merit_brush_recs | Member Posts

Reading: Still working my way through The Spear Cuts Through Water--somewhere past the halfway point now.

Watching: I finished my Guardian rewatch!

scruloose and I finished season 1 of Kingdom and did indeed opt to hold off on season 2 until after we finish season 2 of The Last of Us. (Is Kingdom complete at two seasons? Anyone know offhand? Fear of spoilers makes me not want to search up the info.) We also saw the season premiere of TLoU and the first episode of The Pitt.

Playing: Because the evil 368chickens game keeps track and springs the number on you when you beat it, I know that when I finally rescued 368 chickens a few days ago it was after 454 tries. And for reasons that are not clear to me, the victory screen (at least in the browser version) also informs you that you can't play anymore and is all that shows if you reload. (There are ways around it, of course--incognito tabs, simply using a different browser, whatever--but it just seems weird to me. I have thus far avoided going back to it, but that just means returning to my default couple of games that I play endlessly when my brain is completely incapable of focus but needs to be doing something. >.<)

Adulting: Mid-week,

scruloose and I took the day off for my birthday and both dropped off our tax documents with our tax guy (bless our tax guy) and voted in the federal election at the Elections Canada office. I'm glad we got the voting taken care of so early--sounds like lineups for advance polls have been unusually lengthy this weekend (and here's hoping that's a good sign for the outcome!).

( under the cut: fruit and meat consumption (separately) )

Current Mood: okay

lannamichaels

Via

sophia_sol most recently! And this reminded me that I haven't done the April hits meme yet, oops.

1. How many works do you have on ao3?

1,158

2. What's your total ao3 word count?

3,109,186. Caveat that this includes a lot of co-written fics, including a very long one where I didn't write much on it overall. Knocking out the stuff I didn't write myself probably removes about a million words.

3. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1. Scenes From An Inconvenient Espionage Love Story. - Les Mis/James Bond - 2,581 kudos as of this writing
2. Earthlings Gonna Earth. -- The Martian -- 2,450 kudos
3. Things To Do In New York City When You're No Longer Brainwashed. - Avengers - 1,478 kudos
4. The Family Dursley. - Harry Potter - 1,310 kudos
5. Interstitial. - The Martian - 1,104

4. What fandoms do you write for?

Complicated question, but my actively working on WIPs are Vorkosigan fandom and Harry Potter at present. Other fandoms on WIPs started in the last 3 years's folders in scrivener (2023-2025): Discworld, Westing Game, The Parent Trap, Pride & Prejudice, Hero Elementary (a spitefic sequel to the spitefic Hero Elementary fic I've already posted), and Glass Onion.

5. Do you respond to comments? why or why not?

Sometimes. I used to try to reply to all comments and I do not do that anymore.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I've done some stuff to characters but possibly the one that qualifies most here is not actually angst but one that someone asked me about the ending specifically for reccing for a specific person reason and I had to say "do not rec this to that person dealing with this stuff": Not Like I Faint Every Time We Touch. (Star Wars), which is Jyn Erso having a crush on Leia Organa, who is straight.

So it is not angsty! But also I tagged it "The Most Accurate Thing I Have Ever Written" and I am not one to overuse freeform tagging in that manner.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

So this is cheating but the Petyaverse has the happiest best ending in the world because it all built up to that (with diversions) and once I got to the end, it was all definitely over, so that was nice. Happiest for me, happiest for the characters, happiest for the ability to do a character and story arc!

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Yep.

9. Do you write smut?

Yep.

10. Do you write crossovers?

Yep.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Yep! There was, apparently, a college newsletter in Alberta (?) -- somewhere in Canada, I think it was Alberta -- that had a segment called Tim (as opposed to Time) and they ripped off one of my LOTR fics. Just reproduced it entirely without attribution (but with the same title). To this day I have no idea why. Like, certainly it was to mock fanfiction, that goes without saying, but it also didn't seem to have any mocking? Did someone just submit it as a gag? As an original story?

Someone in fandom gave me some lawyerly things to say to them and I sent it to them and they took it down.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yep!

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

Yep!

14. What's your all time favourite ship?

I mean. I haven't read it in at least a decade, but Aragorn/Boromir really was something, wasn't it. Many fond memories.

15. What's the wip you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Teenage Single Dad Gregor Vorbarra, earliest notes date in the file is December 2016.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

Action and description.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I used to do this and then it was like, why. Why do this. When I could just write "X said in Y language" right after it. Also then you have to deal with translations. Plus getting someone to give you the phrase in the other language in the first place, or rely on Babelfish (but I date myself). Not worth it!

When I read a fic, by the way, I am never looking into the end notes for translations, and since I read a lot on my phone, I also can't hover for them. Either I can work it out by context or it's not actually important to the story or it's so incessant that I give up and close the fic. Those are the options. Me keeping the end notes open in another tab and going back and forth is not happening.

How does this mesh in with the glossaries I usually remember to add to fics in Yinglish? Absolutely it doesn’t but also Yinglish is English, right? Right? :P

(Also those fics are short and the Yinglish is the point, the glossary is just there to be helpful, but it's not like oh hey, this character is French, let's have a discussion in French.)

19. First fandom you wrote for?

Star Wars.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

~~My favorite child is~~ I scrolled through the entire stats list on ao3 for this question and I am settling on Hogwarts by Allen Ginsberg. It's probably my best pastiche and it was harder than the Fight Club one.

IDK. There's fics I like and fics I'm meh on and fics I dislike, but I can't really come up with an all-time favorite.

I keep wanting to turn this into "what's the most experimental" or "what was the hardest" but anyway, actually, here are the most personal ones -- because that's quantifiable and easy enough to answer: And Enoch Still Walks With God. (Highlander) (if I were posting that today I'd be brave enough to use Chanoch not Enoch but anyway), the soul is innocent and immortal it should never die ungodly in an armed madhouse (Vorkoisgan), and Waiting For Methuselah. (Highlander).

lannamichaels

Title: The Dendarii Vorbarras.
Author:

lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: The first thing Serg's boy says to me is, "hello, Grandmother".

( Still trying to give Gregor a support system )

sakana17

I keep wanting to make a big post about the farmboys & language, but at this point it's hard to even know where to start. I'm still reading the linguistics book about language in China, which is absolutely fascinating.

( Not the big post, but some disjointed nattering )

umadoshi

Cooking/Baking: Biweekly banana bread-making yesterday, with a few dollops of applesauce to make up for being a banana short of the eight we usually use. I've also been experimenting with a bit of xanthan gum, which Kas and Ginny suggested a little while back when we mentioned how low the loaves are. The height is, to be fair, largely due to how little flour there actually is--about three and a half cups of oat flour for four loaves--but I think the xanthan gum is helping them rise a bit more.

And today there's a batch of black beans (starting from a pound or so of dried, soaked overnight) on the stove, following the ingredient suggestions

genarti posted for me on Mastodon a while back.

When placing a grocery order yesterday, we took a stab at meal planning for the week for the first time in...um...a while. Beans and rice tonight (and then beans in lunches, probably), and hopefully Chinese BBQ in a couple of days (which is dinner for two nights), and I think we settled on doing a pork shoulder at some point. Maybe we'll manage to dig through the freezer usefully and cook some things from it over the upcoming four-day weekend.

Meat-puppetry (and Cat Herding): I opted to sign up for the provincial health portal to access my records, and my recent A1C result is 5.9--the absolute highest it can be without crossing into (according to Canada) the ~prediabetic~ range, and up from the 5.8 I had in December. I was afraid it would be higher, so this is still a relief, but I need to renew my efforts at increasing how much moving around I do. Hopefully the end of winter will help a bit.

Yesterday the blues were scrapping and came tearing around the corner and under my feet as I was mid-step, and suddenly I was on the extremely hard kitchen floor (and scared that I'd actually stepped on Yona, but it seems like I didn't; both blues seem entirely unhurt). I'm mostly unscathed, thankfully--I took most of the brunt on my shin, not a knee, and didn't bash my head on the edge of the counter, so I'm counting myself very lucky. It's just a bit sore today.

The blues were both understandably spooked--poor Sinha's tail went all bottle-brush for a bit!--but Jinksy immediately hopped out of the box he'd been in and ran over to inspect me and make sure I was okay. There were many headbumps and much sniffing and some little licks. He's such a ridiculously good cat. (He doesn't really like being around Sinha--understandably, given what a terror baby!Sinha was to him and how much Sinha pesters him to this day--but if our high-strung little dragon is freaked out or distressed, most times Jinksy will still run over and check him out and be comforting.)

Planning: We both booked my birthday off, more just to not have to work on it than to do anything terribly exciting. But we reserved a car so we can do some erranding ranging from (hopefully) advance voting and dropping off our taxes info to picking up the aforementioned Chinese BBQ and cake. (Theoretically, a couple slices of different flavors. We'll see what the bakery I have in mind has on offer.)

Current Mood: hungry

umadoshi

Fangirling: Last week was Feed's fifteenth anniversary (!), which reminded me that I keep vaguely meaning to post what there is of my unfinished post-Feed(-but-spoilery-for-Deadline) AU.

Reading: Let's see! I finished Ann Aguirre's Strange Love and enjoyed it, although I don't feel a burning need to seek out the book(s) that follow it. I followed that with KJ Charles' Spectred Isle, and I'll probably keep an eye out for its sequel; Charles' books are always a good time.

Now I'm (I think) maybe a sixth of the way into The Spear Cuts Through Water (Simon Jimenez), and I think I'm basically following what's going on. (?) It's beautifully written and layered in ways that I'm not finding the easiest to follow so far.

Watching: Only four episodes left of my Guardian rewatch! So close to finished!

scruloose and I are three or four episodes into Kingdom now; I'm not sure if we're going to keep going once we finish season 1 and watch it concurrently with The Last of Us or put it on hold and come back for season 2 after season 2 of TLoU. So many zombies.

(Between The Last of Us and all the talk I've been seeing about The Pitt, I might opt to reactivate our Crave membership for a month or two. [If "reactivate" is the right word when it's "we got a six-month trial for it at some point, so we have an account already, but I'm not sure we ever actually watched anything on it." I sifted through their catalogue a few days ago, and there are quite a few things that are on my to-watch list, but the overall size of the collection seems way smaller than Netflix Canada's, which is unfortunate.)

And in the name of trying something lighter with shorter episodes, we also watched ep. 1 of Superstore, which completely failed to grab me. But it's the pilot episode of a sitcom, and I haven't actually heard much about the show, so I have no idea how representative it is. (Sometimes I think about season 1 of Parks and Recreation and how there would have been no chance in hell that I'd keep watching after even its first episode if I hadn't heard repeatedly that it wasn't representative. And even then, the only reason I didn't skip ahead to season 2--and I am not exactly prone to skipping things--was that season 1 was so mercifully shot.)

Playing: I saw 368 Chickens mentioned repeatedly on Bluesky the other day, so I tried it, and have since lost...I don't know how much time to it, because calculating the amount of time I lose to idle games when my brain needs to be doing something but isn't actually up to anything is a horrifying prospect. But it's a change of pace from my usual online Boggle game or the Tents and Trees (or is it the other way around?) app, even if I'm not very good at it. I think my best so far is only just below 200.

Current Mood: busy

extrapenguin

Nerdy (lyrics from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy), soothing, loopable.

Watch on YouTube

Now the world has gone to bed
Darkness won’t engulf my head
I can see by infrared
How I hate the night

Now I lay me down to sleep
Try to count electric sheep
Sweet dream wishes you can keep
How I hate the night

maggie33

Boys in Love

The trailer aired a few days ago. And it looks so sweet and cute. It starts airing on April 20. And yes, I will be watching this drama for the teachers, because I love Papang, and because Pod and Papang look great and hot together. But all the kids and their love stories look like an adorable piece of fluff, too.

The Next Prince

Finally - the official trailer is here. And it looks good. It will start airing on May the 3rd. I can’t wait for this one, and I hope that it will be very entertaining and sexy.

Perfect 10 Liners Finale

That was indeed perfect. I had very high expectations and this episode exceeded them all. I laughed a lot and made a lot of delighted aww noises. I already watched the whole episode twice, and I watched Klao/Warich scenes so many times it’s embarrassing to admit. 😊

More squee with spoilers here.

What I loved the most of course was everything about Klao and Warich. A beautiful proposal, a lot of hot kisses, Boom looking so ethereally beautiful, and them being so in love with each other, and as always so horny for each other. I wrote ‘what happened in that bathroom in episode 16’ fic, now I’m planning to write ‘what happened in that tent in episode 24’ fic. 😊

And I read that their second super hot kiss during a proposal wasn’t in the script, it was improvised by Aou and Boom. I don’t know what to do with that knowledge now. Because damn... It kinda makes me want to write my first RPF fic. Oops.

But I loved everyone else, too. Arc and Arm being adorable, and Arm’s little reference to his part in Peaceful Property. Yotha and Faifa being similarly clingy boyfriends. Po’s appearance and his last hilarious scene. All the gang together, all the great friendships and couples. And so many funny, cute and touching scenes.

I will miss this drama so much. And I’m sure I will re-watch when in need of cheering up since it joins the short list of my perfect comfort shows.

Heesu in Class 2

This is a new Korean BL about 18 years old Hee Su, who’s considered a dating expert at his school, because his relationship advice is always spot on. But Hee Su has never been in a relationship before, and he has a big secret – that he has feelings for a boy, his best friend Chan Yeong.

I watched four episodes available for now. I like it, it’s very cute. But also a bit unusual because it is a BL drama and marketed as one, but it has two main pairings – one gay and one het. And in those four episodes both these pairings had more or less equal amount of time dedicated to them. I don’t mind that, I find het couple in this drama interesting and lovely, too. But it’s not something that I’ve seen in Korean BLs before.

This drama will have 10 episodes and it’s available on VIKI.

Secret Relationships

This is another new Korean BL drama that finished airing not so long ago. And oh wow, I enjoyed this one a lot. It was surprisingly good. It’s another unusual Korean BL because it’s rather dark, and it’s about messy, fucked up and complicated relationships. And when I say fucked up I mean it. I would say it’s messy and fucked up Japanese style. Japanese BL is good at messiness like that. I’m not used to Korea doing this kind of thing.

The trailer is here.

The main character Da On is smart, handsome and hard working. And he catches the eye of three different men – his new colleague Seong Hyeon, his former tutor and longtime friend Jae Min, and rich heir Su Hyeon.

Da On’s actor Kim Jun Seo is very pretty with those beautiful, huge, beseeching eyes. And he has this kind of vulnerable sweetness and gentleness in him. It’s easy to believe that those three guys went gaga over him.

I was also very impressed with Su Hyeon’s actor Cha Jung Woo. And I find it amusing that he is the younger brother of actor Choo Young Woo, who is now very famous after main roles in The Tale of Lady Ok and Trauma Code Heroes on Call, and who also started his career in a BL drama. It was You Make Me Dance in 2021.

This drama has 8 episodes, and it is available on iQIYI and GagaOOLala.

More with major spoilers here.

Jae Min is an intelligent psychopath with love for mind games. Da On is sweet and naïve so no wonder Jae Min fooled him completely. But he also fooled a lot of other people, since his students (he’s a teacher at the university) clearly think he’s a great guy. And who he can’t fool he manipulates or threatens or buys.

I feel like the drama didn’t do a good job with showing what his motivation for his behavior was. He says it’s because he loves Da On, but was afraid that he was losing him since Da On started to develop a big crush on Su Hyeon. And that’s why he orchestrated Da On’s assault and later manipulated Su Hyeon into going abroad. But then when he was the only one in Da On’s life and Da On clearly had feelings for him, he did nothing about it. And when Da On finally confessed he reacted with anger and rejected him.

I mean, ok, he says it one time that he wants to have Da On in his life forever, and starting a romantic relationship would also mean a possibility of a breakup and losing Da On. So I guess he is this kind of a psychopath who wants to possess the object of his affection completely. In Jae Min’s mind Da On is Jae Min’s precious property, his beloved pet, who he wants to have in his possession forever. He doesn’t want anyone else to have him, but he also doesn’t want to change the status quo of their relationship where he is the most important person in Da On’s life, where Da On is still hung up on him and always indebted to him.

But I have to admit that out of all four guys I love Su Hyeon the most. He’s a violent guy with an obsessive and possessive love for a kind, soft spoken, beautiful boy. Kinda reminds me of Klao from Perfect 10 Liners a little bit. And we see glimpses of his fucked up relationship with his parents, and we see how masterfully Jae Min manipulated him. And you can understand why he behaves the way he does. Of course none of that justifies his behavior towards Da On – that possessive jealousy, the physical violence, the way he uses his position at work to try and control Da On, and force Da On to spend time with him.

Also, for a kdrama there was quite a lot of very good kissing. 😊

And for a moment there I thought: yay, they subverted that very common and annoying to me kdrama trope of 'we have a childhood connection and I saw you first so of course we’ll end up together.'

“Now you understand, right? I was the first one to know you. So the person who should be by your side is me.”

Here it’s a psychopathic villain saying this not a male lead. And it’s another sign of how unhinged he is.

But of course Seong Hyeon was the one who saw Da On first in the past. I guess that trope is unbeatable in kdramas after all. 😉 But ok I don’t mind it too much here, because it also works as a counterpoint for Jae Min’s claim. Like you thought you saw him first, so he’s yours according to kdrama rules, but no, it wasn’t you, it was that sweet and caring guy other there. 😊

green

last night I was able to sleep. but tonight, Meg is up. wide awake. she's like this maybe 5 days/nights a week. it's hell.

lannamichaels

PART TWO.

( Read more... )

lannamichaels

End of Sanhedrin! I am really amused that we're going to have Makkos (lashes) over Pesach, and Shevuos (oaths) over Shevuos.

This perek... this was so much agadata. So much. I kept getting behind, there was so much agadata and I kept having to follow various references, and it was so much agadata. On the other hand. The actual topic of the perek, I didn't care for. I recall many years ago, I was at a place, and this was long enough ago that having the entirety of mishna and gemara in my pocket was still a new thing. There was a piece of paper with some quotes and one of them was the kol yisrael yesh lahem chelek one, which is very familiar to me from constant pirkei avos. And then a person said to me, you know what comes after that right? And no I didn't recall, so out came my phone and I looked up the citation and-- yes, everyone has a chelek in olam haba. Except for this, that, and something else that honestly sums up to everyone. There was one time where it was saying the generation of the desert doesn't have, and I wanted to be like "including Moshe? You get that's including Moshe, right?". Alas no one brought that up.

So now that's up with invei hagefen that has been fully ruined for me via daf yomi. Oh well. C'est la vie.

My notes behind cut. On to Makkos! Which I have gotten emails about going "hey it's a great one to start with, it's 23 days!" Which is true, but a large percentage of those days is Pesach. So that's going to be exciting (tm) but at least Sanhedrin ended at the perfect time for those who need to do a Taanis Bechoros siyum tomorrow (not me).

...THIS IS TOO LONG TO POST. HAVE TO CUT IT IN HALF. GOOD JOB, AGADATA.

( Read more... )

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"The Dendarii Vorbarras." (Vorkosigan Saga) G

(not the) post about farmboys and language

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[Daf Yomi] Hadran Alach, Maseches Sanhedrin & Sanhedrin perek 11: Chelek -- 2/2

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