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Oooh! Prodigy has a Mirror Universe episode!

As always, Evil!Janeway is hot, though less so than the Living Witness version. It's the eyes - our main characters all have huge eyes, so the somewhat more realistically animated adult human characters look slightly uncanny valley, even though their eyes ought to make sense.

Also, damn, Chakotay has got some arms! Is this true IRL? I don't remember ever seeing the live actor ever without sleeves....

Also also, I honestly love every time Gwen gets a moment of happiness, no matter how small. She really has had a miserable life. Every second chasing replicated pie over the ship, or squirting whipped cream into her mouth, or, one hopes, finally spending some time playing goofy holodeck games, is a second worth living. And so, I will say, I appreciate that the animators took the time to let her smirk a little when Evil!Chakotay proposed starting his torture session with "the cute one", aka Murf the Indestructible. You gotta find those moments of joy when you can, sweetie!

(Question: Are mirror tribbles... nice? What about their new team pet, Bribble? Would Bribble have a goatee and be evil in the mirror verse? How sapient is that thing, anyway?)

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Why do things always go from bad to worse? Why can't they go from bad to somewhat less bad?

I don't want this getting lost in the links: A Journey Through the Dystopiaverse (some of those poems hit hard)

In personal news, how many nos is one expected to get before they get a yes?

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( I managed to find some non-doom-and-gloom links to shove in here as well )

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Watch on YouTube

Prodigy

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Birdsong of Shaker Way by Ann-Margaret Lim

Every day is perfect, if
when you wake, you hear birds
in the garden, in the yard. Birds

up and down, ushering in one more day
in all the houses on Shaker Way. Birds
on telephone lines, light posts. Birds

twit, twittering on trees
hailing fellow birds
with a nod of beak—gray kingbird;

top-hatted, streamertail
tuxedoed, doctor bird—
busy-bodied hummingbird

tucking in, out, of pink, red ixoras
punch-drunk in love. Birds
preening for, chatting up other birds—

the oriole, the grass quit, in mid-song
on the lawn, in a dance of birds
an all-day-long conference of bird;

red-headed woodpecker
—drummer boy, or girl bird
in this daily symphony of birds

—an orchestra on Shaker Way
in serenade of each perfect day with birds—
from the very first mockingbird

heralding, in solo warble
one more day, filled with birds—
brightened, lightened, trilled by birds:

precious, diamond-throated
sweet song, miracle-toting birds
the-gift-of-day-is-here birds.

Bird, bird, bird. Hello bird.
You lift me up bird.
You sing the day beautiful, bird.

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_Link

Trying to rapidly finish Prodigy, on Season 2

Rok continues to be the best at everything, and deserves all the hugs. Though I remain baffled how ST thinks they can on one hand have post-scarcity nearly everywhere (including, one presumes, in places just outside of the Federation where they can easily abscond with probable Federation citizens) and also have seedy underbellies everywhere as well. The problem is that they never actually worked out how it all works, and I think the only solution is to ditch the idea that even the Federation really has no currency and is totally post-scarcity. Everybody has their basic needs met, I'll agree is supported by the writing. Anything past that, no.

Anyway, Rok's friend in her tragic backstory was clearly no more able to leave that situation than she was and though I can see there's too much plot for that to happen in canon I really hope they could rescue him.

Speaking of tragic backstories, I cannot believe a. that Dal tried to say his was the worst and b. his version of being "the worst" absolutely skips past the part where ( Read more... ) But seriously, dude, you grew up as a slave on a mine full of child slaves. It's not a situation people get into because their life was just so great beforehand. If everything was hunky-dory, none of you would've been targeted in the first damn place. You all have a terrible backstory, you don't need to prove it!

Moving on, Murf continues to also be the best, but ffs, can somebody get him an AAC? Or a whiteboard, at least? Teach him sign language? This is a solved problem even in the real world, surely Starfleet can figure it out!

Nothing to say about Jankom, he's just there. *shrug* And I feel kinda ditto about Zero, tbh. I mean, I like them, but....

Ma'Jel, between her cool hair and her increasingly consternated expression as the turbolift got more and more crowded, is clearly not one of the most unemotional Vulcans out there. (I don't care what Vulcans say, the opposite of "logical" is not "emotional", it's just "illogical".) I feel like she and our darling T'Lyn would have a lot to talk about.

The adults on the ship - this show is clearly trying to walk a fine line between keeping them competent and allowing the kids to run circles around them. I'm not sure it always works, but I appreciate the effort, and also I appreciate how they were careful to make it clear that the adults, whether they're being strict or a bit Too Much, are only acting the way they do because they're sympathetic. (Frankly, all the kids could stand to appreciate their new situation a bit more - except Rok, she already gets it - but I understand why they're struggling a bit.)

( Gets a bit spoilery )

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( Ugh, the news )

Well, I read the news

Or, anyway, I glanced at the headlines and oh fuck no. Can I just go back to bed, and somebody wake me when things improve?

JFC what is it about Greeks?

A shocking number of people will blithely tell us all about the book they read, in English, on an English-language subreddit, and never tell us that they didn't read it in English. I can only catch so many of them - if they don't say "English isn't my first language" or make any obvious foreign language errors then I'll never know. (Some of them say "I read this in my own language" and then don't tell us what that language was.)

Most of these people, if prompted, will tell you what language they read it in. Three times now, I've had to ask twice because they refused to answer the question in a useful way, and every time that person has been Greek.

I thought it was a little funny the second time, but three times is the start of a worrying pattern, especially as it's not at all the most popular not-English language posted there. Maybe there's something going badly wrong with their school system?

(And, sidenote, even if you're certain it was translated from English you still ought to tell us the language it was written in. At least in theory this can help us weed out false positives, although I may be expecting too much of fellow commenters to that subreddit.)

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Absolutely the worst, most insulting sort of shrinkflation

has got to be shrinkflation of dumb phone games.

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Supervillain levels pet peeve

Pet peeve of mine: Superhero/supervillain AUs that aren't clear on the degree of villainy involved. Is this the kind of supervillain who commits elaborate art heists, or the kind of supervillain who blows up a hospital? Just showing them fighting superheroes doesn't make that clear. I want to assume it's the former in e.g. a civilian/supervillain romance but how am I meant to judge just how careless the civilian is acting if the fic doesn't say one way or the other.

Why Are Your Poems So Dark? by Linda Pastan

Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?

And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished

without the dark stain
of alphabets?

When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.

Instead he invented
ebony and crows

and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.

Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"

Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.

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_Link

I've got a lot of links built up, here's some more

But so it doesn't get lost in the crowd, don't forget about the protest on the 14th!

( Links )

Recommend me something to read

Ideally something I can get through the NYPL or the Queens Public Library (I haven't yet re-upped my Brooklyn Public Library card. I ought to go do that this weekend or the week after.)

I suppose I should set a good example and rec something to all of you first. Lemme see....

I did recently enjoy both Long Live Evil and How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying!

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You may have noticed that it's Pride Month

And I may have noticed that I need something new to listen to.

Now, I've said this before and I'll definitely say it again, but audiodramas are, hands-down, the gayest media I have ever consumed. So, in honor of the occasion, three lists:

The End's collection of LGBTQ+ audiodrama with at least one completed season

A search of Audiofiction.co.uk's entire catalogue for audiodrama with LGBTQ+ creators

A search of Audiofiction.co.uk's entire catalogue for audiodrama with LGBTQ+ characters

Well, I just got jumped by a squirrel in my own bathroom

This is the same little squirrel that's been trying to break into my bedroom for the better part of the past ten days. Once it actually got into the house it was immediately chased by a cat and had cause to regret all its life choices.

We removed the cat and opened the front door very wide and absented ourselves from the area, so we think it's gone now.

( Image of the squirrel at my window )

I think it's a baby. Not just because it's so small, but because the other window squirrels will shamelessly stand up or bang on the glass if they think they can catch my eye, but when this one realized I was there it hunkered down very small and actually turned its face away a little.

I hope it's all right now that it's outside where it belongs.

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Weekend + books (read before the weekend)

One of my favorite things about not having plans and not having to study is that I can do things spontaneously, like meet up with friends to go shopping and have food and then go for a walk to see some sheep and goats that I had no idea were there so my biologist friend could delightedly poke at the dung to find beetles.
One of my favorite things about staying at my friends' house for a few days is that I don't have "I should do chores/clean/tidy" run in the back of my head at all times. I still found things to procrastinate on - an exchange letter, leaving fic comments etc - but overall it was very relaxed. I'm getting better at Beat Saber.

Books I read recently:
The Burning Kingdoms trilogy by Tasha Suri: The Jasmine Throne, the Oleander Sword, the Lotus Empire. This series has been on my to-read list for a while and I finally got around to reading it. I enjoyed it a lot! I enjoyed the Indian-inspired setting and the complicated politics of it with many different groups, and I liked the development of the main characters both separately and together. ( Spoilers )

Emily Wilde's Map of the Otherlands by Heather Fawcett: I enjoyed this much less than the first book in the series, sadly. At one point I complained to LB, who's actually worked at a university, that I thought the portrayal of academia was unrealistic, and he said that it's not that unrealistic provided the character in question is a bit of an asshole. ( Spoilers )

The Firm by John Grisham: The first non-SFF book I read since April 2022, according to Goodreads, wow okay. And the first non-SFF novel since February 2022. I decided to read it because the lecturer of one of my business law classes mentioned it, and I didn't give up early even though the writing is clunky. In the first half I really liked the slowly growing sense of creeping dread from the dangers the reader sees but the main character doesn't. ( Spoilers: that was the best part ) I don't regret that I read it but only because now I know.

Sunrise on the Reaping by Suzanne Collins: I started with this one instead of "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" because I got this one first from the library, but in hindsight I wonder if that was a mistake. It worked on its own but I strongly suspect I missed many connections. Conversely, it's been many years since I read the original trilogy but there were almost too many connections and similarities for my taste, it seemed a bit repetitive. To be fair there's only so many ways the Hunger Games can differ. ( Spoilers )

Finishing up a relisten of The Pasithea Powder

which is a soap opera with many of the trappings of a space opera. Interestingly, the show never comes down with a final opinion on whether or not it's a bad thing for those little planets to get absorbed by the empire/space UN or not - the protagonists mostly feel like it's awful, but almost everybody they meet who isn't from their home planets seems to think that it hardly matters who technically rules the planet so long as somebody does. But most of those people either have no context to claim an informed opinion or are themselves from the PSA, so....

On a different note, I continue to hold the opinion that their deceased friend may have had strong convictions, and he died for his beliefs, and he might even have been as remarkable and amazing as the two protagonists seem to believe, but he also sounds like a lot. Like the sort of person who doesn't want to get a cat because of abstruse concepts of moral philosophy that nobody cares about but him, but who sure is willing to keep arguing about it until they cave from sheer exhaustion, and then presumably keep arguing because they ought to have caved due to agreeing with his position.

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exchanges,
mcyt

MCYTblr AUfest letter

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(I didn't manage to finish this in time for the event to start, sorry, but all the likes/dislikes and even most of the prompts are in my sign-up, I was just hoping to expand on them a bit. Definitely this week though.)

Just to refresh your memory of Catcher in the Rye

at one point Holden sleeps over at a former teacher's house and wakes up to find that teacher patting his head, which prompts Holden to leave.

And I guess we can interpret that scene and the teacher's motive in a lot of ways, but I gotta say, I never expected one of those ways to be "Well, it's obviously innocuous, and the fact that Holden interpreted it as a sexual advance proves he's lying about the 20 times he claims he's been the victim of sexual assault already".

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Food and games

I cooked! Literally. (It took a surprising amount of effort not to address a non-existent "chat" here xD) There's a completely arbitrary (and very silly) distinction in my brain about what counts as "proper" cooking, and most of what I prepare for myself doesn't or barely counts. But today I made a pasta-tomato-ham casserole, which undoubtedly is proper cooking, and it was very good.
I really wanted to properly cook something because I'm currently house-sitting and the house has a very well stocked kitchen - I'm envious of their spice selection - but it turns out that not having my own tools, like working scales, and knowing where everything is is a disadvantage and it about evens out. (Most of these spices I don't even know what to do with tbh.)

I've also played quite a bit of Beat Saber already. Got a some expert level completions, but only managed normal for other songs. It's nice to play outside, too.

I've barely seen the skunk I'm house-sitting for, he's still in his winter phase apparently and eats little and mostly sleeps all day, and the one time he saw me he ran away. Nothing to worry about, according to his owners; he's getting old for a skunk, too. Beforehand I was mildly apprehensive about him demanding lots of attention, now I'm more worried that I wouldn't even notice if something was wrong.

Last weekend I played Islets, an indie metroidvania by the same solo dev who made Crypt Custodian. I only meant to try it out on Saturday and ended up playing for six hours, and then I finished the next day with 95% completion. It was a lot of fun! Importantly, movement feels good, and the exploration is fun. I played on easy because there were some bullet hell bosses and I don't like those, but on easy it was fine.