branchandroot

Potion Witch
90-chapter webtoon about a woman who's a pharmacist by day and vigilante witch by night. A good, tight, case-centered story with het romance and equal-opportunity emotional hurt/comfort. The ML is an ex-nepo baby who's managed to eke out a living as a cop. Due to his lack of physical endurance, his duties are mostly paper-pushing are cat-feeding. He and the FL are equally competent investigators, but the FL is physically stronger, which I thought was very nice.

Interestingly enough, the first half of the story is about unpeeling the layers of the ML's family trauma while the FL remains opaque and unaffected until the last act that reveals her. I loved the little found family beats between the FL and ML, and the ML's relationships with his estranged brother and his privileged nepo baby peers.

Cons: Disappointed that the 2FL's storyline didn't really go anywhere outside of being a plot device. She's seen at the beginning as being unhappy with her family situation and abusive towards her employees, but nothing comes out of that?

Meg Cabot, "No Offense"
This was a Valentine's Day read: librarian x sheriff romance with small-town mystery/case elements that felt far too short for either storyline to land. The apology pies were pretty cute, though.

Unveil: Jadewind ep1
Only saw ep 1, which was was an hour long..... I like how the FL is written like a ML? She fills some sort of leadership role as a palace-appointed investigator and is good at martial arts. The ML is a physically weak astronomer who can deduce information with math which can be really funny if the drama leaned more on humor. Didn't continue bc ep1 didn't really grab me, which is normal with cdrama but I just have too little patience these days to give 30-episode shows a chance.

Cosmic Princess Kaguya (2026)
Surprisingly, not bait!!! The yuri was real!!! The characters not so much. Iroha's character actually felt like the ML in a 90s/2000s anime... The concept of a tired student who brings home a manic pixie dream robot that proceeds to follow her around at school... The trajectory of their relationship... I really wish they'd done better in developing her arc. I was so invested in her family backstory but it doesn't feel like the movie particularly cares about the characters as people. I did like the sibling relationship even though the relationship progress never translates into action when it matters.

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms
I totally need to rewatch this bc I wasn't looking at the screen the first time and only started paying attention to ep4 (a really good episode) and missed so many fun visual details. I didn't read the original novella(s?) so I don’t have much to say about the show except that the performances were interesting—especially among the older Targaryens, they had such flavorful interactions and I could actually recognize them by the energy they brought in (I kept forgetting who everyone else was). And the music was great… AND it was nice to see texture again after years of living on cmedia lol

james_davis_nicoll

What better cure for melancholy than to serve under a captain whose obsessed pursuit of a leviathan will surely doom all involved?

Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

marcicat

Thanks, Be a Goldfish, for 8 great weeks of creativity! Time to go do the feedback form and send more comments!

(hmmm... March approaches... time for a new challenge???)

mific posting in

fancake

Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: John Sheppard/Rodney McKay
Rating: Explicit
Length: 18,910
Content Notes: No AO3 warnings apply
Creator Links: crysothemis on AO3, nny (villainny) on Audiofic Archive
Themes: Inept in love, Friends to lovers, First time, Humor, Pining

Summary: John never sleeps with anyone twice.

Reccer's Notes: Rodney (who's attracted to John) bumps into a few women, and then Ronon, leaving John's quarters. He clumsily asks John about these goings on, and mostly accidentally challenges John to have sex with him (because why not with Rodney if everyone else gets to?). It doesn't go swimmingly so Rodney demands a do-over, then another do-over, and another, because there's always something wrong with their encounters. This is partly as Rodney's bisexual and he mistakenly thinks John must be as well, and Rodney also manufactures "mistakes", until they're both entirely hooked and John's joining in with the pretense enthusiastically. It's hot, funny, and clever - a great read.

Fanwork Links: Do Over
And there's a podfic by nny

shipperslist

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mific posting in

fanart_recs

Fandom: Interview With the Vampire
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac
Content Notes/Warnings: none
Medium: traditional art (drawing)
Artist on DW/LJ:

alby_mangroves
Artist Website/Gallery: alby_mangroves on AO3, alby_mangroves on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: As usual with alby, gorgeous detail and a beautiful drawing, with Lestat and Louis lying intertwined.
Link: After the Storm

selenak

Last year I marathoned the very well made series “Paradise” (Hulu in the US, Disney + for the rest of us), but was quite torn about whether or not I was happy regarding the announcement of a second season due to the show’s success. It seemed to me the first season told a mostly self contained story and the premise would lose its key ingredient in a second season. Also, there had been a couple of shows which were terrible when more than one season was greenlighted because they clearly hadn’t planned for it. Otoh: nitpicks aside, I did love Lost, which made a pretty radical premise change and pulled it off. And the first season of Paradise had been pretty perfect for what it was. So I watched. And based on the first three episodes now released (and there is a reason why the first three came together, more beneath the spoiler cut), I am happy to report that it looks like I was wrong in my fears. Those three eps are excellent.

( Spoilers are now all pumped up and ready… )

Current Mood: curious
Current Location: on the train

tamaranth

2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smith

How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them and as the dust settles, dance upon it. How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith. For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, and walk again. [loc. 2494]

Another memoir from Patti Smith, author of Just Kids and M Train (the latter of which I have not read). Bread of Angels (the title refers to 'unpremeditated gestures of kindness') covers Smith's childhood, her years as a pioneering punk artist, and her 'walking away' from success to have a real life, marrying Fred 'Sonic' Smith and having children.( Read more... )

Current Mood: hopeful

sholio

I watched this over the last couple of days. (8 30-minute episodes on D+.) It's really unusual - not like anything else in Marvel's backlist. Somehow it felt like it belonged to a different era, like the type of superhero show that might've been made in the 70s or 80s. It's a comedy-drama-satire about two out of work actors trying to get a role on the superhero movie Wonder Man, which (in universe) is a remake of a cult hit show from a few decades ago. And that's about 90% of the plot. There is SOME other stuff going on which provides a superhero-related throughline for the movie, namely

spoilers for things revealed in the first couple of episodes

one of the actors (the protagonist) actually does have superpowers and is hiding it because in the MCU, super-powered individuals have to carry insane amounts of liability insurance to work in Hollywood and no production would hire him; and the other is spying for the government. So obviously both of these things provide the show's main sources of will they? won't they? who'll find out? tension.

But mostly it's just an indie-ish show about being an actor. It's unglamorous, it's full of slow-paced scenes of people doing ordinary things, trying out for parts, dealing with petty professional jealousy and eccentric directors, having long conversations in cars. The staging and lighting and the very ordinary-looking supporting characters are all more art-film than Marvel movie. It's about people who love movies both personally and professionally, and know them inside and out. It's at least partly framed around Midnight Cowboy, at a showing of which the two protagonists meet, and it's also framed around beats from the script for the Wonder Man movie that the two are memorizing and acting out scenes from. At least some of the actors on the show are simply doing cameos as themselves, in the form of people that the protagonists might have plausibly run into in their careers.

I wasn't on board with every creative choice the show made, and in fact I sort of went back and forth between episodes on whether I actually liked it all that much (though I was sold by the end), but it's fascinating and thoughtful and interesting and a bit unpolished-feeling in a way that Marvel productions never feel anymore. In fact, the naturalistic dialogue and slightly clumsy/awkward way the characters relate to each other felt real enough that I would sometimes stumble a bit when it would hit a more typical Marvel beat, as it sometimes does, because it felt a little out of place.

I'm legitimately unsure who the target audience for this show is, and maybe so were Marvel's TPTB. I'm honestly surprised it got made at all.

( Some actual spoilers )

It made me remember how, in the early days of the MCU, it felt like the movies were all doing something different and being something different, and then they just all kinda came to feel like the same thing. This one is doing something different and being something different - in this case: 1970s arthouse film - and even if I wasn't on board with everything, I liked what it was doing and being.

setsuntamew

I'm gonna try very hard to fight the "haha anxious fears were right" thoughts and also wait until the full MV release, but.......my fears were kinda right and I'm so far just very "meh" about the MaM fanthanx preview :T

The bit of song preview we got is slow and just...not the sort of song I'm into. I know that Halloween Rendezvous is soooooooo good so it's hard to follow up something like that, but most MaM songs have more energy??? I'm really holding out hope that the full version is better ;w;

And then I'm also not a huge fan of the outfit D: The card itself is really pretty, but there's sooooo much going on with the outfit...

I love the stars and sparkles of the bg and his face is so pretty but there's too much going on in the outfit and not enough tying it together
One of the problems is that while the default MaM outfit is cowboy themed, none of his event outfits ever are, so it's hard to design something that captures the essence of MaM when every time he wears something completely different. It does look a bit better in the one screencap of the MV that's been revealed, but like. bluh.

BLUH!!!!!!!!!

Also, my least favorite character in all of enstars is the 4* in the event 🙃 I'm being so strong and brave about it, but like. sobs. why. I know Madara has like 2.5 friends and that it's too much to hope for Kohaku to show up, but like....Leo????? Can him and Leo hang out ever again, or is that forbidden now??? They've barely done anything in !!-era stuff, like?????????????? plz let them hang again ;w;

I have more thoughts but it's nearly 3 am and I like....don't wanna keep being negative right now cuz I'm just gonna wind myself up again.

At least the other scout box 5* is fucking incredible. It's a very beautiful Mika card and I'm holding out hope I'll get him ;w; My mental health hinging on a single gacha card......

~~also my image hosting is still broken I hate sending support emails I want to give up~~

Current Mood: discontent
Current Location: Garwyn Oaks, MD
Crossposts: https://kirrianu.insanejournal.com/52480.html

james

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pattrose

A couple of more ways to remember Aly

February 25th, 14:22
Hi, all, trying to get this posted in the same places I announced Aly's passing. There's a brand-new Collection at AO3 called "For Aly". It was created in response to some of her friends wanting a place to post stories or art in her honor. It's open to anyone and can contain fanfic or fanart (old or new), meta comments, or whatever you think Aly would have enjoyed. Just read the profile, which explains its purpose in more detail and has FAQ.
https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Aly_In_Memoriam
I've posted a story of what we did this past weekend to honor her.

Also, this weekend at our The Sentinel Chat, we'll be discussing one of Aly's stories, Polar Ice Caps. Here's an announcement link that explains where and when to find TS Chat and how the fic club works:
https://ts-news.livejournal.com/722001.html?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=esn&utm_source=JournalNewEntry
Here's the link to Polar Ice Caps story. It's about 48K
https://archiveofourown.org/works/1134234
Finally, today is Aly's birthday. Hope you're enjoying it wherever you are. We're still celebrating you down here!

pattrose

How to make Cheddar Cheese Quick Bread
Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar
1 cup milk
1 large egg
2 tablespoon butter
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350° Grease/spray a loaf pan.
In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, sugar, garlic powder and salt. Stir in shredded cheese. Set aside.
In a separate bowl, whisk together milk, egg & butter.
Add liquid ingredients to bowl of dry ingredients. Stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
Spoon/pour into loaf pan.
Bake for 45-50 minutes. Top should be a golden brown.
Cool on wire rack. Remove loaf from pan, slice & serve.

pattrose

Things that Scare Me:

Things that make you jump. I'm scared to death of horror movies. I can't even watch previews. I'm such a chicken.

Anyone else?

pattrose

26. When you leave your home, what essentials do you have with you?

1. My small purse, with essentials.
2. My oxygen.
3. Extra medication for emergencies.

That's about it. I'm not very exciting.

What about you?

antimony_medusa posting in

fandomcalendar

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princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: pleased

geraineon posting in

cnovels

This is your weekly read-in-progress post~

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*

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Hell’s Heart by Alexis Hall

thank you!

SGA: Do Over by crysothemis

Reading Wednesday 2026, #8

After the Storm by artgroves (alby_mangroves) (SFW)

Paradise Season 2, episodes 1- 3

2026/029: Bread of Angels — Patti Smit

Wonder Man

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Alyjude memoriam

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