Taskmaster: Team of Sue by thingswithwings

Saturday, June 7th, 2025 11:22 pm
mific: (TV (old))
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Taskmaster (series 16)
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor

Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.

Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.

Fanwork Links: Team of Sue

Fic for flowing_river: Reinforcements

Friday, June 6th, 2025 10:46 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: Reinforcements
Recipient: flowing_river
Author: REDACTED
Verse: Granada
Characters/Pairings: Holmes & Watson
Rating: M
Warnings: Blood and injury, graphic depictions of violence
Summary: When Holmes is injured while on a case, he conceals the extent of his wounds from Watson. They still have to ride back to town, and he doesn’t want his friend to worry. Unfortunately, their journey back is perilous, too.

Read on AO3: Reinforcements

99PI Staffer Goes Deep Into Assistive Tech

Friday, June 6th, 2025 04:08 pm
jesse_the_k: Head inside a box, with words "Thinking inside the box" scrawled on it. (thinking inside the box)
[personal profile] jesse_the_k

99pi.org/adapt

Kurt Kohlstedt has spent ten years creating audio and print stories for the design podcast, 99% Invisible. He also co-authored the 99% Invisible City book.

Last year, 99pi’s Kurt Kohlstedt suffered a severe injury that incapacitated his right arm and dominant hand. In the aftermath, new everyday challenges led him to research, test, and evolve accessible design solutions. These experiences set the stage for Adapt or Design, a twelve-part project of 99% Invisible in three acts, available at the short link 99pi.org/adapt

The Adapt or Design series includes many groan-worthy puns related to hands; six essays exploring assistive designs for people with one functional hand; three design hacks and mods that helped Kurt manage long-term rehabilitation; and three final essays diving deep into adaptive writing technologies including a free one-handed "mirror keyboard" for Windows PowerToys.

While the first article posted in April, I just heard about it via the 99% Invisible podcast 630, where Kurt and Roman talk about all these things.

Art for Penaltywaltz: One evening

Friday, June 6th, 2025 05:15 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: One evening
Recipient: Penaltywaltz
Artist: REDACTED
Verse: The Great Mouse Detective
Characters/Pairings: Dawson & Basil
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Summary: A peaceful evening accompanied by some music

Read more... )

Fic for Snycock: Afterglow

Friday, June 6th, 2025 03:22 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: Afterglow
Recipient: Snycock
Author: REDACTED
Verse: Sherlock BBC
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: M
Warnings: n/a
Summary:
Afterglow (n). 1: A glow remaining where a light has disappeared. 2: A pleasant effect or feeling that lingers after something is done, experienced, or achieved.

Solstice, sex, and Sherlock and John basking in the afterglow.

Read on AO3: Afterglow

Made in Korea by Jeremy Holt (2022)

Friday, June 6th, 2025 12:47 pm
pauraque: bird flying over the trans flag (trans pride)
[personal profile] pauraque
Next up for Pride Month media, I read Made in Korea, a graphic novel about an android called Jesse who is purchased by a childless couple to be their daughter. Both the author Jeremy Holt and the illustrator George Schall are nonbinary (they/them).

parents gaze at an inactive android child in a box and marvel that she is beautiful

I had mixed feelings about this one. On the positive side, I really liked how the themes of identity and coming to know oneself were explored. Jesse's story is at least partly a metaphor for transnational adoption (Holt is an adoptee) and also resonates with more general feelings about not being the child your parents expected and needing to grow out of their narrative about you. Gender identity is directly addressed, which I love to see in an android story! It bugs me when androids uncritically accept a binary gender role based on the anatomy they're built with, even when the story digs into their personhood and free will in other ways. This book does not assume that an android built to look anatomically female is a girl, nor does it assume that if androids existed they would all be built with binary anatomy!

The major aspect that did not work for me was the plot element of a school shooting. (cut for content) )

So there was a lot that I liked, but also a pretty big section of the narrative that seemed totally out of place and mishandled. I don't regret reading the book and I think some aspects will stick with me in a good way, I just wish it had kept the focus on its strengths.

Fic for Graycardinal: a study in violin

Thursday, June 5th, 2025 10:39 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: a study in violin
Recipient: graycardinal
Author: REDACTED
Verse: Elementary
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson; Sherlock Holmes & Morland Holmes; Sherlock Holmes & May Holmes; Sherlock Holmes & Mycroft Holmes; Sherlock Holmes & Victor Trevor; Sherlock Holmes & Jamie Moriarty; Sherlock Holmes & Kitty Winter
Rating: T
Warnings: None
Summary: Sherlock's relationship with his violin through the years

Read on AO3: a study in violin
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: i'm the board, the lightning, the thunder

Recipient: [personal profile] ghostbees/[archiveofourown.org profile] vernets

Author: REDACTED

Verse: Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004)

Characters/Pairings:
Sherlock Holmes & John Watson, Jenny Vandeleur/John Watson, Sherlock Holmes/John Watson

Rating: Teen and up, for a couple of mild references to drug use and violence, but both are canon-typical.

Warnings: none

Summary: The Silk Stocking case is Holmes' last. After he retires to Sussex, Jenny knows better than her husband exactly what Sherlock Holmes needs.

To my recipient:
Hi, Ghostbees. I hope this story fulfils your desire for character-centred musings and introspective portraits; I've tried to facilitate that by bringing Jenny to the foreground.

This is a retirement-era fic, but cosy domesticity is always juuust off waiting in the wings.

This Holmes is happily gay, and I used Jenny's (canonical) tolerance to avoid any period-typical homophobia, but I hope you'll forgive me for letting Jenny realise that fact well in advance of her husband.


Read on AO3: i'm the board, the lightning, the thunder

Poet's Corner: Miracles by Walt Whitman

Thursday, June 5th, 2025 02:34 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: otherwords (otherwords)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
from Leaves of Grass

Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know of nothing else but miracles,
Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan,
Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky,
Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water,
Or stand under trees in the woods,
Or talk by day with any one I love, or sleep in the bed at night with any one I love,
Or sit at table at dinner with the rest,
Or look at strangers opposite me riding in the car,
Or watch honey-bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon,
Or animals feeding in the fields,
Or birds, or the wonderfulness of insects in the air,
Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, or of stars shining so quiet and bright,
Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring;
These with the rest, one and all, are to me miracles,
The whole referring, yet each distinct and in its place.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle,
Every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same,
Every foot of the interior swarms with the same.

To me the sea is a continual miracle,
The fishes that swim—the rocks—the motion of the waves—the
ships with men in them,
What stranger miracles are there?

murdle, leather at pride, protest poetry

Thursday, June 5th, 2025 08:53 am
tozka: Drawing of a caucasian person with longish brown hair and glasses holding a black cat (me with cat)
[personal profile] tozka
Happy Thursday! I'm leaving this housesit tomorrow-- I have the weekend free for sightseeing and then I need to make my way over to Evanston, Illinois for my next (short) sit. Today is a lot of cleaning, packing, and trying to eat whatever's left in the fridge!

For now, here's some links for y'all:


The Quantum Bang multi-fandom fix-it big bang is live and stories are being posted now! (h/t [personal profile] starwatcher)

June's theme at [community profile] fancake is female relationships (of all kinds). Come make recs!

[personal profile] unfitforsociety posted some Batman (Batfamily) fanfic recs. More links! )

GREAT NEWS

Thursday, June 5th, 2025 10:21 am
stonepicnicking_okapi: pinkfireworks (pinkfirewoks)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
Thank you for the outstanding impression you made during your interview. We are so glad to have a great new team member.

I have to fill out a lot of paperwork and go through orientation but I (most likely) have a job!!!


OMG!

Fic for Rudbeckia: The Decades

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 09:11 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: The Decades
Recipient: rudbeckia
Author: REDACTED
Verse: Rathbone Holmes
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Summary: Watson waits for the sunrise.

Read on AO3: The Decades

reading wednesday

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 02:11 pm
tozka: Dawn (from Buffy) reading a book with a starry background (buffy dawn with stars)
[personal profile] tozka
2025 Reading Log | 35/200 yearly goal (+2 from last update)

I've gotten sucked into a fanfic-reading frenzy (Naruto, of all things) so my book-reading has been sparse these past few weeks. However, I did read two books since my last Reading Wednesday post!

First, I decided to read the Oz books (including the post-Baum books by Ruth Plumly Thompson) as a kind of reading project thing, and I of course started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I've read it before, but the last time was (I'm pretty sure) back in 2007 when I got my first ereader and put a bunch of public domain books on it.

It's a charming book, and I especially liked the intro from Baum in the beginning that spells out the aim of the book: to be a modern fairy tale for kids that isn't focused on morality lessons. And it does that!

Chatter about Wonderful Wizard of Oz, including spoilers )

Besides that, I also read a novella by KL Noone called The Pooka's Share. It's a m/m urban fantasy romance between a paranormal police officer and a pookah (Celtic shape-changing spirit) with surprise (to me, because I hadn't read the summary) BDSM elements. A cute story! Perhaps spent a bit too much time on the worldbuilding when this is just a one-off and short to boot, but overall good.

Word: Banjax

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 03:55 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: letters (letters)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
I haven't don't one of these since April, but I've come across some new-to-me words.

Wednesday's word is...

...banjax.


1. ruin, incapacitate, or break.


I found this new-to-me word in the Inspector Rebus I just finished (Saints of the Shadow Bible).

"...Reckons we banjaxed the Saunders case to keep a good snitch on the street."

I would also like to add this saying (also new-to-me) from the same which is very Rebus.

Fair exchange is no robbery

That is definitely going to be the title of my next hard-boiled detective fic. It's great.

Book Bingo: June 2025

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 02:59 pm
stonepicnicking_okapi: books (books)
[personal profile] stonepicnicking_okapi
This bingo card was created by [personal profile] kingstoken. More about the challenge here: https://kingstoken.dreamwidth.org/109837.html



LBGTQ+: Born to Be Posthumous: The Eccentric Life and Mysterious Genius of Edward Gorey by Mark Derby. An interesting life. This is a long work, however, and at times was a slog just because of the length. 500+ pages.

Multiple POV: The Guest List by Lucy Foley. Of course, you can't think of a Multiple POV book when you want to, so I googled it and got this, and my library had it on audiobook. It's a modern And then there were none with everyone coming to a wedding on an island. No one is likeable. Really, they're all sort of awful. And it wasn't clever. And public school boys bullying someone to death is too cliche for me. But it held my attention enough to finish it. 10+hours. Ensemble narrator cast.

Anthology/Collection: The Hurting Kind by Ada Limón. An excellent collection of poetry by the US Poet Laureate. I listened to audio verison in her own voice, which I recommend. I included some of my favorites in an April post: https://stonepicnicking-okapi.dreamwidth.org/598098.html

Friendship: Seafire by Natalie C. Parker. This was my 'blind date' book I got at the library in February. It was a YA fantasy book of a kind of Mad Max world on the water. The main characters are young women who are captain and crew of a ship which is renegade/rogue, fighting against the warlord who controls the area. It was good. The world building was interesting. I'm not going to read the next in the series but I enjoyed it. Friendship is definitely a main theme. [I am also trying to do as many squares as I can of [personal profile] garonne's 2025 Book Bingo here: https://garonne.dreamwidth.org/58219.html so I think this qualifies as G-B-3: Set at sea.]

Movie/TV-tie in: Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. This was the first book on the 'Reading List for 4th graders' sent Minisculus' teacher, and I decided to make a Mother-Son book club. It's a sweet little book about a girl in Florida. They made a movie out of it. Winn-Dixie for unfamiliar is a grocery store chain and the girl names the stray dog (like Annie and Sandy) after the grocery store she finds it in. Minisculus, of course, reads manga and Percy Jackson. But he needs more torture in his life :) [also for G-I-1: children's book]

(no subject)

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 11:45 am
beatrice_otter: Han and Leia--Kiss (Han and Leia)
[personal profile] beatrice_otter
[community profile] justmarried exchange is currently in the nomination phase, and I have been having trouble because they allow you to sign up with ten fandoms but you only can nominate seven. And my favorite marriage trope is the sedoretu, which is a specific type of poly marriage invented by Ursula K. LeGuin, and requires four people. Which means that I need to have foursomes nominated! (Although I can just go with a pairing and say "I love sedoretus, if you want to write this pairing as a sedoretu you can choose who to have be the other pair in the sedoretu.")

Anyway, the reason I have not nominated is that I am waiting to see what else got nominated to help me whittle down what I want to nominate, and I just checked the nominations and I think that [personal profile] tielan has nominated! (Thank you!) Because the BSG foursome I was going to nominate (Lee/Kara/Sam/Dee) has been nominated, and so has the Steve/Maria/Bucky/Natasha foursome in MCU fandom, and both are foursomes I have written as sedoretus for [personal profile] tielan before. Which means that not only is there someone interested in the same characters, there's someone who's probably going to sign up who is interested in sedoretus, specifically. That is really exciting to me! And it does free up some nomination slots.

Here are some nominations I am planning:

TGE: Maia/Csethiro/Csevet/Vedero (there are a bunch of TGE ships already nominated but they are all suuuuuuuper rare)

DS9: Sisko ships, Worf/Jadzia, Miles/Keiko/Kira/Bashir

TOS: Spock/Uhura and some foursomes (although someone on the Yuletide discord may be nominating sedoretus in this fandom, which would mean I don't have to nominate them and could free up a slot)

B5: John/Delenn, John/Delenn/Lennier, Delenn/Neroon, John/Delenn/Lennier/? (I don't know who I'd put with those three to complete the sedoretu--Anna, maybe? a Minbari OC?)

Peter Wimsey, sedoretu with Parker and Mary? Or Bunter? (Although I can't think of who would be the fourth in a sedoretu with Bunter, so I may just leave that as a poly threesome.

Rivers of London--I think just Peter/Beverly here, because I can't think of any sedoretus and ever since we learned that Nightingale was ace (in the novella Masquerades of Spring) that has completely killed any desire to ship him, for me. RoL is the only one on the list that's iffy, because much as I love it I'm not sure how much I'm into RoL + marriage tropes.

That's six, and with BSG taken care of I can look at some of my other fandoms for the seventh slot. Here are some options:

SW Legends, Han/Leia/Luke/Mara, Han/Leia/Lando, Lando/Luke/Mara. Han/Leia/Lando most properly belongs in SW OT, but that would mean using a second Star Wars nomination slot.

TNG: nobody's nominated this yet, and I can't think of any sedoretus, but I would probably do something like Picard/Guinan (my TNG rare pair OTP), Picard/Ro, Riker/Ro, Troi/Worf, and Data/Geordi

Random Harvest. Look, this movie is just so tropey and melodramatic it would be amazing to pile even more tropes into it.

 


Fic for Edosianorchids901: Gone to Ground

Wednesday, June 4th, 2025 02:31 pm
holmesticemods: (Default)
[personal profile] holmesticemods posting in [community profile] holmestice
Title: Gone to Ground
Recipient: edosianorchids901
Author: REDACTED
Verse: A Study in Emerald
Characters/Pairings: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson, Culverton Smith
Rating: T
Warnings: minor character death, eldritch horror, drug use
Summary: It is in the nature of monsters to be monstrous but what must one think of those who choose to become so?

A reimagining of The Dying Detective in the universe of A Study in Emerald.

Read on AO3: Gone to Ground
pauraque: drawing of a wolf reading a book with a coffee cup (customer service wolf)
[personal profile] pauraque
This is the fifth and final part of my book club notes on The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories. [Part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.]


"The Woman Carrying a Corpse" by Chi Hui (2019), tr. Judith Huang

Why doesn't she put it down? )


"The Mountain and the Secret of Their Names" by Wang Nuonuo (2019), tr. Rebecca F. Kuang

Wreckage from satellite launches threatens a rural village. )


"Net Novels and the 'She Era': How Internet Novels Opened the Door for Female Readers and Writers in China" by Xueting Christine Ni (2022) [essay]

What it says on the tin. )


"Writing and Translation: A Hundred Technical Tricks" by Rebecca F. Kuang (2022) [essay]

Kuang discusses translation. )


the end

I was pretty impressed by this collection. The stories spanned a lot of different themes and styles, and while not everything was to my taste, the quality of writing was high and it's hard to think of any entries that didn't at least offer something interesting to think about. There was agreement among the group that it's a good starting point for Chinese SF/F but of course it can only be a small slice of a huge and diverse field. I'd be interested to explore further.

I may need to sit out the next book for scheduling reasons. But even if so, I will return!

King Falls AM: the gallery of our bones by ryyves

Tuesday, June 3rd, 2025 05:56 pm
nuh_s: Photo of the Toy Soldier looking up at a blue sky. It is pale with a drawn-on mustache and red lapels on its black jacket. (Default)
[personal profile] nuh_s posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Pairings/Characters: Lily Wright & Pippa James, Jack Wright & Lily Wright
Rating: Teen and Up
Length: 8,492
Content Notes: Alcoholism, Missing Persons, Grief/Mourning
Creator Links: ryyves' Ao3
Theme: Female Relationships, Character Study, Angst

Summary:

Spoilers for King Falls AM episode 68, set before the first King Falls Chronicles (ep 56-57).

It’s far from the last email Lily gets about King Falls. Sometimes the name is hidden in postscripts, sometimes bright as highways at midnight, and every time it catches in Lily’s heart like a frightened canary, yellow and waning.

Lily doesn’t delete them, not one. She files them away in a quiet folder of her work email, so she doesn’t have to see them in her inbox. There are things that can be said with distance, and this is one of them: that if she deleted every mention of King Falls, she would delete every rope thrown to Jack. Every hope, or something that runs even deeper.

Some fear, perhaps, that she is not where she is supposed to be.

Or: Pippa puts up with way more of Lily's shit than she should have to.


Reccer's Notes: This is such a wonderful character study that explores Lily's character and gives her and Pippa's friendship a spotlight. The writing style is beautiful as well.

Fanwork Links: the gallery of our bones

Popular Tags

Subscription Filters

June 2025

S M T W T F S
12345 67
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Style Credit

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios
Page generated Wednesday, June 11th, 2025 01:35 pm