Just got done watching the series ender!

Spoilers...

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Finished since the last reading post
Nothing

Currently reading
Still reading The Sutton Hoo Story, although not making much progress at the moment. Also still reading The Tarot Reader of Versailles.

Reading next
Not sure. Maybe one of the library books, although there's no rush with them. And I seem to be accumulating books in German but not attempting to read them. There was a flurry of conversation in my German class's Whatsapp group today about how people are struggling and what other materials they're using in addition to the textbook. Somebody mentioned a short story book, which reminded me that I have one on my shelves, but I've never really gone past page 2 when I've tried reading it. I just don't like reading short stories, although I do get why it feels like a good idea when you're learning a language.

And speaking of the library, they announced the opening date at the new location as 18 June.

The other day on Facebook I read a post that was a repost of an earlier conversation from Tumblr (I'm sure you've all seen this sort of thing). Anyway, the topic was a discussion of whether or not a vampire policeman (a la Forever Knight) could use a judicial warrant to force you could grant them permission to enter your house. The discussion seemed to divide into two camps:

1. Yes, they can.
2. No, they can't, because the permission forced from you by the warrant is not a true expression of your will.

Recently I've been reading Seanan McGuire's October Daye series (highly recommend, if you haven't read them), which contain a lot of this sort of verbal jiggery-pokery tied into the magic system. This got me to thinking further about the vampire policeman problem and how, as the person in the house, it seems like there's got to be some combination of words that you can say which will simultaneously keep you out of trouble with human law (by honoring the validity of the warrant) while at the same time protecting yourself from the vampire (by indicating to the vampire that you do not freely give permission for them to enter your house), and which further could be stated in such a way that a bystander who is not aware of the existence of vampires/fairies/etc. would not find anything amiss in what you said. I was mulling this over while doing some chores and listening to some music when the Grateful Dead's "Trucking" came on and (in my opinion) handed me the answer on a silver platter[^1]: "If you've got a warrant, I guess you're gonna come in." It simultaneously acknowledges that the warrant grants the power of entry and fails to grant your open personal permission to enter.

[^1] Upon writing it here, I'm wondering if "on a silver platter" has any relevance to faerie. Expect a post on that in the future.

Last week, work announced they're giving everyone access to more Microsoft 365 AI tools, not just the basic Copilot chat we've had for a while (on the other hand, they're also telling developers they will have to plan their AI use better going forward, because pricing is changing). I didn't really plan it that way, but I've spent the best part of the three working days figuring out if I can set up a Copilot chat agent to do anything useful for me. I don't really spend that much time in Word, Powerpoint, or Excel to benefit the AI tooling inside them, and I'm also not on calls to constantly need AI tooling in Teams. So I started with one of my workflows that currently involves mind-numbing amounts of copy-pasting, but it looks like I'll need to be doing a lot of set-up work to get somewhere useful, but so far it looks like there's promise there.

Then I spent some time on something I hadn't really planned, but that came up as an idea in a meeting on Monday. If we hadn't just got access to these tools, it wouldn't have been something I could have suggested doing, and I'm not sure it'll really work, but it was an idea worth exploring, so I wanted to give it a go. And it was interesting to work on it as well.

I have been reading Game of Thrones fic (and leupagus has succeeded in getting me to care about Targaryens, an incredible feat) and stumbled onto glimpsing an explainer video and...

Apparently I've been pronouncing Baratheon wrong all these years?

This is just like the whole Patreon thing all over again, isn't it. I always thought it was "pa-TRAY-on", and apparnetly everyone else in the world calls it "pay-tree-on".

And now we've got "bear-ah-they-on", which is actually (????) "ba-rath-ee-on". Oh. All rightie then.

So on that note, here are three GOT WIP recs:

• The Songs and the Stories, the Lies and the Glories by leupagus. Baelor "Breakspear" Targaryen/Duncan the Tall. Come for the loyalty kink, stay for the loyalty kink. Just truly an incredible amount of loyalty kink. Baelor lives and becomes king and is doing his best not to fall into bed with Duncan, and when they do get in bed, not have sex. Because it would be such a bad idea to do it. Even though they both want it. A lot.
  
  Can be read without knowing a single bit of canon for this spin-off or which Targayren is which.



• Life and Honor by NoOne0_o. Jamie Lannister gen where he's sent to the Wall after killing Aerys. This made me care about the Night Watch. I don't care about the Night Watch! But the author does a wonderful job of flipping the actual GOT situation (where there's plenty of plot going on below the Wall but none of it actually matters because the zombies are about to come and eat everyone, and I don't care about the whole zombies coming plotline because that is so much more boring especially in terms of plot (oh, look, a zombie apocalypse, never seen one of those before) than the rest of it) so everything at the Wall becomes the most necessary, important thing, and everything below the Wall is a bunch of hot air that's distracting people from preparing for the coming zombie apocalypse. WIP hasn't been updated since 2022, but ends in a good spot, so even if it's never finished, you can extrapolate from it what's going to happen from there.



• Scarlet Woman by ilikeexploding. Lysa Tully transmigration. Oh, this one has caveats. The author is very explicitly, very much purposefully, making Lysa evil and awful and a horrible person. This is well-done. The author is also very good at having things not always go splendidly for Lysa, how her machinations sometimes backfire, how other people have agency and do things not how she'd like. She is doing really awful things in this fic, and the way it's going now, it may be that it crosses some kind of limit even for me, and I like villain fics. But this fic is really well done, and does something I found such a breath of fresh air: Lysa does some evil things to get rid of Tywin. And she knows it's evil and the author knows it's evil.
  
  This in contrast to other GOT fics where the characters are like "I need to get rid of Tywin, I don't care how many people need to die or suffer for me to do it, my one single enemy, the only problem in the world, is Tywin, and the only way I can kill him is by killing a lot of people who aren't the problem in order to get to him" and that's treated as understandable, a good thing to do. Oh, you have to go to war in order to protect Jon Snow from Tywin? It's morally justifiable to kill uncounted numbers of people, just because you need to get rid of The Big Bad, when The Big Bad does not have magical powers, is not super powered, he's just very very rich and well connected? You decide to create a war to get rid of this guy, a war that you could easily lose, just for Tywin Lannister? In a universe where there are magical assassins???? Two kinds of magical assassins, actually, I think????
  
  And so then you have this fic, where Lysa decides to get rid of Tywin in revenge for him raping her (yeah, I didn't copy the pairing tag because I don't really consider it the pairing of the fic), but she has to do it in a way that 1) Tywin will die knowing she's the instrument of his downfall but, 2) no one else knows that she had anything to do with it. And she goes about it in a horrifying horrible way. But. At no point is this decision justified as being moral or the right thing to do. Because Lysa isn't moral and she's doing the right thing for herself as she'd decided it, to protect her own power.

 
Third week of music.... Another mixed bag, starting with one of my favourite tracks from one of my favourite bands, Highway 101. I love Paulette Carlson's voice, and this track is only on the Greatest Hits album. I finally managed to get hold of a copy about a month ago, and every track is brilliant.

Shane (1953)

I like how quiet it is. I wasn't expecting that, and that was nice. But it didn't really grip me. Maybe on a rewatch.

Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985)

Movies that act like plays are always a jam. You may not agree with them 100%, but you know and understand why Luis and Valentin are the way they are. They change each other for the better and it's so natural and fascinating. You can tell Puig has a thing for old movies and I love that. The world is crumbling, and you shouldn't hide under a rock, but you shouldn't let it consume you. The connection between art and politics. It's gay. It's genderfuck. It's sad. Gomez Adams is there. It's perfect.

The Hunger (1983)

My train of thought: cool poster -> it's about vampires -> what do you mean, it's got David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve?? It's gorgeous and vibe-y and its take on vampires is different. Surprise! The vampire lady is bisexual! I did see there was a difference between John and Miriam's sex scene and Miriam and Sarah's. The way the latter is shot is more, voyeuristic?? But ultimately, I think the style is the substance here, and that's not a bad thing.

Une corde, un Colt (1969)

A French western?? And it's depressing, all the characters are arseholes (not a bad thing!). Death and more death, it never ends. Good stuff, ngl.

Bonus stuff I wrote yesterday (whichs is why they're longer, they are fresher)

On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969)

A TV channel over here is showing all the James Bonds (until Quantum of Solace). That includes the weird Casino Royale movie with Deborah Kerr, which I just couldn't watch. I'm sorry, Deborah Kerr. And I like zany British things.

Putting that aside, I cried. I cried over a bloody James Bond movie. I'm still not sold on Lazenby, he's wooden, and it's jarring because his predecessor was Sean Connery, a man who oozes charisma as Bond. And his Bond can get very nasty (anyone who watched Goldfinger knows), yet I can't hate him. Almost all the 007 movies we had in the house were his, and like James Stewart, I imprinted on him like a duckling. Anyway, I simply cannot see Connery!Bond say and do the things Lazenby!Bond says and does. Funny, isn't it?

The action and the setpieces are awesome (the ski chase down the mountains and the pursuit at the festival! the tobogans! the editing is chef's kiss), the soundtrack fucks and it looks even more gorgeous than, say, From Russia With Love, which in my very original opinion is the best of the first batch of movies.
And the reason I cried is not just because I love Tracy as a character (Diana Rigg is excellent! Good call in getting an experienced Shakesperean actress to counterbalance the model), but because I ended up becoming invested in her and Bond's relationship. Which is wild. There's character development?? In my Bond movie?? And that's why I can't see Connery!Bond say things like "I love you."

Is this why people hate the movie? (Besides Lazenby) Because there's more character stuff? Because Bond gets to be emotionally vulnerable? Because a woman gets to be Bond's equal (kinda, these movies always have a huge misogyny problem)?

And I knew IT was going to happen. And it sucks that it does but it needed to be done because "how else will we make more Bond movies?". But it hit me like a rock still. Ffs.

And I haven't seen Diamonds Are Forever, but I've heard not-good things about it.

Count me in on the OHMSS fanclub.
(Not that the movie is perfect. It's still sexist, and there's a painful racist scene. Because of course, the black woman eats bananas -_- )

Death Becomes Her (1992)

Very mixed feelings on this one. I was expecting a fun time, but ended up getting a woman-hating movie. "Women are obssessed with being young and beautiful" gee! I wonder why that is?? "And let's make fun of them when they aren't young and beautiful!" Don't you see the irony?? There's a Greta Garbo reference that tickled me, then they ruined towards the end (there's a Marilyn Monroe reference that was distasteful).

I can't hate it fully. There's great effects work though. Isabella Rossellini slays, so when I get to watch The Saddest Music in the World in 2036 (if the world hasn't collapsed by then) I'm gonna be in for a treat. 'Cause that seems more up her alley.
I'm both mad and disappointed.

For highadrenalineexchange I got this absolutely delightful Fandom for Robots fic that was everything I wanted! Go read it.

Farther Adventures of Robot and Human (10233 words) by BardicRaven
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: Fandom For Robots - Vina Jie-Min Prasad
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: bjornruffian & Computron (Fandom for Robots), Computron & Hexode (Fandom for Robots)
Characters: bjornruffian (Fandom For Robots), Computron (Fandom for Robots), Hexode (Fandom For Robots)
Additional Tags: Canonical Character Death, Canonical Abuse, Friendship, Robots, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Post-Canon
Summary:

Computron is well aware that he exists on sufferance.

This is My Mother

I lost her in 2013, and I still miss her. 

This is what I wrote about her and delivered at her funeral.

And this is how beautiful she is. 

 

 

highadrenalineexchange has revealed authors, and I can reveal what I wrote! I had a lot of fun with a Vedero-focused Goblin Emperor fic.

Title: The Obloquy of Newness
Author: Beatrice_otter
Fandom: Goblin Emperor
Characters: Vedero Drazhin
Written for: DontStopHerNow in High Adrenaline 2026
Summary: Vedero would like nothing more than to study the stars. If only court politics and gossip did not get in her way ...

Author's Note: Betaed by Irina. Title from The Old Astronomer by Sarah Williams.

On AO3. On Squidgeworld. On Dreamwidth. On tumblr. On Pillowfort.



Vedero could barely see her hands as they worked.

That was alright; they knew their business. They did not need to see more than the ghostly outlines of the white tubs in the sink to fish around in the sodium sulfite solution with rubber-coated tongs and grab the edge of the paper and hold it up so that some of the fluid would drip off, before settling it gently in the tub of acetic acid that would stop the silver halide crystals from continuing to develop. She counted the seconds, and then moved the paper to the sodium thiosulfate that would wash away the excess silver from the paper, so that when she took the images out into the light, they would not be re-exposed.

( On the whole, it was a very meditative process. )

You know how it is, when you start with a vague idea and a summary and then you write 4K in a day and you have written yourself out of that summary being suitable? Yeah. That.

The summary it should have fitted itself to: "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your feckless cousin closest of all." Wherein there would be porn and Gregor deciding that Ivan couldn't actually be mediocre and/or learned that trying to do well just got him unwanted attention. No, Ivan must be faking it on purpose.

Unfortunately then I dropped too heavily into Gregor's depression, so, uh, if this gets to the porn, it's going to take some doing. Also I have to do some serious tense editings because I started it in past tense but of course ever since I made the mistake of ever writoing in present tense, I must needs deal with tense shifting problems forevermore.

Point of diversion is that Gregor assigns Ivan to Residence Security right out of the Academy to keep an eye on him, and kicks Miles out after the mutiny.

Why couldn't Miles have ever learned to fake obedience as well as Ivan had? Ivan's flawless at his disguise. Why must Miles be so frustrating? Gregor feels even more hollow than usual as Aral nods his acknowledgment and mumbles a perfunctory, "your will, my liege."

It's the first time Gregor's tried exercising Imperial muscles in years and it's still all because Miles Vorkosigan is uncontrollable.

Gregor can't meet his gaze in the mirror as his armsman shaves him that night, and he accepts the sleeping pill with resignation.

Title: "Masters and Ceremonies"
Fandom(s): Original fiction
Characters: Mike, Chris, Amanda, Don, and Rick -- members of a software development team
Rating: G
Genre: General
Word Count: 464

Summary: A software development team's reaction to new Agile processes and ceremonies

Read it on AO3.

Author's Notes: fandomweekly's current prompt is "ceremony" and that word is only going to make me think of ceremonies in Agile methodology, because it's always struck me as odd that we use that word for a non-ritualistic process. In fact, many would argue that the whole point of Agile is to not get stuck in a codified, calcified way of thinking.

This was a fun little write and it made my husband laugh out loud (as we both have been on both sides of this, as both ICs and scrum masters). And that alone made it worth it.

Also, apparently I have invented the "software development" and "Agile methodology" tags on AO3.

Easter egg: All the characters are named after the main actors in Stargate SG-1.