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I got a little distracted by Chocolate Box this past week, but at last it's time for another round of Wednesday things!

READ

I'm not sure I ever would have given Silver and Gold by scioscribe a try if schneefink hadn't recommended it, but I'm so glad I did. It's 150k of an MCU AU where after Loki stabbed Thor for the first time when they were kids, Odin disowned him and gave him to Heimdall to raise, and it's... so beautiful and wise? It has so much to say about deep emotional wounds suffered in childhood, about grief, and about learning to trust and connect with others. ( One thing does confuse me... )

Anyway, after devouring that, I went on to enjoy the hell out of some of scioscribe's other works, most notably the TOS fic Crete, in which Kirk distracts space pirates by... essentially making himself a living sex pollen dispenser, I guess. It's so idtastic, and absolutely do mind the warnings, but it's also written with a sort of humane clarity that I really admire.

I've already recced my two amazing Chocolate Box gifts, but they still deserve many more eyeballs!

( Several more fics I've enjoyed, Chocolate Box and otherwise. )

And finally, as of tonight I am happily and ravenously gulping down Call it Intelligence by talkingtothesky with illustrations by Singing_Orange so I can be ready for POI book club on Friday. It's 60k of Finch/Reese pining, believably bad choices, and really remarkably gorgeous self-defense lessons. Plus, Shaw is so good! And the art is so beautiful! And last month's book club discussion was so much fun, I really can't wait for this one.

I also loved Afterwards by Scytale, a fan-haiku for the Hakuouki series of otome.

WATCHED

Bumblebee.  Let's be honest, I was 100% here for the lonely car robot hesitantly getting to know a human kid; the action scenes and coming of age arc were competently executed but not really to my address.  Content note for ( a couple of instances of ableist language ).  I did enjoy that the big bad was voiced by a woman!

( Doctor Who through episode 12x07, "Can You Hear Me?". )

( Stumptown spoilers through episode 1x14, "Til Dex Do Us Part". )

BoJack Horseman episode 1x01, "BoJack Horseman: The BoJack Horseman Story, Chapter One". As advertised, this really is about a very unpleasant man who is also an anthropomorphic horse. I was struck by how often the other characters comment on how little he has accomplished lately, as opposed to how much of an asshole he is to everyone he interacts with. There are some fantastic sight gags, though.

( Brooklyn Nine-Nine episode 7x01, "Manhunter" )

READ

i think you're so good (i'm nothing like you) by MulaSaWala for the poi_fanworks big bang book club. Both the fic and the book club discussion were super fun! I do think I appreciated the fic more than I would have if I hadn't read its prequel, but this is also the installment in which Reese (aka my terrible feelingsful fave) enters the Everyone Lives AU, so I can see good sides to starting here too!

( Four shorter fanfics... )

( Three short stories recced by pink_ink! )

Dragon Pearl by Yoon Ha Lee is a middle grade book about a young fox shapeshifter whose older brother has gone mysteriously missing from the Space Forces. Unsurprisingly, it's very different from the Machineries of Empire trilogy, but I'm liking the worldbuilding so far!

The Fifth Season by NK Jemisin, also recced by pink_ink, is not for the faint of heart, but is extremely good at what it's doing. In a world where cataclysmic earthquakes and volcanoes have destroyed civilization after civilization and no one knows when the next might come, where people with the rare ability to control the earth are either killed by anyone who discovers them or carefully trained and selectively bred (which is exactly as awful as it sounds)... well, a lot of stuff is happening, and I'm still in the process of figuring a lot of it out. But it's all deeply compelling, and I can't wait to keep reading and find out what happens next!

Also worth mentioning is this insightful if pessimistic twitter thread by Courtney Milan on the poisoning of the concept of compromise in US politics.

WATCHED

Jupiter Ascending, which is exactly as everyone in fandom described it. The CGI is gorgeous! The incest vibes are off the charts! I'm not sure I really understood anything that happened at any point! And I especially don't understand why they asked Channing Tatum to grow that unfortunate facial hair. But that last scene was so pretty!

( Stumptown 1x11 and 1x12, "The Past and the Furious" and "Dirty Dexy Money". )

( Doctor Who through episode 11x08, "The Witchfinders". )

I've also watched the entire first Netflix season of Astronomy Club, ( which is a fantastic comedy sketch show threaded through with social awareness. )

The Good Place 4x12, "Patty", unhappily discussed here.

But in more cheerful The Good Place news, I also watched and adored All Star by maristu, which is the Jason vid I never even knew I needed. ⭐ ♥ 🐆

READ

More of This Time Next Year (previously), which is still kind of a surreal experience. It's partly a traditional frontier narrative (and one self-admittedly silent about the problems inherent in the concept of a "frontier") that uses omegaverse tropes to help bolster the red-blooded violence of some of its male characters, but then it's also got this fascinating religious worldbuilding around omegas and what they mean to the people around them. I feel like there's a universe next door where the author filed off the hockey RPF serial numbers, published it as mainstream fiction (but not SF, for some reason, despite the speculative element), and blew the minds of a generation.

I also read Halloween on Christmas by rionaleonhart and th_esaurus, which is Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse fic featuring grief, awkwardness, and ill-advised makeouts between the forty-ish Peter Parker of the movie and a nineteen year old Gwen. If that sounds like your kind of thing, it probably is!

And just tonight I read speak truth to knowledge by equivalence relation by alexseanchai, which I'd seen recced before Yuletide reveals but didn't get around to reading until now, because I'm much too tired to brain. But this fic, omg. It's written for the fandom of the music video to Taylor Swift's "Ready For It", but although I watched said video before reading it, I don't think that's a necessary prerequisite to enjoying the heck out of it. Mostly, it's a thoughtful look at the lead-up to the cyborg revolution.

Here also is a poem by Emily Short that I forgot to link last week, which speaks briefly on the subject of joy, and of its necessity and strength.

WATCHED

( The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel through episode 3x04, "Hands!" )

( Sym-Bionic Titan through episode 1x05, "Roar of the White Dragon" )

Also, parts one through three of Parallax by Adam Westbrook, which is a short video series (five episodes @ ~5 minutes each) investigating a mildly interesting planet that is by some of its inhabitants called Earth. I'm digging it. (Only auto-generated closed captions, unfortunately.)

READ

The Warden by Anthony Trollope. alchimie kindly recommended a couple of good starting points among his books, and I am reading neither of them, but I am reading the first book in the series they're part of. So far I'm enjoying it well enough -- it's a bit weird about women, but it gives an interesting portrait of institutional inertia and the people who favor it over, say, justice.

My Lady Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows, originally because my mother wanted to discuss it with me, although I think she's since forgotten why. I'm really not sure what to make of this book, which is about Lady Jane Grey but also... magical hijinks? This would probably be a less jarring combination to someone who was already aware of her position in English history, but reading about her execution in a foreword immediately before her lighthearted adventures made for a bit of mood whiplash. Anyway, I'm about halfway through it so far!

( A few health and politics links. )

GAMED

Still Lily's Garden and StarCraft II, and also some Furistas Cat Cafe, which does not have the same view of feline psychology that I do -- I was expecting a mechanic where the cats had to go and rest between clients, not where they got antsy without attention! -- but which I cannot dislike at all, because it lets me pet cats and make them purr. They are such good cats. Sadly though, the app keeps crashing on my somewhat elderly tablet, so this is unlikely to become a personal fave.

WATCHED

More Doctor Who. I quite like Danny! "Mummy on the Orient Express" is probably my favorite episode of season 8 so far, for the courage and unexpected kindness.

The Good Place season premiere!!! Oh it's good to have this show back! I have no idea what they're doing with this season, honestly, but that's part of the charm by this point. I'm so pleased there's been conversation over at the_good_place, too!

And a youtube series called The Alt-Right Playbook, which is quite cheerful about calling a fascist a fascist. I don't think I agree with it about everything, but I was really struck by the idea that what the more patriarchal strains of Christianity have in common with unfettered capitalism is a love of hierarchy. I always had a little trouble understanding why those strains of conservatism got along so well, but now it seems perfectly clear.