Whumpex reveals!
Jun. 10th, 2025 11:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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I got:
Staying Power (Babylon 5, Londo & Vir, 4200 wds)
I asked for (among other things) Londo reacting to something bad happening to Vir, or Vir taking a hit for him, and my Mysterious Gifter took me up on it most delightfully!
As usual, there is a fic or two of mine running around loose in the collection as well.
(no subject)
Jun. 11th, 2025 01:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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My brother and his wife recently bought a broken-down house. They asked my husband, who runs his own construction company, for a quote to fix it up. My sister-in-law brightly chimed in, “and we expect the friends and family rate.” Well, my husband immediately drew a hard line.
He responded that he would prefer not to engage in a business agreement with family, as it can lead to misunderstandings, and he recommended another company. Well, my sister-in-law completely lost her mind.
She screamed at him and said that they would never have bought the property if they knew he wasn’t going to help them. It seems that they, without any encouragement, expected him to offer his services at a significant discount and are now in a bind because they cannot afford the reconstruction and will make a huge loss if they sell.
Now my entire family is being drawn into a massively acrimonious discussion. My brother and sister-in-law are claiming we “betrayed them” and left them bankrupt. I get daily calls from my weeping mother begging my husband to reconsider, while my father has threatened to beat him up. It’s insane. I don’t want to lose my family, and I can’t ask my husband to change his mind, so what do I do?
—Built on Sand
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"And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him." (Vorkosigan Saga) R
Jun. 10th, 2025 08:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Title: And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him.
Author:
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Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Pairing: Ges Vorrutyer/Aral Vorkosigan, Ges Vorrutyer/Serg Vorbarra
Rating: R
A/N: The title is from New Rules, sung by Dua Lipa, written by Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren, and Ian Kirkpatrick.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Summary: Ges Vorrutyer has ex-boyfriend problems.
( This has languished in Scrivener since 2019... )
(no subject)
Jun. 10th, 2025 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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For eight years, I have tried to keep contact with our granddaughter with gifts and cards on her birthday, Christmas and other times. I do not receive a response of any kind from her. We believe her mother forbids her from contacting us.
My question is should I continue to send cards and gifts to her? I’m ready to stop. I don’t want her to forget us but I’m very tired of attempting to reach out to her with no response.
– Estranged Gramma
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(no subject)
Jun. 10th, 2025 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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I sent out a family text to all of our extended family raving about his achievements. This is common amongst all of the aunts and uncles. We got a load of congrats. However, my husband’s brother side-texted my eldest daughter, “tell your brother to stop being first loser.” (He did not text any “congrats” to the group text.)
My daughter showed me the text and chuckled. I’m not sure if she showed my son. I’m so deeply angry about this. I know that everyone will tell me he was joking. Or that I’m misinterpreting his meaning. I just cannot get over it.
My initial feeling is to keep my son as far away from his uncle as possible for the rest of his life. My second feeling is to call said uncle to tell him he is a complete loser himself (which would be super biting as he just got laid off, has to sell his house and downsize everything). I know I won’t do either but I am having a hard time imagining being around him this summer as our families usually get together each summer for a few days.
How do I express by complete disdain for his comments without upsetting the entire extended family? Am I being oversensitive?
– Second to None
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This is one of my longstanding grouches and you are all probably used to it
Jun. 10th, 2025 03:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
My attention, as they say, was drawn to this: Why Have So Many Books by Women Been Lost to History?
The question itself is reasonable, I guess, but what is downright WEIRD is they actually namecheck Persephone Press's acts of rediscovery -
- and one of the first books in their own endeavour is one that PP did early on and being Persephone is STILL IN PRINT.
And one of the others has been repeatedly reprinted as a significant work including by Pandora Press.
Do we think there is a) not checking this sort of thing b) erasure of feminist publishing foremothers?
Okay I pointed out that even Virago were not actually digging up Entirely Forgotten Works (ahem ahem South Riding never out of print and paid for a lot of gels to get to Somerville).
However, this did lead me to look up certain rare faves of mine, and lo and behold, British Library Women Writers have actually just reprinted, all praise to them, GB Stern's The Woman in the Hall, 1939 and never republished. Yay. This to my mind is one of her top works.
Also remark here that Furrowed Middlebrow are bringing back works that have genuinely been hard to get hold of, like the non-Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons, and the early Margery Sharps, and so on. (Though Greyladies had already done Noel Streatfeild as Susan Scarlett.)
Confess I am waiting for the Big Publishing Rediscovery of EBC Jones. Would also not mind maybe some attention to Violet Hunt (unfortunately her life was perhaps so dramatic it has outshone her work? gosh the Wikipedia entry is a bit thin.)
Doctor Who: The War Doctor
Jun. 10th, 2025 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Because this is the Time War, and this regeneration of the Doctor specifically is on a self loathing maximum while fighting it, Ollista is initially a good foil because she, who really does only prioritize Gallifrey and initially sees everyone not a Time Lord as expendable, shows that despite what he's telling himself, he is still the Doctor, he still has ethics and lines he won't cross and will fight for and have another way. But Ollista isn't simply an Evil McEvil megalomaniac, either, hence me saying "Gallifrey" and not "her personal power", and so the Doctor in the course of those stories develops a grudging respect for her while she while denying she does so finds herself defending, in the last story arc, precisely the kind of (non-Gallifreyan) people she in the first story arc would have dismissed as necessary casualties of war. Whether they argue or work together, all the Doctor-Ollista scenes are golden, and with both John Hurt and Jacqueline Pearce now gone, I am really glad they had the chance to work together near the end of their lives and create two more remarkable characters for us to appreciate.
A quick note for me and others
Jun. 9th, 2025 11:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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I will almost certainly be signing up for this one, I'm just saying. And you do need three distinct fandoms for this exchange.
*my existing assignments side-eye me*
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Untitled Ouizzy Neighbor AU by
Fandom: Our Flag Means Death
Relationship: Frenchie/Izzy Hands
Medium: Gifset
Length: 3 gifs
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: romance, happy ending, getting together, constructed reality, au: modern, domesticity, nature
Description:
In the first gif, Izzy wanders out into a field and happens upon Frenchie, who's sitting alone and obviously having a bad time alone with his thoughts. In the second, the two men are each in their houses, looking out the window at each other's places. In the third, they've finally come together, Frenchie handing a wary Izzy a cup of tea.
I am such a sucker for constructed reality graphics and vids, and all the ways a little tactical harnessing of the Kuleshov effect can bring us the crossovers, AUs, and visual adaptations we crave. I've got a few from this same creator to rec, but I'm starting with this Neighbor AU that imagines a modern day Frenchie and Izzy living next door to each other in the country and catching each other's eye.
First off, I just love how it's put together, from the progression of running into each other by chance, then scoping out each other from their houses, to finally coming together for tea. But I also love how the choice of sources colours the story being told here. I'm pretty sure the Con O'Neill clips are from Vengeance Is Mine and the Joel Fry ones are from In the Earth. These are both harrowing movies where the actual characters are going through some awful things. I appreciate how those scenes get recontextualized here into something cozier that nonetheless paints a picture of both characters having gone through some rough times.
You can easily imagine that this modern Frenchie has just as many terrible things locked up in that little box in his head as his 18th century counterpart had, and that this Izzy has just been through an emotionally and/or physically traumatic breakup with Ed, and now here they are, a little bruised and cautious but finding some potential comfort and love in their own backyard.
not complaining about the weather too much????
Jun. 9th, 2025 10:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tonight i'm gonna cut it out and then restart
Jun. 9th, 2025 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's been gray and cool since last night, but it hasn't rained yet, so I've been able to keep the windows open. I did have to use the AC a couple times last week, especially to sleep, and I'll put it on again when necessary, but it was nice just using the fan last night.
Anyway, work remains busy, the world is on fire, but the Mets stay winning! Gotta take the little joys while you can...
*
Last week was very mixed
Jun. 9th, 2025 05:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Last week was the one where there was PANIC over whether I would have new supply of prescription drug; credit card issues including FRAUD; and also bizarre phonecall from the musculo-skeletal people about scheduling an appointment which suggested they hadn't looked at my record or are very very confused about what my next session is actually for.
HOWEVER
Though I began writing a review on Wednesday, did a paragraph, and felt totally blank about where it was going from there, I returned to it the following day and lo and behold wrote enough to be considered an actual review, though have been tinkering and polishing since then. But is essentially DONE.
And in the realm of reviewing have received 3 books for essay review, have another one published this month coming sometime, and today heard that my offer to review for Yet Another Venue has been accepted, where can they send the book?
While in other not quite past it news, for many years I was heavily involved in a rather niche archival survey, which is no longer being hosted in its previous useful if rather outdated form but as a spreadsheet (I would say no use to man nor beast but it does have some value I suppose). But there is talk of reviving and updating it (yay) and I have been invited to a meeting to discuss this. Fortunately I can attend virtually rather than at ungodly hour of morning in distant reaches of West London.
Also professional org of which I am A (jolly good?) Fellow is doing a survey and has invited me to attend a virtual Focus Group.
Oh yes, and it looks as though a nerdy letter about Rebecca West I wrote to the Literary Review is likely to get published.