squirelawrence | Network

Title: Titanium
Character: Derek Hale
TV Series: Teen Wolf
Music: Titanium by Sia
Length: 3:55
Streaming/download at: DW | Tumblr

chanter1944

New birds added to the life list while camping at Lake Kegonsa: Osprey, courtesy the nest built on a doubtless purpose-created platform along a local trail. So, so, cool. :D Also least flycatcher, which was a total random chance surprise. :)

Warm fuzzy of the day in a different category entirely, though, was getting love from a rescue puppydog while on the way back to the apartment with a bag of groceries. The groceries were set safely down before the (possible pitty/lab mix, there were characteristics of both for sure, shorter fur and slightly perked ears, but also fluffy double coat and super happy otter tail) got pet. According to her people, I made her day. My reaction was, she made mine! :)

Random post is random.

musesfool

As I may have mentioned, Baby Miss L loves potatoes, so when I saw a t-shirt on Etsy that said, "Potatoes gonna potate!" around a picture of a potato, I thought, I have to get it for her! Unfortunately, it was only available in neon green, which I did not like the look of. Luckily, many other vendors were also selling t-shirts with pictures of friendly potatoes on them, so I got her this one that says, "Tater tot!"

This morning, I received a series of glamour shots and a video of Baby Miss L thoroughly excited about wearing the t-shirt. It was so great!

I also learned that The Muppets covering Jungle Boogie is one of her current favorite videos. AMAZING!

On all counts, her vibes are immaculate.

Tomorrow, I'm going to a birthday bbq at my brother's, and I'm bringing her the Batman and Robin t-shirts, plus some toddler books about Batman and the Justice League. Hopefully she enjoys them almost as much! (I also recently sent her a Captain America t-shirt, which I believe she wore for the 4th, and I also got pics of her in the Superman dress, with her arms up like she was flying. 😍😍😍)

In other news, I found this review of the new Superman movie really moving. Will I venture out to a theater to see it? Probably not, but I will be very excited to watch it when it makes its way onto HBO in a few months.

*

Current Mood: happy
Current Music: Jungle Boogie - Dr Teeth and the Electric Mayhem

senmut

New Home (571 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Aristocats (1970)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Duchess/Thomas O'Malley, Berlioz & Marie & Toulouse (Disney: Aristocats)
Characters: Thomas O'Malley, Duchess (Disney: Aristocats), Berlioz (Disney), Marie (Disney: Aristocats), Toulouse (Disney)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Domestic Fluff, Character Study, of sorts
Summary:

Thomas O'Malley reflects on his new home.

silvercat17 posting in

justcreate

What are you working on? What have you finished? What do you need encouragement on?

Are there any cool events or challenges happening that you want to hype?

What do you just want to talk about?

What have you been watching or reading?

Chores and other not-fun things count!

Remember to encourage other commenters and we have a discord where we can do work-alongs and chat, linked in the sticky

lirazel

I saw Superman! I liked it a lot!

Positive stuff:

+ Finally, a superhero movie that cares about every single life! I did not think we would ever see such a thing--superhero movies use "collateral damage" to raise stakes while not actually caring about the people who die. But this movie cares because Superman cares. And I love that so very very very much. Even if it hadn't done anything else, I would have thought it a success for that.

+ Honestly, Superman is my favorite superhero because he's so ridiculously good and decent, and this movie gets that. It's earnest and sincere and isn't winking at you but it also isn't saccharine--it knows that it can be HARD to be good, and intentions aren't everything.

+ Top tier casting. Everyone is doing a fantastic job. Corsenswet, Brosnahan, and Hoult ARE their characters. They were just as good as I hoped, but I was not expecting how much I would love Edi Gathegi as Mister Terrific.

+ This movie loves the relationship between Clark and Lois, which means that this movie has good taste. Their chemistry is lovely and the scene where they're doing the interview is probably my favorite scene in the whole thing.

+ Lex is realistically evil in a way that many of our real billionaires are, which I appreciated a lot. His motivations are completely foreign to me, but I only have to look at the real world to see that there are really people who are like that.

+ The twist involving Superman's backstory was so ridiculously good and meaty. A really bold writing choice, but a great one.

+ I thought the pacing was really good! It never felt like it lagged!

+ Everything was bright! You could see what was going on even in the dark scenes!

+ Lots and lots of fun details that made it feel like the people who were making the movie were having fun making it.

+ Krypto!

Mixed stuff:

+ Being a rabid John Williams fan, I was delighted that they adapted his Superman theme for the film, but I really wish we had gotten just one scene where they used the full-throated original. None of the music was that level of thrilling.

+ I could have done with a lot more Clark at the Daily Planet, living his normal life, letting us get to know the Daily Planet people. The action scenes were very good action scenes, but as always in an action movie, I want way more of characters interacting. Imagine how much more Clark & Lois we could have had! However, I understand that the masses do not share my taste so I get why there wasn't more of that, and there was enough that I'm not angry about it.

+ The plot could have been better. It wasn't bad, and it provided a fine backdrop and set piece for the characters to show who they are, but I didn't love it, you know?

+ #teamsomebodyloveeve

+ I wish we'd had a smidge more showing us how Lex inspires loyalty in other people. I mean, yes, in real life, there are a bunch of people who will follow a billionaire that they think is smart without thinking about his morality at all. It's very realistic! but I want to know about this specific dynamic. Is he paying them obscene amounts of money? What is his view of the world that he could convince the engineer to do what she did to her own body?

Negative stuff:

+ Okay, what was the Kents' accents???? If the movie had been set in Alabama, sure, that would be reasonable, but I do not believe that people in Kansas talk like that? Nobody Iw've ever known from Kansas talks like that? It’s so weird how media uses "very southern accent" as stand-in for "country" even when the country the people are from is the Midwest.

If you are from Kansas and I am wrong about how people talk there, please tell me so I can stop being annoyed about this.

[as an aside, Mister Terrific's accent was so lovely that I immediately looked to see where Gathegi grew up, and to my shock found he grew up in California! I would never have guessed it! His southern accent was so realistic! Well done, sir!]

Me trying to work out the geography of these made up countries: ??????? The one is clearly Russia, the other is inspired by Pakistan, Afghanistan, or possibly a province of India, yet we're told this is all happening in Europe. Which makes no sense. Russia is half in Asia, it would have made so much more sense to just say Asia instead????

But my complaints are small.

So yeah! A fun movie! I recommend it even if, like me, you're not such a big superhero person and are exhausted by too many superheroes.

Now can we pretty please have a prequel movie about how Clark and Lois met and how she found out he's Superman???????

leesa_perrie posting in

icons

Teasers:

Over on my DW here.

marthawells

Here's a gift link for the New York Times interview with Paul and Chris Weitz, who wrote, directed, and produced Murderbot:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/arts/television/murderbot-season-finale-chris-paul-weitz.html?unlocked_article_code=1.V08.exvw.M_qE37ROOT58&smid=url-share

twistedchick

Vance is trying to sell bigotry and a return to the time before civil rights. Don't buy it.

petra

I had the opportunity to go to a concert of his recently and enjoyed his part of the show exceedingly. The opening act, Puddles Pity Party, was very much not my thing, alas, but Mr. Yankovic is exuberantly himself, the costume changes are lolarious, and the music is inimitably Weird. If you like his work, you'll almost certainly like his concert. Extra points awarded for the songs (not all of them, alas) that had text videos, effectively functioning as closed captioning with a sense of humor.

Also, the audience was full of people wearing extremely cheerful shirts, and made great viewing.

I have not seen the most recent Murderbot yet, but I did spot David Dastmalchian as John Deacon in a clip of Weird-the-biopic which was played at the concert, so that's almost the same thing, right? I was very proud of my facial recognition software for picking up on that. I would like to belatedly award points to the casting department for finding a way to get another MENA-descended person into Queen, which is a great joke I didn't get at the time.

I loved the new Murderbot short story, which I read aloud to my SO.

Current Mood: daring to be stupid
Current Music: Then tonight we're gonna party like it's 1699

regshoe

My lovely Kidnapped gift was by

sweetsorcery—thank you! :)

I, meanwhile, was pleased to match on The Warm Hands of Ghosts and Laura/Pim again. It's a good pairing for the angsty kind of hurt/comfort where the hurt (of both characters) is bigger and more complicated than the comfort can fix, but it still matters...

A Relapse and a Respite (2411 words) by regshoe
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Warm Hands of Ghosts - Katherine Arden
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Laura Iven/Penelope "Pim" Shaw
Characters: Penelope "Pim" Shaw, Laura Iven
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Feelings, Wrapped in blankets while hurt/sick
Summary:

The flu isn’t quite done with Laura, after all; Pim takes care of her, but she has other things on her mind too.

skygiants

lest you think that having returned The Pushcart War to its rightful owner I went away with my bookshelves lighter! I did NOT, as she pushed 84, Charing Cross Road into my hands at the airport as I was leaving again with strict instructions to read it ASAP.

This is another one that's been on my list for years -- specifically, since I read Between Silk and Cyanide, as cryptography wunderkind Leo Marks chronicling the desperate heroism and impossible failures of the SOE is of course the son of the owner of Marks & Co., the bookstore featuring in 84, Charing Cross Road, because the whole of England contains approximately fifteen people tops.

84, Charing Cross Road collects the correspondence between jobbing writer Helene Hanff -- who started ordering various idiosyncratic books at Marks & Co. in 1949 -- and the various bookstore employees, primarily but not exclusively chief buyer Frank Doel. Not only does Hanff has strong and funny opinions about the books she wants to read and the editions she's being sent, she also spends much of the late forties and early fifties expressing her appreciation by sending parcels of rationed items to the store employees. A friendship develops, and the store employees enthusiastically invite Hanff to visit them in England, but there always seems to be something that comes up to prevent it. Hanff gets and loses jobs, and some of the staff move on. Rationing ends, and Hanff doesn't send so many parcels, but keeps buying books. Twenty years go by like this.

Since 84, Charing Cross Road was a bestseller in 1970 and subsequently multiply adapted to stage and screen, and Between Silk and Cyanide did not receive publication permission until 1998, I think most people familiar with these two books have read them in the reverse order that I did. I think it did make sort of a difference to feel the shadow of Between Silk and Cyanide hanging over this charming correspondence -- not for the worse, as an experience, just certain elements emphasized. Something about the strength and fragility of a letter or a telegram as a thread to connect people, and how much of a story it does and doesn't tell.

As a sidenote, in looking up specific publication dates I have also learned by way of Wikipedia that there is apparently a Chinese romcom about two people who both independently read 84, Charing Cross Road, decide that the book has ruined their lives for reasons that are obscure to me in the Wikipedia summary, write angry letters to the address 84 Charing Cross Road, and then get matchmade by the man who lives there now. Extremely funny and I kind of do want to watch it.

oursin

Walkouts, feuds and broken friendships: when book clubs go bad. I don't think I've ever been in a book club of this kind. Many years ago at My Place Of Work there used to be an informal monthly reading group which would discuss some work of relevance to the academic mission of the institution, very broadly defined, and that was quite congenial, and I am currently in an online group read-through and discussion of A Dance to the Music of Time, but both these have rather more focus perhaps? certainly I do not perceive that they have people turning up without having reading the actual books....

Mind you, I am given the ick, and this is I will concede My Garbage, by those Reading Group Suggestions that some books have at the end, or that were flashed up during an online book group discussion of a book in which I was interested.

Going to book groups without Doing The Reading perhaps goes under the heading of Faking It, which has been in the news a lot lately (I assume everybody has heard about The Salt Roads thing): and here are a couple of furthe instances:

(This one is rather beautifully recursive) What if every artwork you’ve ever seen is a fake?:

Many years ago, I met a man in a pub in Bloomsbury who said he worked at the British Museum. He told me that every single item on display in the museum was a replica, and that all the original artefacts were locked away in storage for preservation.
....
Later, Googling, I discovered that none of what the man had told me was true. The artefacts in the British Museum are original, unless otherwise explicitly stated. It was the man who claimed to work there who was a fake.

This one is more complex, and about masquerade and fantasy as much as 'hoax' perhaps: The schoolteacher who spawned a Highland literary hoax

This is not so much about fakery but about areas of doubt: We still do not understand family resemblance which suggests that GENES are by no means the whole story.

tafadhali posting in

vidding

periru3 and I have posted two more vids in our ongoing vid album Jagged Little Slayer, a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alanis Morissette:

Title: You Oughta Know
Character/Pairing: Buffy/Faith, S4
Summary: I'm not gonna fade as soon as you close your eyes.

AO3 | DW | Tumblr

Title: Ironic
Character/Pairing: Minor characters suffering mishaps
Summary: Isn't it ironic, dontcha think?

AO3 | DW | Tumblr

littlerhymes

I saw a bunch of movies at Sydney Film Festival, several weeks ago. My favourite was probably The Circle (2000, Jafar Panahi) screening as part of a Panahi career retrospective. He's an Iranian director who has been persecuted, imprisoned, and forbidden to leave Iran at various times, and has won numerous film awards.

This movie is set over the span of one day, starting in a hospital maternity ward and ending in a prison cell, giving glimpses into the lives of women under the Islamic State regime. A grandmother laments the birth of a girl because it will mean her daughter (the baby's mother) is likely going to be divorced by her husband; a young woman newly out of prison tries to secure passage home; a woman tries to secure an abortion; and so on, through all the hours of the day. It's so skilfully directed and so naturalistically acted and shot, each storyline bleeding into the next so simply. Panahi was present at this screening and took questions after the movie (some much worse than others, as is the way with public Q&As).

I also had a great time, in a very different way, with Lesbian Space Princess (2025, Emma Hough Hobbs, Leela Varghese). Princess Saira of Clitopolis, a world entirely peopled by lesbians, must go on a quest to rescue her ex-girlfriend, who has been kidnapped and held hostage by Straight White Maliens. This is a silly, funny and very Australian animation with art in a style that reminded me of Adventure Time. The humour is mostly as obvious and silly as indicated by the names; and the other villain of the story, aside from the incels, is Saira's own lack of self-esteem.

There's some very knowing nods here - there is a "problematic (space) ship", the main character's magical girl moment is straight from Revolutionary Girl Utena, one of the other main character is from a "gay-pop" group who runs away from overwork, etc. This session was introduced at the film festival by the directors, who said "we are two nervous people, between us we made up one confident person who could direct this movie."

I liked The Mastermind (2025, Kelly Reichardt). Set in 1970s against the backdrop of the student protests against the Vietnam war, a struggling suburban dad decides to rob a museum of several artworks. He recruits a few people and so begins a rather terrible heist. This is a slow moving, understatedly funny movie, watching all of his schemes unravel in the most obvious ways.

And I liked Twinless (2024, James Sweeney) - when Roman's twin Rocky dies, he ends up at a grief counselling group where he meets Dennis, who has similarly lost his twin Dean. The two strike up a friendship, with Roman the gruff hockey loving straight guy from Idaho, and Dennis the urbane gay guy. Then the movie flashes back, and there's several very funny and/or devastating reveals. It's structurally interesting and the black humour made my neighbour physically cringe at times with second hand embarrassment.

And then there were 2 movies I straight up did not enjoy. Both were documentaries unfortunately lol.

Tokito (2024, Aki Mizutani) subtitled "The 540-Day Journey of a Culinary Maverick" is purportedly a documentary about chef Yoshinori Ishii, who opened a new restaurant in Japan in 2023 after many years living and working overseas. I say 'purportedly' because this is nothing more than a glossy advertisement. It is beautifully shot, gorgeously filmed, but it is just an ad.

The Shadow Scholars (2024, Eloise King) is a documentary about Oxford Professor Patricia Kingori's research into the world of "contract cheating", focusing on the booming trade in Kenyan writers selling their work to students in the global north. The subject is fascinating and I was so interested to hear from the Kenyan writers - these intelligent writers who are capable of doing the work on their own merit but the credit and qualifications go to the privileged students who can buy their labour, reinforcing global inequalities. However - it's a very clumsy and vague documentary that spends a lot of time on filler interstitials - my god, yet another panning shot of Oxford?

penaltywaltz posting in

wipbigbang

I have to make a few unexpected edits, but the final counts for submissions are 219 fics to WIPBB and 45 art projects to WIPRB! It looks like we're going to have plenty for artists and writers to choose from.

Claiming will go live on July 17th, so keep a lookout to the pinned post for links to the summaries! Also, please remember to check the newly updated schedule for the start and end dates of each stage of the bangs.

contrary_cal

So, it turns out I am not a fan of Murderbot short stories that don't have Murderbot in them. Oh, well.

spikedluv

I went downtown like ‘usual’ and hit CVS (I needed one item that I have gotten there in the past and they didn’t have it!), Price Chopper (for a couple of veggie items to go with meals), and the Bakery (for Pip’s deli meat). I also got in a walk around the park and stopped at the veterinarian on the way home for Ti's special dog food.

After unloading the car and putting everything away, I got to mom’s ~10am and stayed until ~3pm. Today’s chores, before and after I went to mom’s, included: two loads of laundry (both washed AND dried, one folded), hand-washed dishes, hard-boiled eggs, grilled steak for Pip's supper, scooped kitty litter, and shaved.

I started and finished the next two Inn at Holiday Bay cozies and watched the current ep of Murderbot.

Temps started out at 65.7(F) and reached 93.7. It was hot. Thankfully I didn't need to spend much time outside.

Mom Update:

Mom had just finished cleaning the bathroom when I arrived! ( more back here )

scifirenegade

Finished reading Gay Berlin yesterday yay!

I'm just gonna say, one does not need to time travel there. Or travel to Berlin point. What happened there in the late 19th century-early 1930s is the same that's happening everywhere today. History is a circle, for better or for worse (mostly worse).

And speaking of circles, I never fully read Conrad Veidt's Wikipedia article because some sources seemed iffy. But good to know that, thanks to unpublished correspondence, some of Connie's belongings (cigarette case and lighter) are at the Margaret Herrick Library, plus the notebooks a fan gave to Lili. Hopefully they won't be burned.