current reading
Jun. 11th, 2025 20:02![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistleingreyAt this very moment I'm reading what may be my last necessary (assigned) chapter from Principles of Economics, 4th ed., by Dirk Mateer and Lee Coppock---introductory macro- and microeconomics. Its microecon chapters are well done as textbooks go (no idea about its macroecon coverage).
And then we shall dance on your graves
Jun. 11th, 2025 20:00sovayI got home to find the day's mail had brought my contributor's copy of Not One of Us #83, containing my poem "Below Surface." It is a poem of empire; I wrote it at the start of the third week in January after shouting, "I ran out of curse tablets!" It bears about as much relation to the realities of the Emperors who died at Eboracum as the medieval Welsh legends of Constantius and I see no reason that should impair its efficacy. The issue it belongs to is gone, showcasing the elusive fiction and poetry of Steve Toase, Christian Fiachra Stevens, J. M. Vesper, Vincent Bae, and more. John and Flo Stanton contribute interior art as well as the reliable spirit photography of their front and back covers. You might as well pick up a copy before it disappears.
I photographed some ghost windows. I bought myself some white chocolate peanut butter cups.selkie's gift of tinned mackerel with lemon did not survive the night.
I photographed some ghost windows. I bought myself some white chocolate peanut butter cups.
selkie's gift of tinned mackerel with lemon did not survive the night.
Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Norman Rockwell: Fixing a Flat, by moon_custafer.
Jun. 11th, 2025 18:48full_metal_ox posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fancakeFandom: Hilda the Plus-size Pinup; Fixing a Flat (Norman Rockwell illustration)
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Hilda; three Norman Rockwell characters, two female and one male.
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 2,356
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, women solving their own problems
Creator Tags: magazine illustrations, Norman Rockwell - Freeform, Fluff, Plot
Creator Links: (AO3)![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
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mooncustafer
Theme: Female Relationships, Crossovers/Fusions, Female Friendship, Gen, Heists & Capers, Old Fandoms, Small Fandoms, Stranded
Summary: Hilda’s fishing trip is struck by rain and then by two new acquaintances in need of assistance.
Author’s Notes: Formoonlight69.
I needed to introduce a few additional characters to Hilda’s mainly single-panel world, so I did a mash-up with Norman Rockwell’s “Fixing a Flat.” Think of it as the Illustrationverse.
Reccer's Notes: A rec posted in honor of the U.S. Full Strawberry Moon, for reasons that will be apparent in the fic.
Moon Custafer constructs a story from several Hilda panels (plus a special guest Norman Rockwell work), in which Duane Bryers’ zaftig hillbilly wood nymph comes to the aid of two travelers stranded in the boondocks—a predicament complicated by a less friendly local. (A temporary problem-solving alliance (particularly against a common enemy) can count as a relationship, right?)
Hilda as portrayed in Bryers’ artworks seems to embrace solitude, and the scant fanfic I’ve seen doesn’t tend to show her interacting face-to-face with much of anyone but her animal friends and the odd Authorial Proxy; it’s fun to watch her socializing, and to see her given family, friends, enemies, and a history. (As well as actual clothing that she presumably wears now and then to pick up her crackers, trashy novels, and repurposable-as-clothing floursacks.)
Fanwork Links: Fixing a Flat bymoon_custafer for moonlight69, for Yuletide 2018.
Pairings/Characters: Gen; Hilda; three Norman Rockwell characters, two female and one male.
Rating: General Audiences
Length: 2,356
Content Notes: No Archive Warnings Apply, women solving their own problems
Creator Tags: magazine illustrations, Norman Rockwell - Freeform, Fluff, Plot
Creator Links: (AO3)
mooncustafer; (Dreamwidth) moon_custafer; (Instagram) mooncustafer; (LiveJournal) moon_custafer; (Tumblr) Theme: Female Relationships, Crossovers/Fusions, Female Friendship, Gen, Heists & Capers, Old Fandoms, Small Fandoms, Stranded
Summary: Hilda’s fishing trip is struck by rain and then by two new acquaintances in need of assistance.
Author’s Notes: For
I needed to introduce a few additional characters to Hilda’s mainly single-panel world, so I did a mash-up with Norman Rockwell’s “Fixing a Flat.” Think of it as the Illustrationverse.
Reccer's Notes: A rec posted in honor of the U.S. Full Strawberry Moon, for reasons that will be apparent in the fic.
Moon Custafer constructs a story from several Hilda panels (plus a special guest Norman Rockwell work), in which Duane Bryers’ zaftig hillbilly wood nymph comes to the aid of two travelers stranded in the boondocks—a predicament complicated by a less friendly local. (A temporary problem-solving alliance (particularly against a common enemy) can count as a relationship, right?)
Hilda as portrayed in Bryers’ artworks seems to embrace solitude, and the scant fanfic I’ve seen doesn’t tend to show her interacting face-to-face with much of anyone but her animal friends and the odd Authorial Proxy; it’s fun to watch her socializing, and to see her given family, friends, enemies, and a history. (As well as actual clothing that she presumably wears now and then to pick up her crackers, trashy novels, and repurposable-as-clothing floursacks.)
Fanwork Links: Fixing a Flat by
delight of the evening
Jun. 11th, 2025 23:54kaberettOkay. So.
Admin: the LRP has a variety of in-game resources. One of the more valuable ones is mithril, which gets used for all sorts of things, like armour and weaponry and building works, particularly military ones.
This event we are seeing the launch of The Cow Stock Market. This inevitably was a topic of discussion over this evening's pizza: discussion of the designs of the I Promise To Pay The Bearer On Demand One (1) Cow slips! speculation over Cow Futures! debate over the impact on the gold mithril standard!
It'll be fiiiiiiiiiine, says A. It'll all be TOTALLY fine. You can absolutely build fortifications out of cows!
-- and at this point, for those of you who are abruptly cackling, I need to point out that A has not read Nona the Ninth.
I also need to point out that I am in a specific groupchat, specifically set up following the event where someone managed to get their hands on some copies of Nona a few days before official release and there was consequently significant in-field bartering for who got to be next in the queue to inhale them, that is named after. well. the cows. did you know that cows have best friends.
But A had no idea why I was abruptly losing it, and I decided that rather than attempt to explain I was in fact first of all going to Depart Our Table, find my Nona dealers, and relate unto them the story of The Thing A, All Unawares, Just Said.
The reaction was extremely gratifying.
Muir Woods
Jun. 11th, 2025 22:28![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
lecta_feedMay 2025
This was my third visit to Muir Woods, but the first in my increasingly last-in-first-out photo processing queue. My longest Muir Woods walk by far, as we hiked up to Cardiac Hill via the Dipsea Trail and back down Stapelveldt and Ben Johnson (trail guide).
It is not, in reality, anything like as dark as this under the canopy of the redwoods on a bright May day, but I was wearing dark and red-tinted sunglasses and was keen to recreate the experience by underexposing my photos too.
It’s called Cardiac Hill, because, obviously. We shared it with people running the Stinson Beach marathon:
If you ascend Dipsea and then go down Stapelveldt / Ben Johnson as we did, you have to do the ascent mostly in the sun, but then you get to do the return in the shade:
Adventures Elsewhere — May 2025
Jun. 11th, 2025 22:55helloladies posting in ladybusinessAdventures Elsewhere collects our reviews, guest posts, articles, and other content we've spread across the Internet recently! See what we've been up in our other projects. :D
( Read more... )Our Favourite Media of May 2025
Jun. 10th, 2025 22:51helloladies posting in ladybusinessEach month, we look back over the media we loved in the previous month, from books to film to video games and more. This entry in the series was written a while ago, but we haven't posted a favorite media since then, so we're posting it now for maximum completion!
( Read more... )
Post-Deadline Pinch Hits for Sakura Exchange (Due June 20) - New Pinch Hit #16
Jun. 11th, 2025 13:19sakuramod posting in yuletidesakuraexchange is a spring exchange for relationships in Japanese media, run on Dreamwidth and AO3.We have several pinch hits (unfilled requests) currently in need of creators. If you might be able to fill one of these requests by the current due date (June 20, 11:59PM UTC / 7:59PM EDT), please comment on the pinch hit post with your AO3 name and the number of the pinch hit you'd like to claim.
The minimum requirements are 1000 words for fic, or clean lineart on unlined paper for art.
Available pinch hits (click through for details):
PH 2 - Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses, 殺し愛 | Koroshi Ai (Manga), 2.5次元の誘惑 | 2.5-jigen no Ririsa | 2.5 Dimensional Seduction (Anime)
PH 4 - 爆上戦隊ブンブンジャー | Bakuage Sentai Boonboomger (TV), 魔法つかいプリキュア！ | Mahou Tsukai Pretty Cure! | Mahou Girls PreCure!, 仮面ライダーギーツ | Kamen Rider Geats, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne | Phantom-Thief Jeanne (manga), Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne | Phantom-Thief Jeanne (Anime)
PH 10 - わんだふるぷりきゅあ! | Wonderful PreCure! (Anime), Crossover Fandom, Show By Rock!! (Video Games), 美男高校地球防衛部HAPPY KISS! | Binan Koukou Chikyuu Bouei-bu Happy Kiss!, Tokyo Mew Mew Olé (Manga), Fairy蘭丸~あなたの心お助けします~ | Fairy Ranmaru: Anata no Kokoro Otasuke Shimasu (Anime)
PH 16 - 終ノ空 remake | Tsui no Sora Remake, Tsukihime (Visual Novel & Anime), Kara no Kyoukai | The Garden of Sinners
Thank you very much!
Guy Gardner: Warrior #20
Jun. 11th, 2025 17:15iamrman posting in scans_dailyWriter: Chuck Dixon
Pencils: Mitch Byrd
Inks: Dan Davis
Guy leads a team to investigate just what Hal Jordan has wrought.
( Read more... )
(no subject)
Jun. 11th, 2025 09:31aurumcalendulaI've seen a bunch of wildlife around lately (fawns, a downy woodpecker, red shouldered hawks, cottontail rabbits, hummingbirds), which has brighten my day over the last week or so.
Green Lantern #182
Jun. 11th, 2025 14:30iamrman posting in scans_dailyWriter: Len Wein
Pencils: Dave Gibbons
Inks: Mark Farmer
Who will be the new Green Lantern now that Hal Jordan has resigned?
( Read more... )
Books and comics read in April and May 2025
Jun. 11th, 2025 13:18usuallyhatsThe Sapling Cage - Margaret Killjoy
The Butterfly Assassin - Finn Longman
Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie
A Sorceress Comes to Call - T Kingfisher
James - Percival Everett
Those Beyond the Wall - Micaiah Johnson
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins - P Djèlí Clark
The City in Glass - Nghi Vo
Return of the Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The Brides of High Hill - Nghi Vo
The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain - Sofia Samatar
Navigational Entanglements - Aliette de Bodard
The West Passage - Jared Pechaček
Metropolitain: An Ode to the Paris Metro - Andrew Martin
We Called Them Giants
The Hunger and the Dusk, vol 1
Saint Death's Herald - CSE Cooney
The Butcher of the Forest - Premee Mohamed
The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson
In Universes - Emet North
So Let Them Burn - Kamilah Cole
The Time of the Ghost - Diana Wynne Jones
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith - Rebecca Ide
The Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones
This took me a bit to get into, partly because I was struggling to get a handle on the world, but it picks up once Lorel joins the witches, and has some really interesting stuff on duty, responsibility, power and how to live in a world that has other people in it. I felt like it faltered a bit in the second half when the action picked up, though, partly because it stopped addressing those questions and partly because writing action scenes is not Killjoy's best skill - they're not bad, exactly, but they are a bit awkward. And while I see what the author was trying to do with the denouement and the villain's motivation, it just didn't really come off.
What did work really well, however, was Lorel's debate on whether she wanted use magic to transform her body because she wanted a different body, or because having that body would make it easier for her to exist in a transphobic world. I particularly liked that it doesn't really factor into her internal debate that the magic to make it happen is difficult and painful and needs the participation of another person: she can tackle how to get it if she decides it's something she wants.
So definitely a mixed bag: the aspects of it I loved, I REALLY loved, but I'm still on the fence about whether I'll read the next in the trilogy.
A Sorceress Comes to Call
Two stars is probably a little ungenerous, but I was so frustrated by this book by the time I finished it, because it's two books, and they're both good books, but they are fighting each other. Part of this book is an incredibly well done horror novel about domestic abuse and control, and part of it is a delightful Regencyesque comedy of manners, and maybe those two things could mesh, but they don't here: the comedy of manners defangs the horror novel, and the horror makes the comedy of manners feel frivolous, even though both taken individually are great.
I could also have done without the comedy of manners heroine banging on about how OLD and DECREPIT she is, she's just SO ANCIENT, an OLD LADY, when she is in fact... fifty one. (Definitely a known problem with Kingfisher's writing, and this is at least older than her previous "I'm just SO OLD" heroine was, so... progress?)
The City in Glass
Absolutely loved this. Gorgeous prose, incredible images, wildly compelling - Nghi Vo does not miss.
The West Passage
This book was a wild ride and I had a great time (even if it contains slightly more cannibalism than I would ideally prefer). It's a medieval inspired fantasy, but not in a knights and peasants way, in a mysticism and weird little guys from the margins of illuminated manuscripts way: there's definitely some Gormenghast in its DNA, as well as some of the odder corners of Arthuriana, but it is absolutely its own thing. And the ending absolutely elevated the whole thing.
Saint Death's Herald
I absolutely adored Saint Death's Daughter, but this sequel didn't work as well for me. I still love Lanie, but the new supporting cast and their relationships with her weren't as strong as the previous books, so I was a lot less invested overall (especially in the incredibly drawn out fight sequence around the 60% mark), and the more peripatetic plot meant there was less of a sense of place to this one. I also felt like the prose leaned into the elements that I liked less from the previous book. I didn't dislike it, though, and I'm hoping this is just a touch of middle-book-itis (it did feel like there was a lot of mopping up from book one and manoeuvring into position for book three) - I will definitely be finishing the trilogy.
The Raven Scholar
Definitely a three stars (affectionate) here. I loved the middle of this book, as our (not stated but very obviously) autistic heroine navigates the situation she's been flung into and grapples with her own past choices, but the beginning was a bit rocky and I felt like the end collapsed down a lot of interesting complexities in the interests of having a more standard Villain Plot to defeat. It's a very long book, though, so I spent more time in the fun middle than the shaky beginning and end, and am excited for more in this world!
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith
I feel like this book couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be. It tried to be a romance, a fantasy novel, a murder mystery and a gothic novel all at once, and ended up not really doing justice to any of them. And while it's definitely possible for this kind of genre mishmash to work, it has to be better integrated into the whole; here it felt like we were just skipping from one to the other, and as a result none of them were managed in a completely satisfying way - I forgot who the murderer was almost immediately after it was revealed, for example, because the solution was such a damp squib. The dialogue in particular also couldn't decide if it wanted to be period or modern, and overall it felt it was never sure if it wanted to be Regency-with-magic or full AU.
I do think that all of those things would have been easier to overlook if it had been shorter and faster paced though, it did have some fun stuff going on, but its flaws got more evident and more frustrating the more I read.
The Butterfly Assassin - Finn Longman
Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie
A Sorceress Comes to Call - T Kingfisher
James - Percival Everett
Those Beyond the Wall - Micaiah Johnson
The Dead Cat Tail Assassins - P Djèlí Clark
The City in Glass - Nghi Vo
Return of the Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
The Brides of High Hill - Nghi Vo
The Practice, the Horizon and the Chain - Sofia Samatar
Navigational Entanglements - Aliette de Bodard
The West Passage - Jared Pechaček
Metropolitain: An Ode to the Paris Metro - Andrew Martin
We Called Them Giants
The Hunger and the Dusk, vol 1
Saint Death's Herald - CSE Cooney
The Butcher of the Forest - Premee Mohamed
The Raven Scholar - Antonia Hodgson
In Universes - Emet North
So Let Them Burn - Kamilah Cole
The Time of the Ghost - Diana Wynne Jones
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith - Rebecca Ide
The Magicians of Caprona - Diana Wynne Jones
The Sapling Cage (three stars), A Sorceress Comes to Call (two stars), The City in Glass (five stars), The West Passage (five stars), Saint Death's Herald (three stars), The Raven Scholar (three stars), The Gentleman and His Vowsmith (two stars)
The Sapling CageThis took me a bit to get into, partly because I was struggling to get a handle on the world, but it picks up once Lorel joins the witches, and has some really interesting stuff on duty, responsibility, power and how to live in a world that has other people in it. I felt like it faltered a bit in the second half when the action picked up, though, partly because it stopped addressing those questions and partly because writing action scenes is not Killjoy's best skill - they're not bad, exactly, but they are a bit awkward. And while I see what the author was trying to do with the denouement and the villain's motivation, it just didn't really come off.
What did work really well, however, was Lorel's debate on whether she wanted use magic to transform her body because she wanted a different body, or because having that body would make it easier for her to exist in a transphobic world. I particularly liked that it doesn't really factor into her internal debate that the magic to make it happen is difficult and painful and needs the participation of another person: she can tackle how to get it if she decides it's something she wants.
So definitely a mixed bag: the aspects of it I loved, I REALLY loved, but I'm still on the fence about whether I'll read the next in the trilogy.
A Sorceress Comes to Call
Two stars is probably a little ungenerous, but I was so frustrated by this book by the time I finished it, because it's two books, and they're both good books, but they are fighting each other. Part of this book is an incredibly well done horror novel about domestic abuse and control, and part of it is a delightful Regencyesque comedy of manners, and maybe those two things could mesh, but they don't here: the comedy of manners defangs the horror novel, and the horror makes the comedy of manners feel frivolous, even though both taken individually are great.
I could also have done without the comedy of manners heroine banging on about how OLD and DECREPIT she is, she's just SO ANCIENT, an OLD LADY, when she is in fact... fifty one. (Definitely a known problem with Kingfisher's writing, and this is at least older than her previous "I'm just SO OLD" heroine was, so... progress?)
The City in Glass
Absolutely loved this. Gorgeous prose, incredible images, wildly compelling - Nghi Vo does not miss.
The West Passage
This book was a wild ride and I had a great time (even if it contains slightly more cannibalism than I would ideally prefer). It's a medieval inspired fantasy, but not in a knights and peasants way, in a mysticism and weird little guys from the margins of illuminated manuscripts way: there's definitely some Gormenghast in its DNA, as well as some of the odder corners of Arthuriana, but it is absolutely its own thing. And the ending absolutely elevated the whole thing.
Saint Death's Herald
I absolutely adored Saint Death's Daughter, but this sequel didn't work as well for me. I still love Lanie, but the new supporting cast and their relationships with her weren't as strong as the previous books, so I was a lot less invested overall (especially in the incredibly drawn out fight sequence around the 60% mark), and the more peripatetic plot meant there was less of a sense of place to this one. I also felt like the prose leaned into the elements that I liked less from the previous book. I didn't dislike it, though, and I'm hoping this is just a touch of middle-book-itis (it did feel like there was a lot of mopping up from book one and manoeuvring into position for book three) - I will definitely be finishing the trilogy.
The Raven Scholar
Definitely a three stars (affectionate) here. I loved the middle of this book, as our (not stated but very obviously) autistic heroine navigates the situation she's been flung into and grapples with her own past choices, but the beginning was a bit rocky and I felt like the end collapsed down a lot of interesting complexities in the interests of having a more standard Villain Plot to defeat. It's a very long book, though, so I spent more time in the fun middle than the shaky beginning and end, and am excited for more in this world!
The Gentleman and His Vowsmith
I feel like this book couldn't quite decide what it wanted to be. It tried to be a romance, a fantasy novel, a murder mystery and a gothic novel all at once, and ended up not really doing justice to any of them. And while it's definitely possible for this kind of genre mishmash to work, it has to be better integrated into the whole; here it felt like we were just skipping from one to the other, and as a result none of them were managed in a completely satisfying way - I forgot who the murderer was almost immediately after it was revealed, for example, because the solution was such a damp squib. The dialogue in particular also couldn't decide if it wanted to be period or modern, and overall it felt it was never sure if it wanted to be Regency-with-magic or full AU.
I do think that all of those things would have been easier to overlook if it had been shorter and faster paced though, it did have some fun stuff going on, but its flaws got more evident and more frustrating the more I read.
Fury of Firestorm #3
Jun. 11th, 2025 12:32iamrman posting in scans_dailyWriter: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Pat Broderick
Inks: Rodin Rodriguez
Time for Killer Frost to kick some ice!
( Read more... )
