Recent Reading: The Black Fantastic
Apr. 14th, 2026 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rocky41_7 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
booksI don’t know how I keep timing these so that I finish my audiobook and my paper book one right after the other. This weekend I also wrapped up The Black Fantastic, an anthology compiled by Andre M. Carrington. Thank you to pauraque for bringing this one to my attention! This is a collection of “Afrofuturist” stories by Black authors. If you want more detail, Pauraque has done individual reviews of each story which you can read here; I won’t get that specific.
With the usual caveat that all anthologies vary in quality, I enjoyed this one. There were a lot of very different stories, from some really fantastical stuff to ones that are just a little bit to the left of the world as it stands. On the high end of things, pieces like A Guide to the Native Fruits of Hawai’i by Alayna Dawn Johnson, where the protagonist grapples with her decision to collaborate with a group of vampire invaders to prey on the locals (and the metaphor of vampirism for the way Hawaii is treated by wealthy Americans is not lost in the shuffle); or The Orb by Tara Campbell, which was both strange and unexplained, choosing to focus not on the “why” or “how” of the situation but again on the moral quandary of its main character.
On the lower end, ones like The Ones Who Stay and Fight by NK Jemisin, which felt…narratively unclear, to say the least. It is either a satire of the kind of utopia writers create where its status as utopia is essentially dependent on eliminating any disagreement or contact with the outside world…or it’s a whole-hearted endorsement of that view. And if I can’t tell which, I tend to think the author’s failed at their purpose; or Ruler of the Rear Guard by Maurice Broaddus, which seemed to end just as it was getting to the plot.
Overall, I had fun with this anthology. SFF short story collections, done well, are such a scintillating showcase of creativity and I felt that here.
Recent Reading: The Black Fantastic
Apr. 14th, 2026 04:17 pmrocky41_7I don’t know how I keep timing these so that I finish my audiobook and my paper book one right after the other. This weekend I also wrapped up The Black Fantastic, an anthology compiled by Andre M. Carrington. Thank you to pauraque for bringing this one to my attention! This is a collection of “Afrofuturist” stories by Black authors. If you want more detail, Pauraque has done individual reviews of each story which you can read here; I won’t get that specific.
With the usual caveat that all anthologies vary in quality, I enjoyed this one. There were a lot of very different stories, from some really fantastical stuff to ones that are just a little bit to the left of the world as it stands. On the high end of things, pieces like A Guide to the Native Fruits of Hawai’i by Alayna Dawn Johnson, where the protagonist grapples with her decision to collaborate with a group of vampire invaders to prey on the locals (and the metaphor of vampirism for the way Hawaii is treated by wealthy Americans is not lost in the shuffle); or The Orb by Tara Campbell, which was both strange and unexplained, choosing to focus not on the “why” or “how” of the situation but again on the moral quandary of its main character.
On the lower end, ones like The Ones Who Stay and Fight by NK Jemisin, which felt…narratively unclear, to say the least. It is either a satire of the kind of utopia writers create where its status as utopia is essentially dependent on eliminating any disagreement or contact with the outside world…or it’s a whole-hearted endorsement of that view. And if I can’t tell which, I tend to think the author’s failed at their purpose; or Ruler of the Rear Guard by Maurice Broaddus, which seemed to end just as it was getting to the plot.
Overall, I had fun with this anthology. SFF short story collections, done well, are such a scintillating showcase of creativity and I felt that here.
Book Cull Reviews
Apr. 14th, 2026 01:30 pmrachelmanijaYesterday I did a quick book cull by pulling books off my shelves that have been sitting there for ages, reading the first couple chapters, and deciding if I was likely to continue. I focused on books I'd started before and not gotten very far into. Here are the books that landed in the "move to Paper & Clay's used section" bag.
Trouble and Her Friends, by Melissa Scott
See the new cover? If you've been wanting to read this, it's now available as an ebook!
This is a classic lesbian cyberpunk novel that I have tried to read at least three times, and never managed to get very far into. I kept putting it back on the shelf because it's a classic and probably objectively good, but I'm just not that into cyberpunk. If a lot of the action is taking place online, I tend to lose interest. Also, some books just don't grab me, due to a mismatch between me and the book, rather than being objectively or even subjectively bad. This is clearly one of them. Someone else can be thrilled to find it at Paper & Clay, take it home, and enjoy it.
The Splinter in the Sky, by Kemi Ashling-Garcia
A tea specialist becomes a spy in a far-future colonized world! Unfortunately, this starts with a prologue which reads much like the infamous "trade war" crawl at the top of The Phantom Menace. Yes, I know that turned out to be prescient, but the problem was that it was written in a stultifying manner. The next couple chapters were much more lively, but also had a tendency to clunky exposition - some of which was pretty cool, to be fair. This was the second time I attempted this book, and had essentially the same reaction I did to Trouble and Her Friends - not bad, but not for me.
Furies of Calderon, by Jim Butcher
This has been described to me as "Pokemon in alternate ancient Rome," which sounds amazing. For at least the third time, it failed to grab me. I got about four chapters in and there's still no Pokemon. Someone else will like it more than me.
The Hum and the Shiver, by Alex Bledsoe
A race of people called the Tufa have lived amongst normal humans in Appalachia since the beginning of time. They can see ghosts, have music-based magic, etc. This opens with a Tufa woman very very clearly based on Jessica Lynch, who was a real-life American soldier who was wounded and captured in the US/Iraq war, returning from Iraq. I found this in poor taste. The general style also got on my nerves.
While doing this, I got sufficiently grabbed by the openings to keep reading and finish Maureen McHugh's Nekropolis, which hopefully I will actually review. I also returned Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies and Tanya Huff's Sing the Four Quarters to the shelf.
I swear only this city knows
Apr. 14th, 2026 03:32 pmsovayspatch and I ate Greek takeout on a picnic bench by Spy Pond, watching a solitary Canada goose glide across the water as our summer in accelerated miniature looked like building toward thunderstorm. It is my father's seventy-fourth birthday.
Episode 2765: Never Free, Never Me
Apr. 14th, 2026 09:11 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
darths_and_droids_feed
Parental trauma can be a powerful backstory for a roleplaying character. Everyone has some sort of family, whether it be blood relatives, adopted parents, or just comrades you grew up with. Tension with some of these can provide both motivations to go adventuring and hooks to hang plot elements on.
aurilee writes:
Commentary by memnarch (who has not seen the movie)
No update on the misconduct panel yet; perhaps that'll be next comic. Hopefully that turned out well for Jim.
Forgiveness though. That's a very tough call for life changing events, no matter what. It's always a personal decision, and it always depends on what's been done. Is Ben's dad just saying sorry and acting remorseful? Is he doing anything to try and make up for it? Words are like rocks in a way. Easy to break things with rocks, much harder to rebuild things with rocks. It'd take a lot of action to remake a window out of a rock for example. So I get Annie's point of view here; there's pretty much nothing that her mother could do to make up for the loss of her father. For Ben? I think there's a decent chance of forgiveness if there's been actions taken to demonstrate remorse to Ben. Attending anger management therapy would certainly help, for example.
Transcript
Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday
Apr. 14th, 2026 09:01 amicon_uk posting in scans_dailyTalk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.
The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.
Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.
It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.
The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.
Artemis II arrived safely back to Earth, though apparently Mission Control chose not to all put on ape masks
The beloved internet meme "Neil Banging out the Tunes" celebrated it's 20th Anniversary
And speaking of rats doing improbable things (without the charm of the above) POTUS47 managed a remarkable week even by his usual, unbelieveably low, standards. Trying to save face when his chaotic Iran War went horrendously badly, to the extent he's now blockading a blockade that only exists because he set in motion the events which caused it in the first place. Milirary historians will be documenting this one for years.
Suffice it to say that when you manage to post an AI image so offensive that your own Christian Nationalist supporters come out on the side of the POPE in an argument (even momentarily), you HAVE to know you've buggered things up.
(no subject)
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:17 pmolivermossDo all teams do this 'sweater off their backs' ceremony, or do the the Kraken just like to make things extra painful?
20 Years of Neil Banging Out the Tunes
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:24 pmsoc_puppet
It's maybe five minutes onscreen
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:18 pmsovay( When it's just me against the sky. )
I agree with this post that the human body was not designed to know what the worst person in the world is doing every fifteen minutes, but it was not possible for me to avoid hearing that the man in the White House shared AI slop of himself as Jesus healing the sick for Pascha. It was much nicer to discover that Aimee Mann circa 'Til Tuesday belonged so clearly to the elusive Bowie–Swinton species. She could have starred in Liquid Sky (1982).
Post and Jam: Map of the World, Pt. II by Jane Siberry [1985]
Apr. 13th, 2026 06:37 pmdelphiFor my 1985 pick, it feels like a good day for five minutes of surreal geography-themed art pop.
Map of the World, Pt. II by Jane Siberry
(no subject)
Apr. 13th, 2026 06:20 pmolivermoss* I am not prepared for the season to end
The Black Maybe: Liminal Tales by Attila Veres
Apr. 13th, 2026 06:07 pmsnickficVeres has a direct, unsentimental style that reminds me a bit of Lisa Tuttle, although with less interest in women. Like Tuttle, one gets the impression he doesn't like people all that much. I enjoyed the eastern European perspective, adding extra flavor to ideas I've seen American or British versions of before. Veres also is really good at spooling out the key information, so that apparently unremarkable scenarios get weirder and weirder as we learn more detail.
And indeed, there is some straight up Lovecraftiana in here as well as two different body horror twists on the idyllic rural past, all of which are squarely my kind of thing.
Favorites:
Well, both the Lovecraft ones. "Multiplied by Zero" is a travel report from a man who's gone on a guided tour of a Lovecraftian horrorscape. I enjoyed the contrast between subject matter and tone all the way along, and then it really stuck the landing.
Meanwhile, "Walks Among Us" is an inside view of a Lovecraftian cult, aka exactly my jam, seen from the perspectives of two people raised in the faith and struggling with it and one who's married in. I'm amazed by how deftly Veres weaves all the backstories together with the present day timeline. This is extremely nonlinear and yet I never had any trouble following the action. One could argue the discussion of the cult as a religious minority is not great, given that this minority really is into murder and slavery and all that, but I enjoyed the Watsonian view of the world too much to quibble about the Doylist implications.
The two farming horror ones are honestly quite similar in subject matter, if not theme, to the point of feeling a little repetitive. "Return to the Midnight Soil" has the more interesting and imaginative body horror, but I think the title story "The Black Maybe," about a family from the city doing farming tourism, wins by a hair because it's more horrific, rather than tragic like the first one, and because I cared a lot more about the daughter in it than about either of the boys in the other story.
And "The Time Remaining" is the slashy entry, a story about a man whose life keeps getting worse and the devil whose life's purpose is to convince him to lead the armiese of hell. VERY shippy.
Least favorites:
"To Bite a Dog," about a woman who discovers the psychic power of dominating other creatures by biting them and her boyfriend who can't decide how he feels about it. The most Tuttle-feeling story of the collection because of how damn bleak it is. Also I just don't like animals being upset or in pain. It's rough being a horror fan sometimes.
"Fogtown," an epistolary story composed of an unfinished manuscript about someone else's unfinished book about an incredibly popular underground band that seemingly no one ever actually heard. I love this kind of thing normally, but the nested epistolary layers (complete with editor's notes!) were hard to keep track of, and the underlying story just didn't have any meat to it. I've read this story before with less effort and at least as much reward.
Those were the first two of the collection, so I'm really glad I pushed through to the ones I enjoyed! In fact, I ended up liking the collection enough that I bought his new one rather than waiting for it to show up at the library.
Recent Reading: The Tainted Cup
Apr. 13th, 2026 04:43 pmrocky41_7 posting in booksOn Sunday I finished The Tainted Cup, the first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. This is a fantasy murder mystery with an element of political thriller.
The main character is Ana Dolabra, an eccentric but brilliant investigator, and I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman fill this role. The wacky but effective investigator is of course a very well-known stock character, but has always been, in my experience, a man. I found Ana delightful; strange but not off-putting, and without coming off like the author was working to hard to make her quirky.
However, our point-of-view protagonist is Din Kol, Ana’s put-upon assistant, on whose shoulders falls the managing of her many idiosyncrasies. They’re a fun team to watch work, and in this first book we get to see their working relationship unfold, as they’ve only recently teamed up at the start. Din is fine, but mostly I appreciated him as a lens for Ana.
Bennett’s fantasy world is characterized by fantastical use and manipulation of plants and the human body. Din, for instance, has been modified to be an “engraver”—someone with an eidetic memory. For obvious reasons, this serves him well as aid to an investigator.
I think Bennett does a good job of throwing you into the world and letting you use context to figure most of it out. I get bored with SFF novels that feel the need to hold your hand, as if you might be a first-time SFF reader who never encountered a magic system before, so I was relieved when Bennett just started telling the story and letting me figure the world out as it went along. I’d rather be a bit lost at times than be toddled along, but I never felt lost here.
The novel touches on some things that I feel are pretty keenly relevant, like the ability of the wealthy to avoid justice and their willingness to inflict suffering on the rest of society to better their own position (and then justify it to themselves).
I don’t read a ton of murder mysteries, so I may not be the best judge of this, but I also felt that Ana worked well. It’s a tough trick writing a character who’s meant to be much smarter than the rest of the cast (perhaps even than the author!), and it can fail a couple of ways: the supposed “brilliant” deductions are obvious to the average reader, making the rest of the cast look painfully dull for not seeing them; or the machinations are so obtuse with so little evidence the reader simply won’t believe the detective could have figured that out without an ass-pull from the author. I didn’t think Bennett fell into either of these traps and every detail Ana referred to in one of her deductions was something that had been mentioned before.
I only have one real criticism and that is about how unrealistic the sword fight scene was. I simply don't think it was necessary to showcase what the Bennett was trying to show us about Din, and <spoiler>having an untried swordsman defeat three--almost four--trained imperial soldiers on his own (partially because they do him the courtesy of attacking one at a time)</spoiler> was so unrealistic it jarred me right out of the scene. As Milgen points out later in the book--fighting is not just about memorizing the right moves.
I enjoyed this book and I plan to read the next one. Very interested to see where Ana’s adventures take her next!
Recent Reading: The Tainted Cup
Apr. 13th, 2026 04:42 pmrocky41_7On Sunday I finished The Tainted Cup, the first book in the Shadow of the Leviathan series by Robert Jackson Bennett. This is a fantasy murder mystery with an element of political thriller.
The main character is Ana Dolabra, an eccentric but brilliant investigator, and I believe this is the first time I’ve ever seen a woman fill this role. The wacky but effective investigator is of course a very well-known stock character, but has always been, in my experience, a man. I found Ana delightful; strange but not off-putting, and without coming off like the author was working to hard to make her quirky.
However, our point-of-view protagonist is Din Kol, Ana’s put-upon assistant, on whose shoulders falls the managing of her many idiosyncrasies. They’re a fun team to watch work, and in this first book we get to see their working relationship unfold, as they’ve only recently teamed up at the start. Din is fine, but mostly I appreciated him as a lens for Ana.
Bennett’s fantasy world is characterized by fantastical use and manipulation of plants and the human body. Din, for instance, has been modified to be an “engraver”—someone with an eidetic memory. For obvious reasons, this serves him well as aid to an investigator.
I think Bennett does a good job of throwing you into the world and letting you use context to figure most of it out. I get bored with SFF novels that feel the need to hold your hand, as if you might be a first-time SFF reader who never encountered a magic system before, so I was relieved when Bennett just started telling the story and letting me figure the world out as it went along. I’d rather be a bit lost at times than be toddled along, but I never felt lost here.
The novel touches on some things that I feel are pretty keenly relevant, like the ability of the wealthy to avoid justice and their willingness to inflict suffering on the rest of society to better their own position (and then justify it to themselves).
I don’t read a ton of murder mysteries, so I may not be the best judge of this, but I also felt that Ana worked well. It’s a tough trick writing a character who’s meant to be much smarter than the rest of the cast (perhaps even than the author!), and it can fail a couple of ways: the supposed “brilliant” deductions are obvious to the average reader, making the rest of the cast look painfully dull for not seeing them; or the machinations are so obtuse with so little evidence the reader simply won’t believe the detective could have figured that out without an ass-pull from the author. I didn’t think Bennett fell into either of these traps and every detail Ana referred to in one of her deductions was something that had been mentioned before.
I only have one real criticism and that is about how unrealistic the sword fight scene was. I simply don't think it was necessary to showcase what the Bennett was trying to show us about Din, and <spoiler>having an untried swordsman defeat three--almost four--trained imperial soldiers on his own (partially because they do him the courtesy of attacking one at a time)<spoiler/> was so unrealistic it jarred me right out of the scene. As Milgen points out later in the book--fighting is not just about memorizing the right moves.
I enjoyed this book and I plan to read the next one. Very interested to see where Ana’s adventures take her next!
Events of note
Apr. 13th, 2026 09:50 pmrmc28Tony and I saw Project Hail Mary approx 18 hours after watching Artemis II launch( space fiction and space mission )
Then on Saturday I went with Cambridge Women's Blues to play in BUIHA Womens Tier 1 Nationals 25-26: ( Read more... )
Nationals was followed by two days of work and also staying up late last Tuesday night/Wednesday morning after hockey practice to watch Integrity go out of contact behind the moon and then reappear. (There was actual video of the Earth appearing from behind the Moon, sent from an actual spaceship, in real time, it was amazing!)
Wednesday night I drove with two passengers to Hull, after Kodiaks practice, so we could all attend the women's ice hockey camp Thursday and Friday.( more ice hockey )
That was six days in a row of playing ice hockey and unsurprisingly I have been tired today. This week is "just" Tuesday practice and BUIHA Non-Checking Tier 1 Nationals with Cambridge Huskies this weekend.
The Secret History - Donna Tartt
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:30 amsholioI needed something different from the light, forgettable books I've read so much of in the last few months, and this definitely filled that need. It was absolutely immersive in the best way. The writing is gorgeous, not just on the wordcraft level (although that, too; this book is a lavish feast of description) but also thematic and structural and just generally ... good! Good in the way where you feel that every choice was deliberate, every thematic styling meaningful. It was a really good book about incredibly compelling, terrible people. I did almost nothing on Saturday except read this book.
Also, in a twist that will surprise no one, it made me think of Babylon 5 in a couple of very specific ways. I'll put that at the end.
The other thing it reminded me of was The Great Gatsby, which .... knowing that the book is almost 40 years old and has been widely dissected, I don't know if this is something that's been talked about to death (is it widely known by basically everyone that it's sort of a Gatsby retelling? is that like the most obvious of obvious comparisons) but in any case, it was a similar reading experience (for me) of being slam-dunked into a world of terrible rich people who I want nothing more than to follow and find out what new entertainingly terrible thing they'll do next.
Also, the narration is lovely. This book has some shatteringly beautiful descriptions of fall/winter/spring in New England.
( Spoilers galore, I mean really, so many spoilers )
( Babylon 5 vs The Secret History )
Strength within Sorrow: minoanmiss’s Online Memorial
Apr. 13th, 2026 01:47 pmjesse_the_kI attended minoanmiss’s online memorial yesterday afternoon. It was strengthening to share our sorrow. Witnessing the depth of our online connections bolstered my resilience. The children she co-raised loved her and knew her. I’ll link to the recording when it’s public.
One mourner werpiper worked in public health for 40 years, and made it very clear that
- minoanmiss had asymptomatic COVID which caused her death
- that wasn’t documented in the hospital record and there’s almost zero chance to change that
- many people are still dying due to COVID, which is systematically not being reported
- continuing to mask is a fundamental contribution we can make to the health of our communities
The full text is at archiveofourown.org/works/82932386
There were lovely stories and slides and recipes — a poem and a song in the cut.
( Every Land and Acts of Creation )
ETA 21 April 26 to add in werpiper's pseud and text
Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:35 amrachelmanija
Natalie is a wildly successful trad wife influencer. She and her husband Caleb have a farm and six adorable children, and Natalie has parlayed carefully edited clips of her perfect life into a lucrative career. (She leaves out the two nannies, 30 farm hands, and the fact that Sassafras the cow is actually four sequential cows, replaced every time one dies, like goldfish.)
Then Natalie suffers a mysterious fall from grace. And then she finds herself in what appears to be an alternate version of her own life in the 1800s, with a husband very similar but not quite identical to her original husband, and children who claim to be her own. Has she time traveled? Is she delusional? Has she gotten kidnapped into a non-consensual reality show?
This is an extremely interesting novel that makes a good companion to Saratoga Schrader's Trad Wife. The beginning of the book is extremely similar, though Natalie is much more successful than Camille. Burke's version of a trad wife influencer deluding herself and lying to her followers about her supposedly perfect life is much better-written than Schrader's. But that's a double-edged sword, because it makes Natalie much more unlikable. She's an incredibly hatable character and the book is from her POV, and that makes a lot of the book not really enjoyable to read.
But the book turns out to be much more ambitious and clever than it seems at the beginning. When I finished it, I was glad I'd read it and appreciated it a lot. That being said, I enjoyed Trad Wife more on an emotional level.
I highly recommend not clicking on the cut unless you're 100% positive you'll never read the book. I really enjoyed the non-spoiled experience.
( Read more... )
Content notes: Domestic violence, rape (on-page, graphic), child abuse and neglect, farm animal neglect/poor caretaking (just mentioned), gaslighting, non-consensual drugging, current American right-wing stuff.
While attempting to buy Saratoga Schaefer's Trad Wife, I accidentally bought a different novel called Trad Wife by Michelle Brandon. And Sarah Langan is coming out with yet another book called Trad Wife in September. I am now on a mission to read all four trad wife books, to compare and contrast.
Weekend notes
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:07 ammarinarusalkaSaturday morning, we went hiking in Torrey Pines, which has been reopened again after being closed all winter "to improve the trails." If there was any actual improvement, we didn't see it, but it was still an excellent hike, with lots of great wildlife views, including a Gray Whale hanging out unusually close to shore. We also spotted three brush rabbits at different spots along the trail, and a flock of migrating lazuli buntings.
( all photos courtesy of The Boy )
Bialya With Seeds in the Center: JLE #30, JLA #55 (JLI 82)
Apr. 13th, 2026 11:23 amtcampbell1000 posting in scans_daily
JLE Giffen-Jones-Robertson, JLA Giffen-DeMatteis-Wozniak.
Storytelling is as much about what you don’t include as what you do. Giffen and company were often inspired in terms of what they left out or minimized. This appealed to a smart audience who could fill in the blanks.
But sometimes you leave too many blanks. Sometimes you cross the line between making your reader an enthusiastic participant in the storyline and making them wonder why they’re doing all your work for you.
___ ______ ________ ______ _______, and that’s why this final Queen Bee of Bialya storyline leaves too many blanks. ( ____________ __ __ ____ _____ ____ ___ _____ _______ __ ____ ___ __, ___ ______ ___ _______ ____ _____ ________ __ ____ ____ ____ ___ __ _________, _______ __ _ _____ ________ ___ _____ ____ __ ___ ______! ___ _________ ___ _____ ___ ____ ______… )
Gail Simone presents April 'Pool's Day
Apr. 13th, 2026 06:30 pmshakalooloo posting in scans_daily
( Read more... )
FFA DW Post #2463 - I like my metaphors like I like my PIs: hard-boiled, hard to crack
Apr. 13th, 2026 08:08 pmsunnymodffa posting in fail_fandomanon... and unsure of whether or not it came before the chicken.
All the
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Space Swap
Apr. 12th, 2026 10:42 pmsholioNot Their Hero (Murderbot books, gen, 9K!!)
SecUnit and Gurathin accompany Ratthi to a scientific conference, where they end up accepting a request for assistance against a corporation. It goes about as well as one might expect, given Murderbot's history.
I was amazed and delighted to find out that I had received a 9K gift, and it was a great time - plotty casefic with a dash of h/c, very canon-feeling, with interesting OCs and worldbuilding, fun character dynamics, and a great Murderbot voice.
(I have *no* idea who wrote this and cannot wait to find out.)
Resident Evil Requiem [2026]
Apr. 12th, 2026 10:48 pmmyrmidon posting in fandom_icons[ leon s. kennedy ]
[ here @
axisandallies ]Erin Watches: Wonder Man
Apr. 13th, 2026 03:32 amerinptahFinally got a chance to see the Wonder Man TV series.
(It’s already renewed for season 2, which is delightful to see. Come on, MCU, let more of your characters have ongoing arcs again.)
Spoiler-light reactions:
It’s good! Funny, charming, with a great weird-but-somehow-it-works (even in spite of [spoiler]) friendship between the two leads.
There were a couple episodes where I was bracing myself for some heavy embarrassment squick, and then the scene went in a whole different direction and didn’t hit it at all. Refreshing.
I kept expecting Trevor Slattery to be the full-blown “Planet of the Apes was amazing, they taught monkeys to act!” doofus we saw in Shang-Chi’s movie, and he’s not. Still a bit of an airhead, lots of fun comic relief, but he’s surprisingly competent when he makes an effort. The character is consistent enough otherwise that it works if you headcanon he was high for most of the movie — the show even goes into his backstory about problems with getting high on-set, which fits right in.
There’s a side character who has a connection to the Darkforce! Nobody in the show uses the word — none of them are in a position to know it’s called that — viewers can just recognize it from other Marvel properties. (Other MCU appearances, even.)
I always like this kind of sidebar, making the MCU feel textured and lived-in. It’s not solely populated with Main Characters, who get cool dramatic origin stories and end up joining the Avengers. It’s filled out with bit characters, who also sometimes touch the improperly-sealed hazardous waste in a Roxxon dumpster, they just mostly keep doing their day jobs with bonus superpowers.
We get some nice leveraging of “Disney can freely put references to Other Things They Own in Marvel shows now.” A+ use of Josh Gad, no notes.
Since we’re already guaranteed another season, and since the status of [spoiler] is left a mystery at the end, I’m sorta hoping Simon will end up rescuing them in S2. Not setting my hopes too high — we don’t see him actively planning this rescue, or even thinking he could do it — but it would be thematically very satisfying if he eventually figured it out.
—
…So the rest of this post is complain-y.
In the sense of “the show missed opportunities to do these cool things,” not “the show did bad things and I’m mad about it.”
One of the main plot threads is, Simon Williams is trying out for the lead role in a remake of the (in-universe) 1980 Wonder Man movie. Other characters pay some lip service to the idea of “updating a vintage superhero story for the modern age will be a great opportunity to reflect on the change in culture, now that superheroes are just a part of our everyday lives.”
And then…we never see that in action. How does the writing change? How do everyday people in the MCU react to a fictional superhero in the post-Blip world? We have no idea!
It would’ve been so easy to give us a clip of, say, J. Jonah Jameson ranting against “Hollywood liberal pro-superhero propaganda.” But nope. Nothing.
The movie itself doesn’t have much to do with Avengers-type superheroes anyway. It’s straight out of the Buck Rogers/Flash Gordon genre: a man from Earth gets stranded on another planet, has swashbuckling space adventures, rubber-suit aliens get shot with ray guns, etcetera. If anything, that’s a setup for a cultural commentary on human-alien relations, now that “alien refugees are the ones stranded on Earth” is also a part of MCU humanity’s everyday life.
But the show isn’t interested in exploring that either.
All we really know about the movie is enough to establish “Simon and Trevor are auditioning for the roles of two characters whose relationship mirrors their real-world relationship.” Look, as a narrative parallel crafted by the MCU writers, that’s fine. But in-universe it’s a coincidence, and I still want to know what decisions those writers are making, how their job is shaped by the world they’re in.
Also! Simon is auditioning to play a human character stranded among aliens. This is the perfect setup for him to worry “what if the reason I have superhuman powers is, I’ve been an alien stranded among humans this whole time?” Trevor…okay, Trevor is still doofy enough not to think of it, but agents at the DODC should’ve had the same suspicion. When grade-school Simon first showed super-strength, his parents should’ve worried “did the hospital accidentally switch our biological son with a secret baby Asgardian?”
Again: no! This whole obvious question is never floated by anyone.
Note that 616 Wonder Man doesn’t have much in common with either of these guys — Wonder Man the 1980s space adventurer, or Simon Williams the present-day Haitian immigrant with a struggling acting career.
This isn’t inherently a bad thing (after all, 616 Steven Grant doesn’t have much in common with either Steven Grant the Indiana Jones knockoff, or Steven Grant the present-day London gift-shoppist)…
…But I really wish the 1980s movie character was just a direct riff on comicverse Simon Williams. That way, it would be so easy to make contrasts with “the career in-universe writers imagined a super-powered guy would have in the 1980s” vs “the career in-universe writers imagine for a super-powered guy in the post-Blip MCU” vs “the career a real super-powered guy is having in the post-Blip MCU.”
From the morning past the evening to the end of the light
Apr. 12th, 2026 11:18 pmsovayminoanmiss right after the singing of "Lift Ev'ry Voice" in order to meet my mother for advance birthday baking, but I got to hear remembrances in the form of stories, poems, an illuminated manuscript of a slide show, a painfully pertinent lesson in public health, songs both folk and filk, and people just talking with love and grief and anger that she need not have died; she did not consent to the sacrifice. She had formed an incredible constellation of interests and affections that her mourners flared to life. It is just that one wants the person herself and not only the space left between her stars.In memoriam: the braided liberation of Anthony Russell and Veretski Pass' "Lift" (2018). The queer shift of Jake Blount's "Where Did You Sleep Last Night" (2020). Kadra Ahmed-Omar in late-nineties Goth haute couture. A Graeco-Armenian papyrus from late Roman Egypt. Apparently people need reminding that Carthage was bad-ass. The election news from Hungary. The full-body college flashback I experienced on hearing Aimee Mann's "Say Anything" (1993) on WERS. Earth.
I cried when I got off the Zoom and then I made myself a bowl of angel hair pasta with lemon and pepper and sardines and thinking of food among her love languages went off to turn a recipe into a savory pie. I am glad she was remembered so well and so fully. I will always want to have seen her art for Artemis II.
Clay's Ark by Octavia E. Butler (1984)
Apr. 12th, 2026 09:24 pmpauraqueThis was the last-published book in the Patternist series, but the third one I've read, as I'm following the suggested chronological reading order. I was warned that in this reading order it's totally opaque how this book relates to the others, which certainly is the case! The only apparent connection is Clay Dana, a minor character from Mind of My Mind who is said in this book to have invented interstellar travel using his psionic abilities. But the other characters don't seem to be aware of the telepathic Patternists as a group, so it seems that in the intervening decades they've managed to continue influencing society without fully revealing themselves.
Reading it basically as a stand-alone, the book seems to be about what it means to be human. It questions the dichotomy of human and monster, as the "ordinary" humans of the lawless desert prove more brutal and violent than the infected half-aliens are. The characters assume that allowing the pathogen to spread across Earth would be a bad thing, but when you see what human society is becoming, you wonder if altering more people's nature might be an improvement.
I felt that the book was too long, which is surprising at just over 200 pages. The characters are strongly written (as expected from Butler) but I think there might be too many of them, and sometimes the same events are needlessly reiterated from multiple POVs. I also had trouble with the level of violence. I didn't think it was gratuitous since it seemed necessary for the book to make its thematic points as I understood them; violence is just hard for me to read and there's a lot of it here, including rape and the constant threat of rape.
It'll be interesting to see how my perspective changes once I've read the whole series and seen what readers knew of the Patternist universe when these prequels were published. Worth noting that I will indeed be reading Survivor, a book in the series that's been out of print for ages because Butler apparently hated it. Very curious about that one.
Hockey RPF: You're the One That I Want by thehoyden
Apr. 13th, 2026 12:16 pmmific posting in fancakeCharacters/Pairings: Sidney Crosby/Evgeni (Geno) Malkin, Alexander Ovechkin, Shea Weber, Joe Thornton
Rating: Explicit
Length: 15,934
Content Notes: no AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: thehoyden on AO3
Themes: Arranged marriage, First time, AU: royalty, Secret identity
Summary: It’s actually his father who suggests it.
“Take the rest of the summer for yourself,” he says. “Do something fun.”
“Fun,” Sidney repeats blankly.
Reccer's Notes: I'm into hockey fics now! This is a classic, already reccd here ages ago and worth revisiting. It's a royalty AU with added hockey, which is where Sid meets Geno. There's a fun, hot and charming initial romance, then Sid has to get on with his life of obligations, including the frustrating search for a suitable royal-lineage husband to cement political ties. Ultimately, love wins, of course, and it's a satisfying, well written story.
Fanwork Links: You're the One That I Want (locked to AO3)
A cunning plan
Apr. 12th, 2026 04:29 pmsholio*Unless I get distracted by something along the way, as often happens.
The best/worst lists are hidden in case you want to preserve the element of surprise.
The 10 best episodes according to IMDB, starting at the top
1. Severed Dreams 3x10
2. War Without End Part 2 3x17 (Since Part 1 is also in the top 10, I'm just going to watch them together, I think)
3. Z'ha'dum 3x22
4. Endgame 4x20
5. Sleeping in Light 5x22
6. The Long, Twilight Struggle 2x20 (By about this point I will probably have died of Drama and Tragedy. RIP me.)
7. Point of No Return 3x09
8. The Coming of Shadows 2x09
9. The Fall of Night 2x22
10. War Without End Part 1 3x16 (will be combined with part 2)
11. No Surrender, No Retreat 4x15
This looks fun! (For Babylon 5 values of fun.)
And as an escape from all of these heavy episodes, apparently I will be watching, in order of worst to ... slightly less worst:
IMDB's lowest rated
1. TKO 1x142. Infection 1x04
3. Secrets of the Soul 5x07
4. The Gathering 1x00
5. Grey 17 is Missing 3x19
6. Grail 1x15
7. The Long Dark 2x05
8. Strange Relations 5x06
9. The War Prayer 1x07
10. Survivors 1x11
Genuinely surprised that they're not even all from season one and five! Absolutely unsurprised that most of them are! I do genuinely like some of these, and at least one of them, I skipped most of when I was originally watching season one, so it will be interesting to see what I think of it now.
Not starting this tonight (probably) because I have other things to do, but Soon™.
Fannish Update
Apr. 12th, 2026 07:14 pmsenmutFTH 2026 is proceeding apace:
~ 3,371/5k - 1st auction (Doctor Who)
~ 2,350/5k - 2nd auction (Multi-fic fulfillment [thank you so much, recipient!] that has a completed Highlander fic. Toying with my options for the next part.)
~ 2,030/5k - 3rd auction (Also Multi-fic fulfillment, but all will be DCU comics)
~ 3,006/5k - 4th auction (Star Wars, pre-Prequels era)
10,757/20k - OVER HALFWAY!
I only have one work in progress, a sequel to a previous fic, that is going to be at least twice the length of the original. Just having too much fun playing with different dynamics for the Do'Urdens.
I think, given how much my new Queensryche playlist is soothing me, I am going to be making more dedicated artist playlists. As many of my FAVORITES still have albums I can't stand, or songs I skip every time. Corey Hart will likely be the next one I make in this fashion.
Trying to decide what book to read again. No, nothing new. I am... not coping with new books. I need a tried and true. Clan of the Cave Bear was very happy-making to revisit, but not sure I want to read any of the others. Maybe a McCaffrey or a Heinlein... or back to Barsoom again.
Sense8 rocked my socks. Some difficult moments to get through, but then Black Sails was the same. No fic vibes in my soul for either fandom. Hey, wait, maybe I can start watching Ted Lasso and see what happens, since I already drabble in it.
The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit
Apr. 12th, 2026 03:14 pmsnickficA collection of essays on feminist topics. I've been meaning to read some Solnit ever since everyone was reading her book Hope in the Dark during the first Trump administration. I randomly was in need of an ebook to read, and this was the book of Solnit's available through my library, so here we are.
On one hand, I did not find this a challenging read. Most of what Solnit had to say, I've encountered in some form or another before, and most of these essays are surface-level examinations of their topics. OTOH, there's something to be said for having thoughts laid out in a coherent essay format when one has previously only encountered them via social media, haphazardly and in fragments. And even though the collection had a strong feminism 101 feeling for me, I did highlight a bunch of quotes, which I am putting below under a cut, mostly for my own use. So, clearly I got some value out of the book!
IMO, by far the strongest essay is the one where she gets into specifics, and that's the final essay, "Giantess," about a 1950s film called Giant starring Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. I feel like I might vaguely have heard of this movie, and although it doesn't sound like my usual jam genre-wise, the politics sound progressive even today, so I'm tempted just from a point of historical interest.
( quotes )