lotesse | Reading

rmc28

Books on pre-order:

Queen Demon (Rising World 2) by Martha Wells (7 Oct 2025)
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:

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

Rereads in September:

Slippery Creatures (Will Darling Adventures 1) by KJ Charles
The Sugared Game (Will Darling Adventures 2) by KJ Charles
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

sholio

You would THINK that the "Found Family" prompt would've been an absolute cakewalk for me, and yet, I couldn't get it to go anywhere, so you get another of the alt prompts today. I also found it pleasing that I managed to get the first three fills spread across all three of the fandoms I'm writing in for this particular Whumptober.

No. 3: “I look in people’s windows, transfixed by rose golden glows.”
Isolation | Candlelight | Found Family

[Alt] Deal with the Devil
Babylon 5, G'Kar, Cartagia arc; all hurt no comfort (500 wds)
Also on Tumblr.

( 500 wds under the cut )

eruthros

Thank you for making me a vid!

I have a couple things that I put outside the cut tag, because I have two visual triggers:

1) Fast, high contrast flashes of lights or colors. This can be triggered by strobe lights, strobe effects, glitch effects, full-screen lighting effects, or repeated lightning strikes. It can also be triggered by stutter cuts (very fast intercuts of 2-3 frames) where there is high contrast in the footage used for the stutter effect. Stutter cuts are fine between two similar scenes, but not between one dark green and one bright red lit scene, between a nighttime and daytime scene, etc. Flashing has to be very fast to bother me—think three lightning strikes in a second (dark, light, dark, light, dark, light, dark in one second).

2) Frame rate fuckery—when a show or a vid plays 24 fps footage in 30 fps or vice versa. So, like, when a film puts footage at the wrong frame rate to make it feel awkward or tense, which is super common in action films. (For example, the Bucky/Steve knife fight on the street in Winter Solider.) It can also happen by accident, if footage at one frame rate is put into a project with a different frame rate, or sometimes when a show needs to stretch or compress footage and they do it by duplicating every third frame.

I'll call these out in the source notes below for any fandom where they're relevant.

Please also feel free to run a sample by

thingswithwings. She can explain them with examples if that would be helpful.

The rest of this post is additional details if you're interested!

( General Preferences )

I asked for: Babylon 5, Backspot (2023) [SAFETY], Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) [SAFETY], Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper, Fancy Dance (2023) [SAFETY], The Great Canadian Baking Show (TV), Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA], Mythbusters (TV), Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards, This Place (2022) [SAFETY]

( Babylon 5 )

( Backspot (2023) )

( Bring Them Home / Aiskótáhkapiyaaya (2024) )

( Extraordinary Birder with Christian Cooper )

( Fancy Dance (2023) )

( The Great Canadian Baking Show )

( Lego Video Games [UMBRELLA] )

( Mythbusters )

( Nikon Comedy Wildlife Awards )

( This Place (2022) )

erinptah

Remember how last year, I watched (and wrote about watching) Mawaru Penguindrum, and paired it with the episode reactions from the Imagine Me & Utena podcast? And how the IMAU reactions had only gotten through episode 17, but they had been on hiatus for long enough that I figured they weren’t going to come back to it, so I went ahead and watched the rest of the show?

The IMAU folks came back! After a year-and-a-half gap, they started up again, and got through the rest of the series!

(It’s in my folder of “podcasts that stopped updating a long time ago, but didn’t officially finish, so I check in once or twice a year, just to see if anything’s changed.” And sure enough, something had.)

Overall, I didn’t like the Penguindrum anime. There were some good parts, even a few great ones, and I still listen to the music — but that wasn’t enough to outweigh all the parts that were bad/rushed/nonsensical/poorly thought-out/generally-unpleasant.

Still looking forward to finally finishing the IMAU recaps. If you’re a fan of the series, or even if you also didn’t care for it but ended up watching the whole thing, check them out. (Direct link to the RSS feed.)

Penguindrum screencap of the idol duo Double H

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

Fandom: Nail Polish (Industry) (the AO3 tag, probably worded to disambiguate from at least two bands by that name. I’m calling it Nail Polish Blogosphere, since the characters are using and reviewing rather than manufacturing the nail polish.)
Pairings/Characters: Gen; OCs
Rating: General Audiences
Length: Only Once: 449; Only Once Remix: 1,960
Content Notes: modern in-universe folklore, nail polish connoisseurship, possible unreality, the sad beauty of transience
Creator Links: (AO3)

Sineala; (Dreamwidth)

sineala; (AO3)

woodpusher
Theme: Uncommon Settings, Folklore & Fairytales, Friendship, Magic, Social Media
Summary:

Sinealla: The story of the most beautiful nail polish in the world.

woodpusher: Like a good manicurist, this story fills in some plot holes and smooths some rough edges from Only Once.

I was trying to boost my readership so welcome to the newly gifted.

Comments are welcome!

Author’s Notes: ( Cut_for_length. )

Reccer's Notes: ( Cut_for_length. )

Fanwork Links:
Only Once, by

Sineala for

Lysimache; Yuletide Madness 2011
Only Once Remix, by

woodpusher for

Sineala,

Meltha,

kuramas30,

Viridian5,

Qem, and

Lysimache.

torachan

1. I'm pretty much over my cold. Nose was a little runny this morning, but I'm not stuffed up anymore. Still tired from not getting enough sleep, but maybe tonight will be the night? (Maybe not, though, since I was so tired this morning I bought a coffee when I got to work and then a Coke at lunch. Even though that was early in the day, it still might keep me up...)

2. I'm very glad tomorrow is Friday and it's the weekend. We're going to see Adam Conover live on Sunday, so that will be fun. (It's at the same venue where we've seen Paul F Thompkins a couple times, and Carla was browsing their upcoming acts a couple months ago and spotted it.)

3. Speaking of Sunday activities, the last Sunday of the month is our Oogie Boogie night, so I just remembered to put in a PTO request for that Monday. It only runs until 11pm, not like some of the nighttime events on the Disneyland side (DCA ones always start and end earlier), so it wouldn't be terrible to have to go to work the next day, but it's just a nice excuse to have a day off. And I do need to use up some more of my PTO balance or it will max out again before we go to Japan next year.

4. Tuxie's challenging me.

prettyarbitrary

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sunnymodffa posting in

fail_fandomanon

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prettyarbitrary

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prettyarbitrary

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conuly

Honestly, my worst thoughts about what was going to happen in that meeting of the generals were both so much more terrible and so much less terrible than what actually went on.

***************************

( Read more... )

musesfool

Ugh, I woke up at 3:30 this morning coughing my lungs out and didn't really sleep much after that. It's that itchiness in my throat and chest that make me think allergies, especially given that I haven't really been around people except at the dentist's office yesterday, so I don't think it's covid? But who knows at this point? My quest to get this year's flu/covid shots has been derailed a couple of times but I am off again next Friday, so that is going to be my next attempt.

In more fannish news, I read that Dungeon Crawler Carl has been optioned for tv, and now I want a Carl vid to Mike Ness's version of "Don't Think Twice."

*

Current Mood: itchy
Current Music: Don't Think Twice - Mike Ness

fairestcat

The letter will be here soon.

petra

This is in the same vein of Politics in Space as the time I wrote Josh Lyman of The West Wing being Princess Leia Organa's political advisor because she'd inherited him from her father, ~~Matt Santos~~ ~~Jimmy Smits~~ Bail Organa, and then they observed Space Passover.

Malcolm Tucker of The Thick of It (link is very sweary) deserves someone he can really look up to (metaphorically) and cuss out (effectively).

I propose Chrisjen Avasarala of the Expanse (link is very sweary and also spoilery), who can give as good as she gets in the cussin' department. Malcolm can't physically look up to her, as she is a tiny Indian (subcontinent) grandmother who dresses fabulously. That won't stop her from kicking his ass.

I'm not sure he'd approve of her tactics, but he's on Team Earth all the way, unless one takes Peter Capaldi's legginess and runs with it to the wonderful world of Malcolm Tucker, Belter, sasa?

I am in the position of having studied English, Spanish, French, German, and Mandarin to the point of being able to mostly follow Belter Creole in audiobook form, where there are no footnotes to be had nor glossaries. Hell if that means I can write it, let alone write Malcolm Tucker Swearing in it, but now I want to try.

Kindly remind me that only about one other person on Earth, Mars, or in the Belt or Jovian system would understand this goddamn story, so it's not worth the effort, because I am very tempted. Unless of course it sounds like fun to you, in which case, can I get a beta offer?

Current Mood: i still have an icon for this
Current Music: In which I just want an excuse to write "cunt" twenty times

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: surprised

redbird posting in

thisfinecrew

Posting this by request, as she wrote it:

The Boston Globe is soliciting opinions on whether or not foster parents's views on children being queer or trans should be taken into account.

MSN link

Basically, we have to explain not only that water is wet but that if foster parents are allowed to dunk a trans kid into the tank of their transphobia the kid can drown in there. The Globe's editorial board termed this a matter of "personal views" and of DCF demanding foster parents be "perfect", which is glaringly disingenuous but needs to be spelled out to hopefully influence public opinion.

The Globe's address is community@boston.com.

philomytha

Today's Whumptober prompts did not spark off any ideas, so instead in the spirit of the fest, I went off and finished a ridiculous whumpy fic that's been hanging around almost done for a few weeks.

This was inspired by a passage in

silversmith's utterly brilliant Biggles/EvS casefic Tendernesses, Imprecise which I adored and which everyone should go and read. Anyway, there's one paragraph in it:

He had entertained a small private fantasy during his early months in London. The Soviets came for him and took him away, demanded information on his rescuers; and he imagined saying nothing, and somehow, later (he was hazy on this part), Bigglesworth and his colleagues would come to hear of it: that he had not, after all, betrayed them; and they would raise a glass to his memory and his reclaimed honour, saying that, if they had not gained much from their trip to Sakhalin, at least it had not been an error.

And I read that and I thought, if that actually happened to him, it really wouldn't go like that at all, and then I had to write how it would turn out.

Unimaginable on AO3 (3900 words, gen, angst, torture, h/c, suicidal themes)

captainawkward_feed

Posted by katepreach

https://captainawkward.com/2025/10/02/october-london-meetup-6/

http://captainawkward.com/?p=53192

Announcement: the audience for these has changed, so I’m going to do them once every three or four months instead of monthly. So please come to this October one if you’re interested, there won’t be another until probably January.

11th October, 1pm, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, SE1 8XX.

We will be on Level 4 blue side (the upper levels are no longer closed to non-ticket-holders), but I don’t know exactly where on the floor. It will depend on where we can find a table.

I have shoulder length brown hair, and will have my plush Chthulu which looks like this:

Please obey any rules posted in the venue.

The venue has lifts to all floors and accessible toilets. The accessibility map is here:

https://bynder.southbankcentre.co.uk/m/43a9fcbe0e718ba3/original/21539-32_Access-Map_DIGI.pdf

The food market outside (side away from the river) is pretty good for all sorts of requirements, and you can also bring food from home, or there are lots of cafes on the riverfront.

Other things to bear in mind:

1. Please make sure you respect people’s personal space and their choices about distancing.

2. We have all had a terrible time for the last four years. Sharing your struggles is okay and is part of what the group is for, but we need to be careful not to overwhelm each other or have the conversation be entirely negative. Where I usually draw the line here is that personal struggles are fine to talk about but political rants are discouraged, but I may have to move this line on the day when I see how things go. Don’t worry, I will tell you!

3. Probably lots of us have forgotten how to be around people (most likely me as well), so here is permission to walk away if you need space. Also a reminder that we will all react differently, so be careful to give others space if they need.

Please RSVP if you’re coming so I know whether or not we have enough people. If there’s no uptake I will cancel a couple of days before.

kate DOT towner AT gmail DOT com

https://captainawkward.com/2025/10/02/october-london-meetup-6/

http://captainawkward.com/?p=53192

valoise posting in

booknook

My mother was an excellent baker. Pies and cookies were her specialties, but her cakes and quick breads were also very good. She took the time to teach me and my brothers how to bake. But she absolutely did not make yeast bread. So when I was in high school I plunged into yeast breads as a form of self expression, a way to take what I’d learned from Mom and take it in a new direction. And for a inquisitive hippie girl in the early 1970s I found my bread mentor in this book.

The Tassajarra Bread Book was first published in 1970. It is still in print with the original publisher, Shambhala Press, in 2025. That kind of longevity for any book is rare, but this no ordinary cookbook. At the time he wrote the book Edward Espe Brown was cook at the Tassajarra Zen Mountain Center in Northern California. The book reflects a philosophy of mindfulness. In the short preface he says:

“Bread makes itself, by your kindness, with dough under hand, your are bread making itself, which is why bread making is so fulfilling and rewarding.“

“A recipe doesn’t belong to anyone. Given to me, I give it to you. Only a guide, only a skeletal framework . . .”

Brown starts with an explanation of the ingredients and tools used in bread baking followed by a detailed description of the process accompanied by hand drawn illustrations. The following chapter on yeasted bread provides the framework for creativity. Seventeen variations of the main recipe encourage the baker to move toward self-expression in baking. Try new things. See if they work. Adapt if they don’t.

The book contains chapters on yeasted pastry, sourdough, unyeasted breads, breakfast breast, quick breads, and desserts. It continues to be an excellent introduction to baking for anyone, and a great source of creative inspiration.

oursin

So yestere'en there was a get-together for the Fellows of the institution I have had the honour to be award a Fellowship of, so I thought I ought to Make The Effort and turn up at least for a little bit.

So I trotted off, and in spite of some hitches with the Tube (several trains going to the wrong branch) got to the right stop, and lo, the Scientologists are still infesting Tottenham Court Road, what is this thing that this thing is?

So I crossed the road, going, surely the traffic flow used to be one-way? Confusing.

And went down a side-street, and came to this lovely and surprising thing, which I am sure wasn't there last time I was in these parts, early in 2020:

Alfred Place Gardens

and was charmed.

Then on to venue, where everything seems same as it ever was.

Hearing aids still not optimum in room full of overlapping conversations: but I did manage to have some fairly coherent conversations, including one with old academic acquaintance who was most gratifyingly complimentary about The Biography, all these years later.

So I think a win, even if I did suppose that this event would also include some admin stuff relating to Fellowship, which it didn't.

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no the circle won't be broken

Reading

To-read pile, 2025, September

Whumptober Day 3: [Alt] Deal with the Devil (Babylon 5)

Dear Festividder 2025

Imagine Finishing Mawaru Penguindrum

Nail Polish Blogosphere: Only Once-verse, by Sineala and woodpusher.

Daily Happiness

Prompotober 2025 Day 2: A Stifled Scream

FFA DW Post #2363 - "The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves."

Promptober 2025 Day 1: Something Watching

Promptober 2025: Ominous October

Geez, I can't even... I don't even....

i could've done better, but i don't mind

Festivids letter placeholder

Crossovers that will never be unless I make them: The Expanse + The Thick of It

Unbelievable! Inconceivable!

foster parents' "personal views"

Fic: Unimaginable

October London meetup

Book Review: The Tassajarra Bread Book by Edward Espe Brown

Going a-bloomsburying

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