copracat: alia from Children of Dune, eyes bright blue, strands of hair blowing across her face (alia)
copracat ([personal profile] copracat) wrote2025-09-01 01:56 pm
Entry tags:

Don't be afraid of the stars

I'm at the penultimate episode of Coroner's Diary and there are simply too many cinnamon rolls of the kind who die tragically. I am on melodramatic tenterhooks for the second, third and fourth couples. If it all goes too pear-shaped I am watching A Dream Within A Dream again.

In other news my copy of Hetty McKinnon's latest, Linger, has arrived. Coronation cauliflower and chickpeas is calling to me.
china_shop: Guo Changcheng writing in his notebook (Guardian - rookie taking notes)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-08-30 09:41 am

Dear self (and partial to-do list)

Dear self,
You are not allowed to post any more discussion posts or similar until you've answered the majority of outstanding comments. (Great to see your corner of Dreamwidth being so active, though! Wheee! <3)
Love, me

Partial to-do list:
  1. [community profile] guardian_wishlist signup
  2. outstanding comments on the Guardian readalong, [community profile] fan_writers discussion and intro posts, and Guardian drama polls
  3. a fill for this round of [community profile] fan_flashworks
  4. behind-the-scenes FFW stuff & mod post draft
  5. write to MP and mayoral candidate; submit on All The Things
  6. finish my DNW-kink WIP ASAP
  7. finish my other WIP after that, and prepare for my annual Wishlist writing frenzy *fingers crossed, knock on wood*
  8. close a bunch of tabs, seriously
  9. rest my arms.
china_shop: An orange cartoon dog waving, with a blue-green abstract background. (Bingo!)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-08-28 03:32 pm
Entry tags:

Me-and-media update

Pandemic life
Colds and so forth. )

Previous poll review
In the Plaguefic poll, 46% of respondents were okay reading about Covid and related subjects, 52% didn't mind mentions, and 28% like it when characters mask sometimes, while 22% said there are aspects of the pandemic they avoid, and 22% prefer their reading matter to avoid the subject entirely.

In ticky-boxes, hugs won with 74%, followed by wallabies at a disco with 48%, and battery acid and protest signs with 36%. Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
Audio: Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, read by Candida Gubbins. This continues to be fascinating and put present times into dryly alarming perspective, in a "thus has it ever been" kind of way. Most of the names and all the dates are in one ear and out the other, but Palmer spins an excellent yarn and kindly gives key figures nicknames (Battle Pope!). I'm up to Lucrezia Borgia, ie, about halfway.

Library book: A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. I'm about halfway through this, too. Everything I know about Regency is from non-contemporaneous novels (Heyer), but still. These characters are clearly modern LARPers, but the central conflict is good.

Kdramas/Cdramas
I'm restricting my Nothing But Love rewatch to the exercise machine, to make it last.

Other TV
We finished Bookish. I came around to it in the end; the flashback to Book's long-lost love was heartrending. Looking forward to season 2.

Nothing else. It turns out I don't watch much TV on my own.

Guardian/Fandom
I posted a poll to [community profile] fan_writers about whether sharing is part of your creative process, and there's some great discussion there.

Upcoming in Guardian fandom: [community profile] guardian_wishlist sign-ups open tomorrow. And the Slo-mo Drama Rewatch starts on [community profile] sid_guardian next week. \o/

Audio entertainment
Writing Excuses. Letters from an American. More Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones (which aside from being really fun, highlighted this line from Archer's Goon: Mum always said that you could tell what people were like by their houses. So naturally now I keep thinking about Guardian through that lens and wondering what everyone's living spaces look like). I tried a local politics podcast (RNZ, equivalent of NPR), but apparently our political commentary has been reduced to economics, blah.

Online life
  • I need to stop making discussion posts when my arms aren't great.
  • I've found the frame-by-frame key in VLC, and nothing will stop my screencapping now, mwahaha!
  • Randomly alternating my comments between Casual HTML and Markdown. What could go wrong?


Writing/making things
My DNW-kinkfic continues, as I turn 1625 words of zero draft into Draft 1.0. Ot1h, it's very freeing to know almost no one will read this; otoh, the zero drafting comes with that feeling people talk about with outlining, where the impetus starts to leak out of the balloon... I'm going to finish it anyway, and I need to hurry up so I can make stuff for Wishlist.

Life/health/mental state things
For most of my adult life, I needed 8 to 9 hours of sleep a night to function well and be healthy. A couple of years ago, I read an article about how people over fifty shouldn't get more than 8 hours, and actually 7 is better. (Cannot remember the reasoning.) My expectations and sleep needs immediately dropped to 7ish hours per night, for lo, I am profoundly susceptible to the power of suggestion. Except that this week while Andrew's been sick, I've been getting 8 hours, and I feel good actually. So much more energy. tl;dr: I am ridiculous.

Cat
Sometimes during morning on-the-bed strokes, Halle crawls between two layers of blanket, and I never know if she's calling time on the stroking, or if this is some hide-and-seek cat game I'm supposed to know the rules of.

Food
I cook mostly vegetarian when it's just me. I really want a burger.

Good things
Immune systems. Fresh fruit. Several days of sunshine. Guardian. Dreamwidth activity generally. Cat. Andrew. LWS Writers' Hour. This cover of Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" (Youtube).

Poll #33544 Cluedo
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 45


Your murder weapon of choice

View Answers

asp
10 (22.2%)

cyanide
6 (13.3%)

bulldozer
5 (11.1%)

heartbreak
7 (15.6%)

industrial freezer
2 (4.4%)

fright
1 (2.2%)

cassowary
24 (53.3%)

extremely elegant clothing
15 (33.3%)

other
3 (6.7%)

ticky-box full of musical frogs jamming away on their bongos
19 (42.2%)

ticky-box full of neglected-houseplant guilt
13 (28.9%)

ticky-box full of throwing coins into the wishing abyss
19 (42.2%)

ticky-box full of cartoon dogs going to the movies
15 (33.3%)

ticky-box of what would a Gamma/Delta/Epsilon AU look like? radioactive river permittivity?
10 (22.2%)

ticky-box full of vertical stripes
14 (31.1%)

ticky-box full of hugs
34 (75.6%)

turps: (beach)
turps ([personal profile] turps) wrote2025-08-27 05:09 pm

(no subject)

My MiL's visit is going nicely so far.

We went out for a drive Saturday, went for lunch at our favourite beach restaurant on Sunday, went to Whitley Bay for a drive on bank holiday Monday then went to see Corey where I got to hug the stuffing out of him. I'll just skirt over the morning where I sat on the wall outside the gym waiting for it to open, only to discover my branch doesn't open at all on bank holidays.

We drove to Sea Houses yesterday, which was another lovely sunny day. Then today was class and an afternoon at home, because as much as she complains she doesn't get out, it's obvious my MiL doesn't have the stamina to go out every day without some downtime.

Today, Rosie told us she's starting an exercise only class from next Monday, using the time slot we used to have. She asked if there was anything people wanted including, and I made the rookie error of saying nothing I wanted to be included, but no more walking lunges, please. Guess what she's decided to add, for sure? Honestly, I never learn.

James also got a cancellation for his back injections so he's getting those Saturday evening. Kayleigh is driving us there and back, then some recovery time and hopefully, he'll be back to work.

My SiL and her family are at a holiday camp close to the wildfire on the Yorkshire moors. They were supposed to be there until Friday, but are coming back today instead, taking the train as the main road is closed. They're going to stay with my SiL's partner's mam for a couple of days, then come home on Saturday. But I must admit, I'm kinda hoping that they come home Friday instead so we can drop off my MiL then and have a bit more breathing room on the Sat.
turps: (dalek)
turps ([personal profile] turps) wrote2025-08-23 03:01 pm

(no subject)

Thank you [personal profile] misbegotten for the excellent postcard ♥

I got a comment on one of my old bandom fics. I replied to the comment and the person replied again mentioning that they were exactly one month younger than the fic. Omg, talk about feeling old.

Kayleigh, Lucy and Bodhi are home, as sadly their holiday ended up being a bit of a nightmare. It was going okay until one night they'd walked to eat at a restaurant near their hotel/the beach cut for details but no one is injured or hurt )

I've been watching Parenthood on Netflix and really enjoying it. It reminds me of Brothers and Sisters and This Is Us, though it hasn't made me cry like This Is Us tended to do. There's time yet though, I've just reached the end of season one and have quite a few seasons to go.

After swimming on Thursday I was having a discussion with James about him maybe getting his own gym membership instead of relying on my guest passes as he's been quite often lately. We asked about prices as we were leaving the pool, and of course, got the spiel about it being cheaper to pay for a year at once. But we said we'd need to think about it more, and it's good that we did as literally, just after getting into the car someone from the doctor's phoned.

James had asked if his GP could ask about the GP exercise referral scheme which is partnered with the gym I go to. They'd done so, and end result is, James now has a discount card that means any drop in sessions at the gym only cost him £3. Between that and the two free guest passes a month, he doesn't need his own membership, so thank goodness he didn't say yes to signing up.
china_shop: Close-up of Zhao Yunlan grinning (Default)
The Gauche in the Machine ([personal profile] china_shop) wrote2025-08-23 10:15 am
Entry tags:

Me-and-media update

Previous poll review
In the Obsessions poll, 9.8% of respondents have one current active fandom, 31.4% have a couple, 25.5% have a handful, and 15.7% have none at the moment. The most common response was "it's complicated" with 37.3%. Seven point eight percent have blorbos but no fandom.

In ticky-boxes, goth butterflies and punk moths came second to hugs, 56.9% to 76.5%. Dream parkour came third with 47.1%. Thank you for your votes! <3

Reading
Audio: Inventing the Renaissance by Ada Palmer, read by Candida Gubbins -- I'm a third of the way through this delightful thirty-hour tour of the Renaissance. No idea how much is lodging in my brain (versus in-one-ear-and-out-the-other-ing), but I'm getting bits here and there. Like, for example, the Renaissance framing of "grace" as heavenly political capital. And theology as it relates to Hamlet. The general tone is very fun. In progress.

Audio: Stone and Sky (Rivers of London) by Ben Aaronovich, read by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith and Shvorne Marks. Having settled Peter into married life, Aaronovich is porting all the relationship stuff over to Abigail. I guess that makes sense. (The case isn't coming together for me, but that might be because I keep falling asleep while we're listening.) In progress.

Library book: A Lady for a Duke by Alexis Hall. Just a few chapters. Historical romance, and I'm pretty sure all the characters are speaking/behaving anachronistically, but I'm looking forward to the reveal.
Spoiler. The lady in the title is trans and was best friends with the duke before she went MIA at war and transitioned; he thinks she died, and he's now grieving his friend.
In progress.

Guardian by priest. We've finished the main story, just one short story extra to go. Wow, this has been a ride!

Kdramas/Cdramas
Still rewatching Nothing But Love (AKA Nothing But You), ahhh, I love them so much.

I've also started My Girlfriend is the Man, a Kdrama about a woman with a genetic predisposition to sudden-onset sex swap, who does indeed wake up in a male body. I only just finished episode 1, so I don't know yet how well they're going to handle it, but I'm fairly sure the narrative pressure on the boyfriend is to accept that his girlfriend is still his girlfriend, whatever body she's currently wearing. No idea where they'll take it after that.

Pru and I finished Sell Your Haunted House this week. We're planning to start Love Scout next (rewatch for me), unless I can think of something good (and Korean) with murders/ghosts/cases of the week. Hmm, maybe I should give Mystic Pop-Up Bar one more try... I bounced off it before, but I know several people who loved it.

Other TV
Cut for length. )

Guardian/Fandom
It's the last weekend of the Guardian novel scheduled readalong, and then we're heading into a slo-mo rewatch of the drama (half an episode per week). If you've been Guardian-curious or thinking of revisiting the show, now's your chance. *lures*

[community profile] fan_writers is going so well. Love to see so much conversation and interaction over there! If you have thoughts on writing, please feel free to post to the comm, either directly or with a link!

Audio entertainment
Letters from an American (lots, including a great half-hour interview with Gavin Newsom). Half an episode of Sinica, Writing Excuses, a couple of episodes of You Can Learn Chinese, some Eight Days of Diana Wynne Jones, and a couple of episodes of A Life Indigenous.

Plugged-in life
The last few days, I've been experimenting with not spending every waking non-keyboard moment listening to audiobooks and podcasts. I was kind of hoping some silence and/or music would wake up my creative brain, and then ideas would come spilling out my fingertips. So far, it's just created an opening for brain weasels. Pbthpbthpbhtpbhpth!

Writing/making things
I spent Monday morning writing a political submission and then finished my meta post about story middles. I spent Tuesday's writers' hour writing most of this. I am working on a fic, but it's slow going. It's veered into one of my DNWs (D/s). I mean, you know how sometimes you can write your own DNWs, because you instinctively avoid the aspects that actively squick you? That part is working. It's just that neither the Shen Wei in my head nor I have any idea what we're doing, lol. Playin' it by ear. *rattles keyboard*

I threw something verrrry last minute together for the [community profile] fan_flashworks Twinkle challenge. No idea if that worked.

Life/health/mental state things
I'm okay, just a bit disconnected. The weather's been so cold I want to stay home all the time. I really hate everything our government is doing (not on the same scale as the US, but terrible in its own libertarian way), so by day I'm a mild manner fangirl, but at night I wake up periodically to scrawl angry letters to politicians and/or newspaper editors in my notebook. I should send more of these; I'm always held back by feeling like I don't know enough and need to fact check.

Food
I made two small batches of vegetable dumplings -- Moosewood's sweet potato recipe, and mushroom & coriander adapted from the Omnivore's Cookbook's chicken recipe. I had to use my dumpling press because of my arms, but that worked okay.

Recently made: enchiladas, crispy orange beef (consistency would have been better if I hadn't shoehorned a ton of vege in there too), plus experimenting with crispy tofu in various dishes. A lot of the sauces make the tofu go slimy, but it's so good when they don't.

Goals
My goal for this year is to make goals for next year.

Good things
Guardian stuff -- the readalong, Wishlist!!, the upcoming rewatch, yay! I'm hoping the latter two will combine to get me writing again. Playing with paint pens (drawing butterflies like a six year-old). Sunshine. Cat. Boy. Assimilating my little-worn 'tidy' clothes into my everyday wardrobe so I don't have to shop.

Poll #33518 Plaguefic
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51


Covid in fiction

View Answers

I'm okay reading fiction about Covid and related subjects
23 (45.1%)

I'm okay reading fiction that includes mentions of Covid
26 (51.0%)

There are aspects of the pandemic I avoid
11 (21.6%)

I like it when characters mask sometimes
14 (27.5%)

I prefer my reading matter to avoid the subject entirely
12 (23.5%)

It's better in profic / a novel
4 (7.8%)

It's better in fanfic
2 (3.9%)

other
1 (2.0%)

I don't read much atm
6 (11.8%)

ticky-box of gossimer and thistledown
17 (33.3%)

ticky-box of steel girders
12 (23.5%)

ticky-box of half a bottle of flat champagne
8 (15.7%)

ticky-box of battery acid and protest signs
18 (35.3%)

ticky-box of three wallabies at a 1970s disco
24 (47.1%)

ticky-box full of hugs
37 (72.5%)

turps: (bite me)
turps ([personal profile] turps) wrote2025-08-20 05:00 pm

(no subject)

I'm looking after Kayleigh's cats and tortoise atm, visiting twice a day, and man, having the two kittens makes the job so much harder. Fun, but I totally understand why the phrase like herding cats was invented.

We went to see Materialists yesterday, and while I really enjoyed watching Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal, I can't say it gripped me, so I wouldn't really rec.

James also had an appointment with his back doctor. It was at the private hospital and when we got there we were told there was a 40-min delay. But in the end we only waited about 20 minutes, probably because the consultant was rattling through his appointments. James' literally took less than two minutes, asked if the pain was back, told yes, okay, can have the injections again, appointment will be sent as soon as possible, then done, out we went.

Today was weight management class, cut for those who don't want to read )

I finally picked up my new compressions today. I actually got the thigh high pair last week, but those are meant for use in the house or just pottering around, so I haven't worn them much. But today I got the below knee ones meant for every day, and you know I'm going to wear the blue patterned ones tomorrow.

I'm going swimming again tomorrow morning. So it'll be cats, swimming and then back home to tidy up and move furniture as my MiL is coming to spend the week on Friday. I'm just hoping James' appointment doesn't come really early as there's already an overlap of looking after the cats and my MiL. I could do without James' being down for the count, too.