Reading

Current Mood: naughty

Entry tags:

Monday Storytime- The Professionals

Too Many Of You Fellas Are Bent

Chapter 6 – The Gossip

A circulation of rumours.

***

“Shit!” said McCabe.

“Right, you two get dressed!” ordered Doyle. “We’ll check the set up.”

McCabe and Lucas broke apart and rushed around collecting their clothes, they ran into the bathroom to get dressed, while Bodie and Doyle hurried to check the observations they’d been making, align the telescope and tune in the listening device. Everything was in order, luckily, so the pair hadn’t been totally incompetent at surveilling.

There was giggling in the bathroom, and Bodie and Doyle rolled their eyes at each other.

“Hope they hurry up and don’t get distracted in there,” sighed Doyle.

But Bodie tutted and sighed.

“What’s the matter?”

“I was thinking, must be nice for them, just relaxing together sometimes.” He looked Doyle quickly up and down.

They gazed at each other for a few moments, then someone hammered on the door to the room. Doyle knocked on the bathroom door and hissed, “hurry up! The boss is here.”

Bodie strode to the front door and asked, “who is it?” The person outside replied, “Council. Year. Screen,” in a Scottish accent, and Bodie replied, “photo. Song. Highness,” and opened the door a little.

“Let me in then, man.” Cowley tried to get through the narrow gap.

Bodie was giving the other three agents time to tidy everything up, so he walked slowly in front of his boss, talking about the weather.

When they got into the main part of the room, Cowley gave him a confused stare, then looked round to see McCabe peering through the telescope, Lucas listening to the headphones, while Doyle was studying the notes the other two had made. “Ah there you are, McCabe and Lucas,” said the boss. “Any reason why you didn’t answer your radios?”

( Read more... )

Entry tags:

music,
music monday

Music Monday

🎵 WONA, “LIL SSANAI“

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Monday @ 7:54 am

The one day I actually have to go out and do Mildly Adult Tasks (inspect a potential con venue) is the day my Monthly Insomnia decides to trigger. Of course . . .

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Entry tags:

type: review

Book review: Martyr!

Title: Martyr!
Author: Kaveh Akbar
Genre: Fiction, literary

It took over a month for my hold on this book to come up, but Friday night I finished Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar. If you look into online book recommendations like on New York Times or NPR, you've probably seen this title come up. This book is about a young poet who sobers up after years of severe addiction and is now looking for meaning and purpose.

Martyr! is a beautiful book about the very human search for meaning in our lives, but it also is not afraid to shy away from the ugliness of that search. It juxtaposes eloquently-worded paragraphs of generational grief with Cyrus waking up having pissed the bed because he went to sleep so drunk the night before. Neither of these things cancels the other out.

Everyone in Martyr! is flawed, often deeply, but they're all also very real, and they're trying their best; they aren't trying to hurt anyone, but they cause hurt anyway, and then they and those around them just have to deal with that. Martyr! weighs the search for personal meaning against the duty owed to others and doesn't come up with a clean answer. What responsibility did Orkideh have to her family as opposed to herself? What responsibility did Ali have to Cyrus as opposed to himself? What responsibility does Cyrus have to Zee, as opposed to his search for a meaningful death?

Cyrus' story is mainly the post-sobriety story: He's doing what he's supposed to, he's not drinking or doing drugs, he's going to his AA meetings, he's working (after a fashion)...and what's the reward? He still can't sleep at night and he feels directionless and alone and now he doesn't even have the ecstasy of a good high to look forward to. This is the "so what now?" part of the sobriety journey.

It's also in many ways a family story. Cyrus lost his mother when he was young and his father shortly after he left for college, and he spends the book trying to reckon with these things and with the people his parents were. Roya is the mother Cyrus never knew, whose shape he could only vaguely sketch out from his father's grief and his unstable uncle's recollections. Ali is the father who supported Cyrus in all practical ways, and sacrificed mightily to do it, but did not really have the emotional bandwidth to be there for his son. And there are parallels between Cyrus and Roya arising later in the book that tugged quite hard on my heartstrings, but I won't spoil anything here.

Cyrus wants to find meaning, but seems only able to grasp it in the idea of a meaningful death--hence his obsession with martyrs. The idea of a life with meaning seems beyond him. He struggles throughout the book with this and with the people trying to suggest that dying is not the only way to have lived.

I really enjoyed this book and I think it deserves the praise it's gotten. I've tried to sum up here what the book is "about," but it's a story driven by emotion more than plot. It's Cyrus' journey and his steps and stumbles along the way, and I think Akbar did a wonderful job with it.

Entry tags:

tech

?>

I’ve mentioned before that teen-me was, like, internet friends with Michel V. back in our Blogger days when he first started writing b2. I do sometimes still wonder what happened to that dude and hope that, wherever he is, he is doing okay.

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Entry tags:

rfe 2025,
sign-ups

Sign-Ups are Open!

Sign-Ups are now open! They will remain open until December 27th, 10PM PST. [Countdown to sign-ups closing] [In Your Timezone]

The rules are here, which will have additional information about the exchange and its requirements.

You must be 18+ to participate in this exchange. Only one sign-up per person.

An AO3 account is required to participate. If you need an AO3 invite, please reach out via email.

Requests:

You can request a minimum of 3 unique fandoms with a maximum of 10 fandoms, with 1-10 ships and a choice of fiction, art, or both.

After you have three unique fandoms, you are allowed/welcome to repeat fandoms in both your offers and your requests.

There is a known bug with AO3 where the ship may be in the tagset but might not appear in the drop-down option. If that is the case, copy the ship from the tagset, paste it into the box (press enter afterwards), and AO3 should accept it.

You can edit/delete your sign-ups until sign-ups close.

If a sign-up does not include the required number of fandoms, it will be deleted when sign-ups close.

Optional details can be added in the box provided- you can list your likes/do not wants and put prompts for your creators. This will give your creator a better picture of what you would/wouldn't enjoy but they are optional.

Please note that you cannot use the likes/dnws to box your creator into making one certain type of work.

Please make sure you list your do not wants clearly within the 'optional details section'. If the do not wants are not clearly stated and/or are unreasonable, they will not be upheld. Do not wants in letters will not be upheld if there is a violation in the fanwork you receive either so please make sure to cross check what it is in your sign-up vs your letter.

If you're requesting more than one ship, please do not express preferences for one fandom/ship over the rest in your optional details and/or letter. Your creator will be matching to any of the fandoms you select, so please make sure you request fandoms and ships you'd be happy to receive a fanwork for!

If you're open to treats, please make a mention of this in the optional details of your sign-up. You're welcome to request only art and opt into fic treats and visa versa (as well as opt into both). You are also welcome to opt out of treats. Please remember stating you're open to treats does not guarantee you a treat.

There is a space to leave a link to your letter as well. Letters are optional, but should you link to a letter, please complete it as soon as you can to give your creator the maximum amount of time to work on your gift.

All fandoms and ships requested and offered in this exchange must be chosen from those nominated into the tagset.

You will match based on one fandom, ship, and medium.

If there aren't any offers that match your requests, you will go out for claiming as an initial pinch hit.

Pinch hits will be posted after assignments are sent out.

Offers:

You must offer a minimum of 3 unique fandoms with at least 1 ship. You can offer a maximum of 10 offers and 10 ships per offer.

You can offer a choice of art, fic, or both.

You will be matched on the fandom, ship, and the medium offered.

If for some reason that you are not matched to what you offer, please contact the mod immediately. That will be the only reason that we will change your assignment after they are given out.

If there aren't any requests that match your offers, the mod will contact you at the email address associated with your AO3 account to see if there is anything else you can offer. If you do not reply within 24 hours, or there is nothing else you can offer, your signup will be deleted.

Additional Information:

'Do not match requests' will be accepted for this exchange from now until sign-ups close.

If you wish to not match to a participant, please email rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com letting us know your AO3 name, the AO3 name of the participant you would like to not be matched to, and what you would like us to do in the instance where you are their only match as a creator, you are their only match as a recipient, and you are a pinch hit. We don't need to know the reasons for this request. We'll do our best to uphold your request.

Please do not use this as an opportunity to try and match to a specific creator.

Commenting are mandatory for this exchange so please remember that if you are signing up, you are expected to comment on your gift to participate in the next round. If you signed up for the last round and didn't comment by the time nominations opened, you will not be eligible to participate this round.

If your sign-up breaks any of the above rules or is found to be in bad faith, the mods may contact you. We hold the right to delete your sign-up without warning if we find that you're acting in bad faith.

Any questions or comments can be left here (anon is on, screening is not) or emailed to the mod at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

Entry tags:

Tagset being finalized/sign-ups opening soon!

The tagset is in the process of being finalized. Thank you to everyone who has nominated and/or spotted issues so far!

If your nominations haven't been approved/you see errors or duplicates in the tagset, please reach out via the comments on this post (anon is on, screening isn't) or by email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

Sign-ups will open less than a little less than 5 hours (~7:30PM PST/UST-8).

Current Mood: sad

Entry tags:

Neighbours has ended

I am very sad about this.

It was first cancelled in 2022 but fan power got it rebooted by Amazon. Here are the cast members thanking us for saving them for 2 years:

https://www.reddit.com/r/neighbours/comments/1plo4qv/the_cast_of_neighbours_say_thank_you_and_we_love/

Neighbours was my daily half hour of escapism, silliness, sunny weather, a distraction from grim English weather and the grim real world. I have watched it since it began 40 years ago, it has got me through some very hard times indeed.

No other soaps are like it: at first in the 1980s it was similar to my real life- all the neighbours knew each other, my parents were friends with the adults, I was friends with the children. Obviously we didn't have explosions, murders, stalkers, evil twins etc. but the bonkers aspect of the show was the fun of it. It was so silly that it was unbelievable and it took me out of worrying about real life.

I'm not sure what to watch now to fill the gap. Home & Away started out in the 1980s about a middle aged couple fostering teenagers, that was a lovely theme, but now it's moved on to model-esque young people getting kidnapped every week, and the family atmosphere has gone.

British soaps are too miserable and grim. There's only a few shows that have the innocent, fun atmosphere of Neighbours, but they only have short seasons. e.g. All Creatures Great and Small, but that only runs for 6 episodes at a time.

There's only really the Hallmark movie channel that is similar, but those movies don't have much of a sense of humour, and they have different characters for each movie, they aren't continuous. I think the Australian sense of humour is closer to the British one than the American one is to either.

So tomorrow is Monday again, when normally I'd be eagerly watching the first episode of Neighbours for the week. Not sure what to do now.

Entry tags:

art,
tech

🐎

Animating a horse using a computer. Not in any way you’d expect.

Leave a comment.⁺

Entry tags:

culture

Dropping the act.

Within our communities of practice, many of us have felt some degree of fatigue or burnout at the cynicism and ineffectiveness with which many organizations embraced their DEI efforts, especially those that tried to engage at a superficial level in 2020 and then only maintained a cosmetic embrace of the work without proper resourcing or structural support in the years since. In truth, I think a lot of the institutions whose leaders have followed that pattern were just waiting for this excuse to drop the pretense, and at least now we can all stop the charade.

Anil Dash on woke charades.

Leave a comment.⁺

Entry tags:

Nomination Clarifications #2

I'm still approving nominations and right now, we're still on track to open sign-ups on time, but I will let you know if that changes.

If you have nominated under these following fandoms:

Star Wars Legends - All Media Types

Fate/stay night & Related Fandoms

Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types

Or any other "all media" or "& related fandoms" that has not been approved, please reach out and let me know which specific version you prefer.

Our Flag Means Death (TV)
Spanish Jackie/Wives (Our flag means death) - This is a little vague. Could the nominator be more specific?

Over The Limit:

Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse
f!Reginald Jeeves/f!Bertie Wooster - 606 works

薬屋のひとりごと | Kusuriya no Hitorigoto | The Apothecary Diaries (Anime)
F!Jinshi/Maomao - 406 works

Another post will be made at some point tomorrow with the remaining inquiries.

If you spot any errors/duplicates in the tagset, feel free to comment here or reach out via email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com. :)

Entry tags:

Now Playing

🎮 The Sims™ 4 (234 hours played)

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Alone together.

Reading this article about the manosphere makes me think of a few conversations I’ve had recently about the “male loneliness epidemic.” Which I do not doubt is real, or serious, and while I don’t think it’s unique per se — everyone right now is having a loneliness epidemic, regardless of gender — I also think there’s a utility in naming a specific subset of the broader phenomenon in order to address it. Like, an intersectional approach to tackling loneliness, or whatever.

That being said, there’s definitely something to the viral “men: (overturn Roe v. Wade) / also men: why don’t women want to have sex with us any more?” posts that go around. And, like. I hang out in a lot of spaces populated by awkward antisocial weirdos with niche (and often pretty dark) interests and mental illnesses at various levels of treatment. And hanging out in said spaces really, I think, illuminates the two Types of Guy and how they respond to loneliness (as well as questions around modern masculinity more broadly). Because the ones who lash out? Who externalise all their issues on women, on queer people, on minorities? They get all the press, mostly because they make it by force. But there is a whole other Type of Guy who, when confronted with that black pit, actually does put in the work to climb out of it, or at least not sink deeper. They engage with social and community groups, access what mental health care they can, develop hobbies and creative outputs, try and look after themselves and their spaces and their pets. Imperfectly, sure, but so what? There’s no silver bullet for being human.¹

And there actually are influencers in this space . . . they just, again, a) tend not to get as much press for it, and, b) aren’t usually known for being “masculinity influencers” per se. Like, I’d argue John Walsh, a.k.a. Super Eyepatch Wolf, is effectively whatever the light-side-mirror-world opposite of a manosphere douchebag is. A popular YouTuber and streamer, with a focus on anime and gaming, who is conventionally attractive and enjoys combat sports and collecting anime waifu statues? And yet somehow manages to do all that without, y’know. A single sex-trafficking charge or leaked photo of himself making unfortunate gestures. Incredible.² He’s far from the only one. But, I guess, because dudes like this aren’t interested in nailing “no girls” signs to their clubhouses — nor build a business model around grifting their vulnerable peers — they tend to get skipped over in these conversations.

Which is a shame. Because I think a lot of dudes out there really are struggling, and there are a bunch of other dudes who are offering up positive ways to escape that darkness. It’s just that all the toxic dipshits take up so much space and air that people can (understandably, since they also usually trying to keep their own heads above water) run pretty short on grace re. this whole issue.

Well. I mean . . . You know what I mean. ↩
With apologies to Mr. Walsh, because I am selling him very short here; he is a dude who appears to sincerely engage with progressive causes, promotes and collabs with creators from marginalised backgrounds, talks with empathy and kindness about mental health struggles, and just generally seems to try and want to make the world a better, kinder place. The fact that the bar for male influencers is on the ground doesn’t mean he isn’t still giving it a good ol’ jump. ↩

Leave a comment.⁺

Entry tags:

Nominations are closed!

Nominations are now closed. Thank you to everyone who submitted them! :)

I'm still going through them so please don't worry if your's hasn't been approved just yet. Any questions/clarifications will be made on an upcoming post within the next two days.

The tagset is here. Please let me know if you notice any errors/duplicates/etc.

If you have any questions/comments, you can leave them here (anon is on, screening isn't) or reach out via email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

Sign-ups will open on December 13th.

Entry tags:

politics,
uspol

Government all the way down.

When Trump rails against “socialists,” he’s not defending neutral markets; he’s defending a particular distribution of rights — one that prioritizes asset owners’ claims and uses public power to sustain them. When Mamdani advances democratic socialist policies, he’s not suggesting we abolish markets; he’s redrawing the boundary between private exclusion and public provision to include things like housing and transportation. Their methods both involve the state but toward starkly different visions of democratic accountability and economic rights.

On the same means to different ends.

Leave a comment.⁺

Entry tags:

Last Day to Nominate!

There is a little over twelve hours left to submit your nominations! Nominations will close on December 10th, 10 PM PST. [Countdown to nominations closing] | [In your timezone]

I'm still going through them and will continue doing so after nominations have been officially closed so don't worry if yours has not been approved yet.

If you are looking to nominate, the guidelines are here.

The tagset is here.

Any questions/comments can be left here (anon is on, screening isn't) or can be sent to rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

Entry tags:

type: meme

RIP (Read In Progress) Wednesday

It's Wednesday in some localised linear timelines (more or less). What are you reading?

Entry tags:

culture

After all.

Reading this article reminded me of a completely mundane experience I had the other day of sharing a First Bit with someone. You know how it goes; you’ve known someone for a while, and like them well enough, but you’re not particularly close. Then they’ll be some moment where one of you will make some dumb joke, and the other “yes, ands” it, and suddenly you’re both laughing and it’s like a little switch flips and you go from co-workers or acquaintances or whatever to friends.

You know this experience. You’ve had this experience, even if you’ve never really consciously thought about it. Everyone’s had this experience; no matter how weird, or awkward, or introverted, or how much of a natural loner they are.

Everyone, apparently, except Elon Musk.

Leave a comment.⁺

Entry tags:

Nomination Clarifications #1

Nominations are slowly being approved! Please remember to use the canonical tags when possible. Exceptions are crossovers, genderbent ships, original works, or if you are nominating a ship under multiple fandoms.

For those who are looking to nominate, the guidelines are here.

This is a ship exchange so any & relationships will be automatically rejected.

Star Wars - All Media Types
F!Anakin Skywalker/F!Darth Vader
F!Dooku/F!Sifo-Dyas

Outside of a couple of exemptions, all media types will not be accepted. Please either nominate a specific version or it needs to be under Crossovers.

Mysterious Skin - All Media Types
F!Neil McCormick/Other(s)

This is too vague. Please be more specific.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Kira Nerya (Star Trek: DS9)/Ro Laren (Star Trek: Next Gen)

This is needs to be nominated under the Crossover Fandom.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
F!Angelus/Buffy Summers (BTVS)

In this exchange, Angel and Angelus will not be considered separate characters.

Over the Limit:

True Detective (TV 2014)
F!Rustin "Rust" Cohle/F!Martin "Marty" Hart - 310 works (GB ships must be rare in their canonical form to qualify)

Raffles - E. W. Hornung
Bunny Manders/A. J. Raffles - 272 works

Comments can be left on this post (anon is on, screening isn't) or you can reach out via email at rarefemslashexchangemod@gmail.com.

In the meantime, please keep nominating! :)

Entry tags:

Fanfic, Sense8 (tv), Rajan/Wolfgang/Kala, Any of the cluster visiting each other's homes

Title: Art Must Always Be Free
Author: MerricatB
Fandom: Sense8
Pairing/Characters: Rajan/Wolfgang/Kala
Rating/Category: Mature
Prompt: Sense8, Writer's choice, Any of the cluster visiting each other's homes/family/friends in person
Spoilers: Whole series
Summary: The Mumbai quartet heads to Mexico City. Property damage ensues.
Notes/Warnings: Slightly mature for brief violence

Read on AO3