tassosss: Shen Wei Zhao Yunlan Era (Default)
tassosss ([personal profile] tassosss) wrote2025-10-03 07:42 am
Entry tags:

Six years late to The Expanse show

 On the life front, I'm furloughed but so far still employed. Can't say I mind that much tbh. It's been an awful year and I needed the break.

***

I leant my niece Leviathan Wakes a couple weeks ago, and she texted me two days later "do you have the next book?" So I leant her the next three books. Then she's on her own with getting them from the library. I checked out the audiobook and relistened to LW too, and I forgot how much I really love these.

Now when I first read The Expanse it was a few months before the show started. I read books 1-3 with watching the show in mind, but then as so often happens, it was a long enough break that I didn't end up watching the show. I also took a break before reading book 4 (I don't think 5 was out at the time, or it was coming out soon, or something?), and didn't get to book 4. This is a very common pattern for me with in progress series. 

Anyway. My reread of Leviathan Wakes got me all excited again and reminded me how good they are and how much they've shaped how I think about modern sci-fi. So I'm waiting on Calaban's War on audio from the library (because my niece has our hardback copy) and after I got home from my orderly shutdown on Wednesday, I binged the first season of the show.

The show does such a good job! I'm really enjoying it! The vision of the world and bringing it to life is so cool. I'm really glad they brought in Avasarala in the first season because she is one of my favorite characters, and it really adds to the depth of the story from the beginning. 

***

While I wait for Calaban's War, I got Jade City from the library too. Jumping in the deep end on that one too. I'm only a few chapters in and it's good so far.

rmc28: (reading)
Rachel Coleman ([personal profile] rmc28) wrote2025-10-03 08:00 am

To-read pile, 2025, September

Books on pre-order:

  1. Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)
  2. Platform Decay (Murderbot 8) by Martha Wells (5 May 2025)

Books acquired in September:

  • and read:
    1. The Rose & The Dagger (Wrath and the Dawn 2) by Renée Ahdieh
    2. Breakaway (Portland Storm 1) by Catherine Gayle
    3. The Claiming of the Shrew (Fated Mountain Lodge) by Lauren Esker
  • and unread:
    1. The Element of Fire by Martha Wells
    2. The Death of the Necromancer by Martha Wells
    3. City of Bones by Martha Wells
    4. Emilie and the Hollow World by Martha Wells
    5. Emilie and the Sky World by Martha Wells
    6. Wheel of the Infinite by Martha Wells
    7. Surviving the Storms - RNLI [3]

Books acquired previously and read in September:

  1. The Wrath & The Dawn by Renée Ahdieh [3][May]
  2. Kidnap on the California Comet by M.G. Leonard & Sam Sedgman [3][May][DNF]
  3. Betrayal (Trinity 1) by Fiona McIntosh [3][May][DNF]

Rereads in September:

  1. Slippery Creatures (Will Darling Adventures 1) by KJ Charles
  2. The Sugared Game (Will Darling Adventures 2) by KJ Charles
  3. Subtle Blood (Will Darling Adventures 3) by KJ Charles

I started off strong in September, clearing some of the books from earlier in the year, reading new books, and even a reread of some old favourites. And then the ice hockey season got under way. I'm actually part way through both the RNLI paperback (bought at Bembridge RNLI on the Isle of Wight) and the first of the batch of Martha Wells books from the HumbleBundle but progress is slow when I'm busy.

[1] Pre-order
[2] Audiobook
[3] Physical book
[4] Crowdfunding
[5] Goodbye read
[6] Cambridgeshire Reads/Listens
[7] FaRoFeb / FaRoCation / Bookmas / HRBC
[8] Prime Reading / Kindle Unlimited

settiai: (Critical Role -- settiai)
Lynn | Settiai ([personal profile] settiai) wrote2025-10-03 02:40 am

Critical Role: Campaign 4, Episode 1

It's been ages since I've tried to do one of these, but I've typed up some reactions to the newest episode of Critical Role as I watched it. It's a combination of quotes, random thoughts, and some speculation, and it's full of spoilers (albeit vague ones in places).

Spoilers under the cut. )

There was so much to take in, especially with all of the new characters who were introduced and had various interpersonal relationships and interconnected histories. I definitely need to try to rewatch this episode sometime between now and next Thursday, possibly more than once, because I know that I missed somethings.

But for now? I'm going to attempt to convince my body to let me get a few hours of sleep, and then I'll go back to panicking about various things in the morning. It was nice to escape from reality for a few hours at least.
marthawells: (Witch King)
marthawells ([personal profile] marthawells) wrote2025-10-02 08:42 pm

Queen Demon Playlist

I did a playlist for Witch King (https://marthawells.dreamwidth.org/627157.html) when it first came out in 2023, and now here's one for Queen Demon:



Seven Devils - Florence + Machine

Burning - Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Bando - ANNA with MadMan and Gemitaiz

Bringing Murder to the Land - Anton Newcombe and Dot Allison

Bulletproof vs. Release Me - The Outfit

I Owe You Nothing - Seinabo Sey

W.I.T.C.H. - Devon Cole

Egun (theme from Manhunt) - Danielle Ponder

Warm - SG Lewis

Disease - Lady Gaga

Which Witch (Demo) - Florence + Machine

you should see me in a crown - Billie Eilish

Bakunawa - Rudy Ibarra, with June Millington, Han Han, and Ouida.
settiai: (Vox Machina -- settiai (mbeechcreative))
Lynn | Settiai ([personal profile] settiai) wrote2025-10-02 02:46 pm

Critical Role

Campaign 4 of Critical Role starts tonight, and I'm going to do my best to actually watch it live despite the general insanity going on in my life right now. The one positive about sleeping like crap the last few nights is that my sleep schedule is a bit of a mess, which means I've been staying up late all week (which in turn explains why I've been getting not-enough-sleep all week in addition to the tossing and turning once I do fall asleep).

Since I have a headache again today, I took an extra hour for lunch and got an almost two hour nap in. I'm hoping that I can convince my body to nap for another hour or two after work. If I can get a nap in, it should help me be a bit more awake while watching the episode since it doesn't start until 10pm my time and will probably be at least 3-4 hours.

I usually do liveposting over on Bluesky, but I think that I'm going to try to type up a post about the episode for Dreamwidth as well (and, if possible, try to do that every week). We'll see how it goes? I can't remember the last time that I did regular posts about something that I was watching. Once upon a time, I used to do it regularly for a bunch of shows, but I stopped around the time that I started using Twitter and transitioned to shorter but more constant livetweeting instead as typing up a post takes a lot more mental work.
lycomingst: (Default)
lycomingst ([personal profile] lycomingst) wrote2025-10-01 07:30 pm
Entry tags:
sage: A white man with long blond hair looks hopefully to his left (iwtv: lestat)
sage ([personal profile] sage) wrote2025-10-01 03:58 pm

What I'm Doing Wednesday

books (Dunnett, Aaronovitch et al, Mohamed) )


VAMPIRE SALE!
I've put all my Interview With The Vampire Art Dolls on sale for 20% off for the entire month of October! (I have a post on Tumblr that it would be great if you could reblog! Thanks!)

yarning
I've been crocheting a lot, making and selling more kickbunnies. (Enough that I may even get my Etsy star seller badge back!) I went to yarn group Sunday and had a nice time. I just finished a purple bunny & an under the door toy. Next is a yellow bunny, though I'm running out of boxes and am waiting on Prime Day to order more, oops. OH! AND! Niece LOVED her globe & moon! I'm so relieved. I still don't know what to make her for xmas, but I'm going to do a reversible octopus for her 2yo brother with a happy face on one side and a frowny face on the other. He's learning the basics of FEELINGS & this may help? I hope so. Might do a reversible rose doll for Niece (one side is a doll from waist up with a big skirt. Flip the skirt over her head and it's a rose. Though I wonder if she already has one. Hrm.

healthcrap
I had botox for migraines Friday & the skin clinic Monday. Boo: I've got a badly drooping right eyelid from the botox this time & it's so bad I'm having trouble focusing. Yay: Topical horse dewormer is incredibly effective for rosacea, I'm glad to say. I thought I'd never get rid of the spots on my face, but this works. (Note, it does NOT work for Covid.) Speaking of, I got my Covid & flu jabs today. Fasting labs tmrw, gah, but they have to be done. cut for discussion of weight loss )

#resist
October 18: No Kings Day 2

I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (fen hockey)
Rachel Coleman ([personal profile] rmc28) wrote2025-10-01 07:17 pm

Ten years (again)

I went to see the cinema screening of Hamilton at the weekend: this was a three-day release, presumably international, to mark ten years since the musical opened on Broadway. The main show was the recording of the original Broadway cast made in 2016 and shown on Disney+ since 2020, with a short segment at the beginning made up of ten-years-later interviews with the core cast members interspersed with footage of the development of the musical from a White House performance in 2009 to the opening on Broadway.

While I noticed people mentioning this cool new musical now and then during my cancer treatment in 2015, I didn't listen to it until 24 Jan 2016. The next day I was formally discharged from cancer treatment into follow-up. The musical became the soundtrack of my recovery, and my journal title and a number of tags are taken from it. I no longer listen to it daily, but probably every month or two. I've seen the live production in London four times and watched the Disney+ recording several times (I took a day off work to watch it the day it dropped!). Seeing it in the cinema though was a much richer experience: the screen size, the better sound, the (mostly) quiet company of people who also like me wanted to give up 3+ hours to experience this story, again.

1 October starts the University academic year and is my personal "still alive" anniversary (without treatment I would likely not have made it through September 2015). The Hamilton screening capped a weekend in which I went to see Arsenal Women with a bunch of hockey friends plus bonus Rebecca and my nephew; attended an alumnae event at my old College and re-met an old friend I haven't seen in years; ate a delicious pub lunch with extended family and made it to (some of) [personal profile] jack's birthday gathering.

Also in September I went to the Isle of Wight including swimming in the sea, played my first league ice hockey game, rode steam trains and watched football with [personal profile] tielan, and dipped my toe back into indoor cricket.

I am not throwing away my shot.

snickfic: (Oasis walkon)
snickfic ([personal profile] snickfic) wrote2025-09-30 09:53 pm
Entry tags:

the latest Oasis news (some over 20 yrs old)

Okay so, in 2002 to celebrate Oasis's ten-year anniversay, the British music magazine the NME had Noel caption some photos, including a photo of the famous Loch Lomond kiss. These photos have been floating around tumblr as long as I've been into Oasis. So far, so good.

Except this explanation was incredibly, mind-breakingly incomplete. As I learned literally yesterday:
1. Noel chose the photos, not the NME. They're mostly of Liam.
2. In addition to the captions, Noel provided commentary, which the NME published alongside the photos.
3. LIAM WAS THERE TOO. LIAM ALSO PROVIDED COMMENTARY. THEY REACTED TO THIS PHOTO TOGETHER IN FRONT OF WITNESSES:


You will not fucking believe what their reaction was. From the NME:
Noel's caption: 'HAD A DRINK? ME??'
Together: "Ahahahahahah!"

Here is the full interview reposted to Tumblr, which links to an archived version of the page on NME's own website. Fucking incredible.

--

For a chaser, here's a new pic from Wembley night 7 on September 28:

😭😭😭 The body language! Liam leaning back a little to see out from under his several layers of hat! Noel's HAND. Someone on tumblr said about another pic recently, "Never seen two men in their 50s be this CUTE," and IMO that pretty much sums up the reality we're living in right now.
beatrice_otter: Miss Piggy in a superhero costume: Were you looking for flying pigs? (Were you looking for flying pigs?)
beatrice_otter ([personal profile] beatrice_otter) wrote2025-09-30 03:07 pm

New archive just dropped

Back in the day, there were a lot of different fanfic archives. And then AO3 came along, and everyone moved there. And there's a lot to be said for having a central multifandom archive! I love AO3! But there's also something to be said for communities having their own space.

The OTW has always said they their code is open source and they want people to use it to make their own archives, but it is ... not very user-friendly, shall we say. But now there are several people who have gotten their own instance of the OTW-A code up and running for their own archives.

And now there is another! There is now a femslash-focused archive called Sunset! It was just created and is still very tiny, but if you are into femslash, either writing it or reading it, you might find it interesting. It is run by Agnes the Alien.

Sunset is a website established in 2025 dedicated to hosting femslash (F/F) fanworks. It holds pro-freedom of fiction, queer and trans inclusive, anti-racist and generally compassionate ideals. We're here to have fun and love women. Sunset is run by one person, Agnes the Alien, who dreamed this up in zher bedroom. Please be nice to zher!

 ...

THIS IS AN 18+ ARCHIVE.

I'd also like to shout out Squidgeworld, Superlove, Ad Astra, and Comic Fanfiction Authors Archive.



ladythmpr: (Default)
ladythmpr ([personal profile] ladythmpr) wrote in [community profile] justcreate2025-09-29 10:51 am

NaCraMaMo starts October 1 (in TWO days!)

Hi all!

October will be here in 2 DAYS! Since 2008, October for me has been National Craft Making Month, or NaCraMaMo for short. NaCraMaMo started as a community on LJ, and I started a new [community profile] nacramamo community on DreamWidth when I moved here in 2017.

In short, during National Craft Making Month in October, you work on a craft every day for a month and post pictures of your work daily in [community profile] nacramamo. [community profile] nacramamo is very free-form; you can work on the same project every day or work on different projects every day. Crafting is also very loosely defined; it's basically anything that you do with your hands that results in a tangible object. For example, I count baking as crafting, but I don't count making dinner as crafting (but you might!)

A lot of people use [community profile] nacramamo as a jumpstart for Halloween projects and Winter holiday gift making.

I'd love to have you join me, giving it your best shot.
marthawells: Murderbot with helmet (Default)
marthawells ([personal profile] marthawells) wrote2025-09-28 07:11 pm

Short Story

The audio version of “Data Ghost” my short story from the recent Storyteller: the Tanith Lee Tribute Anthology is now online at Pseudopod!

https://pseudopod.org/2025/09/26/pseudopod-995-data-ghost/



Also, Queen Demon, the sequel to Witch King, will be out on October 7, in ebook, hardcover, and audiobook narrated by Eric Mok.

https://bookshop.org/p/books/queen-demon-martha-wells/b7abd63577bd30a5?ean=9781250826916&next=t
snickfic: Oasis: Liam and Noel Gallagher, text "Some Might Say" (Oasis)
snickfic ([personal profile] snickfic) wrote2025-09-27 06:07 pm

fics I have written

First: for my belly kink exchange that I ran in August, I ended up writing:
scenes in a stilltent, Dune (movies), Paul/Duncan, 1200 words, mpreg. This did not have nearly as much belly kink as I intended, but Duncan turned out to have so many feelings about the whole thing that it was a struggle to get to the kink. The recip seemed to really like it though. <3

And then, today I finished posting that WIP I've been nattering about for ages! \o/

postcards from, Oasis RPF, Liam/Noel, 15k!!! of vignettes from first contact to the first gig of tour. Title is a riff on the video summaries like this one they've been doing at the end of their run at each venue. (They're less annoying on Instagram. IDK why they feel the need to do that stacked vertical thing everywhere else. ;__;)

I've never written anything quite like this before. There is obviously a general emotional arc from "not spoken in 12 years" to "going on stage together," but most of the scenes are intended to stand alone. There are very few callbacks between scenes. I also specifically set out to write only the vignettes I wanted to write, partly to avoid just getting totally overwhelmed, but for example that means that at no point during this fic do we seem them really hash stuff out or have big conversations. Presumably they had some, but those happen off screen.

I also mostly avoided writing denouments to scenes; they mostly end in the middle, or unresolved. Partly I was trying to write the opposite of one big scene where the characters work all their shit out in one long conversation, which I am sometimes prone to. And I think writers in general or prone to? It's convenient to take care of the whole conflict at once. Whereas here I kind of wanted to give these snapshots along the way, showing that repairing a relationship is a long process over time, often in the small moments. (But also I was lazy/intimidated about writing all the connective tissue, and if I'd tried that I wouldn't have been able to finish a fic, so.)

I also wrote this so fast, at least for me. I wrote the first 10k in three weeks, mostly in August, and then wrote the remaining 5k in the four weeks since.

Also, I decided to post a vignette a day, which was fun. I've never been able to do that with a fic before, but a lot of the vignettes were very short, some in the 200-word range, so one a day felt right. I accidentally timed it so the final chapter went live this morning, a few hours before Oasis performed their first gig in a couple of weeks. A commenter congratulated me on my deliberate timing, but no, that is definitely just how things fell out. (Nerdily, my priority was to get the fic all published within one calendar month for the sake of my stats keeping.) Also, look at me, posting fic outside an exchange!!

I'm still not sure what I actually think about it as a fic, because it's so different from my norm, but I had fun writing and posting it, and that's the whole point, right? There are a lot of lines I'm really happy with. Also it's my second fic this year over 15k, which feels fantastic after last year.
silvercat17: blue/white tiger in a cage and snarling (tiger)
silvercat17 ([personal profile] silvercat17) wrote in [community profile] justcreate2025-09-26 09:21 pm
Entry tags:

Just Create - Rewatch Edition

 What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?

Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?

What do you just want to talk about?

What have you been watching or reading?

Chores and other not-fun things count!

Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky.