skygiants: the princes from Into the Woods, singing (agony)
([personal profile] skygiants Aug. 24th, 2025 01:59 pm)
Once upon a time, I read Exiled from Camelot, the novel-length Sir Kay angstfic by Cherith Baldry that Phyllis Ann Kar politely called 'one of the half-best Arthurian novels that I have yet read,' and then launched it off to Be Experienced by [personal profile] osprey_archer and [personal profile] troisoiseaux.

Now my sins have come back upon me sevenfold, or perhaps even fifteenfold: [personal profile] troisoiseaux has discovered that, not content with the amount of hurt and comfort that she inflicted upon Kay in exiled from Camelot, Cherith Baldry has written No Less than Fifteen Sad Kay Fanfics and collected them in a volume called The Last Knight of Camelot: The Chronicles of Sir Kay.

This book has now made its way from [personal profile] troisoiseaux via [personal profile] osprey_archer on to me, along with numerous annotations -- [personal profile] osprey_archer has suggested 'drink!' every time Baldry mentions Kay's 'hawk's face,' which I have not done, as I think this would kill me -- to which I have duly added in my turn. I am proud to tell you that I was taking notes and Kay only experiences agonized manly tears nine times in the volume. That means that there are at least six whole stories where Kay manages not to burst into tears at all! And we're very proud of him for that!

The thesis of The Last Knight of Camelot seems to be that Kay is in unrequited love with Arthur; Gawain and Gareth are both in unrequited love with Kay; and everyone else is mean to Kay, all the time, for no reason. [personal profile] troisoiseaux and [personal profile] osprey_archer in their posts have both pulled out this quote which I also feel I am duty-bound to do:

"Lord of my heart, my mind, my life. All that I'll ever be. All I'll ever want.”

He had never revealed so much before.

Arthur leant towards him; there was love in his face, and wonder and compassion too, and Kay knew, his knowledge piercing like an arrow into his inmost spirit, that his love, this single-minded devotion that could fill his life and be poured out and yet never exhausted, was not returned. Arthur loved him, but not like that.

He could not help shrinking back a little.


However, I also must provide the additional context that this tender moment is immediately interrupted by the ARRIVAL OF MORGAUSE, TO SEDUCE ARTHUR, TO MAKE MORDRED, leading me to believe that Baldry is suggesting that if Kay had instead seized the chance to confidently make out with Arthur at this time, the entire doom of Camelot might have been averted. Alas! instead, Arthur dismisses Kay to go hang out with Morgause, it all goes south, Arthur blames Kay for Some Reason, and Kay spends a week on his knees in the courtyard going on hunger strike for Arthur's forgiveness until he collapses on the cobblestones and wakes up to a repentant Arthur tenderly feeding him warm milk.

If the stories in this volume are any judge, this is a pretty normal week for Kay. I also want to shout out

- the one where Lancelot and Gaheris set up a Fake Adventure for Kay to prove his courage, which destroys Kay emotionally, and kitchen-boy-squire Gareth runs after him and tries to swear loyalty to him and ask Kay to knight him, but Kay is like "you cannot AFFORD to have Kay as a friend >:(( for your knightly reputation >:(((" and Gareth shouts "you can't make me your enemy!!" and then Lancelot finds them arguing and is like 'wow, Kay is abusing this poor kitchen boy' and sweeps the lovelorn Gareth away, leaving Kay's reputation worse than before
- the one where Arthur gets kidnapped by an evil sorcerer who demands Excalibur as Arthur's ransom, and then Kay decides to try and trick the evil sorcerer with a Fake Excalibur even though Lancelot is like 'FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE,' and then Kay rescues Arthur from being magic-brainwashed by pure power of [brotherly?] love, and as soon as their tender embrace is over Arthur is like 'wait! you brought a FAKE Excalibur? that's a LIE and DISHONORABLE'
- the one where Kay is accused of rape as a Ploy to Discredit Arthur and has to go through a trial by ordeal where he walks over hot coals while on the verge of death from other injuries and Gawain flings himself into the fire to rescue him but it turns out it's fine because Kay is So Extremely Innocent of the Crime that they both end up clinging together bathed in golden light that heals their injuries

Again: FIFTEEN of these. Baldry is truly living her bliss and I honestly cannot but respect it. The book is going to make its way back from here whence it came, but if anyone else is really feeling a shortage of Kay Agonies in their life, let me know; I'm sure an additional stop would be welcomed as long as whoever gets it pays the annotation tax.
Heyo fellow baihe peeps,

I've started translating the historical/court intrigue webnovel The Moon Above These Lands, or Shan Chuan Yue (山川月) by Su Xian_ (苏弦) on jjwxc! For me, it's really hard to find a novel that I resonate with so deeply so I am quite excited about this project.

One sentence summary: Although Wen Mingchang (unacknowledged daughter of the Liu family) and Luo Qinghe (the famous general) have an ugly spat at first, they recognize each others' talent and ambition and forge a unique bond -- first in camaraderie, then in love --to lift their country into prosperity.

Proper summary under cut:  )


For those perhaps familiar with or are fans of the Nirvana in Fire (琅琊榜 Langya Bang) series or danmei series The Ballad of Sword and Wine (将进酒 Qiang Jin Jiu), I'd say this will be quite up your alley, except with a lot more focus on female characters in an alternate historical setting where women at least are able to receive an education and become officials at court. 

I think the main strength of this novel is its character development arcs, which although slow, honestly builds the characters up in a very strong way. Unironically, after reading this book, the main character Wen Mingchang is tied for my most favorite character in any media, ever, and I can also name plenty of supporting characters and ships I like in this work. 



Links galore: 

translation page
carrd
tweet
original jjwxc
novelupdates


I will note that this is slow burn and very long. I'm going to take my time and the aim is to finish it before the end of the decade or something (? lol). The plan is to go by volumes and take breaks. 

Final bit is that I edited a 手书/hand drawn MAD with a really popular song from bilibili, 戏文说 (The Opera Tune Goes). The characters are from the book and (I think) align with the lyrics, which hopefully gets clearer as the story progresses. And yes, art is an in progress hobby for me so it's actually pretty bad, but it was a fun effort.  


Thank you to [personal profile] aurumcalendula for already mentioning it since I forgot to post about it previously! I'll see everyone around. ^_^

fred_mouse: pencil drawing of mouse sitting on its butt reading a large blue book (book)
([personal profile] fred_mouse Aug. 23rd, 2025 10:24 pm)

It is a mere 20 days since my last reading notes post. I do occasionally wish that I had it together to do this weekly, and write more comprehensive reviews, but eh, when it happens, it happens.

finished

  1. My Throat an Open Grave (Tori Bovalino) - teenager from Evangelical Christian small USA town wishes their younger brother away. Much darker than Labyrinth, does some very clever things with traditional story tropes. 4.5 stars. review
  2. What Feasts at Night (T Kingfisher) - reread. Not the Kingfisher I was planning on reading, but eh. 4 stars. review
  3. Of Melodies and Maledictions (Maddox Grey) - prequel novelette, good world building and characters, but I resented being treated as if I couldn't see the plot detials shaping the story. 2 stars. review
  4. Within Prison Walls: Being a Narrative of Personal Experience During a Week of Voluntary Confinement in the State Prison at Auburn, New York (Thomas Mott Osborne) - very well written kinda long form journalism, kinda memoir, about the social experiment of a prison reformer spending a week in prison. 5 stars. review

active

(started or progressed)

  1. The Siege of Burning Grass (Premee Mohamed) - this is on my phone, and I haven't been on the bus, so I got about a third in and then haven't touched it in a week
  2. Unmasked: The Ultimate Guide to ADHD, Autism and Neurodivergence (Ellie Middleton) - finding this much less readable than the Aussie one that was specifically about ADHD, and thus struggling to maintain momentum. Also, I keep stopping to write grumpy reading notes. Such as "late diagnosed". Sweetie you are 25. (which, yes, is late diagnosed using specific definitions, but this hasn't been defined, and I've a lot of friends getting diagnoses in their 40s and 50s. Possibly 60s).
  3. After Story (Larissa Behrendt) - continues to be emotionally hard going; I've read a chapter in two weeks

there are also several for uni that haven't made it into the reading record.

paused

  • The Spider and Her Demons (Sydney Khoo) - forgot I'd borrowed this, got a 'return or else you are out of renewals' notification, got about 2/3 read in the time before I could get to the library. Very annoyed that I can't opt out of automatic renewals, but not enough that I'd done anything other than be annoyed at a librarian who kept trying to tell me it was a good process.

abandoned

nothing! For a value of nothing that includes the fact that I've taken two books from the little free library near the office, looked at the first few pages, and then returned them. One was about the Corn Laws in the UK, and while it might have reached the point that I agreed with the author, the way the whole thing was being framed was very much 'these stupid people didn't understand what was being done for their own good'. And the other was a history of Singer (I don't remember if it was the sewing machines specifically or the company) that I decided was probably really interesting but I have too many other things I want to have read in my life, and I'd rather read something else (at which point I think I started Siege of Burning Grass, and I am still of the opinion that was the right choice even if I've stalled on that one)

skygiants: C-ko the shadow girl from Revolutionary Girl Utena in prince drag (someday my prince will come)
([personal profile] skygiants Aug. 23rd, 2025 09:40 am)
[personal profile] genarti and I both recently read Leonora Carrington's 1974 surrealist novel The Hearing Trumpet, about a selectively deaf old lady whose unappreciative relatives put her into an old age home, where various increasingly weird things happen, cut in case you want to go in unspoiled )

Beth found the pace and tone of plotting very Joan Aiken-ish and I have to admit I agree with her.

BETH: But I understand that The Hearing Trumpet is like this because Carrington was a surrealist. Is it possible that Joan Aiken was also a surrealist this whole time and we've simply not been looking at her work through the right lens?
ME: I don't think her life landed her in quite the right set of circumstances to be a surrealist properly ... I think she was a little too young when the movement was kicking off .... but I do think that perhaps she believed in their beliefs even if she didn't know it ....

Anyway, The Hearing Trumpet is in some ways has elements of a classically seventies feminist text -- she wrote it while deeply involved in Mexico's 1970s women's liberation movement, and the whole occultist nun -> holy grail -> icepocalypse plot has a lot of Sacred Sexy Goddess Repressed By The Evil And Prudish Christian Church running through it -- but Marian Leatherby's robust and and opinionated ninety-year-old voice is so charmingly unflappable that the experience is never in the least bit predictable or cliche. My favorite character is Marian's best friend Carmella, who kicks off the book by giving mostly-deaf Marian the hearing trumpet that allows her to [selectively] understand the things that are going on around her. Carmella plays the role often seen in children's books of Friend Who Is Constantly Gloriously Catastrophizing About How Dramatic A Situation Will Be And How They Will Heroically Rescue You From It (and then I will smuggle you a secret letter and tunnel into the old-age home in order to avoid the dozens of police dogs! etc. etc.) which is even funnier when the things that are actually happening are even weirder and more dramatic than anything Carmella predicts, just in a slightly different genre, and then funnier again when Carmella shows up towards the end of the book perfectly suited to surviving the Even Newer, Weirder, and More Dramatic Situations that have Arisen.

The end-note explains that Carrington based Carmella on her friend Remedios Varo, a detail I include as a treat for the Varo-heads but also as an illustration of how much the novel builds itself on the connections between weird women who survive a largely-incomprehensible world by being largely incomprehensible themselves. Carrington herself was in her late fifties when she wrote this book, but she too lived into her nineties; her Wikipedia article describes her in its header as "one of the last surviving participants in the Surrealist movement of the 1930s." It's hard not to inscribe that back into the text in some way, which is of course an impossible reading, but one does like to imagine the ninety-year-old Carrington with just as much presence as the ninety-year-old Marian.
Title: Kindness
Universe: Wonderful Precure!, Delicious Party♡Pretty Cure
Prompt: Power Rangers Megaforce: S20E13 - Dream Snatcher
Character(s): Nekoyashiki Mayu, Kome-Kome
Rating: U
Warnings: N/A
Summary: The girl didn’t turn to look at her, but she could sense the shift in her interest. This girl, almost 16, the same age she had been when Yuki had been given the gift of reaching back for her.
Length: 725 words
Author's Notes: This harks back to a couple of things I have done recently. I think sometimes I am guilty of looking so inward and examining those feelings and assuming you are just on the same page that there is no hope, but trying to communicate is better than saying nothing at all. also: external link.

nyaan

Kindness )
I've just finished creating the prompt table for September's writing challenge, and I'm already looking forward to seeing what you all come up with. XD

As a sneak peek of sorts, the prompt table has 30 prompts, one for each day. There are six themes (five prompts each) across the prompt table, as below:

- Settings
- Dialogue
- Actions
- Song lyrics
- Elements
- Senses

The prompts might not be quite as obvious as those themes suggest when you get to see them (or maybe they will be? you'll have to tell me next month), but hopefully that'll give you somewhat of an idea of what you can expect next month. Time to start thinking about what you want to write!

Meanwhile, the surprise 3-sentence story challenge is there if you want to dive into something right away, or if you want to read some of the amazing stories already submitted. A great way to awaken the muse and spark some inspiration ahead of next event. :)
Tags:
kalloway: Lit patio lanterns (Patio Lanterns)
([personal profile] kalloway posting in [community profile] smallweb Aug. 23rd, 2025 01:57 am)
Heya, [community profile] smallweb!

This is an open post to talk about what you're working on, what you'd like to show off, cool resources, things that maybe aren't working so well, etc.

Also please check out previous posts to see what people are up to or if you might be able to help someone out.
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([personal profile] petrea_mitchell posting in [community profile] anime_manga Aug. 22nd, 2025 08:54 pm)
(Crossposted from my journal.)

A bit late for first impressions, but I still feel the urge to get my thoughts out there.

Dekin no Mogura: The Earthbound Mole has ugly character designs and a ton of talking, and yet is a joy and a treasure and I can hardly wait for the next episode from week to week. This is an adaptation of a manga by Eguchi Natsumi, the author of Hozuki's Coolheadedness, and starts off with a similar mix of comedy and folklore geekery. But then it adds a lot more layers. First there's the giant supernatural cat antics, and then it turns out that Eguchi has been storing up a lot of thoughts about how girls and women are socialized to behave in contemporary society, and then there's the matter of the ongoing flashbacks to World War II.

Necronomico and the Cosmic Horror Show is great if you are well-versed in both the Cthulhu mythos and the anime death game genre, an overlap not likely to occur much outside Japan. The little problem with the subtitles in episode 1 has been ironed out and now my only complaint is that the new translator doesn't know how to spell Ticktockman. Because the show has borrowed him too, for some reason.

Sword of the Demon Hunter is getting into the big events of the late 1860s while shifting its tone ever further away from grimdark. It may be trying a little too hard at this point, particularly with a recent episode where it is implied that someone eventually reforms but we miss the most interesting part of their story.

Hanako-kun season 2 part 2 is still gorgeous to look at, but suffering badly from being watched the same day as Dekin no Mogura. It isn't dragging as badly as the previous cour, but it feels like it is ambling with unnecessary slowness toward an ending that can be seen a mile away.

I was all set to hate Ruri Rocks for the same reason the geology displays at some science museums annoy me. I hate when the exhibit is basically just "look at the pretty rocks" with no context for them. But this show actually wants to provide the geological context, so great! Plus it has really excellent character animation! Instead, it annoyed me by spending way too much time pointing at the camera at the chest and bottom of the adult lead, so I'm still not planning to watch a second episode.

Bullet/Bullet and Onmyo Kaiten Re: Birth Verse were okay for as far as I watched them (1 episode and 2 episodes respectively), I don't think I'd mind watching more, but I haven't gotten around to it, so clearly I didn't like them that much.

And nobody picked up the latest Cute High for streaming, so I don't know what I think of it.
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([personal profile] the_paradigm posting in [community profile] fandomweekly Aug. 22nd, 2025 01:15 pm)
Title: (Re)United
Fandom: Final Fantasy XII
Characters/Pairings: Penelo/Basch
Rating: G
Challenge: 030 - Moment of Truth (Amnesty 027)
Spoilers/Warnings: Post-Canon, doesn’t particularly matter.
Word Count: 282
Summary: A short, abstracted view of a single decision.
Disclaimer: I do not own FFXII or the characters.

“(Re)United” )

Crossposted:
[community profile] fan_flashworks - Old Friends (Amnesty)
[community profile] sweetandshort - Aug Bingo: Hair, Luck, New, Candle
.

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