gnome

I said I was going to give myself a break between the end of the filler arc and the beginning of the Fullbring arc, but I watched episodes 343 and 344 of Bleach anyway. I enjoyed them! I've relaxed on the Fullbring arc since I first read it forever ago and enjoy it a lot more, and thus far I'm liking the anime version. Captures Ichigo's obvious denial about how much he misses his powers and his shinigami friends well, and the way he's drifted back to spending more time with Keigo and Mizuiro without sharing anything real or deep with them, and I love the scene where he and Ishida argue while fighting that gang just as much animated. They're so funny and so silly. And TBH, I love that so many of the characters have after school jobs. I'm preparing myself to be disappointed all over again with how it deals with Chad, but I think I'm going to enjoy how it deals with Ichigo and Ishida all over again.

Famed Australian film critic David Stratton died last week, so I decided to watch more movies in his honour. Unfortunately um I watched Rashomon and was underwhelmed. I guess every serious film fan will disown me now. It really does feel like a short story unnecessarily dragged out to movie length. Longest 88 minutes of my life. The best part is the fourth memory, which isn't even from Akutagawa's stories, but has better acting from everyone. There are good bits, but also... it's too long. I mostly feel it's too long.

OTOH, I watched When Harry Met Sally for the first time, and you know what? It's good. It's really good and really funny, and captures an emotional truth. The joke about Ethiopian film has not aged well, but everything else is delightful. That romantic ending speech really brought a tear to my eye. And remember when people were allowed to look like that on screen? No one in this movie is bad looking but everyone looks so normal.

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The last of the four Hugo Best Novel nominees I read (I did not get around to Service Model or Someone You Can Build A Nest In) was A Sorceress Comes to Call, which ... I think perhaps I have hit the point, officially, at which I've read Too Much Kingfisher; which is not, in the grand scheme of things, that much. But it's enough to identify and be slightly annoyed by repeated patterns, by the type of people who, in a Kingfisher book, are Always Good and Virtuous, and by the type of people who are Not.

A Sorceress Comes to Call is a sort of Regency riff; it's also a bit of a Goose Girl riff, although I have truly no idea what it's trying to say about the original story of the Goose Girl, a fairy tale about which one might have really a lot of things to say. Anyway, the plot involves an evil sorceress with an evil horse (named Falada after the Goose Girl horse) who brings her abused teen daughter along with her in an attempt to seduce a kindly but clueless aristocrat into marriage. The particular method by which the evil sorceress abuses her daughter is striking and terrible, and drawn with skill. Fortunately, the abused teen daughter then bonds with the aristocrat's practical middle-aged spinster sister and her practical middle-aged friends, and learns from them how to be a Practical Heroine in her own right, and they all team up to defeat the evil sorceress mother and her evil horse. The good end happily, and the bad unhappily. At no point is anybody required to feel sympathy for the abusive sorceress mother or the evil horse. If this is the sort of book you like you will probably like this book, and you can stop reading here.

( ungenerous readings below )

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Over the last...several months?...

wildpear introduced Pumpkin and (to different extents) a couple of other teenagers to Fruits Basket. Pumpkin got the double anime experience, starting with the 2001 anime and then going on to the 2019 anime, and while they were still working their way through the latter, they also restarted it to show it to two different people, including M, Pumpkin's agemate among our local friends' kids. Throughout,

wildpear texted me intermittent reaction updates, which was a delight.

Now that they're all finished (on the anime front),

wildpear brought Pumpkin and M over for an intergenerational fandom yard hangout last week! (Of the 2001 anime, M has only seen the very ending, in a sort of "must know what the horror actually is". For anyone who doesn't know, the original anime is mostly really charming and has a lot going for it, with most of its weaknesses being pretty understandable given when it was made and where the manga was at that point, but its ending is a straight-up travesty and an abomination.)

Jumping ahead a bit: you may notice the absence of the manga in the above, which has now been resolved! I initially had been like, "Well, I have a lending set, and its day has come!", but by the time the visit actually happened and I'd unearthed said set (a combination of the five 2-in-1 hardcover volumes Tokyopop managed to release, and the rest of the series in the standard Tokyopop edition), I'd talked sense into myself and decided to make it a gift instead. I'm not actually sure the lending set had ever gone out of the house (other than

wildpear, the only person who'd ever read my hard copy was my sister, and that predated the lending set, IIRC), and I didn't honestly need four sets* in the house, even if one of them is in Japanese. So that box has gone off into the world, and while I warned everyone that manga spines aren't as sturdy as anyone would like, they don't have to worry about keeping the books pristine for me.

Anyway! Seeing the three of them was lovely. ( cut! )

Current Mood: nostalgic
Current Music: YANTA - Girl (Tori Amos instumental cover)

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Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

Are there shows, or elements of shows, that you now see quite differently from how you experienced them 10+ years ago?

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!challenge week

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!promotion day

Description: Pick one character as your focus in this fic writing community in the style of

1sentence, choose from 1 of the 6 theme sets, and make your claim - then, write 50 one-sentence fic inspired by the prompts to share on the comm! This is an ongoing activity, open to writers for all fandoms, as well as original characters. Claims are good for three months, and you can get an extension of one month if needed.
Schedule: Ongoing
Links:
On Dreamwidth:

1character

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fanfiction

Description: Pick one character as your focus in this fic writing community in the style of

1character

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fandom_general

Sunflower Auction benefiting Ukraine is open for bidding.

My offer

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rl: charities

You can browse offers via the tags in this journal.

If you notice any mistakes (broken links, mistagged entry, etc), please let us now.

Please keep in mind the following:

* This auction has run before. Make sure you bid on a 2025 offer.

* Currency: This auction is in Euros! If you need to convert Euros to your currency to get an estimate of your bid, you can use a converter.

* For any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact us on Dreamwidth or email us at sunflower.auction@gmail.com

Email addresses are hidden. After bidding, it's recommended to make note of which row/timestamp your bid is on the high bid sheet for your reference.

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13-year-old Hannah, who lives on a tiny island off Seattle, is excited for her first babysitting job. Then a giant earthquake hits, cutting the island off from the mainland... and leaving Hannah alone in charge of two kids in a devastated landscape.

Hannah is not having a good day. She was recently diagnosed with asthma, forcing her to drop out of soccer and always carry an inhaler. Her best friend Neha, a soccer star, is now hanging out more with another soccer girl than with Hannah. Hannah forgets to bring her inhaler with her to school, and her mom doesn't turn around the car to get it as Hannah is desperate not to be late. When she arrives for her babysitting job after school, minus her inhaler (no doubt looming ominously on the mantelpiece at home, along with Chekhov's gun), she gets in a huge fight with Neha over text and the girls say they no longer want to be friends...

...just as a giant earthquake hits! Hannah gets her charges, Zoe and Oscar, to huddle under a table (along with their guinea pig) and no one is injured. But the windows break, the house is trashed, and the power, internet, and phones go out. The house is somewhat remote, an all-day walk from the next house. What to do?

Hannah is a pretty realistic 13-year-old. She's generally sensible, but makes some mistakes which are understandable under the circumstances, but have huge repercussions. She enlists the kids to help her search for her phone in the wreckage of the house, and Zoe immediately is severely cut on broken glass. The kids freak out because their mom (along with Hannah's) is on the mainland, and Hannah calms them down by lying that she got a text from their mom saying that she's fine and is coming soon. The next morning, she lets Oscar play on some home playground equipment. Hannah checks the surrounding area, but doesn't check the equipment itself. It's damaged and breaks, and Oscar breaks his leg. So by day one, Hannah is having asthma attacks without her inhaler, Zoe has one arm out of commission, Oscar is totally immobilized, and there's no adults within reach.

Well - this is a HUGE improvement on Trapped. It's well-written and gripping, the events all make sense, and the characterization is fine. It was clearly intended to teach kids what can happen during a big earthquake and how to stay as safe as possible, and the information presented on that is all good.

But - you knew there was a but - as an enjoyable work of children's disaster/survival literature, it falls short of the standards of the old classic Hatchet and the excellent newer series I Survived.

The basic problem with this book is that it has a very narrow emotional range. For the entire book, Hannah is miserable, guilty over her friend breakup and the kids getting hurt, worried about her parents, and desperately trying to keep it together. The kids get hurt so seriously so early on that they never have any fun. Even when Hannah tries to feed them S'Mores to cheer them up, nobody actually likes them because they're not melted!

The I Survived books have much more variety of emotional states and incidents, as typically the actual disaster doesn't happen until at least one-third of the way into the book. The kids have highs and lows, fun moments and despairing moments and terrifying moments. This book is all gloom all the time even before the disaster! Hannah eventually saves everyone, is hailed as a hero, and repairs her friendship, but we don't get that from her inner POV - it's in a transcript of a TV interview with her.

The information provided in the book is very solid, but I would have preferred that it didn't have BOTH kids get injured because of something Hannah does wrong. (That is not realistic! ONE, maybe.) It also would have been a lot more fun to read if the kids' injuries were either less serious or occurred later. The situation is desperate and miserable almost immediately, and just stays that way for the entire book.

Still, there's a lot about the book that's good and there should be an entertaining book that provides earthquake knowledge, so I'm keeping it. But I'm not getting her other book about two girls lost in the woods.

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Obviously this is officially old news now but of the novels on the Hugo ballot [that I read], the one I personally would have best like to see win is Adrian Tchaikovsky's Alien Clay -- in contrast to The Tainted Cup, which felt to me like a novel of craft but not ideas, Alien Clay felt like a book where the science fiction worldbuilding on display was really skillfully and inventively married to the broader themes and ideas that Tchaikovsky wanted to explore in the book.

Alien Clay is a science fiction gulag novel; the protagonist, Anton Daghdev, is a dissident academic who's been life-sentenced to work on one of the few planets reachable by humans so far discovered to harbor alien life -- and, as Daghdev learns when he arrives, even possible evidence of ancient alien civilizations, though none of the planet's present inhabitants seem particularly sentient.

Pros:
- Daghdev has devoted his life to the alien studies and now he has the opportunity to do the most compelling, cutting-edge work in the field!
- also, unlike the other two options, Kiln's atmosphere will not immediately kill a human experiencing it without protective gear

Cons:
- it's a gulag
- with a correspondingly high fatality field fatality rate
- many of the other people in the gulag, arrested before Daghdev, are suspicious that he might have been the one that sold them out to the regime
- although Kiln's atmosphere will not IMMEDIATELY kill a human without protective gear, Kiln's weird, vibrant and enthusiastic ecosystem is extremely eager to find a foothold inside human biology, and what happens to the human body after it becomes exposed to Kiln's various [diseases? symbionts? parasites? TBD] seems Extremely Unpleasant
- and -- perhaps worst of all -- a major cornerstone of the regime's philosophy is the notion that humanity is the highest form of life in the universe, and all alien life will, eventually, by divine destiny, tend inevitably towards a bipedal humanoid form, which means that all the compelling, cutting-edge scientific research that's being performed on Kiln will inevitably be warped and transformed into a shape that suits the regime before anyone else can ever see it

Through the course of the book, Daghdev's attempts to figure out what's going on with the Kiln aliens and their hypothetical and hypothetically-vanished Civilization-Building Precursors on a planet that seems antithetical to human life intertwines with his attempt to survive and find solidarity in a penal colony that seems, well, antithetical to human life. I think readers will probably vary on how relatively depressing they find this experience.

rachelmanija thought it was pretty bleak; meanwhile,

genarti was impressed by how fun it was to read, All Things Considered. I'm more of

genarti's mind on this one -- for me, Daghdev's own profound intellectual fascination with the world of Kiln counterbalanced the grimness of the gulag and gave even the most depressing parts of the book a needed spark -- but I do think it really depends on personal taste and calibration. Either way, the whole thing ends in a one-two punch of a solution that I found really satisfying on both a speculative-biological and thematic level.

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Description:
It's one part dream.
One part disaster.
And absolutely 100% fandom.
It's Your OTPs/Fandoms combined with our chaos.

Schedule: From now until October 12, 2025 when our first challenges closes.

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On Dreamwidth:

innitmarvelous_og | Hodge Podge

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!challenge week

I have finished the Bleach filler! Insert a maniacal laugh here.

They should have done more one shot filler episodes instead of too long boring arcs, and that's about all I can say about that. It's not that the reigei arc was entirely without merit (for one thing, I like how they actively tried to show Ikkaku incorporating Iba's feedback about his shitty battleground behaviour as a bit of a character motivation bridge between arcs, and while I didn't find Kageroza or Nozomi particularly interesting there were interesting moments and some cool fights, including surprising match ups like Komamura vs fake Soi Fon), but it did go on too long, and kept redoing the same thing in increasingly less interesting ways. How many times do we have to see Byakuya fight himself??

I do appreciate filler episode 342 because it's all about Ichigo and Rukia's friendship, and that's my favouritest thing in the series. For most part I'm :/ about them dragging out Ichigo's power loss, but I did like that the entire episode was a nice farewell between them.

And now onward to the fullbring arc. It's grown on me in the manga in reread, but we'll see how I feel when I watch it.

The new episodes of The Summer Hikaru Died and Kaiju no 8 on the weekend were great. I'm living for the uncomfortable tension between Yoshiki and "Hikaru", and the last episode was a real knife to the chest. And as for Hibino Kafka and his crew, the revelation that Kafka is now not fully transforming back from kaiju but small parts are staying monstrous was interesting, and I'm excited to see where they go with that. Also, I love that he's just going to do his best about it. Also, that the scientist was saved! And I think Narumi has grown on me, even though I found him dull at the start of the season.

I have also watched all four episodes in existence of Let's Go Karaoke!, about a member of the Yakuza approaching middle age forcing a middle school choir boy whose voice is about to change to go to karaoke with him so he can learn to sing better. It's not remotely what I thought I would be into, but it's so compelling. The first episode is so uncomfortable with how cringe Kyouji is, hahaha. Poor Satomi, having all that inappropriate karaoke time and struggling with so many teenage emotions. That scene in episode three just about rewired my brain. And the last episode! Crying while massacring an X Japan song! So good. I'm glad I got back into anime just in time to watch weird silly nonsense like this. A choir boy having inappropriate tension with a yakuza who makes him go to karaoke is not what I would have thought I enjoyed watching a year ago... but it's real fun.

Since I started it last Monday, I have also finished watching all 48 episodes of The Apothecary Diaries, which is unhinged behaviour, but also after everything I saw about this series before I watched it being that Maomao never has convincing attraction to men, I was surprised how obvious it is that she's attracted to Jinshi. I guess that must be ship war rhetoric from people who ship her with Loulan instead? She is very shippy with Loulan, but I don't like Loulan hahaha. Obviously she should kiss almost every woman though. I wouldn't have minded her smooching Suirei, but maybe Suirei should get smooched by Ah Duo instead.

I feel like Jinshi and Maomao should not hook up because that would fundamentally change their relationship in ways that wouldn't be great for Maomao. Much like with the X Files, I find the idea of them doing something with all that tension both compelling and ill-advised.

TBH, most of my favourite parts are when she's hanging out with concubines and other servants in the rear palace, or when she's chatting with her sex worker friends at the brothel. It's pretty good for interesting female interaction, and while it's frank about sexuality and sex work, and there's horrors in the backstory, and it mostly doesn't dwell too much on them to stop feeling light and charming. And the main character enjoys testing poisons on herself, in classic chemist fashion.

I did laugh every time they clearly did not have the money to properly animate a thing, so there was a succession of still images and a voice over.

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If you're anything like us, you'll no doubt have a mountain of books that you just never get around to reading. Well, that's where

thestoryinside comes in - have someone choose your book for you!

The process is simple: join the community, and each month sign up to be partnered with a buddy, who will then choose a book from your 'to read' list. At the end of each month there will be a community post to discuss your thoughts on the book(s) you read!

However, we're putting a twist on the traditional 'pick for me' routine and each month we'll vote on what genre of book we'll be reading; now, of course this is open to personal interpretation, for example, if the genre is horror and you're not a big fan, you could go for a Goosebumps book, or even Twilight. There will be an opportunity in each voting post to ask any questions you might have.

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books

Let's Eat! (705 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Characters: Kuchiki Rukia
Additional Tags: Fluff, Missing Scene, Established Relationship
Summary:

Three moments in time when Rukia thinks about the people she shares food with.

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Title: Koi Pond
Length: 345 words
Fandom: 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Ayasato Chihiro | Mia Fey/Naruhodou Ryuuichi | Phoenix Wright
Characters: Ayasato Chihiro | Mia Fey, Naruhodou Ryuuichi | Phoenix Wright
Additional Tags: Older Woman/Younger Man, Friends to Lovers, koi ponds, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Mia Fey Lives, Mentor/Protégé, Gift Fic, Battleship Exchange 2025
Summary: Mia and Phoenix, in three scenes

On AO3
On Dreamwidth
On Squidgeworld

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game: ace attorney

I just posted an essay called What Middles Are For. Come over and check it out! It begins:

Arguably a story consists of 1) promises, 2) progress, and 3) payoff (cf Sanderson, Youtube). The promises are "here's what you're in for", including main characters, setting/genre/tone, goals and stakes. Most of that gets set up at the start. The payoff happens at the end, obviously, as all of it comes to fruition or failure. But middles can feel a bit formless. What does "progress" even mean?

Here are some thoughts about what the middles of stories are for.

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Peace, After Knowing (100 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Smallville
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Lex Luthor
Additional Tags: Drabble, Introspection
Summary:

Lex's world is not peaceful

Peace, After Knowing

There's solace in not knowing, they say. There's peace in shutting your eyes, turning away.

They're all wrong.

Lex hasn't had a moment of peace since the meteor. Not from his father, not from life, and not from him.

That day, when Clark Kent crossed his path and saved his life, has only amplified the chaos inside of Lex. He aches to find the truth, to see what was hidden, to hold that knowledge as his own.

Clark is his keystone, could be a foundation to lay his peace on, if he can ever decipher the clues.

He'll keep trying.

Up Above (100 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Superman (Franchise)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Clark Kent
Additional Tags: Drabble, Introspection, +Modern Age (1986-Present)
Summary:

Clark has a way to deal with his choices

Up Above

There are nights when Clark just hovers, high enough up to be unseen, eyes sweeping over the city beneath him. It's a way of choosing solace without going so far away as to risk losing precious time to help others. He can still listen, still see, if he chooses to.

The peace of the cool air, the muting of other distractions — all of it allows him to settle his choices into place. He is only one man, and choices have to be made. He makes peace with where he could not be, then returns to his home.

He keeps choosing.

Helpers of Hope (100 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Batman (Franchise)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Bruce Wayne
Additional Tags: Drabble, Introspection
Summary:

Bruce reflects on what fans his hope.

Helpers of Hope

A wise man had once said 'look for the helpers'. Bruce has been doing it since before his parents were killed. Maybe it's because they both gave as much of themselves to others as they did to him. Maybe it's Alfred's teaching and example.

Maybe, it's because the ones that reach out and help give him hope.

He goes out, he stops what he can of the relentless tide of corruption and danger for his city's people.

In turn, they reach out to one another, make different choices, raise each other up.

It's enough to make him try even harder.

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!fic,
fandom: dcu

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Next-gen Fruits Basket fans

TV Tuesday: Disrupted Nostalgia

Tuesday, August 19 - Challenge Week 5, Day 2

Tuesday, August 19 - Promotion Day

1character: a character-focused writing comm

1character: a character-focused fanfic writing community

Sunflower Auction

2025 bidding is open!

The Disaster Days, by Rebecca Behrens

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Dreams and Mayhem: Hodge Podge!!!

Monday, August 18 - Challenge Week 5. Day 1

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thestoryinside

Bleach fic

Koi Pond (Ace Attorney)

Meta: What Middles Are For

3 DC Universe Ficlets

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