sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2025-07-04 11:32 pm

All of my ghosts are my home

On the normality front, our street is full of cracks and bangs and whooshes from fireworks set off around the neighborhood, none so far combustibly. Otherwise I spent this Fourth of July with my husbands and my parents and eleven leaves of milkweed on which the monarch seen fluttering around the yard this afternoon left her progeny. My hair still smells like grill smoke. Due to the size of one of the hamburgers, I folded it over into a double-decker with cheese and avocado and chipotle mayo and regret nothing about the hipster Dagwood sandwich. A quantity of peach pie and strawberries and cream were highlights of the dessert after a walk into the Great Meadows where the black water had risen under the boardwalk and the water lilies were growing in profusion from the last, droughtier time we had passed that way. I do not know the species of bird that has built a nest in the rhododendron beside the summer kitchen, but the three eggs in it are dye-blue.

On the non-normality front, I meant it about the spite: watching my country stripped for parts for the cruelty of it, half remixed atrocities, half sprint into dystopia, however complicated the American definition has always been, right now it still means my family of queers and rootless cosmopolitans and as most of the holidays we observe assert, we are still here. It's peculiar. I was not raised to think of my nationality as an important part of myself so much as an accident of history, much like the chain of immigrations and migrations that led to my birth in Boston. I was raised to carry home with me, not locate it in geography. I've been asked my whole life where I really come from. This administration in both its nameless rounds has managed to make me territorial about my country beyond the mechanisms of its democracy whose guardrails turned out to be such movable goalposts. It enrages me to be expected not to care that I have seen the pendulum swing like a wrecking ball in my lifetime, as if the trajectory were so inevitable that it absolves the avarice to do harm or the cowardice to prevent it.

The wet meadows of the Great Meadows are peatlands. They were cut for fuel in the nineteenth century, the surrealism of fossil fuels: twelve thousand years after the glaciers, ashes in a night. The color of their smoke filled the air sixteen years ago when some of the dryer acres burned. If you ask me, there's room for bog bodies.

shallowness: Catwoman looking at the Batsign in the Gotham City night sky (Catwoman watching Batverse films)
shallowness ([personal profile] shallowness) wrote2025-07-05 08:12 am

Movies watched in June

Cinema:

I saw The Ballad of Wallis Island in a screening with about twenty of us in the cinema. It has bags of charm, and, indeed, heart, a tight script (the two leads and director developed it from a short film), with great rhythym between the leads. It’s a comic drama, I guess, about a rich superfan arranging a very intimate gig from his favourite folk rock duo, who haven’t seen each other since splitting nine years ago. It’s hyperspecific, but I think it’ll translate even if you don’t get all the references.

Streaming: I finally watched Tenet.

!?!?

I thought I understood the central conceit, but the longer it went on the more confused I was. The people and objects moving in reverse thing is cool to watch, and I generally got the emotional stakes, but I mainly understood this for its place in Nolan’s ouevre (I am one of the people who did not get the timey-wimey stuff in Dunkirk, Interstellar lost me, and there are some bits of Inception that it took me years to understand.) This is less accessible than Inception, so even had the timing of its release been different, I don’t think it would have saved cinema, however big the stunts are, although with some of them, I was reminded of stunts from his Batman trilogy etc, and not just because Pattinson is in it. ‘Oh well,’ I thought when Robert Oppenheimer was referenced, ‘Nolan’s next film will be a success.’ The acting is good, Branagh is just on the right side of not going too big, although Debicki might be in danger of getting typecast (big The Night Manager vibes.) Washington jr has presence.

But !?!?


I also watched A Little White Lie, a comedy set at a literature festival, where a handyman with the same name as a reclusive author who wrote one hit novel agrees to attend a struggling festival. It’s got a strong cast – Michael Shannon plays the lead, Kate Hudson is winning as the professor who is in charge of the festival – a smart script, though it’s more amusing than laugh-out-loud funny, which The Ballad of Wallis Island was, with a non-naturalistic twist (though it doesn’t go as far as American Fiction.) I liked it because it was ultimately rewarding kindness, but it might strike some people as too kooky. (Full disclosure: have never been to a proper literary festival and have a strained relationship with lit fic.)
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-07-05 12:14 am

Philosophical Questions: Government

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

What should the role of a government be, what boundaries and limitations should it have?

Read more... )

rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
rydra_wong ([personal profile] rydra_wong) wrote2025-07-05 07:02 am
Entry tags:

I am now the proud owner of a secondhand Steam deck! Rec me games!

A whole world of games not playable on Mac has opened up to me, and it's Steam summer sale time!

Please rec me your favourite games, bearing in mind that I have very limited reflexes/co-ordination.

(I'm not completely ruling out games involving them, but the threshold for entry has to be very very low. I am currently enjoying Refunct because it allows me to try some simple platforming in a very chill and pleasant environment with no time pressure and no penalties for taking several hundred tries to get a jump.)
twistedchick: watercolor painting of coffee cup on wood table (Default)
twistedchick ([personal profile] twistedchick) wrote2025-07-05 01:40 am
delphi: An illustrated crow kicks a little ball of snow with a contemplative expression. (Default)
Delphi (they/them) ([personal profile] delphi) wrote2025-07-04 04:20 pm

What I'm Reading: Ew, It's Beautiful: A False Knees Comic Collection by Joshua Barkman

[personal profile] kingstoken's 2025 Book Bingo: Non-Human POV

(I checked this square off my bingo card last time, but this new release arrived with perfect timing, so I'm doubling up.)

Ew, It's Beautiful is the newest collection of cartoonist Joshua Barkman's webcomic False Knees. It contains around 120 short comics, the majority of which were new to me, separated into sections for winter, spring, summer, and fall based on their setting.

The stars of False Knees are usually birds, but there are some cats, insects, and at least a couple of beavers in the mix here. Barkman's art is legitimately beautiful, with a naturalist's specificity and a knack for combining human expressions with realistic animal features, and his writing captures the universal experience of being a small creature in an unfathomably big world. It's full of absurd humour, occasional moments of awe, and recurring bits about the creative process, self-image, and the way friends or family can be on entirely different wavelengths. The comic is where I got my current default icon from, and it almost never fails to bring me a little joy or give me something to appreciate.

3 Comics )
fennectik: Anime (Anime)
fennectik ([personal profile] fennectik) wrote in [community profile] anime_manga2025-07-04 10:55 pm

Sailor Moon creator bringing back manga in color

So it seems Usagi will once grace us with her magical girl adventures.

"
To celebrate the birthday of Sailor Moon’s main protagonist, Usagi Tsukino, new colored manga art has been released by the series creator, hinting at the publication of the next two volumes in the Japanese 'all-color' digital manga release."-CBR

Link to the full article

https://www.cbr.com/sailor-moon-naoko-takeuchi-usagi-birthday-art/
china_shop: Two Chinese men (the Envoy and Kunlun) in historical dress sit facing each other. Blue background with a pink heart sketched in it. (Guardian - bb!Envoy/Kunlun heart)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-07-05 03:20 pm
Entry tags:

Two Guardian fics: Sunshine and Honey (M-rated) and Pages for You (T-rated)

I wrote a self-indulgent Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan treat for [community profile] idproquo and a post-canon Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan domestic-fluff flashfic for the [community profile] fan_flashworks Amnesty round. Thanks to [personal profile] trobadora for beta on both of them! <3

Title: Sunshine and Honey (4126 words) [Mature]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Ye Olde Haixing Era, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Outdoor Sex, Feeding, Finger Sucking, Oral Fixation, First Kiss (for one of them), First time (for one of them), Treat
Summary:

They were halfway to the Allied Forces’ southern boundary when the sun came out. Shen Wei pulled back his hood and looked around, conscious of the breeze on his bare face. The heavy clouds were finally breaking up.

Meanwhile, Kunlun had dropped his bag and flopped onto his back on the grassy slope. “Let’s rest here a while.”


Title: Pages for You (1762 words) [Teen and Up]
Fandom: 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
Relationships: Shen Wei/Zhao Yunlan
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Established Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Fade to Black, Community: fan_flashworks
Summary:

Over the course of the evening, an impulse had taken root, and now Shen Wei submitted to it. He switched on his desk lamp, laid out several large sheets of paper and quietly ground some ink. If Zhao Yunlan wanted to read of their time together through the eyes of a Dixingren soldier, who better than Shen Wei to write an account—to show Zhao Yunlan exactly how much his arrival had meant to the war effort and to Shen Wei himself.

china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-07-05 03:06 pm
Entry tags:

Me-and-media update

Previous poll review
In the Routine poll, 84.2% of respondents voted for tooth-brushing, 50.9% for locking up and switching things off around the house, and 33.3% for tending to pets. Night-time routines taking more than half an hour got 24.6%, and "sometimes it takes me an hour or more" got 7%. *high fives*

In ticky-boxes, hugs won with 75.4%, followed by "how stressful it is to ask tradespeople to change things they've done" with 57.9% and "sitting on a mountain ledge in the moonlight, listening to owls" with 56.1%. Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
Incandescent by Emily Tesh, read by Zara Ramm, who sounds exactly like Emma Thompson. I spent the middle third of this being unsure what the plot was (or if there even was a plot; "is this a cosy magic-school story?" I asked nobody in particular). Things stirred ominously under the surface, but the tension relied on the reader being more worried about them than the mostly oblivious POV character -- which was interesting. Overall, I enjoyed it very much.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander (Chronicles of Prydain). A few more chapters. I'm past halfway and it still feels like setup, which I guess is a function of it being the first book of five.

A tiny bit more of Neurotribes. I'm bored with the case studies/anecdotes and ready for some theory.

Two more chapters of Guardian by priest.

My Whimsy binge stalled after bouncing off three different narrators for The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club. None of them hit the humour right. I suppose I'm going to have to read in text, but Prydain first (and I still haven't finished my reread of Werecockroach, note to self).

Kdramas
I finished Our Unwritten Seoul and enjoyed it very much. It's about 30yo identical twins, one who works in a corporate office in Seoul, and one who lives in their hometown and does a series of temporary and part-time jobs. The office worker is miserable from being bullied at work, so they decide to swap lives. Contains some pretty good (in my inexpert opinion) disability rep, and
I approved of both the morals (spoilers) 1) if you bottle things up and don't let people see your vulnerability, you can't feel their love; and 2) love isn't about winning or losing, or whether you're a burden; it's about being on the same team, staying together, and supporting each other as you win or lose. <3 <3 <3 (I was so happy when Ho-su stopped pushing Mi-ji away, and with the ending when they used sign language sometimes. <3 <3 <3)


I cancelled my VIKI subscription earlier this week because I wasn't using it, so of course I immediately started watching My Dearest Nemesis, as recced by [personal profile] adore. It has a bit of a "based on a webtoon" feel, but I'm fine with that, and it's a neat twist on the Obnoxious Repressed Chaebol Exec trope. (The leading man is leading a double life: he's a closet fanboy, but his family and position require him to present as a 100% bland, respectable businessman.) I'm obsessed!

Note to self: check out First Night with the Duke next. And maybe renew your VIKI subscription.

Other TV
Poker Face and Murderbot continue to be enjoyable (we're an episode behind on each of them). I found the second half of Andor season 2 a lot more engaging than the first half (and might like the first half more on the rewatch; yet to be determined). Another episode each of Étoile and Krapopolis. The Old Guard 2 on Netflix.
Tiny spoiler for the very end. Andrew was disgusted that, at the end, as [redacted] leave the secret archive full of ancient texts, they turn out the light but leave candles burning. "What about the ancient books?!" LOL!


A rewatch of French film Rosalie Blum, which I love.

Guardian/Fandom
The continuing delights of read-alongs and polls.

Audio entertainment
A little bit of Heather Cox Richardson's Letters from an American (US constitutional-law context for current developments), a little bit of Midnight Burger (audiodrama), most of the first season of Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones (which I'm enjoying despite not being familiar with DWJ's earlier books).

Writing/making things
I wrote a flashfic for the [community profile] fan_flashworks amnesty round and am poking at a couple of WIPs. My brain seems to be in recovery mode. My only current deadline is the [community profile] fan_flashworks Science round.

Life/health/mental state things
My thumbs/hands/wrists are not in great shape. My body is working hard to metabolise ambient stress. (*hugs to everyone*) I'm feeling a little under siege by winter and ~the state of things~, but I saw my sister for the first time in weeks (she's had a cold), a friend came over for lunch on Thursday, and last night our tv-watching friend joined us for Rosalie Blum.

Good things
Chocolate. Andrew and Halle. Fandom and all of you. Polls. Kdramas. Books. Podcasts. Eminem. Writing when it happens. AO3 (*clutches*). Love, kindness, and diversity.

Poll #33324 Crowd-sourcing randomness
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 10


Crowd-sourcing randomness

View Answers

heads
1 (10.0%)

tails
4 (40.0%)

edge
4 (40.0%)

zero-g (the coin never falls)
3 (30.0%)

ticky-box full of grumbly cats in search of treats
6 (60.0%)

ticky-box full of being protective of your blorbos
7 (70.0%)

ticky-box full of surviving AO3 outages
6 (60.0%)

ticky-box full of soft, bright-green moss nestled at the base of a tree, glittering with beads of dew
6 (60.0%)

ticky-box full of hugs
8 (80.0%)

cornerofmadness: the saiyuki gang looking around a door (fangirls)
cornerofmadness ([personal profile] cornerofmadness) wrote2025-07-04 08:52 pm

Pizza Party

I don't much feel like celebrating this fourth but found myself at the 4th party/doggie birthday party. My brother's sister in law has two labs. They're so sweet. She also has a pizza oven so it was make your own gluten free pizza. I definitely want one of those ovens. It's stupid and ridiculous and I still want it.


The heat, on the other hand, nearly killed me and I'm still nauseous from it. Ugh.

Have the friday fannish 50 recs


Time For Bed FAKE

Rocky Road Deadpool

Memento Torchwood

A Narrow Escape Teen Wolf

Adronitis The Owl House

i’m starving, darling (let me put my lips to something) 时光代理人 | Link Click

Allow Me To Demonstrate Hazbin Hotel

Plant The Murderbot Diaries

burned with desire Star Trek Voyager

Realism The Murderbot Diaries

For Now Prodigal Son

Another Fine Mess Torchwood

When Val Leaves A Trail Of Corpses... Hazbin Hotel

You Kissed Me Just to Kiss Me (Not to Take Me Home)
Hazbin Hotel

just spread my arms and go The Murderbot Diaries

The Great Wolf Lodge 9-1-1

Sometimes Things Don't Go As Planned Queer as Folk

There Has Been a Poisoning, Sire Hazbin Hotel

Mischief on the Loose Teen Wolf

Midnight Eclipse The Murderbot Diaries
jadelennox: Westing Game: a chess queen, a purple chessboard, fireworks, BOOM! (chlit: westing game:  boom)
jadelennox ([personal profile] jadelennox) wrote2025-07-04 10:33 pm
Entry tags:

BOOM

I've been trying very hard to cheerful!post this week because I'm frequently struggling to breathe, as one does these days. You all know how it is. I was planning on posting from the perfect 4 July book (The Westing Game). But when I looked at the exact words of the quotation, it felt much too on the nose:

The sun has set on your Uncle Sam. Happy birthday, Crow. And to all of my heirs, a very happy Fourth of July.

So, okay, I thinks to myself. I'll quote my other favorite Fourth of July bit from the end. But when I looked it up, uh. That didn't feel any less apropos to the moment?

Turtle?"

"I'm right here, Sandy." She took his hand.

"Turtle, tell Crow to pray for me."

His hands turned cold, not smooth, not waxy, just very, very cold.

Turtle turned to the window. The sun was rising out of Lake Michigan. It was tomorrow. It was the Fourth of July.

Ah, well. Ready for a nice game of chess?

ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
ysabetwordsmith ([personal profile] ysabetwordsmith) wrote2025-07-04 09:13 pm

Fireworks

Tonight we did our home fireworks show. :D These are the things we bought from JT Fireworks Sales in Charleston...

Read more... )
mecurtin: 3 of GRRM's Hugo Award statues (hugos)
mecurtin ([personal profile] mecurtin) wrote2025-07-04 10:09 pm
Entry tags:

Purrcy; WSFS

There was a brief but dramatic thundershower yesterday evening, & afterwards when Purrcy came out of hiding he DEMANDED pets, regardless of where I was or what I was doing. As you can probably tell.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby stands on a light green bathmat on a terracotta tile floor with glossy green accents, looking back up over his shoulder with an adorably demanding face. His tail is a thwapping blur. A white person's naked foot is barely visible behind him, as though they're sitting down in the bathroom for some reason.

Purrcy the tuxedo tabby stands on a light green bathmat on a terracotta tile floor with glossy green accents, looking back up over his shoulder with an adorably demanding face. His tail is a thwapping blur. A white person's naked foot is barely visible behind him, as though they're sitting down in the bathroom for some reason.

Politics has of course been super stressful, I'll write up something under separate cover tomorrow or something.

Today, all afternoon, I attended the first session of the WSFS Business Meeting, which was as almost as emotionally draining as attending one in person but much more convenient. The Chair, Jesi Lipp (they/them) is a *master* at running a meeting and parsing rules quickly & logically.

Result for me: the Hugo Process Committee is continuing for another year (including me by default), and also stuff that I insisted on digging out & including in our report conforms to the second part of C.2 Dude, Where’s My Motion?, even though it wasn't required yet & wasn't even aware it was under consideration, just because it seemed so obviously necessary. So I definitely can bask, feeling like I made a real & meaningful contribution.

I've pledged the family not to overdo it for Hugo Process Committee 2.0, but I *am* going to maybe be the one insisting that we have regularly scheduled meetings & an agenda.
drabblewriter: (Default)
Katie ([personal profile] drabblewriter) wrote in [community profile] allbingo2025-07-04 08:19 pm

Pride Fest Banners

Congrats to everyone who made a bingo during Pride Fest! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

Read more... )
senmut: The alien tentacle probe mimics Bud's face (The Abyss: Water Tentacle)
Asp ([personal profile] senmut) wrote2025-07-04 08:54 pm
Entry tags:

Fandom Fifty: #19

1993. I graduated in June of this year, had committed to my late partner (and her husband) that year, got kicked out of my father's home by his wife with his assent before I even graduated, did not walk the stage... Yeah. Ups and Downs.

28 films, and I actually know I saw most of them in theater, at least half first run and the rest in the cheap second run theater (that had an arcade and mini golf and batting cages in the same complex).

sure why not do all 28 since I have nothing else on tap? )
kingstoken: (Nile Freeman)
kingstoken ([personal profile] kingstoken) wrote in [community profile] comment_bingo2025-07-04 08:45 pm

Bingo: Blackout!

Link to my card!

Fandoms:
-Sherlock Holmes (Granada) (lots of this one)
-Sherlock & Co
-Star Trek: TOS
-Our Flag Means Death
-Merlin
-Star Trek: DS9
-Ghosts (US)
-African Queen
-Dead Boy Detectives
-Supernatural
-X-Men