise (I'm not great at time management). I'm even fairly pleased with my story.
But anyway, here's my gift fic! I love love love how the author has fleshed out the human story behind a few lines of a letter in the book; it's like the other side of the broad birds-eye view of time and life that our beloved rival time agents have. It complements the canon wonderfully.
Thus We Braid Strand 6 to Strand 9 (2308 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Red (This is How You Lose the Time War), Blue (This is How You Lose the Time War), Original Characters
Summary: and our glorious crystal future shines so bright I gotta wear shades, as the prophets say
I am well, and well-fed, and things are peaceful here.
Also, it's Yuletide! I got a lovely This Is How You Lose the Time War story as my gift fic. I'm also very pleased that I didn't default the challenge, despite December having been a mad scramble for me scheduling-wise (I'm not great at time management). I'm even fairly pleased with my story.
But anyway, here's my gift fic! I love love love how the author has fleshed out the human story behind a few lines of a letter in the book; it's like the other side of the broad birds-eye view of time and life that our beloved rival time agents have. It complements the canon wonderfully.
Thus We Braid Strand 6 to Strand 9 (2308 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Red (This is How You Lose the Time War), Blue (This is How You Lose the Time War), Original Characters
Summary: and our glorious crystal future shines so bright I gotta wear shades, as the prophets say
I am around! I know I haven't posted anything but my Yuletide letter in the recent months. I'm sorry about that, I haven't forgotten this place and I hope nobody's been worried, given the year we're having. I've been fine, and so have the people close to me. Just cooped up and isolated, as I'm sure we all know. This disappearance of mine wasn't intentional, I've just been swept away by RL stuff, as well as my fannish engagement in the indie podcast Discord communities I've joined, because my brain has mainly focused on podcast dramas all year. Also, in November I was busy writing a new novel manuscript, theoretically as part of NaNoWriMo, though I was nowhere near the 50K-word goal by the end. Fell just shy of 25,000, but I was very pleased with that, and just happy to get that story going.
Personal updates (in locked entries) will hopefully follow soon, but now I'm just making a little update about what I've been reading in the past months. I was going to do a whole set of what culture I've been enjoying, but you know what, I'm just doing books now so that I can actually post this tonight. I'll do podcasts on another day, since there's a lot. I'm not listing all of my read books here either, just some highlights. Just want to get back into the swing of writing about things here.
Books
I read the fifth and last Raksura novel by Martha Wells, The Harbors of the Sun, and loved it at least as much as I loved the fourth book. The whole series is wonderful, but I especially have a lot of love for that final duology. I think it was in September that I read it? Anyway, at some later point I borrowed the first of the Stories of the Raksura short story collections, and only after that realized it actually comes between books three and four, so I could have read it and the other story collection before I started reading books four and five. But it's all right, most of the stories take place before the book series anyway. I've yet to read the other short story collection, I'm saving it a bit since it really will be the last of the Raksura series I haven't read yet. Of course, once that happens I'm just going to have to start buying the books and rereading them!
I haven't had as much trouble focusing on reading as I had in the spring, but I've still been reading less than is normal for me. One reason is that I've started a lot of things I didn't like or care about enough to finish them. But anyway, I've read some science books and some poetry. I reread Tove Jansson's novel Fair Play which is one of my favorites among her fiction for adults, and the probably the queerest one. It's about two female artists sharing their lives together, and it's got that wonderful Tove Jansson quality where she makes stories worth telling about everyday life and they somehow crystallize so much about people, life, and the world in a few sentences or paragraphs.
Currently I'm reading some nonfiction space books, as well as a recent short story SFF collection called The Book of Dragons which has lots of stories about dragons, and it's really good so far. Short story collections are difficult for me because I'll love some stories, not care for others, and really dislike some, but so far I've enjoyed most of these, and only had to skip two or three. I'm not quite 1/3 of the way through, so we'll see how it continues, but it's nice to be able to read a short story collection since my attention span isn't the greatest.
I'm also reading a couple of Finnish novels, and haven't gotten bored of either one yet, it's really quite impressive. (I love my language, but our novelists don't have a good track record of holding my attention and interest for long. I always love it when I find exceptions!) One of them is a YA book that has dragons. Yes, we have a bit of a theme going on.
I'm going to try to get to other forms of culture (mainly podcasts, let's be honest) soon, but let this be it for tonight.
Personal updates (in locked entries) will hopefully follow soon, but now I'm just making a little update about what I've been reading in the past months. I was going to do a whole set of what culture I've been enjoying, but you know what, I'm just doing books now so that I can actually post this tonight. I'll do podcasts on another day, since there's a lot. I'm not listing all of my read books here either, just some highlights. Just want to get back into the swing of writing about things here.
Books
I read the fifth and last Raksura novel by Martha Wells, The Harbors of the Sun, and loved it at least as much as I loved the fourth book. The whole series is wonderful, but I especially have a lot of love for that final duology. I think it was in September that I read it? Anyway, at some later point I borrowed the first of the Stories of the Raksura short story collections, and only after that realized it actually comes between books three and four, so I could have read it and the other story collection before I started reading books four and five. But it's all right, most of the stories take place before the book series anyway. I've yet to read the other short story collection, I'm saving it a bit since it really will be the last of the Raksura series I haven't read yet. Of course, once that happens I'm just going to have to start buying the books and rereading them!
I haven't had as much trouble focusing on reading as I had in the spring, but I've still been reading less than is normal for me. One reason is that I've started a lot of things I didn't like or care about enough to finish them. But anyway, I've read some science books and some poetry. I reread Tove Jansson's novel Fair Play which is one of my favorites among her fiction for adults, and the probably the queerest one. It's about two female artists sharing their lives together, and it's got that wonderful Tove Jansson quality where she makes stories worth telling about everyday life and they somehow crystallize so much about people, life, and the world in a few sentences or paragraphs.
Currently I'm reading some nonfiction space books, as well as a recent short story SFF collection called The Book of Dragons which has lots of stories about dragons, and it's really good so far. Short story collections are difficult for me because I'll love some stories, not care for others, and really dislike some, but so far I've enjoyed most of these, and only had to skip two or three. I'm not quite 1/3 of the way through, so we'll see how it continues, but it's nice to be able to read a short story collection since my attention span isn't the greatest.
I'm also reading a couple of Finnish novels, and haven't gotten bored of either one yet, it's really quite impressive. (I love my language, but our novelists don't have a good track record of holding my attention and interest for long. I always love it when I find exceptions!) One of them is a YA book that has dragons. Yes, we have a bit of a theme going on.
I'm going to try to get to other forms of culture (mainly podcasts, let's be honest) soon, but let this be it for tonight.
Dear Yuletide writer,
Thank you for offering to write whichever of these rare fandoms we matched on! Sorry it took me a while to get the full letter up. I’m also sorry it’s anything but concise – that’s not why it took me so long to finish - rather, it’s the case that when I got myself organized enough to write this, I wrote a lot.
First, I’m into a lot of different kinds of stories, so relax and don’t fret too much. I don’t have a huge load of DNWs and I enjoy seeing different ways people interpret the same source material, the different possible stories they come up with. I’m often a multi-shipper – doesn’t mean I like every ship, but I’m not jealously guarding an OTP in most cases – and I genuinely like gen as much as I like shippy stuff. Given how found family heavy some of these fandoms are, maybe that’s not too difficult to believe!
But I’ll give you a bit about some of the things I like, and some more thoughts and prompts for each fandom, in case that kind of thing helps you. However, if you aren’t the kind of writer who works better with prompts; if these restrict you rather than inspire you; then don’t pay attention them. Seriously! I want you to write what inspires you. Often I don’t even know what I’ll enjoy reading before I read it, and the most enjoyable stories are usually ones that the writer was passionate about writing. But if these extra ramblings, lists and ideas help you pick a direction or a starting point, here, make use of them.
If you need an emergency fandom because the one we matched on doesn't work for you after all, I'd say The Beacon and This Is How You Lose the Time War would be the easiest to pick up on a short time-frame. I've described them a bit from that perspective after the request part. I'd guess We Fix Space Junk wouldn't be that hard either - while there are three seasons, they're 8 episodes each and the episodes aren't that long.
( Likes )
( Do Not Want (DNW) )
The Requests
Here are the requests, with the details I wrote in the sign-up plus whatever additional things I have to add in the letter. The request part is in italics, and whatever additional stuff I rambled now is in a normal font. Sorry some of the DNWs part keeps being repeated, but there are also fandom-specific differences.
( The Beacon (Podcast) – any nominated characters )
( Wolf 359 – Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace )
( This Is How You Lose the Time War; Red, Blue )
( The Books of the Raksura – Martha Wells; Moon, Chime, Jade )
( We Fix Space Junk; Kilner, Samantha )
Thank you for offering to write whichever of these rare fandoms we matched on! Sorry it took me a while to get the full letter up. I’m also sorry it’s anything but concise – that’s not why it took me so long to finish - rather, it’s the case that when I got myself organized enough to write this, I wrote a lot.
First, I’m into a lot of different kinds of stories, so relax and don’t fret too much. I don’t have a huge load of DNWs and I enjoy seeing different ways people interpret the same source material, the different possible stories they come up with. I’m often a multi-shipper – doesn’t mean I like every ship, but I’m not jealously guarding an OTP in most cases – and I genuinely like gen as much as I like shippy stuff. Given how found family heavy some of these fandoms are, maybe that’s not too difficult to believe!
But I’ll give you a bit about some of the things I like, and some more thoughts and prompts for each fandom, in case that kind of thing helps you. However, if you aren’t the kind of writer who works better with prompts; if these restrict you rather than inspire you; then don’t pay attention them. Seriously! I want you to write what inspires you. Often I don’t even know what I’ll enjoy reading before I read it, and the most enjoyable stories are usually ones that the writer was passionate about writing. But if these extra ramblings, lists and ideas help you pick a direction or a starting point, here, make use of them.
If you need an emergency fandom because the one we matched on doesn't work for you after all, I'd say The Beacon and This Is How You Lose the Time War would be the easiest to pick up on a short time-frame. I've described them a bit from that perspective after the request part. I'd guess We Fix Space Junk wouldn't be that hard either - while there are three seasons, they're 8 episodes each and the episodes aren't that long.
( Likes )
( Do Not Want (DNW) )
The Requests
Here are the requests, with the details I wrote in the sign-up plus whatever additional things I have to add in the letter. The request part is in italics, and whatever additional stuff I rambled now is in a normal font. Sorry some of the DNWs part keeps being repeated, but there are also fandom-specific differences.
( The Beacon (Podcast) – any nominated characters )
( Wolf 359 – Renée Minkowski, Isabel Lovelace )
( This Is How You Lose the Time War; Red, Blue )
( The Books of the Raksura – Martha Wells; Moon, Chime, Jade )
( We Fix Space Junk; Kilner, Samantha )
Recent culture roundup
Aug. 12th, 2020 09:52 pmOkay, folks, time for one of these again! Basically just books and podcasts, I haven't engaged with any other culture recently, other than the occasional music.
Books
Since the last, I finished the utterly delightful Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, which I was reading at the time. I absolutely loved it, and the ending surprised me and was very different from what I was hoping for but utterly wonderful. Much recommended! After that I read Spellswept, a prequel novelette to the Harwood Spellbook series by Stephanie Burgis, a very delightful historical fantasy romance with a black female lead, and younger versions of some characters from Snowspelled that I read first. And now very recently I've been reading The Edge of Worlds, the fourth book in Martha Wells' Raksura series, which is epic fantasy about this really awesome shapeshifter race. (If I were to say they're kind of like human/reptilian person/dragon shapeshifters, with complicated social structures and matriarchy, you'd have something like the right idea.) It's been so brilliant, and I finished it today. I hadn't realised/remembered this book is actually the first of a duology so it basically leaves off at a very tense point! I might have to borrow the next book immediately.
The Raksura books have awesome and fascinating worldbuilding, with one of the most interesting fantasy races I've ever come across, they're written excellently, and very importantly they have fabulous characters! And I just need to give a special shoutout to Chime, I love Chime so much. I love all the central characters, but the smart snarky sensitive best friend (( slight spoiler - relationships, not plot )) is so much my thing. And I could basically read endlessly about Moon, Jade and Chime being awesome. This book also occasionally went into the point of view of characters other than Moon, to show things going on in places where he wasn't, that was also very cool after seeing the world only through his POV for three books.
Anyway, that's my fannish book gushing of the week! Probably.
I've also read and finished some space non-fiction books, and I'm currently reading Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Answers to Common Real-World Problems, which is just as delightful as expected (this is the creator of the xkcd webcomic), and a hilarious way to learn some science.
I had to return Dread Nation by Justina Ireland to the library without finishing it, but I've placed a new hold on it, so I'll be able to finish it when I get it again, I hope. It's amazing, but it's also a touch more violent than I'm comfortable with, so I didn't manage to progress very fast... For lighter reading, I've started A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. It's a romance novel with Black characters, and the leading lady is a scientist, which is brilliant. But I'm not great at reading het romance, and entitled dudes who need a good woman's love to learn to not be entitled is so not a favourite trope of mine, so I haven't been progressing lately. Maybe I just need to skip straight to the f/f novella later in the series.
I don't yet know what I'll read next if it isn't the fifth Raksura book. It's probably that. Unless someone else borrows it before I get around to it.
Podcasts
Quite a bit in this realm! I mentioned earlier that I finished the Juno Steel Season 2 stories in the Penumbra Podcast, and it was amazing. Juno Steel Season Two: a long, often arduous journey, but so, so worth it. I'm currently listening to The Battle at World's End, the Second Citadel finale, which is as many as six episodes, and I'm really enjoying it and wanting to squishhug many of the characters, especially that certain human-lizard-human trio.
With Wolf 359, I'm far enough in Season 4 to have entered the Shit-Hits-the-Fan phase, and am kind of scared to go on. The last episode I listened to was episode 55, and I both want to know what happens next and don't want to know, so I've been stuck here for a while. I'm so worried about so many characters.
So I've been listening to a lot of other stuff as well. I've talked about This Planet Needs a Name before, I think - it's a thoughtful, hopeful story about a small crew settling a new planet, meaning to prepare it for a larger group of humans who are in cryo-sleep until the planet is ready with them. It deals with some difficult topics like colonization and ethics of space settlement and ecology, as well as mental health and trauma, but it's also very sweet and lovely and hopeful. All the characters are queer in one way or another, it's very strong on found family, the characters are representative of many backgrounds and nationalities, the characters have been created in collaboration with their actors which is also so cool. It also has the loveliest, friendliest Discord server, which I recently joined, maintained by the creators. It currently has four full episodes out, plus a bunch of minisodes like the characters' job interviews, songs, stories, and even recipes. I've been listening to the new episodes as they aired pretty much since the show started, and I really love it. After listening to the recently released fourth episode, I started re-listening to the whole thing, and I've now re-listened up to the third episode.
I've recently found a whole lot of new shows I love. Directly via This Planet Needs a Name, because some of the same creators are involved, I found:
- Light Hearts, a super cute queer comedy show about a queer café/bar that has ghosts. It's very new and they've only got three full episodes out, but they're absolutely adorable episodes. The recent one even had a song! A totally adorable one, too.
- Hughes and Mincks, Ghost Detectives. A cute, silly comedy about two ghost detectives. The ghosts so far have been adorable.
- Also I've started on Seen and Not Heard, which is a podcast "about hearing loss and deaf gain" as it's described. It's only got a few short prologues out so far, and I haven't listened to all of them yet, but so far it's really good.
Shows I've found otherwise through recommendations:
- The Beacon, which I just binged in less than three weeks (it has two seasons and a bunch of minisodes). It's an urban fantasy podcast about college students who discover they've suddenly acquired magical powers, and try to navigate these powers and each other and, well, themselves. They've all got code names based on animals, and the main character, Bee, is an adorable queer ace anxious mess of a girl who tries to bring everyone together despite, and all the other characters are fabulous and adorable as well, and it's very queer.
- Phantomwise, which has just started and only has a few short episodes out, but I loooooove it. Basically when it was mentioned and I looked it up, I saw that it was based on Alice in Wonderland and the cast included Beth Crane (of We Fix Space Junk), and I didn't have to ask anything else, I went to look it up. It's got delightful dialogue and monologue and lots of alliteration, and it's basically about everything else except Alice's adventures (so far we've been hanging out with Alice's sister when Alice disappears, and Mary Ann a.k.a. Mock Alice who comes from Wonderland and ends up in Alice's place).
- Hit the Bricks, which was promoted in the outros of Phantomwise. The summary said "a musical radio play starring Michelle Agresti" and I basically didn't need to know anything else to check it out. Though also they're based on the Oz books. (Michelle Agresti appears in parts of Wolf 359 and, like several other members of the cast there, is one of the people I'd genuinely listen to recite a phone book.) It's really lovely and feel-good and the music is great, and though I'd probably get more out of it if it hadn't been almost 30 years since I read the Oz books, it's still really enjoyable.
- Solutions to Problems, a sci-fi comedy which is basically an advice radio show but in space, with aliens. One of the hosts is human and one is alien, and callers are from all over the galaxy, and it's hilarious and the host characters and their actors are so great. Really good if you need cheering up and enjoy sci-fi comedy.
One final note, We Fix Space Junk started it's Season Three recently, and it's been so much fun already! Definitely recommend checking out the new episodes.
I'm probably forgetting a few I've checked out recently, but it's so late I need to stop. (I got distracted playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp for a bit. Which has happened a lot, to be honest.)
Uh, I'll try to soon post content of other kinds, too!
Books
Since the last, I finished the utterly delightful Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee, which I was reading at the time. I absolutely loved it, and the ending surprised me and was very different from what I was hoping for but utterly wonderful. Much recommended! After that I read Spellswept, a prequel novelette to the Harwood Spellbook series by Stephanie Burgis, a very delightful historical fantasy romance with a black female lead, and younger versions of some characters from Snowspelled that I read first. And now very recently I've been reading The Edge of Worlds, the fourth book in Martha Wells' Raksura series, which is epic fantasy about this really awesome shapeshifter race. (If I were to say they're kind of like human/reptilian person/dragon shapeshifters, with complicated social structures and matriarchy, you'd have something like the right idea.) It's been so brilliant, and I finished it today. I hadn't realised/remembered this book is actually the first of a duology so it basically leaves off at a very tense point! I might have to borrow the next book immediately.
The Raksura books have awesome and fascinating worldbuilding, with one of the most interesting fantasy races I've ever come across, they're written excellently, and very importantly they have fabulous characters! And I just need to give a special shoutout to Chime, I love Chime so much. I love all the central characters, but the smart snarky sensitive best friend (( slight spoiler - relationships, not plot )) is so much my thing. And I could basically read endlessly about Moon, Jade and Chime being awesome. This book also occasionally went into the point of view of characters other than Moon, to show things going on in places where he wasn't, that was also very cool after seeing the world only through his POV for three books.
Anyway, that's my fannish book gushing of the week! Probably.
I've also read and finished some space non-fiction books, and I'm currently reading Randall Munroe's How To: Absurd Scientific Answers to Common Real-World Problems, which is just as delightful as expected (this is the creator of the xkcd webcomic), and a hilarious way to learn some science.
I had to return Dread Nation by Justina Ireland to the library without finishing it, but I've placed a new hold on it, so I'll be able to finish it when I get it again, I hope. It's amazing, but it's also a touch more violent than I'm comfortable with, so I didn't manage to progress very fast... For lighter reading, I've started A Princess in Theory by Alyssa Cole. It's a romance novel with Black characters, and the leading lady is a scientist, which is brilliant. But I'm not great at reading het romance, and entitled dudes who need a good woman's love to learn to not be entitled is so not a favourite trope of mine, so I haven't been progressing lately. Maybe I just need to skip straight to the f/f novella later in the series.
I don't yet know what I'll read next if it isn't the fifth Raksura book. It's probably that. Unless someone else borrows it before I get around to it.
Podcasts
Quite a bit in this realm! I mentioned earlier that I finished the Juno Steel Season 2 stories in the Penumbra Podcast, and it was amazing. Juno Steel Season Two: a long, often arduous journey, but so, so worth it. I'm currently listening to The Battle at World's End, the Second Citadel finale, which is as many as six episodes, and I'm really enjoying it and wanting to squishhug many of the characters, especially that certain human-lizard-human trio.
With Wolf 359, I'm far enough in Season 4 to have entered the Shit-Hits-the-Fan phase, and am kind of scared to go on. The last episode I listened to was episode 55, and I both want to know what happens next and don't want to know, so I've been stuck here for a while. I'm so worried about so many characters.
So I've been listening to a lot of other stuff as well. I've talked about This Planet Needs a Name before, I think - it's a thoughtful, hopeful story about a small crew settling a new planet, meaning to prepare it for a larger group of humans who are in cryo-sleep until the planet is ready with them. It deals with some difficult topics like colonization and ethics of space settlement and ecology, as well as mental health and trauma, but it's also very sweet and lovely and hopeful. All the characters are queer in one way or another, it's very strong on found family, the characters are representative of many backgrounds and nationalities, the characters have been created in collaboration with their actors which is also so cool. It also has the loveliest, friendliest Discord server, which I recently joined, maintained by the creators. It currently has four full episodes out, plus a bunch of minisodes like the characters' job interviews, songs, stories, and even recipes. I've been listening to the new episodes as they aired pretty much since the show started, and I really love it. After listening to the recently released fourth episode, I started re-listening to the whole thing, and I've now re-listened up to the third episode.
I've recently found a whole lot of new shows I love. Directly via This Planet Needs a Name, because some of the same creators are involved, I found:
- Light Hearts, a super cute queer comedy show about a queer café/bar that has ghosts. It's very new and they've only got three full episodes out, but they're absolutely adorable episodes. The recent one even had a song! A totally adorable one, too.
- Hughes and Mincks, Ghost Detectives. A cute, silly comedy about two ghost detectives. The ghosts so far have been adorable.
- Also I've started on Seen and Not Heard, which is a podcast "about hearing loss and deaf gain" as it's described. It's only got a few short prologues out so far, and I haven't listened to all of them yet, but so far it's really good.
Shows I've found otherwise through recommendations:
- The Beacon, which I just binged in less than three weeks (it has two seasons and a bunch of minisodes). It's an urban fantasy podcast about college students who discover they've suddenly acquired magical powers, and try to navigate these powers and each other and, well, themselves. They've all got code names based on animals, and the main character, Bee, is an adorable queer ace anxious mess of a girl who tries to bring everyone together despite, and all the other characters are fabulous and adorable as well, and it's very queer.
- Phantomwise, which has just started and only has a few short episodes out, but I loooooove it. Basically when it was mentioned and I looked it up, I saw that it was based on Alice in Wonderland and the cast included Beth Crane (of We Fix Space Junk), and I didn't have to ask anything else, I went to look it up. It's got delightful dialogue and monologue and lots of alliteration, and it's basically about everything else except Alice's adventures (so far we've been hanging out with Alice's sister when Alice disappears, and Mary Ann a.k.a. Mock Alice who comes from Wonderland and ends up in Alice's place).
- Hit the Bricks, which was promoted in the outros of Phantomwise. The summary said "a musical radio play starring Michelle Agresti" and I basically didn't need to know anything else to check it out. Though also they're based on the Oz books. (Michelle Agresti appears in parts of Wolf 359 and, like several other members of the cast there, is one of the people I'd genuinely listen to recite a phone book.) It's really lovely and feel-good and the music is great, and though I'd probably get more out of it if it hadn't been almost 30 years since I read the Oz books, it's still really enjoyable.
- Solutions to Problems, a sci-fi comedy which is basically an advice radio show but in space, with aliens. One of the hosts is human and one is alien, and callers are from all over the galaxy, and it's hilarious and the host characters and their actors are so great. Really good if you need cheering up and enjoy sci-fi comedy.
One final note, We Fix Space Junk started it's Season Three recently, and it's been so much fun already! Definitely recommend checking out the new episodes.
I'm probably forgetting a few I've checked out recently, but it's so late I need to stop. (I got distracted playing Animal Crossing Pocket Camp for a bit. Which has happened a lot, to be honest.)
Uh, I'll try to soon post content of other kinds, too!
Having podcast feelings.
Aug. 3rd, 2020 06:25 pmSurfacing to say that I just finished listening to the last Juno Steel story of the Season 2 of the Penumbra Podcast, ie. Juno Steel and the Soul of the People.
Pardon me. I am having an Emotion.
(Season Two: It's a long, arduous journey and there are some dark places on the way, but oh, it's so worth it.)
(Not quite finished with the entire Season Two at this point, as there's still a multi-part Second Citadel finale story left. Am very excited by that, once I have the stamina to get to it.)
Pardon me. I am having an Emotion.
(Season Two: It's a long, arduous journey and there are some dark places on the way, but oh, it's so worth it.)
(Not quite finished with the entire Season Two at this point, as there's still a multi-part Second Citadel finale story left. Am very excited by that, once I have the stamina to get to it.)
Recent culture roundup
Jul. 5th, 2020 09:43 pmHey, let's have a recent culture & media round-up since I've actually got stuff to report for, and I feel like posting something! It's also very rainy here, which feels like the appropriate mood for some cultural posting. I think I'll start calling these recent culture round-ups rather than "culture consumed" which stuck to me from some fannish podcast but doesn't really work for me.
Books
Very promisingly, it seems that my reading block might be lifting! Since I last posted about books, I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also read two novellas: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, which is nuns in space and living spaceships and other cool space biology stuff, as well as an f/f subplot, and it was good; and Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis, which is the first of her alternate historical fantasy of an England where men are mages and women rule politics, because that whole thing with Boudicca and the Romans went rather differently than it did in our universe. It was really enjoyable, a sweet bit of feel-good escapism that still wasn't too fluffy or insubstantial. I really look forward to reading the rest of the series, and the third novella is going to be an f/f romance. This one was m/f romance, but for once it was an m/f pair I totally adored and enjoyed! Yay!
Currently I'm reading Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl, which is middle-grade space opera science fantasy and it's totally, totally awesome. I'm not even finding it as easy as before to read middle-grade or YA books, but here it all totally works for me, while I'm sure it also works for younger readers and damn would I have liked to have something like this to read when I was a kid. If someone's curious to try Yoon Ha Lee's work but is scared to dip into the Machineries of Empire series for whatever reason, this could be a good one to try!
I've also started reading Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which is alternate history steampunk-ish historical-fantasy-horror with black girls being badass at killing zombies. I'm not great at reading about zombies without getting squeamish, so this is progressing more slowly than it deserves - the writing is great and the story super engaging. Anyway, this means I'm currently reading about two Very Bad Teenage Girls who it would be a horror to be in any way responsible for. I'm finding this very empowering.
Podcasts
In non-fiction podcasts, I continue to enjoy Exolore's exploration of fictional alien planets and the life that could develop on them. I have listened to other shows as well, but my mind's a bit of a sieve.
In fiction podcasts:
In The Penumbra Podcast, I finished Juno Steel and the Long Way Home (very exciting ending, and I cried a bit at a certain point, and I look forward to the next story but need to be in the right mindset for it) and I also listened to the Second Citadel Story The Spiral Sage, which was awesome. I in particular enjoyed Rilla's speech in the courtroom, hee. *squees a bit* Not saying more here because of spoilers - at some point I should do a proper spoiler-cut post just about the Penumbra. Anyway. This means I've only got two stories of each left before the end of S2 - it's actually in sight! Two Juno stories, each of them two episodes, and two Second Citadel stories, one of them two episodes and the other five (!) episodes, plus a one-episode special for the Second Citadel. Very exciting!
I've started listening to S4 of Wolf 359. Extremely exciting! I've listened the first three full episodes plus the minisode after the first episode. All very intense stuff. I was amused / surprised by Zach Valenti's intro to the season, though, because it turns out there's absolutely no difference between hyper-excited Eiffel and hyper-excited Zach Valenti, at least in how they speak. Heh.
I finished listening to the Far Meridian minisodes, and am now waiting for S3 with queer longing.
Other stuff
I've actually watched some things! I watched the recording of the Globe Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream that was available on YouTube for about a week after Midsummer. Then I also watched the National Theatre / Bridge Theatre version of the same. I of course had to watch both just before the time to watch them ran out because I'm like that. But anyway, I enjoyed them both, but found the NT/Bridge Theatre one particularly great, it really did something unique with the play and the characters, and I felt the changes they did worked, and made sense in the context of the production, which is more than you can say for many other reworked productions of classics, and they dealt really well with some aspects of the play that are... rather uncomfortable if you think about them. I was so excited by this experience I might actually get around to watching more of these theatre recordings online as they're available. We'll see! It would be nice. I used to be such a theatre nut, and it's been bothering me that I haven't been able to take advantage of all that's been offered online for free in the past months. Though I do wish I could afford to donate. Maybe later.
I'm wondering if I need to start including a section for gaming... Not that I've got a wide range of games I play, but this year I've started playing a few mobile phone games, mostly for distraction and comfort during stress and bad times. I've been playing too much Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp since I started it a couple of months ago, but it does make me feel good. Anyway, this week I learned about a game called June's Journey, where you play a 1920s lady who ends up having to investigate the suspicious deaths of her sister and brother-in-law. You alternate between solving mystery scenes by finding clues etc. and restoring and building up the fancy estate she's now in charge of. It's extremely pretty and atmospheric, the gameplay is really good and the balance between the different aspects works for me, and the main character looks very Miss Fisher-like, which makes me want to watch some Miss Fisher. I might do some of that next. I'm also mostly managing not to call her Juno instead of June, which I think is very good of me.
Books
Very promisingly, it seems that my reading block might be lifting! Since I last posted about books, I finished The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also read two novellas: Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, which is nuns in space and living spaceships and other cool space biology stuff, as well as an f/f subplot, and it was good; and Snowspelled by Stephanie Burgis, which is the first of her alternate historical fantasy of an England where men are mages and women rule politics, because that whole thing with Boudicca and the Romans went rather differently than it did in our universe. It was really enjoyable, a sweet bit of feel-good escapism that still wasn't too fluffy or insubstantial. I really look forward to reading the rest of the series, and the third novella is going to be an f/f romance. This one was m/f romance, but for once it was an m/f pair I totally adored and enjoyed! Yay!
Currently I'm reading Yoon Ha Lee's Dragon Pearl, which is middle-grade space opera science fantasy and it's totally, totally awesome. I'm not even finding it as easy as before to read middle-grade or YA books, but here it all totally works for me, while I'm sure it also works for younger readers and damn would I have liked to have something like this to read when I was a kid. If someone's curious to try Yoon Ha Lee's work but is scared to dip into the Machineries of Empire series for whatever reason, this could be a good one to try!
I've also started reading Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which is alternate history steampunk-ish historical-fantasy-horror with black girls being badass at killing zombies. I'm not great at reading about zombies without getting squeamish, so this is progressing more slowly than it deserves - the writing is great and the story super engaging. Anyway, this means I'm currently reading about two Very Bad Teenage Girls who it would be a horror to be in any way responsible for. I'm finding this very empowering.
Podcasts
In non-fiction podcasts, I continue to enjoy Exolore's exploration of fictional alien planets and the life that could develop on them. I have listened to other shows as well, but my mind's a bit of a sieve.
In fiction podcasts:
In The Penumbra Podcast, I finished Juno Steel and the Long Way Home (very exciting ending, and I cried a bit at a certain point, and I look forward to the next story but need to be in the right mindset for it) and I also listened to the Second Citadel Story The Spiral Sage, which was awesome. I in particular enjoyed Rilla's speech in the courtroom, hee. *squees a bit* Not saying more here because of spoilers - at some point I should do a proper spoiler-cut post just about the Penumbra. Anyway. This means I've only got two stories of each left before the end of S2 - it's actually in sight! Two Juno stories, each of them two episodes, and two Second Citadel stories, one of them two episodes and the other five (!) episodes, plus a one-episode special for the Second Citadel. Very exciting!
I've started listening to S4 of Wolf 359. Extremely exciting! I've listened the first three full episodes plus the minisode after the first episode. All very intense stuff. I was amused / surprised by Zach Valenti's intro to the season, though, because it turns out there's absolutely no difference between hyper-excited Eiffel and hyper-excited Zach Valenti, at least in how they speak. Heh.
I finished listening to the Far Meridian minisodes, and am now waiting for S3 with queer longing.
Other stuff
I've actually watched some things! I watched the recording of the Globe Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream that was available on YouTube for about a week after Midsummer. Then I also watched the National Theatre / Bridge Theatre version of the same. I of course had to watch both just before the time to watch them ran out because I'm like that. But anyway, I enjoyed them both, but found the NT/Bridge Theatre one particularly great, it really did something unique with the play and the characters, and I felt the changes they did worked, and made sense in the context of the production, which is more than you can say for many other reworked productions of classics, and they dealt really well with some aspects of the play that are... rather uncomfortable if you think about them. I was so excited by this experience I might actually get around to watching more of these theatre recordings online as they're available. We'll see! It would be nice. I used to be such a theatre nut, and it's been bothering me that I haven't been able to take advantage of all that's been offered online for free in the past months. Though I do wish I could afford to donate. Maybe later.
I'm wondering if I need to start including a section for gaming... Not that I've got a wide range of games I play, but this year I've started playing a few mobile phone games, mostly for distraction and comfort during stress and bad times. I've been playing too much Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp since I started it a couple of months ago, but it does make me feel good. Anyway, this week I learned about a game called June's Journey, where you play a 1920s lady who ends up having to investigate the suspicious deaths of her sister and brother-in-law. You alternate between solving mystery scenes by finding clues etc. and restoring and building up the fancy estate she's now in charge of. It's extremely pretty and atmospheric, the gameplay is really good and the balance between the different aspects works for me, and the main character looks very Miss Fisher-like, which makes me want to watch some Miss Fisher. I might do some of that next. I'm also mostly managing not to call her Juno instead of June, which I think is very good of me.
Recent culture roundup
Jun. 19th, 2020 11:55 pmOh, hello, hello. I am still around, and healthy and well and all, I'm just kind of bad at getting around to doing things, so this journal has suffered as a result. I've thought about posting on many days, but turns out just thinking about it doesn't make it happen!
But here, let's have that my recent culture round-up (maybe I need to call it that instead of "culture consumed". The latter sounds so... consumer-like).
Books
I'm still slower at reading than usual, brain just doesn't have the usual energy to focus on reading so I to read in much smaller chunks, and so books are getting read slower. But at least I can read and enjoy it, so that's good. I finished the reread of my beloved This Is How You Lose the Time War. It's one of those books that I only love more, the more I read it, and keep discovering new layers as I read it again.
I'm currently reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, and I've liked it quite a bit. Beautifully written, and I really like the concept of doors between different universes, and the role stories, storytelling and writing play in this. Though I will say this is not maybe the best time ever to be reading a book about a woman of colour written by a white woman (January is mixed-race). But at least I really like the fact that her problems are not primarily because of the colour of her skin, though oppression and racism play into her experience of the world and why some things go the way they do - it's all very much present in the story. As a white person from an overwhelming-majority-white country, I'm not qualified to say how well the book does by race. So far it hasn't raised major red flags for me, but obviously my perspective is limited.
I've also been reading some nonfiction - still continue to mainly get my dose of my own language in writing by reading nonfiction books written in or translated into Finnish. I've recently started a book on astrobiology, and I've been inspired to pick up again the book I was reading earlier in the year about how weather and climate have affected human history, which is really interesting.
I keep trying to write something about Black Lives Matter, but it's hard, because it's so easy to get into topics that my mental health doesn't like. But suffice it to say: while I've been intentionally diversifying my reading for some years, and have only had excellent results - so many great books and authors I've discovered, such a richer world of cultures, thoughts, histories etc. - I've realized now I still don't read enough by Black authors. It's probably partly because they're not promoted as much, and partly because they're often about really painful and traumatic topics, because that's what publishers will publish from Black writers. Plus goodness knows what internalized racism I've picked up from living in a white society with plenty of racism even if it often isn't acknowledged. So I've been going through the book rec lists that have been coming out / linked to lately, looking for books that look like they'd be my mind of thing to read, and placing them on hold in the library or, so far in one case, making a successful request for the library to buy the book so I can then borrow it. Hopefully I'll find some gems as I get to reading these.
Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which has been on my TBR for ages anyway, has just arrived to me at the library, so I hope to pick it up soon! It also fits my plan of reading as much queer stuff as I manage during June, since no offline Pride stuff is happening. (My city postponed the Pride Week until September, hoping that big events can happen then. Otherwise next week would have been Pride Week. It's really hot here now, though - at least for my poor heat tolerance - so honestly I don't even mind that it's only in September.. Hopefully it works out then.)
I haven't got much money to buy books myself, but at some point I'm going to pull together enough scraps of money to buy P. Djèlí Clark's novellas, because they're amazing. If you want a book rec from me for amazing books written by Black authors, I highly recommend his alternate history fantasy/steampunk stories, they're some of the best stuff I've read. And somewhere I saw the Tor.com folks say he's going to have a full-length novel coming out next year set in the alternate history Cairo that's depicted in A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. I can't wait!
Podcasts
Uh, where was I the last time I did this? Let's see the main things:
The Penumbra Podcast: I've listened to The Sportive Nymphs and started on Juno Steel and the Long Way Home... Which means that, incredibly, I'm getting closer to the end of S2. Still quite a few episodes to go, what with the last Second Citadel story of the season being something like 5 or 6 episodes, but not many stories left! Of course there's already plenty of S3 to go before I'm anywhere near caught up - at the moment I'm something like 1 3/4 years behind.
I finished re-listening to The Far Meridian, and have now progressed to the minisodes that have been published lately. The show makes me feel happy and seen with all its complicated human emotions and very-slow-burn queer female longing and connection. Also on a re-listen you notice so many things that you didn't notice the first time around because then you didn't know what would be significant later.
I'm starting to dive back into Wolf359, and finished listening to the very long special episode, Change of Mind, which is past!Lovelace and I loved it very much. (I continue to have a massive crush on her.) It connected interestingly to the end of S3/what will probably be the beginning of S4. So I'll get to S4 at some point soon, if I dare...
I've been trying out some new fiction podcasts; so far I've made the most progress with Under the Electric Stars, which is a cyberpunk drama by and with queer people and people of colour (and queer people of colour - I have the impression most are both, at least character-wise) and I really like it so far. Another story I've started listening to is Valence - it's an urban fantasy thingie and it has Ishani Kanetkar (Arkady on The Strange Case of the Starship Iris) on it which was honestly all I needed to want to check it out (plus, Jordan Cobb who's Kathy on Among the Stars and Bones!), but also all the others are really good and the story seems really interesting. Contains honest treatment of mental health stuff, I'm kind of having to take it slowly because the main character's negative inner voice is rather effective at times. But it's good!
In terms of nonfiction podcasts, I found Exolore on
st_aurafina's recommendation, it's about worldbuilding science fiction planets based on all the sciences the host and the guests can possibly bring into a single podcast, and it's just what I needed. And connected to the topic I mentioned earlier, Heather Rose Jones's Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast just did an episode on f/f historical fiction by Black authors with at least one Black protagonist. There's a transcript on the page I just linked to, so check it out if you don't feel like listening, and get some book recs that way.
Other culture
I'm super slow at watching any TV series, but I'm halfway through Gentleman Jack now, so yay? I really need to just turn off my subscription, though, either try to speed through the rest of the series before my current month runs out, or just buy it, it'll be cheaper. I'm still liking it lots, I don't know why it so hard to focus.
And last night was Midsummer's Eve, which is kind of a big deal in Finland, and I had exactly zero plans beyond food, so I watched some of the Finnish National Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream ballet online. I find it a lot easier to focus on ballet than on TV shows, so maybe I should just switch to ballet. Should check out how opera works for me at the moment.
Museums have opened here, so I hope to get around to visiting one soon.
But here, let's have that my recent culture round-up (maybe I need to call it that instead of "culture consumed". The latter sounds so... consumer-like).
Books
I'm still slower at reading than usual, brain just doesn't have the usual energy to focus on reading so I to read in much smaller chunks, and so books are getting read slower. But at least I can read and enjoy it, so that's good. I finished the reread of my beloved This Is How You Lose the Time War. It's one of those books that I only love more, the more I read it, and keep discovering new layers as I read it again.
I'm currently reading The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow, and I've liked it quite a bit. Beautifully written, and I really like the concept of doors between different universes, and the role stories, storytelling and writing play in this. Though I will say this is not maybe the best time ever to be reading a book about a woman of colour written by a white woman (January is mixed-race). But at least I really like the fact that her problems are not primarily because of the colour of her skin, though oppression and racism play into her experience of the world and why some things go the way they do - it's all very much present in the story. As a white person from an overwhelming-majority-white country, I'm not qualified to say how well the book does by race. So far it hasn't raised major red flags for me, but obviously my perspective is limited.
I've also been reading some nonfiction - still continue to mainly get my dose of my own language in writing by reading nonfiction books written in or translated into Finnish. I've recently started a book on astrobiology, and I've been inspired to pick up again the book I was reading earlier in the year about how weather and climate have affected human history, which is really interesting.
I keep trying to write something about Black Lives Matter, but it's hard, because it's so easy to get into topics that my mental health doesn't like. But suffice it to say: while I've been intentionally diversifying my reading for some years, and have only had excellent results - so many great books and authors I've discovered, such a richer world of cultures, thoughts, histories etc. - I've realized now I still don't read enough by Black authors. It's probably partly because they're not promoted as much, and partly because they're often about really painful and traumatic topics, because that's what publishers will publish from Black writers. Plus goodness knows what internalized racism I've picked up from living in a white society with plenty of racism even if it often isn't acknowledged. So I've been going through the book rec lists that have been coming out / linked to lately, looking for books that look like they'd be my mind of thing to read, and placing them on hold in the library or, so far in one case, making a successful request for the library to buy the book so I can then borrow it. Hopefully I'll find some gems as I get to reading these.
Justina Ireland's Dread Nation, which has been on my TBR for ages anyway, has just arrived to me at the library, so I hope to pick it up soon! It also fits my plan of reading as much queer stuff as I manage during June, since no offline Pride stuff is happening. (My city postponed the Pride Week until September, hoping that big events can happen then. Otherwise next week would have been Pride Week. It's really hot here now, though - at least for my poor heat tolerance - so honestly I don't even mind that it's only in September.. Hopefully it works out then.)
I haven't got much money to buy books myself, but at some point I'm going to pull together enough scraps of money to buy P. Djèlí Clark's novellas, because they're amazing. If you want a book rec from me for amazing books written by Black authors, I highly recommend his alternate history fantasy/steampunk stories, they're some of the best stuff I've read. And somewhere I saw the Tor.com folks say he's going to have a full-length novel coming out next year set in the alternate history Cairo that's depicted in A Dead Djinn in Cairo and The Haunting of Tram Car 015. I can't wait!
Podcasts
Uh, where was I the last time I did this? Let's see the main things:
The Penumbra Podcast: I've listened to The Sportive Nymphs and started on Juno Steel and the Long Way Home... Which means that, incredibly, I'm getting closer to the end of S2. Still quite a few episodes to go, what with the last Second Citadel story of the season being something like 5 or 6 episodes, but not many stories left! Of course there's already plenty of S3 to go before I'm anywhere near caught up - at the moment I'm something like 1 3/4 years behind.
I finished re-listening to The Far Meridian, and have now progressed to the minisodes that have been published lately. The show makes me feel happy and seen with all its complicated human emotions and very-slow-burn queer female longing and connection. Also on a re-listen you notice so many things that you didn't notice the first time around because then you didn't know what would be significant later.
I'm starting to dive back into Wolf359, and finished listening to the very long special episode, Change of Mind, which is past!Lovelace and I loved it very much. (I continue to have a massive crush on her.) It connected interestingly to the end of S3/what will probably be the beginning of S4. So I'll get to S4 at some point soon, if I dare...
I've been trying out some new fiction podcasts; so far I've made the most progress with Under the Electric Stars, which is a cyberpunk drama by and with queer people and people of colour (and queer people of colour - I have the impression most are both, at least character-wise) and I really like it so far. Another story I've started listening to is Valence - it's an urban fantasy thingie and it has Ishani Kanetkar (Arkady on The Strange Case of the Starship Iris) on it which was honestly all I needed to want to check it out (plus, Jordan Cobb who's Kathy on Among the Stars and Bones!), but also all the others are really good and the story seems really interesting. Contains honest treatment of mental health stuff, I'm kind of having to take it slowly because the main character's negative inner voice is rather effective at times. But it's good!
In terms of nonfiction podcasts, I found Exolore on
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Other culture
I'm super slow at watching any TV series, but I'm halfway through Gentleman Jack now, so yay? I really need to just turn off my subscription, though, either try to speed through the rest of the series before my current month runs out, or just buy it, it'll be cheaper. I'm still liking it lots, I don't know why it so hard to focus.
And last night was Midsummer's Eve, which is kind of a big deal in Finland, and I had exactly zero plans beyond food, so I watched some of the Finnish National Ballet's A Midsummer Night's Dream ballet online. I find it a lot easier to focus on ballet than on TV shows, so maybe I should just switch to ballet. Should check out how opera works for me at the moment.
Museums have opened here, so I hope to get around to visiting one soon.
Culture consumed
Jun. 3rd, 2020 10:08 pmThe world is being scary in lots of ways, and I'm not the right person or in the right state of mind to talk about it, I'm just going to talk about the recent culture I've consumed/enjoyed/whatever is the right word. Look, I'm actually managing this on a Reading Wednesday! I don't manage that often.
Books
I am reading, even if not as much as I used to, back in the old days. But since my last post like this, I've finished the Finnish space book I was reading, and I read the first book of K.J. Charles's A Charm of Magpies series, The Magpie Lord. I found it mostly a delightful gay historical fantasy romp with interesting characters and lots of sex in various English settings; though at times a touch too violent for my liking, and the relationship & sex dynamics in this one aren't the kind I often go for. But it was good and interesting, and a light enough read to manage with my quarantine brain in a reasonable amount of time, and I do want to continue reading the series.
I also finished a volume of translated Chinese poetry from more than a millennium ago, which I much loved, and which I've been reading for a long time.
I continue to read and enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree; I'm nearly 90 % through it, so it shouldn't take terribly long, it's just the quarantine brain that makes it slow. I'm also rereading This is How You Lose the Time War, because I want to, and rereads of a favourite and hopeful and beautiful f/f book are probably one of the best things for quarantine brain and anxiety brain.
I'm planning to DNF and return to library a bunch of books that, let's face it, I don't want to read enough to actually finish them. I don't know why I've had weird guilt about not-finishing books lately, I'm usually pretty merciless at that - life is too short to waste on books you don't like. Seriously this is not a time to feel obligated to read anything that isn't working for me, regardless of how many prizes it won or how much I liked the author's previous book or how many months I've already had it from the library or even how I really should read more from non-English-speaking parts of the world. Also, a lot of these books were started/borrowed/placed on hold before the pandemic, and we all know that was about 72 years ago at least, so ugh, who cares. I've got books around I actually want to read.
(I do wish people from my country were slightly better at writing books I want to finish, though. Non-fiction still seems to go all right, though, and sometimes poetry works.)
Podcasts
I've somehow calmed down in my "only consume podcasts" frenzy of the early isolation days. But I finished my re-listen of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, and aaah I love it so much, even more the second time around, and I have so many feelings and thoughts about the characters, and especially this time around I was hit by Massive McCabe Feels. And generally Agent Feels but especially McCabe feels. I want to write fanfic about this show. (Let me know if you're a native English speaker who'd like to beta such fanfic, if I get it written. Though I generally need to do a beta call for "hey who can help me with all these tiny fandoms I seem to have picked up".)
In other podcast-listening news, on the Penumbra Podcast I finished Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection, which was not an easy story, but damn it was significant and damn it was good. I also cried my eyes out after finishing it because just so many feelings, how dare they, it was good.
I finished re-listening to Midnight Radio, and I've continued re-listening to S2 of The Far Meridian. It's got a few recent bonus minisodes released, but I figure I'll finish my re-listen first and then listen to them so it goes in sequence. Mind you, it's trying my patience a bit to keep seeing them on my podcast feed!
I've been trying to slowly check out some new shows, but it's really hard to focus on anything new, anything that isn't either continuing an existing favourite or re-listening to something I've already heard. I also might need to stop my subscriptions to short-story podcasts because I can't seem to listen to any of those. Except for Toasted Cake, it's apparently short enough (it's delightful SFF flash fiction, for those who don't know it).
Other
Hmm, I really shouldn't subscribe to streaming TV because I'm still making my way through Gentleman Jack though I really like it. I'm, uh, almost halfway through (for reference, it's 8 episodes long), but then it turned out I wasn't in the right mindset for working conditions of 19th century English coal mines. Hmm, I also managed to somewhat make use of all the free arts and entertainment online, by watching the first act of Swan Lake by English National Ballet, but then I failed to continue to the rest of the ballet before it went offline. Still, it was beautiful! Maybe I'll manage to catch some other ballet and actually watch all of it. It could be relaxing!
Some things are opening up in my country, so there exists a chance I might go to visit an actual physical museum at some point.
Books
I am reading, even if not as much as I used to, back in the old days. But since my last post like this, I've finished the Finnish space book I was reading, and I read the first book of K.J. Charles's A Charm of Magpies series, The Magpie Lord. I found it mostly a delightful gay historical fantasy romp with interesting characters and lots of sex in various English settings; though at times a touch too violent for my liking, and the relationship & sex dynamics in this one aren't the kind I often go for. But it was good and interesting, and a light enough read to manage with my quarantine brain in a reasonable amount of time, and I do want to continue reading the series.
I also finished a volume of translated Chinese poetry from more than a millennium ago, which I much loved, and which I've been reading for a long time.
I continue to read and enjoy The Priory of the Orange Tree; I'm nearly 90 % through it, so it shouldn't take terribly long, it's just the quarantine brain that makes it slow. I'm also rereading This is How You Lose the Time War, because I want to, and rereads of a favourite and hopeful and beautiful f/f book are probably one of the best things for quarantine brain and anxiety brain.
I'm planning to DNF and return to library a bunch of books that, let's face it, I don't want to read enough to actually finish them. I don't know why I've had weird guilt about not-finishing books lately, I'm usually pretty merciless at that - life is too short to waste on books you don't like. Seriously this is not a time to feel obligated to read anything that isn't working for me, regardless of how many prizes it won or how much I liked the author's previous book or how many months I've already had it from the library or even how I really should read more from non-English-speaking parts of the world. Also, a lot of these books were started/borrowed/placed on hold before the pandemic, and we all know that was about 72 years ago at least, so ugh, who cares. I've got books around I actually want to read.
(I do wish people from my country were slightly better at writing books I want to finish, though. Non-fiction still seems to go all right, though, and sometimes poetry works.)
Podcasts
I've somehow calmed down in my "only consume podcasts" frenzy of the early isolation days. But I finished my re-listen of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris, and aaah I love it so much, even more the second time around, and I have so many feelings and thoughts about the characters, and especially this time around I was hit by Massive McCabe Feels. And generally Agent Feels but especially McCabe feels. I want to write fanfic about this show. (Let me know if you're a native English speaker who'd like to beta such fanfic, if I get it written. Though I generally need to do a beta call for "hey who can help me with all these tiny fandoms I seem to have picked up".)
In other podcast-listening news, on the Penumbra Podcast I finished Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection, which was not an easy story, but damn it was significant and damn it was good. I also cried my eyes out after finishing it because just so many feelings, how dare they, it was good.
I finished re-listening to Midnight Radio, and I've continued re-listening to S2 of The Far Meridian. It's got a few recent bonus minisodes released, but I figure I'll finish my re-listen first and then listen to them so it goes in sequence. Mind you, it's trying my patience a bit to keep seeing them on my podcast feed!
I've been trying to slowly check out some new shows, but it's really hard to focus on anything new, anything that isn't either continuing an existing favourite or re-listening to something I've already heard. I also might need to stop my subscriptions to short-story podcasts because I can't seem to listen to any of those. Except for Toasted Cake, it's apparently short enough (it's delightful SFF flash fiction, for those who don't know it).
Other
Hmm, I really shouldn't subscribe to streaming TV because I'm still making my way through Gentleman Jack though I really like it. I'm, uh, almost halfway through (for reference, it's 8 episodes long), but then it turned out I wasn't in the right mindset for working conditions of 19th century English coal mines. Hmm, I also managed to somewhat make use of all the free arts and entertainment online, by watching the first act of Swan Lake by English National Ballet, but then I failed to continue to the rest of the ballet before it went offline. Still, it was beautiful! Maybe I'll manage to catch some other ballet and actually watch all of it. It could be relaxing!
Some things are opening up in my country, so there exists a chance I might go to visit an actual physical museum at some point.
Cotton Candy Bingo card(s)
Jun. 2nd, 2020 11:01 pmI'm bravely going for another bingo card, despite not having managed to finish any stories for any of the ones I've got, because
allbingo has the Cotton Candy Bingo theme this month, and I could use some fluff prompts. Maybe some of you could, too, so check out the challenge in the community if you like! You can either generate your own card or use one of the cards provided at the community. I actually ended up generating two, because I'm not sure which one I'm more likely to finish...
( Cards under the cut )
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( Cards under the cut )
Culture consumed
May. 6th, 2020 06:46 pmA note: sorry I'm taking quite a while replying to all the character meme prompts - I will get to them! Just turns out I'm a bit slow at doing it, and lately I've had a lot of RL things going on. Not in a bad way, just in the "have a lot to do" kind of way.
But let's try to do the culture consumed thingie now! On a Wednesday, too, so it sort of replaces the Reading Wednesday thing which I almost never managed to do on Wednesdays anyway!
Books
Good news - I'm starting to be able to read again! Still slower than I'm used to - or rather, for shorter periods of time, which makes my speed slower overall - but it's not a hardship and doesn't make me tense like mad and I'm able to enjoy it and even lose myself into it for bits of time! This is such a relief, though I still feel vague sense of inferiority when I see other people speed through tons of books or rejoice about the prospect of libraries reopening (I've finished only a few out of the literally dozens of books I have checked out from the library). I know it makes no sense whatsoever to feel bad about it, we all deal with stress and upheaval in different ways, but reading's been tied to my identity and sense of self for so long that this is seriously weird.
I haven't finished anything new yet since the last post, but that's partly because most of my reading time has gone to The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, which is a 700-800-900 page brick of a book depending on the edition. (I have it on e-book, which makes it less literally heavy reading.) I've been really loving it. It took me some time to get properly into it - it really got me rolling some time after the 30 % mark - but I don't know if that has anything to do with the book itself or if it's only because I was trying to read too many books with return-by deadlines at the same time, and then my reading crisis started.
But anyway, I'm really loving this chance to read a sweeping epic fantasy that's really female-centric and also super queer. And I just read a positively swoon-worthy chapter...
I'm also reading the Finnish YA fantasy book I probably mentioned in my last post. It's been going okay, though I feel like I'm not in as much of a YA reading mindset as I used to be. Enjoying the chance to read well-written fiction in my own language, though. I've also been reading some non-fiction about space, For Reasons.
Podcasts
In drama podcasts, the most attention-consuming has been Wolf 359. I first finished listening to the mid-S3 minisodes - one of which gave me a terrible trash ship, meep. Then I went rather quickly through the second half of S3, which was hella intense and, at certain points, devastating. And of course once again ended on a note that makes me want to know WTF is going on, but I am going to need a breather before I proceed to the fourth (and final) season. But I'm pretty solidly a fan of the show by now, even if it sometimes likes trampling on the pieces of my tiny fragile heart.
On more comforting note, I've sped through my re-listen of S1 of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris. Am in the middle of listening to episode 7. I've been re-listening to the Far Meridian more slowly, because this part (early S2) is pretty intense stuff emotionally. On the first time around I went through the first half of S2 really quickly because I needed to see if Peri got reunited with (*SPOILER REDACTED*) but now that I know what's going to happen anyway, I've been taking the time with the relationships she's going going on in this point.
With the Penumbra Podcast, I've started on Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection, but it's not the lightest of episodes, so I'm taking care not to go through it too fast. Really intense and good so far, though.
In non-fiction podcasts, my steady weekly ones continue:
hrj's Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast, Astronomy Cast by Fraser Cain and Dr. Pamela Gay, and whichever of Be the Serpent or Worldbuilding for Masochists is releasing each week. Though I haven't yet listened to this week's Be the Serpent, because I'm currently, excitingly, Actually Not At Home. Saving it for when I am and need to listen to chatter by familiar-sounding people. I've also enjoyed the recent episodes of a Finnish musical theatre podcast I listen to; because theatres are closed for this spring, the hosts decided to spread cheer by asking listeners to send in good things they want to say to people involved in theatre/musicals, whether it's actors, directors, translators, costume and set designers, other fans, etc. And a selection of those things have been read out loud on the show, and it's been super nice and feel-good.
Also, though I've otherwise had to stay away from Doctor Who podcasts for Complicated Feelings About the Finale reasons, I listened to the recent Verity! episode about Doctor Who quarantine houses, and that was very fun and cheerful.
TV & Other media
I've continued watching Gentleman Jack and enjoying it. Though I'm awfully slow - one of the reasons I don't often pay for streaming services. It's generally cheaper for me to buy a DVD, but an occasional streaming service for a bit helps me check out new shows. I haven't yet got back to watching His Dark Materials, because I'm not sure how well I'll handle the darkness, but I do want to continue at some point.
I feel kinda bad sometimes that despite the outpouring of free streamings of culture content that has been coming from everywhere, I've barely been able to get myself to watch any of them, other than a couple of brief impro livestreams involving an actor I like. But recently I managed to listen to most of the Finnish National Opera's Great Choir Gala that became available on their video service on the eve of the May Day (I stopped when they reached depressing Finnish opera choir songs - other operas may also have depressing songs, but I understand the Finnish lyrics better even when operatically sung...). And I watched the first act of Mozart - l'Opéra Rock, a French musical about Mozart, which I've seen once before but now have my own copy of the DVD. I meant to watch the whole thing, but started too late and haven't yet got around to continuing. It's very glittery and fabulous, and when I'm done watching I'll have to try to do a fandom promo thing on
historium because I've been way too inactive there lately and people should know about this.
But let's try to do the culture consumed thingie now! On a Wednesday, too, so it sort of replaces the Reading Wednesday thing which I almost never managed to do on Wednesdays anyway!
Books
Good news - I'm starting to be able to read again! Still slower than I'm used to - or rather, for shorter periods of time, which makes my speed slower overall - but it's not a hardship and doesn't make me tense like mad and I'm able to enjoy it and even lose myself into it for bits of time! This is such a relief, though I still feel vague sense of inferiority when I see other people speed through tons of books or rejoice about the prospect of libraries reopening (I've finished only a few out of the literally dozens of books I have checked out from the library). I know it makes no sense whatsoever to feel bad about it, we all deal with stress and upheaval in different ways, but reading's been tied to my identity and sense of self for so long that this is seriously weird.
I haven't finished anything new yet since the last post, but that's partly because most of my reading time has gone to The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon, which is a 700-800-900 page brick of a book depending on the edition. (I have it on e-book, which makes it less literally heavy reading.) I've been really loving it. It took me some time to get properly into it - it really got me rolling some time after the 30 % mark - but I don't know if that has anything to do with the book itself or if it's only because I was trying to read too many books with return-by deadlines at the same time, and then my reading crisis started.
But anyway, I'm really loving this chance to read a sweeping epic fantasy that's really female-centric and also super queer. And I just read a positively swoon-worthy chapter...
I'm also reading the Finnish YA fantasy book I probably mentioned in my last post. It's been going okay, though I feel like I'm not in as much of a YA reading mindset as I used to be. Enjoying the chance to read well-written fiction in my own language, though. I've also been reading some non-fiction about space, For Reasons.
Podcasts
In drama podcasts, the most attention-consuming has been Wolf 359. I first finished listening to the mid-S3 minisodes - one of which gave me a terrible trash ship, meep. Then I went rather quickly through the second half of S3, which was hella intense and, at certain points, devastating. And of course once again ended on a note that makes me want to know WTF is going on, but I am going to need a breather before I proceed to the fourth (and final) season. But I'm pretty solidly a fan of the show by now, even if it sometimes likes trampling on the pieces of my tiny fragile heart.
On more comforting note, I've sped through my re-listen of S1 of The Strange Case of the Starship Iris. Am in the middle of listening to episode 7. I've been re-listening to the Far Meridian more slowly, because this part (early S2) is pretty intense stuff emotionally. On the first time around I went through the first half of S2 really quickly because I needed to see if Peri got reunited with (*SPOILER REDACTED*) but now that I know what's going to happen anyway, I've been taking the time with the relationships she's going going on in this point.
With the Penumbra Podcast, I've started on Juno Steel and the Monster's Reflection, but it's not the lightest of episodes, so I'm taking care not to go through it too fast. Really intense and good so far, though.
In non-fiction podcasts, my steady weekly ones continue:
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Also, though I've otherwise had to stay away from Doctor Who podcasts for Complicated Feelings About the Finale reasons, I listened to the recent Verity! episode about Doctor Who quarantine houses, and that was very fun and cheerful.
TV & Other media
I've continued watching Gentleman Jack and enjoying it. Though I'm awfully slow - one of the reasons I don't often pay for streaming services. It's generally cheaper for me to buy a DVD, but an occasional streaming service for a bit helps me check out new shows. I haven't yet got back to watching His Dark Materials, because I'm not sure how well I'll handle the darkness, but I do want to continue at some point.
I feel kinda bad sometimes that despite the outpouring of free streamings of culture content that has been coming from everywhere, I've barely been able to get myself to watch any of them, other than a couple of brief impro livestreams involving an actor I like. But recently I managed to listen to most of the Finnish National Opera's Great Choir Gala that became available on their video service on the eve of the May Day (I stopped when they reached depressing Finnish opera choir songs - other operas may also have depressing songs, but I understand the Finnish lyrics better even when operatically sung...). And I watched the first act of Mozart - l'Opéra Rock, a French musical about Mozart, which I've seen once before but now have my own copy of the DVD. I meant to watch the whole thing, but started too late and haven't yet got around to continuing. It's very glittery and fabulous, and when I'm done watching I'll have to try to do a fandom promo thing on
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