not today or tomorrow

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Title: As Long as There's a Moon
AO3: Link
Rating: G
Series: Wolf's Rain (Hige, the pack)
Wordcount: 2,756
Summary: Hige in the early days of the Paradise Pack, aka "wow everyone else is so weird, good thing I'm normal".
Remarks: Sometimes I truly wonder what it's like to be compelled to write fiction for relevant, topical fandoms. The Wolf Rain's archives are endearingly teen 00s flavoured overall - so many OC inserts, and some very muddled interpretations of the series' particular take on the human glamours - which is understandable, and as it should be, but it somehow left me itching to have a little play myself. ...Er, sans any OC inserts, though.

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It is getting dangerously close to a year since my last media round-up, so knocking out a few highlights.

• On the back of my mother's hands-clasped "please please you'll love it" begging I read Project Hail Mary over Christmas, and subsequently watched the movie during Easter. And I did really like it! It confirmed my suspicion that Andy Weir is not actually a very good writer - a suspicion then sealed in stone when he opened his big yap and honked out some downright comically blinkered views on the place of politics in sci-fi - but a good amount of charm battled through despite his best efforts.

• I sort of discovered I could acquire more anime DVDs than I even knew existed via eBay and, well... proud to say I now have my own copies of Wolf's Rain, Baccano, Fafner in the Azure: Dead Aggressor, and Gundam 00. This last in particular was such a trip down ol' nostalgia lane it was a little overwhelming. "I'm looking forward to finding out whether this had as many interesting political points to make as I thought or whether I was just nineteen," I commented to some friends, and the answer turned out to be "yes".

• Also watched Paprika on Vesper's recommendation, and wow! Always delightful to experience a story that really gets dream logic. I had Paprika Parade on repeat for days afterwards.

• We also had a crack at Reanimal, in which the real villain was my GOD-AWFUL internet connection that caused me to drop out every half hour or so. The game has a very strong aesthetic atmosphere and some truly wonderful and spooky moments, but it's a bit short for the price-tag and I hold that it would have benefited from some tighter thematic editing. So it goes! I'm still interested to see what Tarsier does next.

• Lane and I have reunited to tackle Divinity: Original Sin: The First One: It's Origining time. I like to think my grasp of tactics has improved since I was last setting my own head on fire with distressing regularity, but Lane may disagree. We've so far made it past the first act and notable incidents include sort of unnecessarily murdering a couple of NPCs right out the gate, wheeze-laughing every time the companion with the dreadful southern accent utters the word "comrade", and slaughtering our way through a very long succession of goblins before realising there was probably an easier way to do this.

• Managed a strong start to the book-reading front this year. Our Wives Under the Sea was gorgeously written but a little thin on actual meat for my tastes; it felt like a short story stretched out to its very limits. The Lathe of Heaven was a hell of a ride; what I would have considered the ultimate chilling conclusion happened somewhere around the middle, leaving me with no choice but to follow along blindly into what happened next. The City of Last Chances was simply a slog; I clawed my way out the other end and do not intend to return.

Managed a few fills for 3 Sentence Ficathon season! I feel like I managed to almost have a theme here. 1 Jurassic Park, 1 Scavenger's Reign, 2 Finisterre, and 1 TMNT.

( and mostly only 3 sentences. mostly. )

I was going back through my 'meme' tag and found this old one. It's always been a bit of fun, so lets whip it out again. Don't be shy!

Link me to a fic you've written, and I'll tell you something I like about it! c:

All fandoms and original fic welcome - though if you're going to link me to your 300,000 word magnum opus, a nominated chapter would be nice.

I need to quit my job so bad 😐

But first! A holiday.

• Zoo City was an almost-great book - the writing style was engaging, the protagonist was compelling in her bitterness, the concept of being Animaled was ballsy in its co-opting of Pullman's dæmons. It just kind of forgot to let anything the protagonist did... matter? Oops.

• "A demon-hunting KPop group finds itself on a new battlefield when the demons launch their own boy band" is such a perfect comedy movie premise! For some reason, though, the movie also wedged in a cliche dramatic plot-line it didn't really have time for or do anything new with, and in fact the more I think about said plot-line the more questions I have. KPop Demon Hunters was still, somehow, a pretty fun watch. The energetic animation and catchy songs definitely helped.

• Re-read The Prefect, which was the first Alastair Reynolds book I ever read, back in the day! Reynolds' character work has always been fairly average, but his character and world concepts are so thought-provoking I tend not to mind.

• If I had ever been a big Murderbot fan, I suspect I'd be genuinely very annoyed by the TV adaptation. As it is, I'm still exasperated by some of the choices and by the fact streaming seems to have permanently crushed the industry's ability to tell a well-paced logical fucking story, but I'm at least enjoying individual segments. It's a strong cast (Mensah especially) and when they get a well-scripted scene, they deliver on it! Alas...

• I'm nearly at the end of Babylon 5's first season, which may get its own post if I can find the energy. I'm into it overall, and it's very interesting to experience in a time-capsule sort of way as well, which is the mark of good sci-fi.

Title: Pigeon Talk
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: Widdershins (Jack O'Malley, Ben Thackery)
Wordcount: 3,478
Summary: One week he's the bastard second cousin of the king long kept in hiding, a rumour so far outside anything Mal's ever had hurled his way before that it's almost funny. The next, he talks to pigeons.
Remarks: How did this end up as long as it did. Good grief. Anyway, deeply hypocritical for Mal of all people to complain about Being Perceived on a discomfiting level, but also he totally would.

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( what's a pigeon got to talk about anyway? )

Title: Under Your Skin
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: A House of Many Doors (Char Dvetistek/Kinetopede Captain)
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: Char doesn't worry. Except when she does, a little.
Tags: Mild Spoilers for Canon, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied Sexual Content, Body Horror
Remarks: I've been playing HoMD again and delighted to find that since my last delving the creator launched a HUGE patch that has cleared up many bugs, including Char's romance! Hilariously, it so far seems to be about what I'd already headcanoned. Nobody here has an emotional IQ worth squat. Honestly, most of this fic was just an excuse for me to muse on how Ira lost her hand.

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( don't think I haven't figured it out - you're hooked on something )

As a long-standing fan of Alastair Reynolds who is finally getting around to watching Babylon 5, it's a bit like... so Mass Effect really just mashed these two things together (and sprinkled a bit of other sci-fi flavouring on top), huh.

Not a crime, of course; and I don't think Mass Effect has ever pretended to be anything but deep and affectionate bow to all things space opera. It's getting a rueful chuckle out of me nonetheless. O to get to file off those serial numbers so successfully.