A couple of weeks ago I bought two potted plants, which have since come into full flower

Haven't heard from L. in almost a week.
They're having another one of those deals in my bldg, might as well get some free food out of it. I notice the people in the bldg who I'm actually good friends with never go to these things. At least I am seeing some of my real friends this weekend.

It's too early to get excited about spring...but it's warm enough I didn't need more than a raincoat this morning, and there was fog on the river, and it's going to be nice enough this afternoon that I can open up the apartment windows and air things out a little. Maybe I'll actually cook something nice tonight and sit out on the porch with dinner.

(I've seen enough from the kittens that I do NOT trust them on the porch [balcony, fenced off] without me right there to grab them. I think they can come sit out there with me if they want, though.)

A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Beck Chambers



Blurb:

Centuries before, robots of Panga gained self-awareness, laid down their tools, wandered, en masse into the wilderness, never to be seen again. They faded into myth and urban legend.

Now the life of the tea monk who tells this story is upended by the arrival of a robot, there to honor the old promise of checking in. The robot cannot go back until the question of "what do people need?" is answered. But the answer to that question depends on who you ask, and how. They will need to ask it a lot. Chambers' series asks: in a world where people have what they want, does having more matter?

An enjoyable story about a monk who becomes dissatisfied with their life and therefore treks into the wilderness to try to find their purpose. The world is a sort of utopia where the humans gave up their mastery of the machines they built when the machines gained awareness. They let the robots go without a fuss. The humans also ceded their mastery of the wilderness.

'Wild-built' turns out to refer to robots who were built by other robots once the robots gained their freedom and moved to the 'wilds'. Such an interesting idea - to put the robots in the wilderness.

A hopeful vision of what things could be like if humans weren't so arrogant. I may or may not read the next book in the series; there's only the two books and both are short.

Another fic from Cass Cain Week 2025.

Title: the touch of a ghost.
Fandom: DC comics (Batgirl / post-Blüdhaven's bombing).
Character/Pairing: Cassandra Cain/Brenda Miller.
Rating/Warnings: M, none.
Summary: Cass Cain Week, Day III: Silence | Music.
Word count: 300.

read more

-

Getting sentimental about mosh pits became one of Cass's many oddities. Through the vibration of the speakers echoing in her bones, the screaming melodies bursting her eardrums, the collison of her body against another… she tried to recapture the feelings awaken in Blüdhaven; when she finally found something, somewhere, some people, to call her own.

All gone now. Blüdhaven’s faint radioactive sky remained part of Gotham’s backdrop, if you looked at the horizon from high enough. Batgirl often did.

Brenda introduced Cass to this quasi-magical dance. Someone just re-starting her life, of biting words and yet unfailingly kind actions; who once ran towards a fire. Likely died the same way.

The memories overwhelmed her so, it wasn’t shocking to spot a hint of a spider web tattoo in someone’s elbow. Cass’s hand reached towards it.

Short, red hair. Glasses. Piercings. It didn’t hit Cass until long arms surrounded her; until her face was pressed against the mesh shirt doing a poor job of covering Brenda’s chest. She heard laughter, words she could barely make out yelled into her ears.

“How? You... you were away?” Cass asked.

“Just one of lucky ones who escaped. Not unscathed, but…”

Cass stepped back from the embrace. No wounds, no obvious strain… what could she–

“You know,” Brenda said. A distraction, “I got your flower out, too.”

Her vision clouded. “Is this real?” she whispered. It wouldn’t be the first time she hallucinated someone dead, someone she–

“Let’s get out of here, Cassandra” Brenda said, resolute, wiping the tears from her cheeks. “Tell me what you’ve been up to.”

She kept her eyes on Brenda –the ends of her hair brushing the nape of her neck, the spider tattoo peaking beneath the shirt in her lower back–; expecting her to fade away, like mist.

-

A/N: At first, this was going to be and angsty one-shot about Cass's grief for Brenda. But hey, maybe this time I can give her one (1) win, and Brenda got out of the city in time (even if I imagine the exposure to radiation wasn't kind). Or maybe Cass is just hallucinating a dead crush carrying her away; again, wouldn't be the first time...

Recipe
Asparagus and shrimp casserole
4 cans asparagus, drained (You can use fresh if you'd prefer)
1 cup cream
1 tablespoon butter
4 oz cream cheese OR marscapone
1 cup half n half (may use milk)
1 can cream of shrimp soup
1 lb already cooked shrimp
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
salt and pepper, to desired taste
1 can cheese French fried onions

In a saucepan on low heat, whisk together cream, butter and cream cheese until melted and smooth. Add in half and half and soup and stir well. Add spices and incorporate well then mix in drained asparagus and shrimp. Pour into a casserole dish and sprinkle the onions on top.
Bake in a 350°F oven until bubbly about 40 minutes

Not quite 365 days questions March.

6. Have you ever seen a dinosaur skeleton?

Just at the museum. And it was super cool seeing them. I love dinosaurs.

90 questions for discussion

1. What things are currently keeping you awake at night or causing you stress?
Donald Trump. I can't believe he started a war. And I hear the man who is going to take Noem’s place is ten times worse than her. I'm actually shocked that he fired her. Anyhow, that's why I can't sleep.

How about you?

Topics for talk

Places I Would Like to Visit

We want to go to Hawaii, so we're going to plan the trip for next year soon. We're very excited. Next, we’d like to plan a trip to Key West. Hubby has always wanted to go there. Lots of boat rides. I love them.

have an EKG and then have someone from the clinic calls you to talk about it. Since they almost never call you for a normal, I'm like OMG I'm dying. No, my doctor was just exercising caution. the EKG is 'mostly normal' but there was no more details. They posted the strip in a blurry pic to my portal. I'm assuming they mean the tachycardia. I'll see the new cardiologist in a couple weeks so we shall see.

No one came to micro today. I'll point out spring break doesn't start until Monday. out of 40 students I had 10. And being the bitch I am I had a test in anatomy today (found out there's one tomorrow for my ultrasound students) most of the sports teams were gone and someone cheated on the exam. I didn't catch them (it's hard I'm in a hole in an auditorium and even if I walk up and down the steps, I take steps SO slowly they have warning so what's the point. Another pissed off student turned them in. I'm saying nothing but I know how they're cheating and next test, without warning, I'm taking all that away. (i.e. every phone must be placed on MY table)

I wish I could stay over near Cinci for more than 24 hours tomorrow. there is SO MUCH food Restaurants of every kind. I'm thinking Korean. Oooo the choices.

Making: I made a chicken, cheesy, biscuit meal for friends today. It was delish.

Watching: Person of Interest on my player.

Reading: A Comedian Walks Into a Funeral Home by Dennis Kelly. I love this book. It's really good.

Listening: to Person of Interest

Eating: a new dessert I made. Lemon cheesecake bites.

Drinking: Dr. Pepper.

Loving: this new meme.

Hating: the dishes I just finished.

Wanting: chocolate, but being good.

Thinking: about what I'm doing tomorrow.

Planning: what I'm going to make for dinner tomorrow. People will think all we do is eat.

Wishing: I didn't have to clean my bathrooms tomorrow. I'd give anything to be Samantha on Bewitched. Then I could keep this house super clean.

Puzzle Books: I don't do them.

Weathering: I'm not sure what this means. If it's about the weather, then the day was wonderful. 79° and sunny.

Wearing: black shorts, green short-sleeve top, and no shoes.

Needing: I don't need much.

Enjoying: this meme.

Wondering: what I would be doing if I wasn't on Dreamwidth every night.

Playing: Person of Interest.

Trying: to watch the show and do this at the same time.

Cooking: not until tomorrow.

Calling: my daughter is calling me at 9:30 on her way home from work.

Texting: not texting right now.

Crafting: I don't craft.

Going: to finish this if it kills me.

Feeling: happy.

Hoping (For): another spring day tomorrow.

Celebrating: my birthday, early.

Smelling: Lemon cheesecake bites.

Thanking: I'm very thankful to my friend Vicki, who made me a gorgeous quilt for my birthday.

Considering: it might be for my spare room. The quilt is the most beautiful I have ever seen.

Finishing: I'm finishing this. Yay.

Starting: I don't know about this one.

Notes: thanks to spirelicious, for giving me something to do.

Tail vs cat, the never-ending battle! Purrcy was fast and fierce, but that darn tail keeps being faster!



Purrcy was being extremely round, so I had to check if he was also being warm and soft. Answer: he was. He was a bit doubtful at being checked out, though, he'd rather just be round.

---

Here is my list of Hugo Nominees for Best Novel, alphabetical by author. Those of you who nominate, do you think there's an social stigma against publicly listing your nominees? With pitches?

The Witch Roads, Kate Elliott. Standing in for the Witch Roads Duology. Elliott has become one of my favorite writers because she so resolutely undercuts "[story] status is hereditary", a trope of the majority of fantasy novels that looks worse every week, as I see what nepo kids do in the real world.

The protagonist of The Witch Roads is Elen, a Deputy Courier in the Imperial-China-esque Tranquil Empire who gets caught up in the machinations of princes and demons, when all she wants to do is keep her head down, walk her circuit carrying mail, talking to people, keeping an eye out for deadly Spore infestations and stopping them before they spread, and seeing her beloved nephew Kem on his way in life.

Kem is trans, and though his coming-out struggles are part of his character development (he's just 18, finding identity is complicated) it's neither The Most Traumatic Thing Ever nor is it glossed over as nothing in particular.

One reason I love Elliott is that she often writes from the POV of non-elites who don't think elites (princes, emperors, billionaires, etc.) are that great, and she maintains it, she doesn't fall into the "except for this one" trap. This is *so* rare, even writers who are making a determined, conscious effort to avoid what Pratchett described as our "major design flaw, [the] tendency to bend at the knees" will still fall into it -- e.g. by having crucial non-elite characters we've identified with turn out to be close family members of the leading elite (royalty, rich people, etc.). Which the writers do to add family drama to the mix, but which also falls back into the old, OLD trap of "only the families of the elites count as Real People".

The Buffalo Hunter Hunter, Stephen Graham Jones. It's structured as a mostly-epistolary story, with an outer 1st-person narration by Etsy Beaucarne, a present-day white woman Communications Prof who's transcribing letters and diary entries written by her ancestor Arthur Beaucarne in 1912. Many of the diary entries transcribe a set of interviews with a Piegan Blackfoot Indian vampire, Good Stab. (Yes, I saw what Jones did there, with interviewing a vampire. I'm sure he meant to do it.) Some of the horror is vampire-related horror, but a fair bit is historical horror, especially related to the Marias Massacre.

For me, a wimp about horror, the epistolary form & the interview within it gave me enough insulation that I could read without being overwhelmed. (The lack of insulation is why visual horror is pretty much always a no-go for me, it gets too far into my brain & won't get out.) I think Jones used this structure to ease the (presumptive) white reader, though tougher than me, into the Indian POV. First we have the present-day white POV, then a blatantly racist, foolish past white POV we can easily treat as an unreliable narrator**, which makes the reader work to figure out what really happened with Good Stab, as we get his story filtered through Arthur. And because we the readers have to do so much work to piece the story together, it acts as an enthymeme: a story or argument that's more persuasive because the audience has connected some of the dots themselves.

I started to write more, but deleted it because so much of the pleasure of a book like this comes from connecting the dots yourself, from following the author's clues to get a picture of their world- (& monster-) building. If I was forced to pick *one* book for Best Novel or at least Book of the Year, this would be it. It won't be the one I re-read the most, but it's the most significant. The fact that it could be part of a matched set with "Sinners" can't be coincidence.


Saltcrop, Yume Kitasei. Post-this-apocalypse story of three sisters. Nora, the eldest, is the idealist who left a decade ago for a big-city education, trying to learn about crop diseases that plague their world, for which the only solution seems to be genetically-engineered resistant varieties from corporations. Carmen is the one with social skills, who takes care of the horrible grandmother they live with. Skipper is the boat-builder and sailor, skilled with her hands but not with people. They all get POVs, they all have problems, they all love each other fiercely even though they're pretty terrible at saying it.

The story begins when Carmen and Skipper get a message saying Nora is in trouble, not doing well after all. They have to work together to go after her, first to the city, then following her across an icy ocean and beyond. They're struggling to take of each other, but also, especially Nora, to build a better world, to use knowledge and community to push back against the corporations and the mess they've made of things. One of the VERY few novels I've read recently that reflects the current moment of crisis AND what actually works to struggle against it: not violent rebellion, not targeted assassination, but community, solidarity, caring for *everyone*.

Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor. A meta-book about writing, story-telling, who's-the-author, who's-the-audience, being Nigerian and American, and disability. I also googled "jollof rice near me", because it made me hungry for home cooking from a cuisine I've never tasted.

The Isle in the Silver Sea, Tasha Suri. I'm glad people who read ARCs recced this one, otherwise I would have skipped it as looking too much like a conventional romantasy, if f/f. Instead it's a book about the stories the English tell and re-tell, who gets to tell them, how they shape imaginations and are shaped in turn. It's about *all* the Matters of Britain: Arthurian, Shakespearean, Dickensian, Imperial, and more.

AO3 Link | Divining Destiny: Flight for Freedom (1050 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 3/3
Fandom: Forgotten Realms, The Legend of Drizzt Series - R. A. Salvatore
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Characters: Vierna Do'Urden, Zaknafein Do'Urden, Drizzt Do'Urden, Ensemble
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon Typical Violence, Fratricide, Murder, flashfic, Cross-Posted from Archive Of Our Own (AO3), Time Travel
Summary:

Vierna is Betrayed

Divining Destiny: Flight for Freedom

Vierna came alert from the dream with a chill on her spine. Things had been going so well ever since she had managed to give Drizzt a chance to live elsewhere.

Her Lord was the only reason she dreamed at all, which meant the dream was a portent that she had to divine the meaning of quickly. With a flicker of her will, she sent her current messenger spider, one of the line from her father's gift to her so long ago, to fetch him to her. While she did that, she cleared her mind to take up the spells of hiding that she had lived under, ever since the Masked God chose her as His priestess.

Zaknafein was waiting when she came up from the prayers, sitting calmly opposite her — and a barrier to anything else that would have dared enter the Matron's chambers.

"Something has shifted, and we are now in danger," Vierna signed to him. "Invite your lover to take those of our people he wishes. You and I, any you trust explicitly, will use the gathering paths to leave this city."

"You are certain?"

Vierna's mouth set in a grim line for a long moment. "Only that the hiding spell is known to me from childhood allowed me to take it, I think. She is seeking His influence in the city now."

"Be at the portal by the time for evening meal; I will have all things in motion," Zak told her firmly.

For better or worse, House Do'Urden in Menzoberranzan would be abandoned to the Spider Queen, but personal survival was prized above all else, for most drow, and Vierna was typical in that regard.

---

Dinin sat in the safe house of Bregan D'Aerthe with his head in his hands, still mulling over everything. He was grateful to the Weapon Master for making this opportunity appear, but he was at a loss for what would be expected now that he was without a House.

Jarlaxle, leader of the mercenary company, sat beside him, uncovered eye surveying those few men he had chosen to bring into the band. He wasn't very pleased; Vierna Do'Urden had been opening avenues to the cunning man for years now.

"It is done."

"She — they did make it out, yes?" Dinin asked, looking over.

"That actually matters to you," Jarlaxle said, and he looked pleased with that awareness. "Yes, they did. And to spare the rest, their meal was laced with poison, courtesy of my sense of mercy."

Dinin pondered that. When the Matrons of the ruling council moved to end the heresy, they would have tortured the commoners to learn all they could. The loyalty of the fighters would have pushed them to fight even without knowing where their matron was. The changes that Vierna had brought about in the House had made them all stronger, but…

… it was the kind of strength that was not allowed.

"Send me to one of your outposts, with some of my people and any of yours you trust to keep me under your eye." Dinin drew in all of his own cunning, ambition, and pride. "I live, and serving you is damn sure better than being dead or in the clutches of a different House."

"I have just the place for you," Jarlaxle said, smiling. "And I think you will thrive in our network."

---

Zaknafein inspected the house that had been procured in Rilauven, checking it over for any and all possible traps. When he at last came to Vierna, who was just settling back from prayer, she looked fatigued but content.

"With only ten to support us, it's not the most defensible place, but we can make it work," Zak told her.

"We will have more in time," Vierna promised him. "We still have enough gems to set ourselves on the path of growth."

"Once I am satisfied one of the fighters is able enough to defend in my absence, I will take up the offered contract at their school."

"Mother's manner of salves are unknown here, from all I can learn. That is another avenue of income." Vierna reached for his hands, and he gave them. "Thank you, for having faith in me."

"Nothing else to do when my own daughter proved she was not lost," he said quietly. "Will you be able to scry Drizzt now?"

Vierna sighed, shaking her head. "I had no luck, but then the prayers are still shrouded."

Zak frowned, but if the gods wanted to war on each other, he didn't care; he'd rather they left drow alone. "At least you being so high in favor, even with Him weakened, means you shouldn't be tested too soon."

"So I think, yes."

---

Vhaeraun sighed melodramatically as Eilistraee finally managed to pull the poisoned chelicerae out of His abdomen.

"You should have made it clear You wished aid long before now," Eilistraee scolded, putting the large pincers into the waiting darkflame to destroy them. "What happened?"

He considered how to answer as Her hands moved back to the wound, bringing healing and soothing the unending agony He had been inflicted with since the attack.

"One of the junior clerics My priestess had sent to learn in Her temple betrayed My priestess by thought. I managed to warn her, just before My realm was swarmed by Her abyssal spiders.

"I believe She'd already glimpsed My influence building." He grimaced with distaste for losing the first real foothold He'd made in that city.

"She will be on guard for reprisals," Eilistraee mused. "You must be careful, My Twin."

"When am I not, My dear Sister?" he asked in mocking tones, before lying back to let Her finish the healing He needed. She let Him rest, considering all of this, and how it might backlash upon Her own people.

"My priestess is safe, with her father, in one of the cities I hold more strongly," He said. "I chose well with her, even if this did not work the way I wished."

"Just don't go becoming enamored of her, Brother. My Nephew is enough trouble."

Vhaeraun laughed, bitterly, but nodded at the warning. He did enjoy such pleasures, but this priestess was too important, in His limited foresight, to risk that with.

Tally:
Welcome post

Day 1:: badly_knitted, brithistorian, china_shop, cornerofmadness, garonne, glinda, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 2: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, garonne, glinda, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 3: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, glinda, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, the_siobhan, trobadora, ysilme

Day 4: badly_knitted, brithistorian, carenejeans, china_shop, cornerofmadness, glinda, goddess47, luzula, sanguinity, sylvanwitch, trobadora, ysilme

Day 5: china_shop

Let us know if we missed you or if you didn't check in for a while, so we can add you. Of course joining the fun is possible at any point.

~ ~ ~

ysilme here: several hundred words of nonfic after a day filled with errands and niece-herding, but I'm just sitting down also for a bit of fic-writing. Edit to add 55 words of fic to my tally.

sylvanwitch here: I had an evening obligation, so I was only home for a couple of hours before I had to go back out, but I did add 271 words to "Dixon and the Detective."

I'm just not managing to stay on top of any of the fandom trends.

Still haven't watched K-Pop Demon Hunters, or Heated Rivalry, or even Bridgerton S4...

I'm not bothering with Marvel (they're dead to me, like all the best characters in the franchise) and there's not much else that particularly interests me.

As usual, I mostly lack someone to watch things with. I'll watch movies that I'm only marginally interested in with friends, but I've never been a 'rewatch' kind of person - even in the background. Too many things to do.

--

Actually, I'm just not managing to stay on top of ANYTHING right now.

The singer and piano player I heard last night were just great!
One thing last night that was not great was the entire electronic card payment system on Bart screwed up so nobody could put more money on those cards, and for those of you reading this who are not from the bay area, all the buses and stuff use those cards, not just Bart. I called their office this morning and the people I talked to weren't even aware there was a problem, so who knows when this is gonna get fixed, in the meantime I only have 2 dollars left on my card which isn't even enough to get on the damn bus.

Since my sudden mania for film shows no signs of slowing, I've created a Letterboxd account. I don't really plan to use it for much besides tracking what I've watched and what I plan to watch, but add me if you're a user and I'll heart your reviews when I see them. :)

Anyway it has been A Week and I've been too tired by the end of each day to do ANYTHING other than vegetate in front of the TV, and specifically to vegetate in front of something scary and tense enough to prevent my otherwise inevitable zoning-out. The upside of which is yay, more horror movies!

Hell House LLC (2015): A documentary crew investigates a haunted house attraction that went gruesomely wrong on its opening night, leading to more than a dozen fatalities under baffling circumstances which the authorities have hushed up. When snickfic recced this movie to me, I said I would not watch it because clowns gross me out. But the haunted house + found footage conceit was calling to me enough that I decided I could probably handle the clowns - and hey, I was right! This is not especially clowny clown horror by my highly arbitrary personal standards that mostly boil down to "there are no gross clown smiles" and "there are no even grosser clown laughs". Maybe this is a gateway for me? Maybe someday I'll be sufficiently desensitised to clowns that I can catch up to the rest of the world and watch It? Whatever the case, I had fun with this movie. I admired the filmmakers' decision to leave so many questions unanswered and I think that uncertainty is scarier than any explicit answers they could have devised. (For that reason, I'm going to go right on ahead and ignore the fact that there are sequels. Not EVERYTHING has to be a franchise, damn. The movie stands alone just fine.)

On a minor note, I REALLY liked the piano-and-violin piece in the soundtrack. Beautifully simple, beautifully discordant.

Carrie (1976): I am once again standing in awe of the incredibly broad palate of flavours that get lumped together under the "horror" label. This movie is not a scare so much as an anguished distillation of the cruelties of high school. Carrie suffers horrific religious abuse at home and extreme bullying at school; after falling victim to a very public and sadistic "prank" during senior prom, she unleashes her budding telekinetic powers on the watching crowd with murderous results. But her rampage is - well, not an afterthought per se, but it happens right at the end of the film in a dizzying blitz; the vast majority of the screentime (and the most visceral source of horror, for me at least) is the long, slow lead-up to the prank, as tension mounts between the glow-up narrative Carrie thinks she's living and the humiliation we know she's about to suffer.

I am not enough of a Film Buff(TM) to comment on the weird split-screen thing they were doing during the climax, or whatever the fuck was happening at the start with that borderline pornographic locker room shower scene. Both of them threw me out a bit but neither was enough of a hiccup to spoil what was otherwise a really gripping story.

The Old Dark House (1932): I watched this because it stars Boris Karloff, and while it may not be one of his most iconic roles, it was the one my library happened to have on offer at the moment I found myself thinking, 'Hey, I should watch some Boris Karloff!' So on those qualifications, I bring you this old-school spooky cult classic about two small groups of travellers who are forced by a violent storm to go begging for shelter at an isolated old house in the Welsh countryside, whose eccentric inhabitants turn out to be harbouring a deadly family secret. Karloff's physical acting is impressive: his character, Morgan the butler, is completely mute but has an immense screen presence (literally as well as metaphorically) despite the lack of dialogue. He's a hulking mass of danger whose sullen subservience turns to violent, lust-addled malice when he drinks, as of course he does on the stormy night in question. There's also a romance between a feckless WWI vet and a chorus girl who is only technically not the sugar baby of one of the other houseguests, which aside from being endearing in its own right was a lot more risqué than I expected of a movie from the 30s. Evidently the "pre-Code" label is more than just a historical technicality!

These questions were suggested by dray.

1. Do you know of any other words for snow? What's your favourite and why?

2. What's your ideal temperature range for winter?

3. Favourite winter activity? What about it makes it your favourite?

4. What are three things you can't do without when winter arrives?

5. Do you have favourite winter holiday activities?

Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.

If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!

**Remember that we rely on you, our members, to help keep the community going. Also, please remember to play nice. We are all here to answer the questions and have fun each week. We repost the questions exactly as the original posters submitted them and request that all questions be checked for spelling and grammatical errors before they're submitted. Comments re: the spelling and grammatical nature of the questions are not necessary. Honestly, any hostile, rude, petty, or unnecessary comments need not be posted, either.**