thefourthvine | Network

I haven’t quite finished the 2017 books yet, but I had some extra time at work Friday and what better use of that time than to go through my 2019 reading list and decide which authors to revisit? So here we are.

Katherine Applegate - Pocket Bear

Grace Lin - Chinese Menu: The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods

Shaun Tan - The Arrival. I read Tales of the City in 2019 and found it pretty downbeat, but

littlerhymes clued me in that Tan also wrote picture books so of course I have to give those a try.

C. S. Lewis - considering The World’s Last Night and Other Essays, although I’m also interested in Studies in Words

Toni Morrison - Beloved

Ben MacIntyre - Agent Sonya: Moscow’s Most Daring Wartime Spy

Lisa See - Daughters of the Sun and Moon. Her newest book! Not yet out, in fact.

Jacqueline Woodson

Penelope Farmer - the university library has Eve: Her Story, but also a book called Soumchi which appears to be written by an Israeli writer named Amos Oz, but nonetheless has Farmer’s name attached in the catalog. Did she translate? Or write the preface? May check it out just to solve the mystery.

Dorothy Gilman

George Gissing - Demos. After New Grub Street, I felt I had to explore Gissing further, and according to Wikipedia, George Orwell thought Demos was one of Gissing’s best novels.

E. M. Delafield - The Provincial Lady in Wartime

George Orwell - The Road to Wigan Pier

Vivien Alcock - A Kind of Thief. I found this book at a used bookstore so it has become my next Alcock

William Dean Howells - Their Wedding Journey

Booth Tarkington - Penrod. I’ve meant to explore more Booth Tarkington since I read Seventeen. At last I’m getting around to it!

Barbara Cooney - Letting Swift River Go. When I visited

asakiyume we went to the Quabbin on a foggy day, and

asakiyume mentioned that Cooney illustrated a book about the building of the Quabbin, so of course that's next on my list.

Susan Cooper - torn between Dreams and Wishes: Essays on Writing for Children and Green Boy

William Bowen - Merrimeg. Bowen was a children’s fantasy author in the 1920s. I’d really like to read his book The Enchanted Forest, but it doesn’t appear to be on Gutenberg or FadedPage, so I’ll content myself with Merrimeg for now.

beanside

And sadly, we're. back to Monday again. My back is weirdly pissed at me this morning. It made bending down to get the half and half out of the fridge a challenge. I'll be on the phones most of the day, because it's sure to be busy. Maybe I'll find out the plan for the trash fire coworker today. I just need to know when I need to show up to shadow her. Though I'm also certain that the meeting will produce some bitching, which will be entertaining as hell.

I'm sure they'll have other stuff for me to do as well. Maybe I can look at trash fire's Friday appts. That was fun. I probably shouldn't be so shocked that someone who has been there longer than I have is doing so poorly, but the stuff I'm hearing comes as a complete surprise. They're very good about keeping that shit quiet to the other coworkers. And I figure that I know more than the average on account of my friendship with A, who is the manager of the Radiology call center and that I was in a weird liminal space between rank and file and low level management.

I feel a little bad for A, who was off on Friday, and is coming in to the minor explosion of everything with the trash fire.

Sunday was a good, somewhat productive day. It started out lazy, as I relaxed until it was time for our little semi game session. First, we got the other player's character sheet set up with the subclass information, and then she and Jess had a delightful bit of roleplay. I already love both of the characters, and I think this is going to be a fun game.

Arvandor quickly became one of my favorite games as the plot encouraged that good, good roleplay, and the players were awesome and open and vulnerable, and it was lovely and engaging and super fun. The players bought into the story hard, and wrote journal entries in character and talked about the game and really worked the schedule to get more games on there. We did like four sessions to every one of some of my others. (Scheduling for 4 people is much easier than 7.).

The other server is taking baby steps into roleplay, mostly because I'm forcing them to with Crooked Moon, but it's slow going. They're used to dictating what their characters do rather then playing as them. I'm hoping the progress continues, and that I'm able to bring in backstory and keep have them pushing their comfort levels.

But I expect Marchen to be a heavy roleplay game. There's a lot of interaction with NPCs, and I expect the party to slowly learn about each other and start talking to each other as their bonds grow. There will definitely be some combat, but there will be options to avoid most of them if they so desire.

It's off to a good start though! The roleplay was delightful, and I'm looking even more forward to 4/19. This may be a game I offer to play on the boat. We'd have to be up to play by 8am or 9am, so it would be tough, but we could do it.

After that, I relaxed for a bit, then began cooking the dogs food. I need to start getting like four trays of meat for his food and cooking it in the big pan all the time, because the two trays only made 6 containers of food. I need to get some calcium powder to add in, because he needs that. I also may start adding the salmon oil to the food at preparation instead of at serving, because sometimes I forget, and I want him to have his good Omega 3s.

Last night, I made goat with vegetables and brown rice. First, I sautéed the ground goat in two batches. Then, I steamed the veggies and added them in. Last came some plain brown rice from a Japanese restaurant (Which I tasted to make sure it was plain). Then, once it cooled a bit, I broke out my new toy, a vacuum food sealer.

I love this machine. It worked really well, and once they were sealed the pouches were relatively flat and easy to store. Today I need to take his chicken out of the container, and weigh them out so that he gets uniform amounts of food from here on out. I think I was overfeeding him a bit.

It's kind of a pain in the ass, but he's so much happier with freshly cooked food. He gobbles it down and licks the plate (and his dinner mat clean every night, which is considerably more than I can say about the bougie food he was on.

It'll probably cost about the same as the bougie food, but I think it'll be better for him. Plus, when he was skipping nights of the bougie food, he was having a very sensitive digestive tract. So far, since starting the fresh food diet, he's been having good solid poop that comes regularly and very rarely does he have to go on the pads.

Today, I may put a chicken on to stew and then make another round of nice brothy chicken and rice.

I need to get some more goat meat for stew and cook that up. I will get four containers of that as well, as it wasn't a ton of meat on the bones. I may see if they have the goat or lamb shank to cook instead. That would probably be a good option, being nice lean meats.

I also will get some turkey, as he likes turkey. I want to get him some ground pork as well, since pork is usually his favorite.

I got a ton of frozen and fresh veggies for both him and us. Though the butternut squash is decidedly for him as it is not a favorite for me. I may take a bit of it, and make my sister some, but that's about it.

After that, I vegged out, watched some videos and generally took it easy. We had a bit of dinner, but I wasn't that hungry, as we had sushi for lunch, and I was still pretty full.

Bedtime came, and I relaxed snuggled with Jess. We have a thing here I'll squirm down a touch, and they will put out their arm for me to lay my head on. We snuggle and talk and maybe listen to a podcast to wind down before bed. It's very nice and cozy and the highlight of my day.

No more dreams about being mean to Jess to feel guilty about. I don't like it when dream-me is a jerk.

I have a few packages coming this week that I'm excited about. One is a skort from Torrid. I love skorts, but I have none. There's something awesome about knowing that you're covered no matter how you sit or move.

Thankfully, as I've been sitting and the ibuprofen is kicking in, my back is settling down. It's still a bit twingy, but better.

Okay, I should probably hop off and do some work on Marchen. Everyone have the very best Monday you can Monday!

oursin

Happy birthday,

sam_t and

shrewreader!

turps

I got excellent mail from

dine, thank you!

They cancelled Starfleet Academy, which is typical considering how much I enjoyed the show. I know we still have the second season to watch, but I wanted more.

The Pitt is finally being shown here, and one morning James saw his first episode, and said he wanted to see episode two as soon as one was finished. And I was like, I know that feeling! It was strange seeing these early episodes again, knowing what was going to come for each character. Strange but good, I mean, it's not like a rewatch is a bad thing.

Let's see, since I last posted one day I Bodhisat from after school to about eight so the mams could go on a date. Bodhi is really into KPop Demon Hunters right now, and I lost aunty points for being unable to belt out the songs while she pretended to take out some demons. I was also told I was terrible at concentrating and asked why I walked strangely. Then, when I told her it was because I have a poorly knee, she wanted to know every detail of how that happened, and you and me both, Bodes.

Wednesday it was class, there was only me and three older guys who turned up, so it was a focussed class. ( cut for exercise stuff )

We went to see Project Hail Mary at the cinema. I thought it was great, but for those who like to play along with the game, James fell asleep watching it.

Though he gets a pass as he had a busy end of the week, volunteering to go teach pyrography to a group one afternoon, which he was nervous about as it's not something he'd done before. Then the next day, had to go for a health screening that included the longest attempt to take blood yet. Seriously, nearly an hour, and two doctors later I was ready to call it on his behalf when finally, the younger doctor finally managed to find a vein.

He's at work today, then off from tomorrow starting the last week of his use it or lose it annual leave. As of now our only concrete plans are going to the Odeon to the The Magic Faraway Tree, which I'm looking forward to so much, and James to do his second pyrography class. But, I'm sure the remaining days will soon be filled.

Oh, and Murphy caught a mouse yesterday. I was having a sleep-in and woke up to James at the bottom of the bed holding a mouse. Turned out Murphy had caught it downstairs, then when James went to see what all the commotion was, ran upstairs. I'm just glad James did follow and get the mouse from him, as I would have hated to wake to it actually on the bed with me.

Today is exercise only class again, but until then, this house isn't going to tidy itself. I may even put the first wash of the year on the line as it looks sunny and breezy out there.

sovay

On top of being flat, I appear to be actually sick with some kind of non-flu, non-COVID crud which makes my entire body feel as though it has a fever and my thermometer disagree with me. I was doing fine with just the two eye infections and the unremitting headache. My major achievement of the day besides feeding the cat and bringing a bag of groceries inside has been reading, most pleasantly Donald Swann's The Space Between the Bars: A Book of Reflections (1968).

As a reading experience, it suggests a journal that got away from its keeper. Despite several autobiographical chapters, it is not a memoir; it interrupts itself to redirect the disappointed reader toward the available oral histories of Flanders and Swann and it ends with the author in a devil's advocate argument with himself about the entire project. "Green baize flags! Good idea." The style throughout is conversational and the structure consciously disorganized on the principle that some of the most insightful traffic of ideas occurs at odd hours by chance, like the radio conversation in Chicago in 1961 which he assumed would be a ten-minute promotional spot when he agreed to it and which ran instead from eleven-thirty at night until two in the morning when the station turned out the lights. After the fashion of letters, or a column, or a blog, he will mention periodically that he is writing from a coffee shop in New York where the Muzak annoys him or that he has just taken a break from his chapter about Christmas Eve to see Mai Zetterling's Night Games (1966). I had no idea he had attended the Easter 1967 Central Park be-in, where he looked like a total square and had a wonderful time: he found the hippie ethos congenial and if he wasn't personally into the psychedelic scene, he respected its mystical side. "To the English eye, there was a resemblance to a good humoured Bank Holiday crowd, only the clothes were weirder." It would have been near the end of the tour of At the Drop of Another Hat. I had known about his Anglo-Russian, half-Muslim parentage which accounted for the Ibrahim in the middle of his otherwise amiably English-sounding name, but it was never clear to me how far he thought of himself as a mixed person and the answer seems to have been thoroughly. He is amazingly anti-nationalist, in a way that differentiates itself carefully from the love of people and places which he falls into on a regular basis, sometimes naively, always sincerely, sometimes without any roses in his glasses at all. Greece knocked him sideways during his time with the Friends' Ambulance Unit, but territorially, specifically, Epirus, Thesprotia, Igoumenitsa. A week in Tonga and he is already recording some of his favorite vocabulary and the musical notation. "If you were to draw me out on aspects of Britain that I admire I could run on for ages, from underground trains, an impartial judiciary and kippers, to its new fashion flair and its sudden ability to make coffee." His Christianity is a constant lens and it is similarly anarchic. He likes ritual, not organization. Syncretism thrills him as much as sectarianism gets him down. He has a perfectly lucid analysis of his experience of revelation climbing down the Mount of Olives at the age of twenty-one, having been relegated by dysentery from his work in a refugee camp in—call the projectionist, the millennium's stuck again—Gaza. "We are all minus each other, there is no one who cannot be my saviour." I can't tell if he knows that at one point he is quoting Hillel, but I have to hope from his paean to the cracks in things that before the end of his life he managed to discover Leonard Cohen. For that matter, I hope he remained a socialist. He was not unaware that his optimism was working uphill: "I assure you that after World War Two people talked the way I am doing now; they really thought there would be human rights, and had meetings about them . . . I am trying to reset the stage for a one world consciousness, and every morning newspaper is stopping me." I respect his intention not to have written a funny book, but Michael Flanders was not the only chronically clever case in that partnership. Also it is very difficult to tell people with a straight face that you almost fell off the Great Pyramid of Giza. Anyway, aside from making me feel justified in my longstanding affection for Swann based on little more originally than his tongue-twister modern Greek and his chaotic laugh, this unwieldily absorbing set of meditations provided a piece of invaluable intelligence:

"They are all pacifists there," said a man at a party in Boston to me. He had just been on a businessman's trip to GHQ Omaha, where they push the button that sets off the H bombs. Fortunately Tom Lehrer was also listening and he said: "Why don't they invite some Chinese and Russian generals instead of businessmen?" That stopped that.

I had never been sure if they knew one another socially outside of the shelves of record collections. Now I know. I have so many questions. Look at what can happen when you realize you have spent an entire month singing "20 Tons of TNT."

Current Music: Donald Swann, "Say Who You Are"

firebatvillain posting in

bitesizedfandomsex

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cahn

Last week: Mass suicide (canonical), Constantinople (not present in canon), pro-surrender factions, the translation of "bandits/terrorists/troublemakers" (apparently "lestes" in Greek). Anyone familiar with the Talmud want to weigh in about the question of marrying a raped-by-a-Roman woman in Jewish society?

This week: Jerusalem continues to be torn apart by various factions. Simon son of Gioras makes his appearance. The Year of the Four Emperors happens, with Vespasian finally making his bid for emperor.

Next week: Half of book 5? To where?

delphi

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topaz_eyes

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starandrea

March! I'm like the gray cat in that meme where it's looking in one direction going, "What was that?!" and then the image is flipped so it's looking in the other direction going, "What was that?!"

Those cannas are up because of course they are, a couple of dwarf irises bloomed in the front garden this week (first flowers!) and the mystery sprouts out back are definitely probably crocuses. Just, maybe, very large crocuses? One of them has a bud so we'll know for sure soon. Yay crocuses!

Also I just ordered a DNA test for Daphne, my head hurts, and 75fluent starts on Tuesday. Luckily I've already given up so it shouldn't be too hard. None of those things are related. I mean, I assume.

Ima go to sleep but know that I love you ♥

tielan

Apparently the battery guy wants to come in TOMORROW.

*sigh*

Luckily, I prepped the planned battery site on the weekend. One less thing to think about. Although I guess that's forward planning on my part.

katarik

In a gesture of true and sincere affection, I woke up at *six-thirty in the morning* to meet a friend for breakfast at a local diner I've never been to, where we waited for a literal hour hanging out before the cook came in. Please note that we arrived at open. One of the wait staff was there. The cook was not. Turned out the cook had gone to the store to pick up some things and the store was a madhouse because *checks notes* some of their freezers had gone down during the night.

The breakfast was ultimately delicious and I did make it to church in time for 9 AM choir practice, and we did not get rained on for the procession around the block with the bagpiper. (Episcopalians are just Like This, don't question it.) And then friend came to pick me up for the afternoon tea and we made it *there* on time, and I had successfully managed to quick-change into my new dress while we were trickling in for choir practice Round Two. (It is not correct for Easter Sunday, I will melt and die if I wear it under the choir robes, and also I need to get it hemmed.)

The tea was very pleasant and a very good spread of sweets and treats. Fundraiser for a local nonprofit hospice care facility.

And then we went and paid a couple utility bills and then we went home and I put on PAJAMAS and flopped on the couch for a couple hours and then made dinner and am now flopped on the couch again nursing my finger where the parrot bit me for... something. God doesn't know sometimes.

hannah

Budget negotiations were unsuccessful: the market pay is the standard pay, is the pay I'll get. There's a little comfort in knowing I'm at market rate, and in knowing the commute's going to be as minimal as it gets. We discussed how to tackle the project and how to embed metadata into PDF files, so that should be interesting.

Grocery shopping was successful: When I was buying some onions and root crops, a woman came up to ask the vendor if they had any basil. He said no, it's not in season. After she left, I said, "She must be new here." The success came in how much he laughed. I pointed out everyone's got to go to their first rodeo at some point, which he agreed with - and he still liked how I'd said, "She must be new here."

Current Mood: thirsty
Current Music: That's The Way - Led Zeppelin

mific posting in

stargateficrec

Shows: SGA
Rec Category: John Sheppard
Characters: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay, Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, Jennifer Keller, Marshall Sumner, Aiden Ford, Carson Beckett, Clone Carson Beckett, Elizabeth Weir
Categories: M/M
Words: 24,853
Warnings: no AO3 warnings apply
Author on DW:

rheanna
Author's Website: rheanna on AO3
Link: A Matter of Death and Life on AO3
Why This Must Be Read: John does something heroic again when Atlantis is in San Francisco harbour after season five. It should kill him, but, inexplicably, it doesn't. Afterwards, there's something increasingly wrong with his brain. This plays out medically and through hallucinations (or are they?) in which John encounters a series of dead friends (and a commanding officer), and is also kind of on trial, having to make a case as to whether he should be allowed to live or not. Along the way, John and Rodney also find each other. A tour de force - gripping, profound, and with wonderful characterisations of John and Rodney, in particular. Don't miss it.

( snippet of the fic under here )

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
水 parts 6-11
沉, to immerse/heavy; 沐, to bathe; 沙, sand; 沟, ditch; 没, not; 沫, foam; 河, river; 油, oil; 治, to rule/to heal; 沾, to moisten; 沿, along/to follow; 泄, to discharge/to leak; 泉, spring; 法, law/France; 泡, bubble; 波, wave; 泥, mud; 注, to concentrate
( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=85

语法
3.16 越...越..., more and more
3.17 part 1: Rhetorical questions with 不是...吗?
https://www.digmandarin.com/hsk-3-grammar

词汇
锻炼, physical exercise
对比, contrast; 对付, to deal with; 对于, about; 针对, in the light of
多次, many times; 多年, many years; 多样, diversity; 多种, various; 大多, mostly
恶心, disgusting/nauseating
儿童, children; 幼儿园, kindergarten
而, and; 而是, but; 反而, instead; 然而, however
( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

玩玩
Zhang Yihao, 安眠药; Yu Zhepu, 很浪漫先生 (cover of Wang Yiheng’s original); Zhou Shen, 求真. (Sorry for all the male singers! Recommend me some women you’ve been listening to lately?)

三月都快到底了，怎么这么快啊。樱花也有点开花了。大家过得怎么样？好好照顾自己呀。

maru_feed

Posted by mugumogu

https://sisinmaru.com/2026/03/30/%e3%81%94%e3%81%af%e3%82%93%e5%be%85%e3%81%a1%ef%bc%81waiting-for-meal/

https://sisinmaru.com/?p=33732

はなの頭の上にちょこんとみり。 Miri is sitting on the Hana’s head. 朝ごはん待ちのはなみり。え、ちょっと待って、みりがご飯場所に集まっている！ Hana&Miri […]

https://sisinmaru.com/2026/03/30/%e3%81%94%e3%81%af%e3%82%93%e5%be%85%e3%81%a1%ef%bc%81waiting-for-meal/

https://sisinmaru.com/?p=33732

independence1776

I watched two movies this weekend, one on Netflix and the other in the theater.

Finding 'Ohana was a fun kids' adventure movie set in Hawaii with a predominantly Hawaiian and/or Asian cast. It turned surprisingly touching in the climax and was a pretty good romp all around.

Project Hail Mary: ( Spoilers )

senmut

A Master Post of the Torn Veils series is available on

sylph_and_asp.

Reminder that the comm is members-locked, and the fics on SquidgeWorld Archive are site-locked. I grant membership readily, and I have invites for SqWA.

gingicat

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taiga13 posting in

poetry

I still think about you

Wonder if you finally quit,

Do you still speak to your mom?

I remember when you went to Japan

How you swore you’d never forgive him.

I can’t remember to take my meds but

I remember you wanted to live on a houseboat.

It’s a strange intimacy,

all of us unspooling across decades of internet space

Like balls of yarn

leaving a trail behind us of everywhere

and everyone we’ve ever been

I hope you got your houseboat.

I hope you got everything.

Current Mood: nostalgic

kaberett

Reading. Preeeeetty much just progressing further through the She's A Beast archives, and continuing to develop opinions. I... think that's it? I think that's it; it has been A Busy Week.

Writing. Words Go Up: over 9.5k. Two more subsections titled. I continue to chew things over.

Listening. More Hidden Almanac. Technically up to May 2015, but I'm going to be going back over most of 2015 on account of Tragically, Some Dozing. (It is Car Noise, you see, and we have been. Travelling.)

Eating. A lot of food made for me by a variety of other people, notably including dosa + thali by Chai Station Chester, hot chocolate from [Knoops] in Chester, bread/cake/cookies/waffles by the Jaunty Goat and petits fours by Biscotti di Debora. Petits fours AMAZING; further thoughts possibly to follow.

Exploring. Southport Botanic Gardens, which struck me as much more of a park and rather less of a botanical garden than I'd quite expected based on the name, though perhaps this is because the fernery was closed by the time we got to it; very much enjoyed THE AVIARY.

Minimal exploration of Chester Zoo, once again culminating in staying in the bat cave until kicking out time.

Little bit of poking around Salisbury, feat. excellent tulips, excellent irises, FREE BLUE AGAPANTHUS that someone had divided, excellent bee doorknocker.

And then finally we made it HOME.

Making & mending. Progressed A's second glove some more! Stalled when I got to starting increases for the thumb gusset on account of my additional stitch markers were in the roof box and ... no.

Growing. Kept the lemongrass alive through The Travels. Acquired, as mentioned, a chunk of agapanthus. Unshockingly, the aubergine I sowed immediately before leaving has not sprouted, but hey, I'll turn the propagator back on. Nothing else seems to have died while I was away, hurrah.

Observing. MOON. The Dog. Creatures, including A having an excellent time Experiencing Bats (and also Flamingoes With Wings, A Rhinoceros, some grey-crowned cranes, and Monkeys).

alightbuthappypen

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troisoiseaux

( As of 3/29/2026, I have seen 41 versions of 18 Shakespeare plays )

umadoshi

Media intake for the last week or so boils down to "a couple chapters of various non-fiction [nothing new] and Thursday's The Pitt." We'll probably try to get an episode or two of Frieren in tonight, before Dayjob swallows me whole for another week.

My main goal for this weekend has been accomplished: today

scruloose and I decanted some spices from bags into jars (including the cinnamons and chai spice baking blend replenished from Silk Road* since the last time we batch-prepped for banana bread) and then did a round of bagging up dry ingredients for nine quadruple batches of my breakfast banana bread while actually baking a tenth batch. It's only the second time we've done it, and having the dry ingredients bagged and ready makes such a difference, but the prospect was more exhausting than it had any right to be. (Actually doing it was fine. This time we [reversing how we did it last time] went with me reading off the amounts for each ingredient and rotating the bags while

scruloose did the actual measuring and dumping ingredients in.)

*Last time we didn't have nearly enough of any one spice for ten quadruple batches, so some go the chair spice blend and some got the Vietnamese Saigon cinnamon and some got the Indonesian Korintje cinnamon. We also have some of their third type, the Sri Lankan true cinnamon, but the description on the jar says its flavor is pretty delicate, so it didn't seem likely to really shine in the banana bread.

(My erratic spices fascination has resulted in us currently having four kinds, actually, but little idea of what to make that will actually showcase the different types so I can really tell the difference. ^^; [The fourth is the Royal Cinnamon from Burlap and Barrel in the US.])

Current Mood: exhausted

oursin

Last week's bread held out pretty well, though got rather dry.

Enough left - though perhaps a bit too much on the dry side - to include in frittata for Friday night supper along with a yellow bell pepper and eggs also getting used up.

Saturday breakfast rolls: adaptable soft rolls recipe, Marriage's Light Spelt flour, maple syrup, ground ginger: turned out a little on the dense side.

Today's lunch: the Mediterranean roasted vegetable thing: garlic cloves, red onion, fennel, baby courgettes, green bell pepper, red, yellow and orange baby peppers, aubergine; served with couscous - this time I tried M&S, and while the packet instructions are a bit misleading, turned out a lot better than Waitrose.

luzula

Now You Know by Anais Mitchell, which I stumbled on today, is SUCH a middle age song. It sounds like someone in perimenopause. It's not hitting me personally head on (among other things I don't think about children that way) but I found it gripping and beautiful.

melagan

Watch on YouTube

jesse_the_k

The musician explains:

In 2018, I recorded and filmed a cover of "Yellow" by Coldplay under my former name, Lots Holloway. In 2026, I returned to the exact same place to film it again, this time as Dylan Holloway (Dylan And The Moon). What you're watching is both versions, woven together.

Lyrics at the band’s page: https://www.coldplay.com/song/yellow/

Watch on YouTube or ( stream it here )

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7023 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1003.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

sanguinity

Back in 2016, I had just published what I believed would be my magnum opus, that massively multi-Holmes vid, Something Good Would Come From That. From the depths of my emotional crash afterwards, I strongly suspected I would never make anything else good again. To console myself, I wrote an id-fic for

language_escapes' birthday: kid fic for an obscure Holmes and Watson adaptation. It was just for the two of us; no one else would ever care.

To my everlasting shock, it proved wildly popular.

During the next year or two, I noodled with other stories in the same 'verse, even writing a good 4-5K on one of them, but alas, I drifted out of Holmes fandom before finishing any of them.

But now I seem to be drifting Holmes-ward again? Or anyway, I've been pulling out old Holmesian WIPs and finishing them off.

Which is the long way of saying: here, have a sequel to Baker Street Papas!

Five Times They Didn’t Share A Bed, and One Time They Did

Sherlock Holmes & Doctor Watson (1980 Whitehead & Pickering)

Holmes/Watson, Mycroft

5+1 Things, Developing Relationship, Injury Recovery, Kid Fic, Only One Bed

Part 2 of Baker Street Papas

Mature; No Warnings Apply

To kiss a man in the heat of the moment is one thing. To cold-bloodedly change the entire basis of your relationship is another.

Holmes' wound festers. Watson blames himself.

Around 9K total, and I'll be posting updates daily through the end of the week. Only a short update today, but I figure at least some may want to re-read the original, so that's all right.

I hope you enjoy!

runpunkrun posting in

gluten_free

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough: I picked up this package of bake-it-yourself cookie dough because it's grain-free. I'm not a huge fan of almond flour, but I was hoping because it was in a blend it wouldn't have the usual almond flour characteristics (nubbly, greasy, almondy (honestly it felt like I hit some shell once or twice)), but it does. Still, I persisted. The chocolate is nice and there's a lot of it, and the cookies were the right amount of sweetness for me, though the coconut sugar gives it that burnt marshmallow flavor I like in burnt marshmallows but find distracting elsewhere.

The cookie lumps don't spread on their own in the oven, so I flattened them with a spatula after about ten minutes and then let them cook about four minutes longer. They bake up chewy on the edges and nice and gooey on the inside.

I have other DIY doughs I like better, but this is a decent vegan paleo chocolate chip cookie. Miss Jones also has a keto version. I found these at my fancy local natural grocery store.

Current Ingredients: Grain-Free Flour Blend (almond, tapioca, arrowroot), Coconut Sugar, Chocolate Chips (unsweetened chocolate, chocolate liquor, cane sugar, cocoa butter, soy lecithin, vanilla), Coconut Oil, Water, Coconut Flour, Vanilla Flavor, Salt, Baking Soda, Cream of Tartar.

dolorosa_12

It's been another homebody weekend, which I don't regret in the slightest. I did go out on Friday night to an event at the tiny local museum, which was a launch of sorts for its latest temporary exhibition. The museum is so small that the temporary exhibitions are housed in a single room about the size of my kitchen; this one was about the history of beer-making, and so the launch event involved talks and tasters from a trio of local breweries. We followed this up with a drink in our favourite cafe/bar, which was heaving with customers — always a good sign on a Friday night.

Other than that, it's been spring cleaning — I cleaned all the external windows and windowsills, including clambering onto the kitchen roof in order to get at our upper floor bedroom windows — classes and swimming at the gym, and batch-cooking. Matthias and I also spent half an hour or so this morning planting wildflower seeds in the front and back garden raised beds, plus beetroot seeds in the vegetable beds. The other seeds that I started off in the growhouse — chives, cucumbers, rocket, salad greens, and spring onions — are coming along nicely, even though it's been cold.

Other good things: Pretty Lethal, the ridiculous black comedy/luridly violent action thriller involving a troupe of American ballet dancers stranded in a Hungarian forest en route to a competition in Budapest, and swept up into a deadly showdown between two rival gangs of goons who want to kill them, one of which is headed up by bitter ex-ballet dancer Uma Thurman (sporting an indeterminate Eastern European accent). The soundtrack is all scores from famous ballets, and all the action scenes involve a sort of intersection of martial arts and ballet. It's as silly as it sounds, and made for a great Saturday night film.

I finished up my Earthsea reread over lunch with The Other Wind, which I think I've only ever read once or twice, but which remains achingly beautiful, like a dragon's half-remembered flight across a sunset sky. I think the peak of the series is probably Tehanu, though, which always renders me awestruck. I have read the Earthsea short story collections at some point, but I don't own copies, so those will have to wait if I want the reread to be fully complete. For now, though, I plan to turn to one of the books from my stack of five from the public library, or possibly Amal El-Mohtar's new short story collection, which I'd preordered and was delivered to me last week.

I hope you've all been having similarly cosy weekends.

smallhobbit

I'm part way through a number of cross stitch projects, so will share them next month when they will probably be finished.

( March crafts )

oursin

Happy birthday,

thatyourefuse!

beanside

It's Sunday and I actually managed to stay in bed until 6:45! For me that's a lazy morning!

Yesterday, I knew we were going out for lunch, but we were planning on Mexican. Instead, as frequently happens, my ADHD brain derailed that. Inevitably on the day of, I'm like "But wait, what if this instead?" It drives Jess insane. I was idly flipping through social media and one of my acquaintances on facebook was somewhere overseas, having High Tea at a hotel. Her pictures of the food were amazing and I was like "I wonder if there's any new teahouses near us?" And it turns out there's a very highly rated one just over the state line, called the Tea Trolley in Delta, PA. Not more than a 45 minute drive. I mentioned this to Jess in my best "I'm sorry I'm a pain in the ass" way, and they were intrigued. So we went for a drive.

It was a pretty pleasant drive and didn't tweak my carsickness like the trip to the winery did, so that was good. We had a little bit of trouble finding it, mostly owing to google not being the most clear, but we figured it out, and pulled in behind an enormous Victorian mansion. They had a ramp at the back, but we went in the front way, and came up the front stairs. As per usual, we'd gotten there super early, so we had a little while to wait, browsing the gift shop. Before too long, our adorable waiter took us to our seats. We were upstairs, which was fine, since the downstairs rooms were packed. The room was wallpapered in burgundy, and the seats were pretty but sturdy, which I as a fat girl very much appreciated. The table set up was very delicate, with fine china, and a dainty floral tablecloth.

I ended up getting the Almond Cookie tea, which is almond, cinnamon and black tea. They brought up this enormous pot of it--had to be at least 1.5 quarts. I know I had five (admittedly dainty) cups of tea, and it still had more to give. The taste was amazing. I plopped a sugar cube in and it tasted so good. I ended up buying a bag of it to take home.

We orded the Full Tea and added soup and salad for $3 each. This brought our total up to a reasonable $31/pp, which still seems a bit on the cheap side. I kind of expect that it's going to be closer to $50. While we were sitting, we saw a couple of the salads go past, and then the soup was cream of crab, so we figured why not?

The salad came first. It was a spinach salad with strawberries, bacon dressign and topped with feta cheese. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Simple, but very tasty. Next up was the soup, which was amazing. Probably some of hte best cream of crab I've ever had. It had just enough Old Bay to give a little burn, and the broth was so creamy with chunks of crab in it.

Then, the tower came. The bottom tier had the savories, which included a cucumber sandwich, a curried chicken salad with radish and mango (Jess ate both of those due to mango allergy.), and a phyllo cup with spinach dip, and then leek bacon mini quiche. (I ate both of those due to Jess' egg squick.) They were amazing. I could have eaten many, many more of them. Then it was up to the sweets, which were a lemon bar, which was okay, but I don't like lemon in my desserts. Jess gave it a thumbs up. There was a tiny pineapple upside down cake which was very tasty. And then there was a peanut butter chocolate cookie dunked in white chocolate and peanut butter, with a sweet peanut butter drizzle. SO good. Rich as hell, so I only ate half, not because I didn't want to. I just also wanted to try the scone.

The scone was a raspberry white chocolate, and was very good. Crispy on the outside, tender on the in, lightly dusted with powdered sugar and with the appropriate accompaniments of clotted cream, lemon curd and a lovely strawberry compote.

All in all, it was a wonderful time, totally worth the 45 minute drive.

Later, I went to the weed store for my sleepy pills. I'm hating the idea that I can't take them to Alaska. There's going to be some tough sleep nights, I think.

After that, I was starting with a migraine, so I went to bed early and napped. It wasnt' a great nap, as I had some nightmares, where I was rude and kind of an asshole to Jess, so I woke up feeling guilty about stuff I did in a dream.

I was wide awake at bedtime, but I put on a video on youtube about Hawaii and soon settled down for a long winter's nap.

Today, I shall write a little set up for our little RP today. I'm looking forward to meeting the new characters, and as long as roll20 behaves while we set up the other players character sheet, we'll have a lot of fun.

I'm going to offer to the other two players that if they want to roleplay anything prior to the game as far as set up, we can definitely do that. We have no games on Sunday next week, so I could sneak in a couple of quick sessions.

After that, I'm going to figure out what to do for dinner, and maybe make the puppy more food. The goat meat and butternut squash was a resounding success, so I'd like to make him more of that. I might also make another chicken, since all either of them need to do is simmer for a couple of hours. I also have ground goat meat that I could fry up with vegetables and make a less wet food. Not sure what starch to put in there. maybe a little bit of quinoa.

Tomorrow, it's back to work for another busy day. I should get more info on when I'm shadowing the dumpster fire after they talk to her. I'm assuming it'll be later in the week, as they need me on the phones on Monday and Tuesday.

At some point this week, I need to do my cologuard screening and maybe my at home pap smear. The joys of aging.

Okay, time to go forth and finish writing the intro for todays session. Everyone have a wonderful Sunday!

selenak

I finished s4 of For All Mankind with mixed feelings - you can read my review of the season 4 finale here, which goes into details as to why - but not so much that I wasn't curious about s5, which started on Friday.

( Spoilers finally found out what happened to Oleg from The Americans )

Current Mood: chipper
Current Location: Munich

cosmicjellyfish

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

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: the lecture recording in my headphones

jazzfish

Erin's dog Avallu is gone. He was throwing up yesterday, Erin took him in to the vet today, and he didn't come home. Cancer, ruptured spleen, a large dog and ten years old.

Avallu was a Tornjak, a big fluffy livestock guardian dog. Mostly white; brown facemask, speckled muzzle, and a dark patch over his hindquarters. He came from somewhere in Europe. Erin and I picked him up in Van and drove him north to Fort.

Once the fence went up, and once he learned to stay inside it, he was an exemplary guardian. He chased off lynx and bears; he was polite to the cats and the various fowl. It took him awhile to warm up to Solly the new pup a couple of years ago, but eventually they (and Thea, a little younger than Avallu but arrived slightly before him) worked out a routine to keep the place safe. He was, I suspect, always a bit anxious. We got on well. I'd stand outside, watching birds or pigs or Erin, and he'd come and stand next to me, his hip pressed into my thigh.

I don't really have stories about Avallu, not like Whiskey being a scaredycat until he discovered that petting is Good or Void Demon the cat who 'doesn't like people' settling in on my lap. He was just always there, a solid presence in the chaos of farm life. He was the best of pups.

hannah

Tomorrow, I have a scheduled meeting for contract negotiations. It's a phone call for the new archive and cataloging gig, where I'll talk to the client to see what he needs and how best to accomplish that, plus to work out the pay rate. There probably won't be any paperwork involved, though I doubt he'll go to the extreme end of the spectrum I enjoyed last summer where I got paid in cash to stay as under the table as possible.

Still. Contract negotiation. It sounds genuinely professional, which is the mentality I know I should bring to the discussion. Professionalism, and my salary record for similar jobs, and a track record for doing good work and being worth the money. I don't think it'll be a full time five day nine to five job, but possibly full time three day nine to five. I'll see how the other outstanding gig goes this coming week to better judge that.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Music: nothing now

mistressofmuses

The beaft.

Her two runs for today!

She didn't break ten seconds today, but that second run was pretty good. Between 10 and 11 seconds seems to be Her Time, for the most part. (Apparently she also maybe tripped on that second run? Alex said she suddenly veered to one side, but she kept going!)

And as always, she seemed to have a lot of fun. Apparently someone walked past as they were heading back from a run and said "Now that's an obedience dog!" because she was walking so nice, haha.

There's another event next weekend, so she'll get to run again pretty soon.

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: my apartment

dhampyresa

A book being slow-burn doesn’t mean it has to be slow.

yourlibrarian posting in

marchmetamatterschallenge

Hello everyone! It's our last check-in before our wrap up post on April 1.

Comment below with any of the following:

1) What tags have you found yourself using the most often?

2) Did you write new meta based on the last post's prompt? Share it here!

Remember, if you post to AO3 or Squidgeworld, don't forget to use the Nonfiction tag to identify your posts, and add them to the March Meta Matters Challenge collection!

delphi

Fandom 50 #6

Continuing my list of fifty Canadian songs I love from the past fifty years, 1982 is just a good old-fashioned banger.

Your Daddy Don't Know by Toronto

Watch on YouTube

kronette

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

nnozomi posting in

guardian_learning

部首
水 part 11
波, wave; 泥, mud; 注, to concentrate ( pinyin )
https://www.mdbg.net/chinese/dictionary?cdqrad=85

词汇
而, and; 而是, but; 反而, instead; 然而, however ( pinyin )
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-4-word-list/

Guardian:
大家注意安全, everyone be careful
来苏肯定拥有地星人的基因，而他自己不知道他的异能呢, Lai Su must have had Dixing genes, and he didn't know about his own power.

Me:
趁夜色已微凉让爱意掀起波浪🎵
你不要放弃得太早，反而再努力一下吧。

schneefink

A little over a month ago I finally started my Hades II 1.0 playthrough, and I've been having a lot of fun. I just reached another milestone today so I thought now is a good time to post some notes.

( My first 62 runs )

runawaynun

Title: The Book of Love

Fandom: For All Mankind

Music: The Book of Love - Olivia Rodrigo

Length: 2:47

Summary: In fact, it's where music comes from.

Download || Subtitles || Youtube || AO3

Watch on YouTube

Current Music: Goodbye Henry - RAYE

snickfic

In which I review two movies with main characters named Grace.

Ready or Not 2 (2026). Immediately after the events of the first movie, Grace is kidnapped, handcuffed to her estranged sister, and put into a new hide and seek game against the heads of all her in-laws' fellow rich devil worshippers.

This was a great time. It's not as tightly written as the first, and I have some quibbles, but Samara Weaving is once again and absolute delight, and the cast of rich assholes was a lot of fun, even if they couldn't bounce off each other quite as well as in the first movie because they're not all related to her. I adored Sarah Michelle Geller as Ursula, one of a pair of twins who take the field together, and one of my biggest regrets is that we didn't get more of her and Grace interacting directly. Even with the little we have, I ship it really hard.

I also enjoyed how the movie managed to take multiple key themes and plot points from the first movie and put new spins on them, and I enjoyed the expansion of the lore.

I wasn't totally sold on the sister relationship. I didn't have a problem with the estrangement part or how that got used to retcon in a family member for Grace, but I wanted their history to be a lot messier. "I didn't take you with me when I moved out at age 18 because I didn't think I could take care of you" vs "You abandoned me" just isn't that interesting a conflict to me, you know? Nor does it offer much room for interesting resolution. I've seen people say they found the movie very shippy for sistercest, but I'm not really into it, unfortunately, because they just weren't fucked up enough for me.

Also, this movie was straight to a distracting degree. ( spoilers )

So: overall not quite as charming as the first, but still very fun.

--

Project Hail Mary (2026). Ryan Gosling stars as xeniobiologist turned middle school science teacher Ryland Grace, who gets recruited for an interstellar mission to try to save the sun from getting eaten by space microbes.

Gosling is the only human being on screen for about 80% of the movie, and he carries the movie so effortlessly that I was genuinely surprised to realize that this movie is by far his most financially successful leading role. He's been getting lead roles for 20+ years, so it feels like oh yeah, of course he's an A-lister, but actually I think this is the movie that is going to cement that for him. And good for him!

The other main character is the rock alien, who is primarily a puppet augmented with animatronics and CG. I wish I'd realized going in that he was mostly practical, because I'd have paid more attention. The sets are also fully practical, and I read somewhere that there is zero green screen work; when Grace is doing his spacewalks and so in, Gosling was being filmed against matt paintings that were touched up later. And you can feel it! This is a megabudget SFF movie that was nonetheless made with love.

There are some other characters in the flashbacks, but the only one I cared about was the administrator of the mission played by Sandra Huller, whom I absolutely loved. She brings such gravitas that it felt like she was in some other movie entirely. I looked her up, and it turns out she starred in that movie Anatomy of a Fall from a few years ago, which I definitely need to see now.

The story itself is really linear, even taking into account the flashbacks in the early part of the movie. There aren't really any surprises here; you'll get the movie you saw in the trailer. I enjoyed all the montages of Grace Doing Science, which I gather is the novel author Andy Weir's big strength. The ending stutters a bit, in the sense that there were about three in a row and it wasn't clear which one was the actual end, and I have some worldbuilding/plot questions about how things shook out, which I assume Weir answered them at length in the novel.

It didn't blow my mind like it seems to have blown a lot people's, but I had a good time. If you're in the mood for a space adventure, especially one with a lot of practical filmmaking, you should check it out.

jenab

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$radiantfracture: Beadwork bunny head (Default)$

radiantfracture

Poster for Unbound Desires: A Night of Heated Rivalry

Here's the thing I've been helping to organize! Just picked up my posters for distro today.

A blurb:

Come celebrate the Rachel Reid book that started the whole phenomenon. Attend Victoria Festival of Authors' spring fundraiser at the Sports View Lounge above Oak Bay Rec on May 8th (7-9 pm). There will be burlesque, drag, and 🌶🌶🌶🌶 readings from real-life Victoria residents who have broken barriers around gender and sexuality in Canadian sports. Even better than the cottage!

Ticket link is here.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Thanks to

contrarywise for the title!

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Page Summary

osprey_archer - Revisiting My 2019 Reading List
beanside - He told me that my power would grow like the grapes that thrive on the vine
oursin - (no subject)
turps - (no subject)
sovay - This new one is derived, he tells me, from page 225 of the London telephone directory
firebatvillain in bitesizedfandomsex - Signups Open 2026!
cahn - The Jewish War: Second half of Book 4
delphi - Six Sentence Sunday
topaz_eyes - The Pitt Fan Fiction: "The Hardest Part Of Love"
starandrea - blue flax wins "first winter sown seeds to sprout"
tielan - forward planning is for WUSSES
katarik - so many people today
hannah - Working all day long.
mific in stargateficrec - A Matter of Death and Life (by Rheanna) (Gen)
nnozomi in guardian_learning - 第五年第七十八天
maru_feed - ごはん待ち！Waiting for meal!
independence1776 - Two movies
senmut - Link
gingicat - Minoanmiss' online memorial
taiga13 in poetry - To My Friends from LiveJournal by Hayley DeRoche
kaberett - vital functions
alightbuthappypen - Nothingburger
troisoiseaux - Shakespeare round-up, 3rd edition
umadoshi - Weekly proof of life is weirdly heavy on the cinnamon talk
oursin - Culinary
luzula - Song rec
melagan - things that caught my eye.
jesse_the_k - Trans Duet: “Yellow” — Soprano and Tenor Eight Years Apart
case in fandomsecrets - [ SECRET POST #7023 ]
sanguinity - [Fic] 2 Baker Street 2 Papas
runpunkrun in gluten_free - Product Review: Miss Jones Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
dolorosa_12 - Further west than west
smallhobbit - Crafts - March 2026
oursin - (no subject)
beanside - He told me that the life of my dreams would be promised and someday be mine
selenak - For all Mankind 5.01
cosmicjellyfish - five LJ/DW questions
jazzfish - Avallu, 2016-2026
hannah - Forward thinking.
mistressofmuses - FastCAT day!
dhampyresa - Short PSA
yourlibrarian in marchmetamatterschallenge - March Meta Matters Challenge, Check-in No. 8
delphi - Post and Jam: Your Daddy Don't Know by Toronto (1982)
kronette - (no subject)
nnozomi in guardian_learning - 第五年第七十七天
schneefink - Hades II 1.0
runawaynun - [Vid] The Book of Love | For All Mankind || Margo Madison x Sergei Nikulov
snickfic - movies: Ready or Not 2 and Project Hail Mary
jenab - Winter's dwindling grip
radiantfracture - Unbound Desires: A Night of Heated Rivalry

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