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delphi

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musesfool

Yesterday evening, I made a lovely pan-seared steak for dinner, and today I roasted a chicken. It was more expensive, but I bought one that came already spatchcocked, which meant it cooked in about 40 minutes. I used this recipe and the white meat was quite juicy and good. It's annoying to have to flip the whole chicken in the frying pan though, so I don't know if I will do it this way again, especially since I don't really care about crispy skin since I don't eat the skin. [obligatory quote: "any demons with high cholesterol?... You're gonna think about that later, mister, and you're gonna laugh."]

I also did the first part of this chocolate chip cookie recipe and now they're in the fridge chilling. Tomorrow I will bake 2 off and then do the same thing for the next 3 days too, since it only makes 8 extremely large cookies and they are supposedly best when freshly baked. I will report back on how they taste!

Tomorrow, I plan to make a nice herb and cheese frittata for dinner and lunch for a couple of days too, and of course, there will be leftover roast chicken to eat too.

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Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Cowboys vs Bears on tv

withthekeyisking posting in

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umadoshi

Posted elsenet yesterday: Queen's Quality is the only manga I've worked on with a simulpub release (for the last few years of its run), and now I'm down to odds & ends and small corrections that need doing for its final compiled volume. Feels a bit strange, having properly said goodbye months ago when adapting the epilogue.

That's this weekend's work, which I'd hoped to get done sooner than this (due to the Dayjob crunch starting this week, not because I'm running late), but I don't have the translation for my next assignment yet anyway, so I guess it's worked out fine. I do hope I can get this done today, though. (And I wish I'd gotten that translation and could have started adapting it this weekend, given. >.<)

Queen's Quality is one of those series that switched publishers/titles partway through its run (very early, in this case), and there's always something a bit amusing about being like, "I'm working on vol. 25, which is the final volume. I've worked on this story for 27 of its 28 volumes." (Which is to say, in this case, that Queen's Quality was preceded by three volumes of an initial series called QQ Sweeper, and someone else adapted vol. 1 of that one.)

scruloose and I have been getting some household puttering done, which was desperately needed. We're both prone to letting piles of ~stuff~ slowly accumulate, and getting some of that beaten back before work swallows my life for however long is a relief. (Especially since that type of visual clutter is one of the sensory things that starts to bother me far too easily when I'm stressed. It starts to feel like I'm being loomed over.

scruloose also hung up a piece of wall shelving for displaying things in my office! I have no clear idea yet of what will wind up on it, as most small things that go on such a shelf are just sort of stashed around my office in bins or odd places. I'll have to dig through some drawers and see what surfaces.

(I see the usefulness of the "a place for everything, and everything in its place" concept, but am terribly unclear on how that actually works for most people in practice, given how many sorts of objects [that do in fact see use] don't really lend themselves to "this object resides here in the house". We're very much not minimalists, which doesn't help, but...yeah. Like what do you do with, say, a vacuum cleaner if you don't have some closet space that lends itself to being the vacuum's home?)

(A while ago my mother-in-law forwarded a couple of pics she'd come across of our place not long after we'd moved in, when we were unpacked and a bit settled. It's incredible how alien it looked--the original horrible paint colors, some furniture that's been LONG since replaced--but I think the biggest thing is the complete absence of anything cat-related.)

nightchimes posting in

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pauraque

After some consideration of my options, I have made a Star Wars icon that pleases me. It's a screenshot of the music video for Jeremy Messersmith's "Tatooine" with animation by Eric Power.

Embedded video: Paper cutout animation retelling the plot of the Star Wars Original Trilogy.

Watch on YouTube

delphi

bethefirst is a challenge that invites participants to create the first fic for an otherwise fic-less fandom (terms and conditions may apply), and the results of an autumn flash round just went live!

Be the First! Flash Round IV Collection

It features a whopping 30 fics based on a wide range of media, with a great spread of categories and ratings. You can also find creators'
fandom promos for introductions to some of the canons.

I'm still making my way through the collection, but everything I've read so far has been fantastic, and I'm compiling a list of new-to-me canons to check out. I definitely recommend manually browsing, if you're interested, since not all of the fandoms have been canonized as AO3 tags yet.

musesfool

If you are interested in checking out Dungeon Crawler Carl but don't want to buy the first book (or the wait list at your library is very long), there's a webtoon version you can check out for free to see if it's up your alley. It's making me want to start a reread of the series even though I just read it last month. *hands*

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Current Mood: cheerful
Current Music: Mets losing to the Nats

linky posting in

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umadoshi

The seasonal crunch at Dayjob hasn't even started yet (so soon, though) and I already feel like I'm falling behind. >.< But I've been reading, so here's a fairly bare-bones post about that.

scruloose and I finished listening to Exit Strategy, and reluctantly are not moving forward until after said crunch period. This is a good resting point. We're both really enjoying these, which isn't really a surprise (heaven knows everyone raves about the Murderbot audiobooks!) except that I so thoroughly think of myself as not being someone who takes in much(/any) audio media other than music. It's possible that these are the first audiobooks I've listened to since...maybe since some Robert Asprin book on cassette during a family road trip when I was a teenager (which I only recall even that much of because the reader's delivery of "'Gleep', said the dragon" has stuck with me), and whatever snatches of audiobook I've heard while road tripping with Ginny and Kas.

Saint Death's Daughter (C.S.E. Cooney) was a really good read and rather brutal; I imagine I'll pick up the sequel at some point.

Julie Leong's The Teller of Small Fortunes was a much softer book (it may count as "cozy", but that seems to be a very subjective classification). It didn't leave much of a mark on me, but I enjoyed it.

The most recent novel I finished was When Women Were Dragons (Kelly Barnhill), which was one of those books where I didn't think I had much idea of what it would be like but then found it was nothing like I'd (subconsciously, I guess) expected, based on having read a few sentences about it somewhere. It too was good, and the fact that both the tone and the actual unfolding of the concept threw me is on me, not it.

Now I'm reading The Starving Saints (Caitlin Starling), but I'm only a few chapters in.

Non-fiction: Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World is not a fast read, but then, I didn't suppose it would be. Slow progress is still being made.

I mostly don't mention cookbooks I've read, but a couple days ago I finished reading the ebook of The League of Kitchens Cookbook: Brilliant Tips, Secret Methods & Favorite Family Recipes from Around the World by Lisa Kyung Gross and the Women of the League of Kitchens Cooking School, with Rachel Wharton. And then the second book of collected Murderbot novellas (3-4) popped up on Book Outlet, tempting me to place an order even though I ordered from them pretty recently, and they also had the hard copy of The League of Kitchens Cookbook, so I pounced on it.

I don't remember where I heard about it, but someone somewhere mentioned it and then I snapped it up a while back when the ebook was on sale. I had no real idea what the League of Kitchens was until I was reading, and it turns out to be such a neat thing! From the book copy:

Founded in 2014 by Lisa Kyung Gross, the daughter of a Korean immigrant and a Jewish New Yorker, League of Kitchens is a unique cooking school that empowers immigrant women to share culinary expertise and culture through hands-on cooking workshops, both in their homes and online. The instructors pass on their knowledge, skills, recipes, and most importantly, their secrets for how to cook with love. At its heart, League of Kitchens is a celebration of the invaluable contributions of immigrants to our food culture and society.

IIRC from the intro to the book, they don't/didn't go searching for people from specific backgrounds as instructors; rather, it's about finding people who match what they're looking for, regardless of their country of origin. (Here's their current list of instructors.) Some classes are taught online, which is tempting, although I don't realistically like my odds of ever actually signing up.

(One thing I really like about the book is that the recipe instructions are broken down into incredible detail. I pretty much always want more detail than I'm given when learning something or being asked to do something. When I was still very early in the book, I was excitedly calling out to

scruloose about how the recipe I was reading--which was not for something super-complicated, I don't think--was broken down into seventeen steps. SEVENTEEN. Yes, please!)

Current Mood: drained

thawrecka

I wrote a Kaiju no 8 Kaguragi Aoi/Izumo Haruichi ficlet for the prompt 100 words of first time blowjobs. I may or may not extend it into a whole story later to put on AO3.

isis

What I've recently finished watching:

Wednesday season 2, and I enjoyed it a lot! Okay, there were parts I did not enjoy nearly as much as others; I could have done without the zombie gore and Pugsley in general, and Enid's new boyfriend drama as well. On the other hand! (Which I guess is Thing, no pun intended!) Here are some things I particularly loved, ( behind a cut because they are very mildly spoilery for S2, more spoilery for S1: )

mayhap

Can't believe he's actually turning thirty already. Time flies when you're winning Super Bowls.

Now if his teammates could get it together so he doesn't have to literally try to win the games by himself, that would be a great thirtieth birthday present. He has more rushing yards than everyone else put together through two games, for fuck's sake.

Current Mood: moody

isis

What I recently finished reading:

A reread of Velocity Weapon by Megan E. O'Keefe - here's my original review from 2020:

Space opera that reminds me a bit of Imperial Radch smushed with the Expanse, though it doesn't feel like it's actually inspired by either. There's a sentient spaceship and a culture which dominates the universe and controls the gates which allow passage between worlds (which were invented using a mysterious technology that may have come from another civilization), and generally modern SF style views of gender and sexuality (the main characters, siblings, have two fathers, and there's a character who uses 'they' pronouns, presumably nonbinary). The story mostly follows Sanda, a 'gunnery sergeant' [this seemed odd to me for various reasons - she seems to be an actual officer, not a noncom, but I guess military ranks in this far future world are different?] who wakes up after a battle alone, on board a deserted enemy warship, which tells her that it's 230 years after the battle and that both sides' planets have been destroyed. Other POVs are Sanda's brother, Biran, who has been recently elevated to the political elite of their society, and Jules, a young gangster girl on a planet far away, whose narrative seems to have little to do with the main story until the very end when things are connected in order to set up the next book. I liked it a lot, though I felt that after the first few big reveals (which were great!) things dragged for a while before rushing to a climax that quickly went on to a cliffhanger.

Rereading my review, I guess I still agree with it! I'm sadly appalled that I forgot so many of the spoilery details in the intervening 5 years.

But I'm on to the next book in the series, Chaos Vector...

pauraque

In this sequel to The Three-Body Problem, it's now out in the open that an alien invasion is coming. But the aliens' doomed planet is far away and this is hard SF, so they're not expected to reach Earth for 400 years. The book follows a mostly new set of characters and international organizations as they try to work out a long-term plan to somehow defend Earth against a force with vastly superior technology and no interest in negotiating.

This book is 500 pages long and I don't think it had to be. I found the first half a real slog, as it mostly focused on plot elements that I felt were not plausible (not for speculative reasons, but for No Real Person Would Ever Do This reasons) and, surprisingly, a romance. I don't know if Liu got the criticism that the first book didn't care about people so he decided to put in a love story, or what, but the way he handles it is extremely strange and unrealistic and made me question whether he had ever interacted with a woman in his entire life, so maybe he should have stuck with ideas over people.

It also suffers from a rather flat and awkward English translation that calls way more attention to the fact that it is a translation than the first book's did. (They had a different translator for this one, but brought back Ken Liu for book three.) That's not the book's fault, but it definitely affected my experience of it.

That said, the second half did pick up a lot, and leaned much more heavily into Liu's strengths as a writer: the inventive worldbuilding and the show-stopping cinematic set pieces. I did enjoy that and it brought me back to what I liked about the first book. Liu has a distinctive knack for making even catastrophic and grisly events weirdly fun to read about because of how hard he commits to them and how intricately he constructs their details. Anybody can write about stuff blowing up in space, but not everybody can show exactly why and how it's blowing up, zoom into individual pieces of debris and out to massive chain reactions, and have a reader like me, who is often bored by action scenes, attentively following along every step of the way.

many spoilery thoughts

The main thing I thought was implausible was the concept of the Wallfacers. Basically, the UN chooses four people and gives them each unlimited resources to develop and enact a plan to defend against the aliens. There's no oversight and anything they do is legal and unquestioned. This is supposed to counter the aliens' ability to remotely surveil Earth; if the plan takes shape in one person's head, then the aliens, who are said to not understand secrets and deception, won't find out about it.

Many things about this concept invite skepticism, but my biggest issue is how the presentation glosses over the complexity of human societies. Liu assumes that essentially everyone in the world will tacitly support whatever the UN does, with no significant debate or objection, even when it directly affects people's lives. He has the Wallfacers using so many resources for their massive defense constructions that it's crushing the global economy, and people just twiddle their thumbs and let it happen. He often paints global reactions with an extremely broad brush, like "people felt/thought X" as though all of humanity were a monolith. I can't speak for countries other than my own, but in this situation I can confidently say that half the people in the US probably wouldn't even believe the aliens were real, and even if they did, they sure as hell wouldn't put their faith in four people arbitrarily selected by the UN to save us all.

Sometimes Liu seems to know there are problems with these ideas, as when the narrative flashes forward a couple of centuries and the Wallfacer project is seen as one of the many "silly" things attempted during the initial panic over the invasion. Then again, Wallfacer Luo Ji's plan does basically work in the end, so I wasn't really clear on what the book was trying to say here.

I did enjoy the future worldbuilding, where most humans live in underground cities of massive treelike skyscrapers that hold up the ceiling where a holographic sky is projected. He did a slightly better job here of showing that cultures aren't all the same; a lot of people in the future are "hibernators" who were put into stasis in the past at various times and reawoken later, and their attitudes often differ from people who are native to the future. This also helped build a believable friendship between Shi Qiang and Luo Ji, since they're the only two people they know from their time. (I think this is the only compelling human relationship in the book, certainly better than whatever the hell was supposed to be happening with Luo Ji and the imaginary woman he made up in his head who turned out to be real somehow... It's a long story.)

I was also interested in the concept of the accidental generation ships. Almost the entire Earth fleet is destroyed by an alien probe that they thought was harmless, and the few crews that barely escape believe (understandably) that returning to Earth is suicide and that continuing to flee is humanity's best hope for survival. This entire scenario plays out over the length of a chapter, but whole books could be written about it! The part where they realize that they have too many people to keep alive long-term and some will have to be sacrificed read like an homage to "The Cold Equations," though I don't know if that story is as well-known among Chinese SF readers.

Of course it's also consistent with the book's generally pessimistic outlook on space exploration. I did know before I started reading what the "dark forest" solution to the Fermi Paradox is, but I didn't know the hypothesis was named after the book!! The idea is that the reason we haven't found aliens is that the galaxy is fucking dangerous and any planetary civilizations that foolishly jump around waving their hands and flashing neon signs trying to make first contact only make themselves a target. Aliens are out there, but the ones who have survived are the quiet ones. As a person whose favorite SF canon is Star Trek, this obviously doesn't align with my preferred way of looking at things, but it's internally consistent and not implausible, so I can roll with it.

I am invested enough to read the third book, and looking forward to getting back to a translator who knows what he's doing at least.

annapods posting in

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spikedluv posting in

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musesfool

Last night at this time, I was on what ended up to be a 90 minute (or more - I left after 90 minutes) call with other shareholders in my building to discuss options for complying with local law 97, which is all about reducing carbon emissions. It was informative, though as usual, the people running these meetings are bad at it it, and 2 people basically monopolized all the Q&A time with very specific-to-them concerns instead of applicable-to-all-tenants stuff, but at least nobody accused the board of being racist for muting them, which is what happened the last time I joined a building-related zoom call. Still only about a quarter of the people who live here showed up, which I find inexplicable considering the financial considerations involved. While no final decision was made, it seems like there will be a recommendation to take one of the incremental measures while continuing to explore the more expensive (but not the ludicrously expensive most expensive) options. So we'll see how that goes. If it helps my apartment not to turn into a sauna going forward, I am interested!

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Baby Miss L is still trying to finalize her Halloween costume, but as with last year, there may be multiple outfits as she has a very full social calendar. She has gotten better about school, too - apparently she waves hello to everyone as she enters, and I imagine they all appreciate her attention. *g* I have also started compiling a list of books to buy her for her birthday and Christmas, which I guess I'll start shopping for soon.

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I complain about work fairly often, but today I learned that 1. they've confirmed that our insurance will cover covid jabs for everyone who uses it, and 2. they're giving us 2 extra paid holidays this year since both 12/26 and 1/2 fall on Fridays. So I know I have it pretty good despite...everything happening in the world to try to ruin public health and nonprofits.

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I can't remember if I posted about the very addictive phone game I recently downloaded, but after several lelvels where the only way to advance was to spend money to get helpful items, I deleted it. I can't be spending that kind of money and I am definitely the kind of person who needs to defeat the puzzles, even though I can see they are specifically designed to not be beatable without those helpful items. It's one reason I don't gamble or play "real" video games - I tend to get feverishly obsessive about winning and neither sleep nor money matter to me in that state. *hands* At least I know this about myself? Idk, but it felt good to delete the game even though I am still craving it.

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The Mets snapped their losing streak on Sunday and still control their destiny in terms of a wild card spot, but given how poorly they've played for so long, this series with San Diego feels like a playoff game already. We'll see if they can hold the early lead. ....and now Lindor goes deep! <333

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Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Mets vs Padres on tv

lets_call_me_lily posting in

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pauraque

This unusual game depends on a unique movement mechanic that's a little hard to describe, but I'll try. You play as a creature that can only survive on the surface of a bubble. There are little helper creatures that you can direct to create new bubbles that you can grab onto when they intersect with yours. If you mess up the timing and get stranded without a bubble, you die and go back to the last checkpoint.

Watch on YouTube

Though it sounds weird when you try to put it into words, it's actually easy to intuit how it works when you're doing it, and it quickly felt natural and fun to do. There's no text in the game in part because you don't need it. The best fit genre is probably puzzle platformer, as you're leveraging the environment and your abilities to navigate past obstacles.

The game is visually stunning, with fractal-inspired kaleidoscopic imagery that is suggestive of coral reefs and cosmic nebulae. It's a matter of interpretation what the setting actually is and what the characters are. Are you a jellyfish? An alien? A bacterium? A fundamental particle? I have no idea!

In general I was okay with the abstract nature of the game, but at times it can make your goals unclear. Since you don't really know what you're doing or why, it's hard to gauge where you are in the story arc or if you're near the end. I did enjoy it, though, even if I couldn't really give you a synopsis what happened in it. It took me 3.5 hours to finish the game without going back for achievements.

Accessibility note: The blurb calls it a "sound-surfing platformer" which implies sound is part of the gameplay, but that's not the case. The music is nice but it's only aesthetic, and the game can be played perfectly well without hearing.

Onde is on Steam and GOG for $13.99 USD. I got it on sale for two bucks and was satisfied with my purchase. Steam also has a free demo that should make it clear whether it's for you.

delphi

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flowing_river posting in

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musesfool

My original plan was to make pork chops with peach butter for dinner tonight, but then no peaches arrived with my grocery order, so I did a quick pivot to pork chops in lemon-caper sauce (NYT gift link) and they are delicious. I think it would also be very good with chicken if you don't eat pork (or eggplant, which seems to be my veggie substitute for meat these days, though it is more labor-intensive).

Anyway, I substituted a half-cup of chicken broth with a tablespoon of white wine vinegar for the wine and forgot to add the flour until I'd already added the broth, but it all turned out all right. Definitely recommended!

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In other news, I've had Saja Boys' Soda Pop stuck in my head all day. "Tom's Diner" vanquishes it briefly but then it returns. It's a cute song! Very catchy! I'd like to not have it in my head all day!

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Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Eagles vs KC on tv

musesfool

A couple weeks ago, I finally realized I was never going to go to someone else to get my hair cut, so with some encouragement from my sister, this morning, I did an extensive detangling (both before and after washing) and then trimmed about 3" off the bottom myself. Is it even? Probably not, but it was in long layers, so I don't think it really matters. It will eventually even out as it grows and I trim it. Mostly what matters is that after 3 years, the old ends have been trimmed away. And now that I know I can do it, I will try to keep up with it on a more timely basis. At least, I don't think I'll let another 3 years go by. *wry*

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The Mets did not get no-hit last night but they did lose, and then lost again today despite leading for 7.5 innings. *hands* There is something very wrong with this team, but who can say what? Sigh.

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Current Mood: amused
Current Music: Land of Hope and Dreams (live) - Bruce Springsteen

thawrecka

This was my assignment:

Shared Warmth (1056 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: 黄金台 - 苍梧宾白 | Golden Terrace - Cāng Wú Bīn Bái
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Fu Shen/Yan Xiaohan
Characters: Fu Shen (Golden Stage), Yan Xiaohan
Additional Tags: Established Relationship, Slice of Life, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

Two moments in their relationship in which Fu Shen and Yan Xiaohan take care of each other.

But first I wrote this pinch hit, because I saw it on the PH list while I was actively watching Pluto, and got inspired:

Preludes and Endings (Arr. for Piano) (1854 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Pluto (Anime)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Paul Duncan/North no. 2
Characters: Paul Duncan (Pluto), North No. 2 (Pluto)
Additional Tags: Missing Scene, Canonical Character Death, Angst, First Kiss, Robot/Human Relationships
Summary:

Paul Duncan uses the time they have to reach out for North no. 2's hands.

The Pluto fic did better than my Golden Terrace fic, and I can't say I'm surprised. The former was just better, and even though I signed up thinking I could write the latter I really struggled.

After this I'm taking a break from exchanges until Yuletide. I did a bunch over the last year, and it turns out instead of giving me the joy Yuletide gives me they mostly made me stressed. I did read some great fic, though, and got to write some interesting stuff.