"You look Time Lord."

Title: Philately
Rating: General
Fandom: Nazi Agent (1942)
Pairing(s) / Character(s): Otto
Warnings: brief mentions of 1940s Germany
Spoilers: not really

Note: For fic_promptly. Prompt was "Author's choice, author's choice, collecting stamps" and the This and That challenge (theme is Rare Fandoms) on sweetandshort.

( Read more... )

It has been little over 24 hours since I finished watching Autumn Sonata. If I say more it would quickly get too personal. Just... lord... but in a good way. Melancholic, sure, and I cried, but it was good.

Isn't it nice, how there are still films out there, that still makes one feel?

Challenge #2

Tunnel of Love
Journaling: The romance of summer! What do you love? Write about anything you feel sentimental about or that gets your heart pumping.
Creative: Write a love poem to anyone or anything you like

Well, I'm an August bank holiday baby (even if Mum says I shouldn't say that since I wasn't technically born on the bank holiday, but eh, close enough), so I always had my birthday in the summer holidays rather than having to spend it at school (which I later found out I would have had to have done had I gone to school in Scotland rather than England, where the holiday dates are different).

But what I would mostly say for summer memories is spending time with family (bit of context for anyone who hasn't known me very long or doesn't know me at all, my family is pretty much scattered across the UK) so the summer holiday was always the chance to spend time with people I didn't see enough of.

Yesterday I finished reading Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. I enjoyed it, but was frustrated with the ending — it seemed like it didn't end so much as just stopped.[^1] Today, I learned from cmcmck's comment on my July book record that this is actually the first book of a trilogy. This makes me feel better about the ending — I'll give an author more leeway on an ending when I know that a book is part of a series. But even if Mantel does give us a satisfying ending at the end of volume 3, that's still not going chance the fact that, as much as I enjoyed the book, it feels like slice-of-life Thomas Cromwell fanfiction. (Of course, because it was professionally published and won awards, the literary establishment would quarrel with that characterization.)

[^1] Well, it didn't just stop — it reached a stopping place where one of the subplots had just resolved — but it didn't reach an actual conclusion.

Yesterday when I was in the grocery store, the music system started playing Elton John and Kiki Dee's "Don't Go Breaking My Heart", and my mind started rewriting the lyrics, turning into part of a M/M mafia musical rom-com. Specifically, it's the song in Act 2 where the two main characters realize they have feelings for each other. Below are the new lyrics I wrote for the first verse, where person A is the small business owner (I'm thinking baker) who's in debt to the mafia[^1] boss and person B is the thug sent out by the mafia boss to collect on a loan.

A: Don't go breaking my arm. B: I'm s'posed to shatter your knee. A: Tell Vinny I'll get him his money. B: He's not so patient like me.

[^1] I just looked it up (because of course I did), when using mafia in a generic sense you don't capitalize it, and when referring to a specific organization (e.g. the Sicilian Mafia), you do.

Two Doctor Who companion outfits for your delectation and delight! Outfits selected by a mixture of ones I, personally, like; lists on the internet; and a certain random element.


( Outfits below the Cut )

Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!

Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!

Costume Bracket Masterlist

Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.

Book in a series: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62226126-the-last-devil-to-die
Multiple POVs: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/136276174-the-search-party
Female author: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/210795013-here-one-moment
Friendship: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/196764063-the-day-after-the-party
Name in the title: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/197627190-the-reappearance-of-rachel-price
YA: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/174163045-the-dare
Biography/memoir: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211163702-kingmaker
Scifi/fantasy: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36630924-here-and-now-and-then
Book from TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/28016509-the-girl-before
With a woman protagonist: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/200638897-the-fortune-teller
Ebook/audiobook: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/204587595-her-majesty-s-royal-coven
Set somewhere you've been: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13614116-natural-causes
From the library: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/179312410-has-anyone-seen-charlotte-salter
Free space: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60092195-the-shadow-cabinet

Substitution list:
*Author you've never read before - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/64417442-the-final-party
*Book older then you are
*Fairy Tale or Fairy Tale Retelling
*Graphic novel or Comic - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/213477761-fate
*Pet or Animal Companion
*A main character over the age of 30
*Under 100 Pages - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63945326-the-gift
*Romance Plot or Sub-plot - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203416581-a-novel-love-story
*Translated https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61448964-g-kungen
*Humour
*Non- fiction
*With a Blue Cover - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62792245-five-bad-deeds
*Horror or Paranormal
*Colour in the Title
*Seasonal Read
*Book made into a film or tv series - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/36306720-the-perfect-couple
*Historical (fiction or non-fiction)
*Number in title - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61653791-four-found-dead
*Female author - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35528896-the-treatment
*Three word title - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37819454-three-days-missing
*Craft, Hobby or Cookbook
*Written by an author from your state or country
*Animal on the cover
*Disability or Mental health
*Read a book from the year you were born
*Mythology
*Title begins with first letter of your name - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40770941-her-pretty-face
*Dystopian - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/214471703-sunrise-on-the-reaping
*Book mentioned in another book
*Diverse reads - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56425440-last-night-at-the-telegraph-club
*One word title - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/218455872-sleep
*Award Winning/Bestseller
*Disabled Author
*Non-western Setting - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/63247547-last-resort
*Set in your state/country
*Title is at Least Five Words Long - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/203019749-things-don-t-break-on-their-own
*indigenous author
*Has illustrations (but not a comic or graphic novel) - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62715477-fire-and-blood
*Set at a school/university (my old one, in fact)- https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/219491276-when-we-were-killers
*No sex/romance
*Re-read

My Goodreads is here, feel free to follow: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/46625765?ref=nav_profile_l

• 7 July
  • Wolf Hall: A Novel (Hilary Mantel)
• 9 July
  • Komi Can't Communicate, vol. 23 (Tomohito Oda)

Title: Triangle
Rating: General
Fandom: Ich und die Kaiserin (1933)
Pairing(s) / Character(s): Didier/Marquis(/Juliette)
Warnings: n/a
Spoilers: not really

Note: For fic_promptly. Prompt was "any / any / we're dating the same person so... what are we?" and the This and That challenge on sweetandshort
They're getting there.

( Read more... )

My husband reminded me yesterday of a piece of content from the game The Kingdom of Loathing. It's a browser RPG by Asymmetric Productions that came out in 2004, which my husband still plays but I stopped playing back in around 2013. While it probably didn't invent the concept of "play through the game multiple times to gain a new, permanent skill or upgrade to use in future runs" which is common in games now, it's one of the oldest games to use it. It still has monthly and quarterly content updates, which is what's kept it alive with a rabid fanbase, enough that its revenue has been enough to fund the development of Asymmetric's other games, West of Loathing and Shadows over Loathing, which have also been hugely successful -- they're both "overwhelming positive" on Steam.

The thing that KoL is known for, though, is its absurd and irreverent humor. You can tell this from the fact that the characters and monsters are all stick figures, the main currency is meat, and in order to wear a shirt, you have to acquire a skill to do so -- people in Loathing (that's the name of the country) don't know that they have a torso, so in order to wear shirts, you have to learn Torso Awaregness. (Yes, there's a reason there's a silent "g" in that word, but I'm not going to explain it.)

The writing is also stellar. All the quests have stories and the characters are inventive and vivid. (Ed the Undying is my favorite.) Every item in the game has a description that's a joy to read. The reason I stopped playing the game was because it just took way too much time, and I'm lucky to have my husband showing me all the new stuff as it comes out.

Anyway, yesterday, he showed me an item that was in the game back when I played it. I'd completely forgotten about it, but wow, when I read the description...

----
Hippopotamus.
Anti-hippopotamus.
Annihilation.
----

I laughed to the point of tears. And I remember laughing to the point of tears fifteen years ago when this item came out.

Then, I thought more about it, and you know, it's the best piece of flash fiction I've ever read. In three words, it tells a full story that paints a vivid picture in your mind, AND it's a haiku. A three-word haiku.

Now, that's writing.

Because of all the mix-ups with permits and so on, we were offered an additional "free" activity. We picked a trip to the Polccoyo rainbow mountain area. It turned out that there are two rainbow mountains in Peru of which Vinicunca is the more spectacular, touristy, and better known. Different mineral compositions in the soil - particularly copper - cause the geological layers exposed in rainbow mountains to reveal stripes of bright colours. Our guide for the day, Olmer, was obviously from the Polccoyo area and felt very passionately about it. He explained that it was being opened up to tourists in a bid to stave off a proposed investment from a Canadian mining company who wanted to establish a copper mine in the area.

It was beautiful and remote and while there were two or three parties of tourists, it was easy to feel alone in the landscape. B. and I were a bit dubious that it could both retain its character and generate enough income to hold off the allure of mining company big bucks.

( Photos )

The road up to Palccoyo went along multiple switch-backs from tarmac to dirt track, and past alfalfa farmers on the lower slopes (the alfalfa feeds the guinea pigs which are a local speciality - if you are interested they taste a bit like duck) to alpaca farmers on the higher slopes (alpaca is genuinely nice meat, quite lamby but more restrained). On the way back down I tried to photograph alpaca from the taxi resulting in a lot of blurry photos of alpaca of which these are the best.

( Photos from the taxi )

This morning I was going to listen to Funkadelic's One Nation Under a Groove, but for one reason or another it's not available on YouTube Music, which is my streaming service of choice. So instead I decided to listen to American Eats Its Young. I'm only five songs in (out of 14) and I'm just blown away. I think it's both an amazing sign of how forward-thinking George Clinton was and a disheartening sign of how similar this country is today to what it was in 1972[^1], when this album was released, that the political messages in this album are still amazingly relevant today. If you don't have an hour and 10 minutes to listen to the whole album, I'd recommend the songs "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" and "Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time."

[^1] Whether that's a result of lack of progress or of progress followed by regression is a discussion for another time.

I use semi-colons; you?

Anyone who reads anything I write, whether fictional or non-fictional, knows of my love for semi-colons. When I think about why that's so, the one thing that leaps to what I laughingly call my mind is that I use them to reflect the same patterns I use when speaking. I find them extremely useful to demarcate thoughts, observations, realizations that could reasonably be considered "in process," rather completed. (Protip; don't use quotation marks quite as liberally as I undoubtedly have. That leads to bad grocery window displays; almost as much as apostrophe misuse.)

WRT that last sentence; see wut I did thar? But I digress. 

I read this WaPo article* this morning and have grumbled about it all day. In part that's because it's not that well-written a story - it's apparently predicated on the assumption that cleverness is preferable to writing a story with a point, or at least preferable to having to prove you can write such a story.

In larger part it's because I'm part of an apparently shrinking number of English speakers and writers who have sworn off this kind of proscriptive grammar pedantry, in favor of punctuation that has a perfectly understandable and effective use, if used properly. 

So I must ask my friends, for whom the acronym AKICOTI (all knowledge is contained on the internet, for those who don't trust the internet) was undoubtedly coined: 


* I cancelled my subscription months ago, but was told I was still a member until sometime in November. Most likely they hope I'll resubscribe.

Edit as of 7th July: With many thanks to conuly , here is a link to what I think can get you to see the WaPo article without running into paywalls. Let me know if it works.