It's Not a Typical Animal, Chapter 6
Jul. 19th, 2025 12:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
It's Not a Typical Animal (5680 words) by laridian
Chapters: 6/9
Fandom: Fallout 76
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s), Beckett (Fallout 76)
Additional Tags: Art
Series: Part 4 of The Accidental Raider
Summary: When a thrill ride at Nuka-World On Tour goes awry, it awakes a monster from the depths. It goes on a rampage, and it appears nothing can stop it.
Accidental Raider Rowan Dane has something of a "Disney Princess" way with animals. But will that work on an ultracite titan?
This chapter:
The ultracite titan continues its rampage across the Ash Heap. Will and Beckett attempt to slow it down (as seen in the previous chapter). Where are Willow and Rowan?
Drabble_weekly Challenge 458 - Last dance
Jul. 19th, 2025 11:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
F-FW Challenge 485 - Spat in the eye
Jul. 19th, 2025 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Ianto, Jack
Author: m_findlow
Rating: PG
Length: 1,385 words
Content notes: None
Author notes: Written for Challenge 485 - Face at
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Summary: Ianto is accustomed to less than friendly inmates, though some prove more painful than others.
Spat in the eye
(no subject)
Jul. 18th, 2025 12:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
So, yesterday I started on Casey Johnstone's Couch to Barbell program, in the hopes that weightlifting would prove beneficial to my fibromyalgia and back pain.
It seemed like not very much exercise. 14 minutes worth with mandatory rest periods between each set. Stage One follow-along video
But today I am wiped out. Absolutely flattened. Admittedly I did go to belly dancing while my legs were still like jelly, but I don't think belly dancing is the culprit.
I'm telling myself that the fact that my legs are so sore must mean that it is in fact doing something, and I could definitely do with stronger legs, so onward! I'm on a mandatory rest day today, but she hardly needed to tell me, I'm not fit to do anything today even if I wanted to.
Yesterday I also made over a £10 second hand denim jacket on the model of some gorgeous £60 ones I saw at a festival. Shout out to my local haberdashery for carrying some interesting fabrics for £9 per half metre. I'm pleased with this:
I could only do that because yesterday it was cool enough to go in the conservatory where the sewing machine is. Today is not, so I'm not sure what I can achieve today. Maybe some writing?
Wednesday Reading Meme July 16 2025
Jul. 16th, 2025 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Nothing to completion! I am reading a lot of different books at the same time tho.
What I’m Reading
Someone You Can Build a Nest In by John Wiswell – Last week I called this “a weird and gooey monster book” – This week, it’s a devastating romance with the two main characters that have layers upon layers of mommy issues. It’s great, would recommend. Hugos Shortlist.
Style: Toward Clarity and Grace by Joseph Williams – 1981 book on writing clearly. I think it does a lot of really careful explanation of the problems people encounter with getting their ideas into words. I’m only about 10% in.
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym – 1952, set immediately post-War in England. Our main character is a spinster with a fascinating set of social circles. “Excellent women” in this case seem to be all the women who do the grunt work of making things work in society. Recommended by a friend who never reads anything more recent than the 1970s.
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison – re-reading for book club. Yup, this is amazing. Easily the fourth time I have re-read.
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo – Did not finish, am abandoning – I realized that the annoying side character was actually going to be a romantic interest and I was like, I need out.
What I’ll Read Next
The Deep Dark
Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”
What I'm Doing Wednesday
Jul. 16th, 2025 03:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
healthcrap
Yay, I'm not anemic anymore, though I've still got another 3 months of iron supps ahead of me. I had a psych appt today to confirm my meds are still doing their thing. Boo, I'm temporarily off the rhodiola rosea and back on Adderall for the next month (because rhodiola hasn't been safety tested for long-term use). ( cut for mention of weight loss )
yay!
As has been posted everywhere, Murderbot is getting a Season 2! That means ART! \o/ I haven't yet caught up with the last few eps of S1, but I'll get there in due time. (Viewing, such a challenge when I'm on a reading kick. And when I'm NOT on a reading kick. Sigh.)
( rl )
yarning
I went to yarn group Sunday and had a really nice time. Great turnout, and it's good for me to see human beings in person. Pain in the shoulder, though. I want my crochet arm back! But I met a few new people, including one young woman who also has Ehlers-Danlos. So cool to commiserate in person.
natural disaster: Texas floods
My parents were finally able to leave their ridgetop and run errands, though all the intact bridges are missing guardrails (at minimum). One of them was completely surrounded with gear and detritus from the kids camp upriver. So heartbreaking. Thankfully, their POA jumped right on finding engineers and requesting bids for repairing their main bridge & its banks, and the low water crossing is sound, now that it's clear of downed trees. I am still so sad about the catastrophe, even though I'm not directly affected. Camps were a safe space for me when I was a kid, and though they were in a different part of the state, it's all too easy to imagine the worst happening.
kitty
#resist
July 17: Good Trouble Lives On protests/marches tomorrow. If you participate, please think of me & everyone else who would like to march but can't.
Note: Mercury stations retrograde tomorrow, July 17, at 15*34' Leo (and stays retrograde until August 11 at 4*14' Leo). I'm curious what that will mean for the protests. At least they're on a Thursday, so maybe that will help keep people safe amid the likely miscommunications.
I hope all of y'all are doing well! <333
Costume Bracket: Round 4, Post 6
Jul. 15th, 2025 06:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
( Outfits below the Cut )
Vote for your favourite of these costumes. Use whatever criteria you please - most practical, most outrageously spacey, most of its decade!
Voting will remain open for at least a week, possibly longer!
Costume Bracket Masterlist
Images are a mixture of my own screencaps, screencaps from Lost in Time Graphics, PCJ's Whoniverse Gallery, and random Google searches.
A poem for summer
Jul. 14th, 2025 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
by Li-Young Lee
From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy
in the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.
From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.
O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.
There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
June Reads and Pride Shenanigans
Jul. 13th, 2025 10:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)

( June 2025 ) Oh, but speaking of Pride. I should probably make another post for this-- but I know myself enough to know I won't-- so here, have some pictures I took in my medium-ish city's Pride Parade:

So, this is the first Pride since moving back to my hometown last summer (did I ever tell you guys I moved across the country? No? Ooops, sorry).
Anyway, I did not know what to expect, but I was excited because they didn't do any pride related things when last I lived here (but that was like 30 years ago, so that wasn't too rare) and it's a middle-ish sized big town, but it's in a red side of a very blue state, so who knows that that means.
But it was lovely! They had a parade, then a festival and at the end, since it was on June 14th, a No Kings rally. I went to the parade and then volunteered at the booth my employer had there and that was great fun. Then I hung out at the protest before taking the bus home. It was a great time!
Media Round Up: Ups and Downs
Jul. 13th, 2025 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
However I do have some thoughts on things I've read and watched recently to share:
The Truth Season 3cases 9 and 10 — The last two cases, I’m sad that this is over now! This was so, so much fun! The second to last case featured my favorite costumes of the whole show in show with many excellent costumes. This really a fairly frivolous show but I love it so much! (Content note: the final case involved a dead kid)
Mu Guiying Takes Command ep 1-4— I wanted to love this. It is an adaptation of The Generals of the Yang Family, a story dating back to at least the Ming Dynasty that features women in command of the military. The FL is very badass. However I got fed up with how childish both the leads were acting.
Also this was released in 2012 which isn’t really that long ago but it feels like a whole different era.
Medieval Textiles across Eurasia, c. 300–1400 by Patricia Blessing, Elizabeth Dospěl Williams, Eiren L. Shea— This is a novella length overview of the topic. About 80 pages with a lot of pictures. I liked how it tied together such a big area and a long time period. Zooming out helped me put the stuff I know about (Chinese textiles, mostly Tang dynasty) into a larger context. I read it for the FTH biography I’m creating on Liao textiles.
A Song for You & I by Kay O'Neill— My friend Maureen, who is a children’s librarian, recced this graphic novel by the author of the Tea Dragon Society books in her most recent newsletter. And I’m glad she did because I haven’t been keeping up with recent releases and this was really good. It's a very gentle story that’s kind of coming of age with a lot of travel. One of the characters has a flying horse! The art is really good. I kept stoping to admire the color gradients. Just a very lovely book.
Please Be My Star by Victoria Grace Elliott— Reading a A Song for You & I reminded me that my library has lots of graphic novels and I checked out a whole pile of them including this one. Please Be My Star is a YA romance featuring teens putting on a play. It was very cute though once or twice I got a little too much second hand embarrassment.
Jeongnyeon: The Star Is Born ep 1-4— This kdrama sounded so exactly my thing. It’s got preforming arts, tons of women, and crossdressing girls! It’s also very pretty and well done. So I’m baffled as to why after four episodes all I feel about it is “meh”