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Monday Music Meme

This week's entry is from 2015, rather than my self-imposed 2020 onwards; OTOH, it's the only actual answer to this prompt.

a song that makes you cry
Stratovarius - Shine in the Dark

Watch on YouTube

These guys are not (yet?) on Bandcamp; OTOH, the runner-up (I Wish, by Battle Beast) is up there.

prompts under the cut

a song you discovered this month
a song that makes you smile
a song that makes you cry
a song that you know all the lyrics of
a song that proves that you have good taste
a song title that is in all lowercase
a song title that is in all uppercase
an underrated song
a song that has three words
a song from your childhood
a song that reminds you of summertime
a song that you feel nostalgic to
the first song that plays on shuffle
a song that someone showed you
a song from a movie soundtrack
a song from a television soundtrack
a song about being 17
a song that reminds you of somebody
a song to drive to
a song with a number in the title
a song that you listen to at 3am in the morning
a song with a long title
a song with a color in the title
a song that gets stuck in your head
a song in a different language
a song that helps you fall asleep at night
a song that describes how you feel right now
a song that you used to hate but love today
a song that you downloaded
a song that you want to share

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"Caryatid." (Wake Up Dead Man) G

Title: Caryatid.
Author:

lannamichaels
Fandom: Wake Up Dead Man (2025)
Series: Part 2 of Pillar Of The Community
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: "How did you know?" Jud asks Blanc.

( Coda )

Current Mood: happy

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prompts: prompt tables

100Femslash Table

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daf yomi

[Daf Yomi] Hadran Alach, Maseches Zevachim!

After spending large parts of December getting behind and catching up and getting behind and catching up... I finished Zevachim two days early. The power of bamos! ;) On to Menachos!

My notes behind cut.

We're also about a year and a half out from the end of this cycle, which means I have already gotten one gentle "hey, do you know where you'll be on June 7, 2027"-type email from an org. No, I do not think this is too early, actually. Gotta make plans. Deeply hoping I can avoid being involved in organizing the in person thing here, but I have a suspicion that if I'm not involved, it may end up as unwelcoming as the women's siyum hashas I went to at the end of the last cycle. (I do trust a couple of the people likely to attend it, but I don't know who is going to be organizing anything here. So I may need to try to get involved against my will.) It wasn't actually that bad overall -- aside from how it's still, y'know, memorable 6 years removed from it -- but I am quite frankly more willing to get into an airplane and fly to a different city than go through that again. (okay more realistically if it ends up organized by a group I do not trust at all, I'd zoom in to a larger event and be done with it)

( Read more... )

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📖💔🐟🐯

That feeling when you’re reading a cnovel that’s actively being translated and you’ve caught up to the most recent chapter and you almost can’t bear to read it

it’s so good! and we’re only about halfway! though maybe if there are lots of extras like the first novel we’re closer to the narrative climax of at least this arc? but who knows

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hockey

Hockey and HR overlaps

Sens could easily have a large chunk of the fastest growing demographic in hockey fall in their lap. Just, a giant pile of money fall in their laps, and they are working hard to make sure it doesn't happen.

The Sens, on top of everything else, signed a famous homophobe this morning. As a goalie, even!

( Spoilers for, uh, the synopsis of the upcoming Heated Rivalry sequel )

Unrivaled

Okay, now the next Heated Rivalry sequel is confirmed

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Recent media

Mobius | 不眠日
Finished this at the end of 2025. Based on 张小猫's first 逆时侦查组 novel, this is an action/thriller cdrama set in a ~*fictional*~ country where the world sometimes falls into a timeloop. Every loop day repeats itself four times, with the fifth loop becoming the "canon" event. Our MC is the only one aware of the loops and he uses his abilities to solve crime.

Thoughts

This was... okay, I guess? It has some neat HK action movie-inspired fighting and parkour scenes, interesting plot points, and a lot of missed opportunities. The show presents itself as a mystery in which the objective is to discover the true identity of a serial killer and prevent them from succeeding in their nefarious plan. The problem is that the show itself isn't structured as a mystery. The script had no idea how to relay information to the audience, create real tension, or set up suspects, and it treated every single morsel of information as a major twist. IMO it should have focused on the thriller aspects and highlighted the ~~homoeroticism~~ cat-and-mouse relationship of the MC and the villain. And also given us more angst a la the webtoon Surviving Romance where the MC had a lot of hidden trauma from dying and watching people die over and over again.

The soundscaping was also really funny. They only had like maybe 3 BGMs and they used the same Intense Music so much, sometimes in mundane situations, and once three times in a 15-minute span. Maybe they were just being true to form by making us reexperience the same level of intensity that the MC was trapped in. XD

PS. I skimmed the first chapters of the novel and it seemed to be a bit different, a more standard mystery/procedural with timey-wimey elements. And potentially more interesting conflict—the MC and the FL get together because of a previous loop, and are already together at the start of the CEO case where they have to pretend to not be dating. The plot aspects still seem largely similar, though.

Uketsu, "Strange Pictures" (tr. Jim Rion)
A.k.a. the green mystery novel that is all over #booktwt and my sign to stop following booktwt hype.

Thoughts

I really liked the gimmick with the drawings but after the first chapter (the mystery of the blog), it just fell off for me. It was neither a mystery nor a thriller, just a story that the author wanted to tell that they should have focused on developing. The "interlocking" cases felt forced into place, without sufficient plot logic or emotional build-up to make the "reveal" satisfying. The way the story is told feels like a cross between a Youtube true crime video and a videogame, like it was never meant to be a novel at all. As a visual person with information processing issues, the pictures, little diagrams, and timeline recap felt almost made for me but it gets to a point, you now? Must we bold every "important detail" like we're in an Ace Attorney dialogue box?
photo of a page of a book: 'Around half past two, Miura and Toyokawa reached the fourth station rest area and had lunch. Miura ate the Hanayagi Bento from the supermarket. Remember that. It's important.' 'Hanayagi Bento' has been bolded for the reader’s benefit

photo of a page of a book: 'Around half past two, Miura and Toyokawa reached the fourth station rest area and had lunch. Miura ate the Hanayagi Bento from the supermarket. Remember that. It's important.' 'Hanayagi Bento' has been bolded for the reader’s benefit

2/5 because it ended up being a slog for me, especially towards the end where everything was being explained in the dullest way possible. But I think it could have been a decent page-turner if the author was actually interested in the story as something more than a gamified series of events. The way the plot gives so much emotional weight to dubious psychoanalyses of drawings unintentionally shows us society's lack of regard for mental wellness and rehabilitation. I honestly feel like this would have been much better in any other medium. The writing (as far as I can tell from the translation) is so dry and the English is very stilted. Simple is fine, but the dependence on pictures and amount of emphatic handholding make it pretty obvious that the author has 0 confidence in his ability to write and communicate his vision.

Her Story | 好東西 (2024)
Directed by Shao Yihui, who also did B Is For Busy, which is apparently the "prequel" and touches on similar themes (though the POV character in B Is For Busy is a 50-year-old man who teaches painting).

This is a nice, low-key little movie that's not so much about feminism as it is about being a feminist and how your values interact with the real world. And how community is, at the end of the day, about trying your best. Everyone is just trying their best to be a good adult and it's really sweet.

Our characters are: Wang Tiemei, a very feminist single mom, and her neighbor Xiao Ye, a sound artist by day and band vocalist at night. They each bring their people to this new relationship—a precocious but troubled daughter, an ex-husband, a drummer, a situationship, and, well, the rest of Xiao Ye's band.

Thoughts

This was surprisingly restrained and focused—there were a lot of opportunities for big PSA moments that it takes in a more casual-conversational stride to let the different dynamics play out. The movie instead favors character chemistry and relationships, showing us how human connections fill up space and build rhythms into our lives.

Wang Tiemei's "love interests" are less love interests and more mirrors to her own feminist beliefs. Her ex-husband (played by Mark Chao) is a #performative male who gets into reading feminist literature and earnestly parroting lines about the patriarchy. He visits his daughter and his ex-wife often and says a lot of stupid things and gets folded into their growing community and accidentally bonds with his love rival (the drummer of Xiao Ye's band) in the process of competing with him. This is much more effective than writing him as a cartoonishly evil ex which is the standard easy path for the trendy faux-feminist/girlboss stories in East Asian web fiction.

The styling was very on-point, everyone dressing to their personalities so it's part of the characterization. Wang Tiemei's statement shirts and her statement novels (tbh I didn't actually notice them, but

superborb did haha), Xiao Ye's charmingly messy rocker chic aesthetic, the drummer boy's tattered knit sweater (he doesn't have enough aura for this to be feel like a deliberate aesthetic choice) and the same black shirt that he wears on multiple days.

My favorite scene was the one where Xiao Ye takes Wang Moli (the daughter) to her workspace and makes her guess sounds! What starts out as a fun little exercise becomes, like Xiao Ye's other line of work, music, as she plays a series of recordings that are nothing but Wang Tiemei. SUCH a good scene and so much warm light.

CW: a brief (unintentional?) self-harm scene + conversations about childhood trauma

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the parent trap

not quite a plot bunny, more like a plot "that would be interesting"...

A Parent Trap AU where the twins (either set) don't end up at the same sleepaway camp, but then do some kind of DNA matching thing to try to find out about their missing parent/if they have siblings, and discover the whole situation, because their parents never came clean to them about it.

I can't figure out a plot, so maybe just a brief drabble or something?

Either set of twins would be interesting for this; with the original set, it would add a lot because they'd possibly be grandparents by that point, so this could be something their kids suggest, as a "oh, now there's this way you might be able to find out more" (of course, for the twin raised by the father, there is definitely the "this is the name on the mother on the birth certificate", although in the remake IIRC she does know her mother's name?), and then discover that there's a sibling, and meeting the sibling and realizing it has to be a twin, and trying to figure out, at this late date, the mystery of what the fuck happened.

Or with the remake twins, the parents are likely still around, and so there could be a lot of either demanding answers, or some kind of "whoops, it's the other twin who comes for Christmas".

Current Mood: contemplative
Current Music: CHEMY×STORY

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Snowflake Challenge 2026 #6

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fandom: exceedraft

New reaction GIF just dropped

I've been thinking a lot about various parts of Exceedraft that are interesting, insightful and a little infuriating. The last part is because it's largely a typical episodic '90s toku show which, according to the standards of the cultural period, might not prioritize maintaining consistency in characterisation and backstory across episodes. It's highly questionable how intentional certain choices are for character development, or if various intriguing details are more or less the happy accidents produced by a team of creative professionals running on their honed artistic instincts within the constraints of a tight budget and schedule. I get this sense from spotting both patterns across self-contained episodes and instances of deviation from these patterns, yet finding little that might explain both occurrences of consistency and inconsistency in the show.

What's also 'infuriating' in a sense is my impression of being the only one to pick up on unusual details. The implication is that these details appear normal to others, which gets me to question my perception of what's 'unusual' and 'normal', which introduces an element of doubt while I try to set down my own take on things.

Using Powerpoint, I created the following GIF to sum up my reaction while chewing on details and trying to piece together my theories. The file's full size is pretty small, so I created a smaller version of the reaction GIF to also use it as an icon!

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Fic: First Snowfall of the Season (Sense8, Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan)

Title: First Snowfall of the Season
Fandom: Sense8
Pairing: Kala/Wolfgang/Rajan
Rated: Teen
Word Count: 636

Summary: Wolfgang wants to show Kala and Rajan the first snowfall of the season.

A/N: Written for Sense8 Holiday Exchange. My first Sense8 fic!

Fic on AO3

( Fic under here )

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Fic: New Plan (RNM, Pod Squad Gen)

Title: New Plan
Fandom: Roswell New Mexico
Pairing: Pod Squad & Dallas Haines & Kyle Valenti
Rated: Gen
Word Count: 1,179

Summary: Max, Isobel, and Michael get worried when Dallas says he's too sick to come over.

A/N: Written for RNM Secret Santa.

Fic on AO3

( Fic under here )

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exchange letter

Seasons of Drabbles Winter Round 2026 Letter

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music

New hyperfixation dropped

For some reason, I've gotten pretty into Big Country lately? I'd never heard of them before the Todd in the Shadows video about them back in the summer, though I have since heard their big song in the wild (in a Dick's Sporting Goods of all places).

Watch on YouTube

I like 80s alt rock, I like the melodic grammar of celtic folk music, I like big stupid reverb-ass 80s drums, I like some tight vocal harmonies, I like a sadboy tenor absolutely sending it, I like the Springsteeny bittersweet emotional urgency, so I was kind of destined to lose my mind a little bit. The song and the first record took a minute to grow on me, actually--the Springsteen comparison (which I've seen prior critics make as well) holds true also in the sense of "you're too good a lyricist to hurl out the words so quickly/indistinctly", and that made it hard for the song to find immediate purchase in my head, if that makes sense. But the shimmering urgency of all the songs on that first record, The Crossing, is infectious. Every live clip I've seen of them is utterly unreal, the guys' joy in playing together just pours out the screen, and I think The Crossing remains my favorite Big Country record because it, most completely of any of them, captures that live energy. You feel four achingly young men thrilled to be playing together and amazed to have found an audience.

Not to link to my God is Dead post a third time, but I feel an odd echo of VDB's story in theirs, or perhaps specifically Adamson's. Buoyed up to unexpected heights early on, clearly gifted, looking like everything is ahead of them, but something never quite clicks in trying to live up to that potential. Striving and turning themselves inside out looking for it, slowly ground down into despair (ten years after The Crossing, their album opener has the line "I walked out of the silver mine, my pockets filled with sand"). And in how the story ends.

But those first three records of theirs are worth remembering. I meant to talk about them more in detail, but I try to write these in one sitting and I'm fading now. I guess this works as a little bit of an overview of my thoughts/feelings on the band?

PS - I'd like to post on here more regularly in the new year.

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A Reckoning of Swords 6-10

Alas I did not post on either Weds or yesterday. ^^;;

Archiving is behind between being off-schedule, dead tired, the sprained ankle, and taking a chunk out of my right index finger while working on a car. But I did do a bit earlier and will keep gnawing at it. I even wrote a ficlet for

100fandoms and may try for a goal of finishing up that project this year. (As said every year.)

Finished up the HG Lfrith Pre-Production kit; it's nice looking but the backpack is a grenade and I suspect it'll go on a shelf never to be touched again or I'll bag-n-tag the backpack and let it be free. Unsure. Next is RG Justice who'll complete a ragtag order from November that I joked was actually a D&D party. (RG Justice, HG Calibarn, 30MF Priest, SD Dynames, 30MM Horse)

One of my other projects is a bingo card of lists. Most of these, I should have printed out already and just need to find them. The rest, ??? Things like

season_of_kink cards,

31_days lists, prompts from

100words and

anythingdrabble, and

drabblesoup... A lot of these have significant presence in my plotbunny book so it'd be good to kind of get myself level with them. (And, as above,

100fandoms!)

Boxen are on the way to

tainry and

torachan, and I caught up with

purplehellebore to exchange gifts so Xmas is officially over. Whew! (I may still have one or two notes for folks on holiday_wishes, but I'll take care of that as I can.)

I'm also going to need to find the full prompt list for an old multi-chapter KH2 fic (each chapter was vaguely themed) if I ever want to try to finish it. The list/comm it was for was on LJ but I don't know if it's still there and I haven't been able to consistently access LJ in years.

Well, I have a lot of notebooks to dig through...

Placeholders aren't always accurate

There is a listing on B&N's website for a special edition of a 7th Game Changer book called Unrivaled, that sounds like a 3rd Shane/Ilya book. Reid had been teasing an anthology a bit ago, which would be a misdirect, but it's possible this is not a novel, it's an anthology that has a Shane/Ilya story in it.

Current Mood: what did I ever do to you meme

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stop! meme time!

Yes. Memes are indeed fun.

New Years Book Meme Via flamingsword:

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 126
3. The 6th full sentence is your life in 2026

hah my closest book was Nghi Vo's Mammoths at the Gates, which ends at 120 pages.

"I stared down into it, no lights burning at its heart, no voices raised in song, while Rencki tried to call up the shuttle to Kiskol."
Slow Gods by Claire North.

Well, um. That sounds bleak? 2026 really needs to be nicer to me.

Positive note, I do like the writing.

Current Music: Flight Attendant - Man of Chaos

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To the devil on your shoulder.

+ I'm going back to work tonight, just to sleep on board so I can get cracking nice and early before everybody else arrives. It'll probably be freezing but hopping in bed wearing wool should sort that out. Right now I am of course procrastinating to the max. I have not packed a single item yet. At least my packages have been collected, the laundry and washing up done, and I've bought the necessities. The plan was to finish early so I could have a nice bath? *sighs at self* Man, you'll love that bath. Make that bath happen!

eta ugh my dad gave me anxiety about whether the key would be there, so now I won't be going on the boat until tomorrow and I'm grumbly about it. I wanted stuff to be ready dammit.

+ One thing I did finish is my holiday quest list in Dreamlight Valley, most important of all lolol. Gotta get those holiday decoration items, so I can boot it back up next December and once again not actually get around to decorating all that much. But it does make Kid Me happy still, wandering around with Belle and Wall-E, the most low stakes gameplay there is, collecting pretty holiday items. (they did actually sneak in an extra holiday thing that started after New Years and I'm cranky about it.)

+ I should also do my big yearly tarot spread, but I may not have the brains. Maybe I'll just lay them out and take pictures for later.

+ Letterboxd's In Memoriam tribute this year really hit me in the feels. We lost some lovely creatives.

+ Discord is hosting a survey to see what you think of them adding AI bullshit here. Feel free to stop by and tell them nope.

+ Snowflake Challenge #5
In your own space, create a list of at least three things you'd love to receive, a wishlist of sorts. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it and include a link to your wishlist if you feel comfortable doing so.

1. I'd love to see more people share things that bring them joy in their journals, no matter how small. We gotta grab what we can.
2. If you can't quite think of something shiny to share atm: memes are fun!
3. And if anyone has shared something that has brought you joy, please tell them so <3
(sneaky 4. but please do tell Discord to go fuck themselves with their AI bs.)

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writing

story out!

I know I still owe some comments on my year-end book post (I'm really enjoying the discussions there! it's just been busy) but I wanted to let you all know that I have a story out! Actually, this one is a first for me: it's a graphic story! When I sent them my prose story about a post-post-apocalyptic soil remediation robot and the various lives of the polluted valley around it, they asked if I would be interested in adapting it to a script for an artist to create a graphic story from, and of course I was. It was a very cool experience, and I'm so impressed with Xiang Yata's art (done impressively fast, no less).

You can check out The Valley in Thaw here, and the whole issue at www.tractorbeam.earth.