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Lately I've been really enjoying the song "Hide Out" by Mahalia (lyrics here). There isn't really an area of her performance that doesn't shine, but maybe my favorite part is her body language and delivery. Revenge through living well is a common theme in breakup songs, but she seems so genuinely delighted by the person that she is that when she sings You don't know what you had, I'm amazing, it feels less like defiance and more like the simple truth.

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I've been quiet lately, but I'm still here. My life hasn't been very eventful (and I'm grateful for that fact), but I have started DMing a new D&D campaign, which currently has four whole players! It's definitely more of a balancing act than DMing for just one -- and I went and upped the challenge rating by homebrewing the setting, too -- but I absolutely love the characters everyone came up with, and I'm doing my best to learn quickly enough to deserve my players' trust.

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There are about a million things I meant to post about and didn't -- novels, fics, two whole anime series, the game Lenna's Inception from that itch.io bundle, an interactive novel about professional wrestling, the writing of Michael Harriot. I don't know if I'll catch up on any of that, but I hope I can do a better job of keeping up with my reading list going forward.

How have you all been?

READ

I finished Call It Intelligence by talkingtothesky! It's such an interesting S3 fix-it. ( A bit of spoilery commentary... )

I've enjoyed several DA:I fics of Stonestrewn's lately, most notably Glass Cabinet (Tama Bull, gen, 1k, agonizing) and Writing love all over, in which Cassandra and Josephine are fangirls together and, over the course of 8k, fall gradually in love. It's such a gorgeous depiction of fannish feeling as well as romance, and I especially loved that this particular version of Cassandra is ( spoiler? )

Long-distance call by LadyGwenllian is an adorable Yuri on Ice fic in which Phichit helpfully explains a few things to Yuuri before the whole Victor-in-Hasetsu situation can get too out of hand. I especially appreciate that it gently pushes back against the fat-shaming that struck me as YOI's biggest (only?) flaw.

Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love) by Delphi is exactly 8k of original romance between one Benny Zalman, who serves gin and occasionally breaks bones at a mediocre speakeasy, and Abe Hirsch, the strangely mesmerizing new piano player classing up the joint. Very well written and incredibly charming.

The Axiom by pauraque is ~1.5k exploring Data's perspective in an episode of Star Trek: TNG I never saw, but I love it to pieces despite my ignorance, because it's just so heartbreakingly thoughtful in what it says about what it's like to be an android who, axiomatically, cannot feel. Do mind the warnings in the tags.

Finally, I've been perusing some of susiecarter fics after enjoying their Witcher fic last week, and I think this song is about you is my favorite so far: 11k of Cullen POV as he and Dorian pine over each other like beautiful fools. The use of roleplay and storytelling towards the end as a way to share painful and delicate truths is particularly well done.

WATCHED

Stumptown episode 1x15, "At All Costs: The Conrad Costas Chronicles". What a title, oof. But the episode is good fun, as Stumptown tends to be.

Brooklyn Nine-Nine through episode 7x03, "Pimemento". It's a fun episode! I just don't seem to have much to say about either it or "Captain Kim".

LISTENED TO

Now that Chocolate Box is done, I can admit to being super into this MS MR cover of "Genghis Khan" by Miike Snow without risking giving anything away! Note that the lead vocalist changes the lyrics so she's singing to a boy rather than a girl, but I love her delivery and the moody feel their performance gives the song.

( Two more. )

( complaining about The Good Wife and, separately, Lost Girl )

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Less gloomily, I've been enjoying the videos of YouTube user TB Skyen lately. (Unfortunately, most of them aren't captioned.)

I'm unfamiliar with probably 90% of the media he covers, so I've only sampled a scattering of his work, but I love the way he'll sometimes insist that he isn't being political at all, he's purely examining artistic and narrative decisions -- and then he just happens to demonstrate that there is no artistic or narrative justification for the incredibly sexist design choices of the powers that be. Well played, sir.

Not to mention, his delighted squee over the Undertale quasi-sequel (?) Deltarune is incredibly endearing.

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Also in YouTubery: Why are Siamés' music videos so amazing??

The Wolf was stunningly good, but I might love Mr. Fear just as much. (Cartoon violence in both videos, and possible body horror warning for the latter.) They're just so stylized and stylish and expressive! And the animation meshes so perfectly with the beat!

(And I admire the way they make a genuine artistic virtue of what I suspect is a strategic reuse of footage to keep the workload/budget reasonable.)

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Possibly against my better judgment, I seem to be gearing up to do Chocolate Box this year! Deadlines can be tricky for me, but surely I can write 300 words in a month's time? (I say knowing full well that last time the story wouldn't let go of me in less than 1000.)

I haven't signed up yet, but I have drafted up some requests and offers, so... I admit it's looking likely at this point. It's just such a fun exchange!