update 17 May 2025

[meridian_rose]

So it's been about six weeks since I last posted and I am once again trying to catch up.
I finish and post a fic to AO3 last month so yay me I guess! And then IDK, falling behind.
Holiday in Bude would have been nicer with better weather. Again, along with previous holidays, maybe I should make a photo collage and write more. We got back late Saturday and did dawn vigil Easter Sunday service!

This got a bit longer than anticipated so, cut tags (I hope they work okay, advanced formatting isn't something I do much of these days!):

Books and TV
The weather's been nice on and off and I enjoy reading hard copies of books outside. So this week I read a book my sister recommended and lent me, "The Gospel of Loki" by Joanne M Harris (author of Chocolat).

A first person, irreverent, unreliable narration of Loki's journey from bodiless wildfire in the realm of Chaos through his adventures with Odin et al until Ragnarök. I enjoyed it a lot and remembered some key moments from my youthful reading of Norse myth, though I'm less familiar with them than some of the Greek myths. There's a sequel, "The Testament of Loki" which I'd like to look at in the future.
I've been reading a lot of the Agatha Raisin books recently so this was a nice change from the cosy mystery genre.

I mainlined "Rivals" s1 on Starz via Disney+ (Hulu exclusive in USA?) while petsitting for a couple of Saturdays at my sisters. I love it, even if almost everyone is Terrible in some way and there's near constant adultery. It's the 1980s so the whole culture and style is of that time and in many ways so over the top I just roll with it. Impressive cast list including David Tennant and Aidan Turner with a dodgy period appropriate moustache. Luke Pasqualino (BBC's Three Musketeers) continues to mature like fine wine.

The soundtrack is amazing, because it's the 80s, and I'm loving things like Taggie's ingenious alternative to GPS (she records herself giving map directions) because tech was in it's infancy; one character is proud of his connection to the relatively new idea of satellite TV.
This Rivals x Text posts is a pretty good overview and here's the trailer:

Watch on YouTube

Dreamwidth Communities

I am upset with myself for missing out on intoabar; the signups opened and closed between my reading of the communities and I missed it by some margin. I might still work on a crossover fic for my own pleasure, use a random generator to choose a character the way the mod does.


But then I'm still writing a very rough first draft for unconventionalcourtship and worrying about getting something finished and then polished before my assigned date to post in June. I decided to go with "Nautilus" which I watched recently.

I also think I missed checking in for getyourwordout this month. I'm failing at all the things.

However lands_of_magic will reopen "late summer or early fall" with a new name and new teams to shake things up so I guess that's something to look forward to :) (Even it does remind me of all the things I made for that comm that I haven't shared here yet!)

Also sunshine_revival is a replacement for the now defunct Sunshine Challenge coming in July.

Pinterest, WTF did you do?!

I've spent a lot of time using various means to download/archive my Pinterest boards from both my writer and my personal pinterest accounts (pics and/or links) after Pinterest have gone full on AI-censorship where bots start declaring your pins Bad and Wrong and in some cases blocking people's accounts losing them years of resources they've curated. I have a lot of feelings about AI and censorship and who gets to decide what's bad and why and the attempt to make every online space "safe" and "true" (see also Tumblr, Wattpad, etc) but mostly I'm channelling my rage into backing things up.
Couple of reddit posts about the situation pinterest is over; mass banning mega thread
Obligatory reminder: never trust one cloud service to keep backups of your stuff. This includes facebook photos or even draft fics at AO3, which is another thing people apparently use for writing without having a copy offline/backed up elsewhere and have lost work; why, oh why, NO, absolutely not, NEVER do this!
I don't use the site much any more if I'm honest, sometimes throw something in the like board (likes got put into a private board some time ago) or occasionally think to pin something writerly to one of the Writing Boards. I was shocked by the amount of sponsored pins appearing in my boards. People are complaining about AI generated images alongside the AI ban hammer.
I opened up a separate Chrome profile to help with some sorting and without adblock there are sites that pretty much unusable. It's horrifying.
Lots of feelings as I pick through the myriad pins that I once felt interesting enough to hold onto in some way. There are things I'm finding that delight me, things I'm rediscovering or am glad are still around, there's a lot of nostalgia for things I used to enjoy, sadness over sites that are long gone. So many sites/blogs/communities/accounts just deleted.

Lots of feelings in general, I guess.

My one shared photo this month is two; one my nephew took on my phone using a filter I didn't know I had. I'm a bull in this photo! We're at the Crooklets Beach Café in Bude. I'm informed that an episode of the TV series "Alex Rider" filmed part of an episode here. The second photo is a shot of the interior.

Comments

[kitarella_imagines]

Lovely to see you back again. It's been verrrrrrrrrrrrrry quiet round here lately. I couldn't really get into 3 Weeks for Dreamwidth this year, I'm more looking forward to the Sunshine Revival.

I LOVE Jilly Cooper books, I had a whole sequence of them when I was younger, and Rivals was my favourite book as it wasn't based around horse riding, which I know nothing about. I am soooo sad that it's on a channel I don't get. I'm hoping it moves to Netflix one day. Also, (putting my Nerd hat on) in the book Rivals, the reason Taggie records herself giving directions is because she is severely dyslexic and can't read maps or writing.🤓😅

Pinterest? What on earth has happened? The AI situation there sounds insane!

Yes! I know people who write online and don't keep a copy offline. My friend sends me an email saying 'did you get my email with my story? I've lost it' and I think 'you didn't write in a document and save it??' It's NOT a good idea to do that, is it. I could never risk losing my precious stories.

I shan't wave a red flag at you disguised at a bull then 😅

[tellshannon815]

If your nephew's ever in Brighton, he definitely needs to look up Isabella, because I think they'd get on (she spent all the Christmas before last taking photos like that with filters on everyone's phones, Mum was deleting some as recently as this week). Don't think I've seen that particular filter, although it would be a good one for my family (Grandad used to have this daft song about Highland coos, and it stuck as a family joke).

I don't know Alex Rider, but Doctor Who has filmed near me (the diner in episode 2 of the current season).

[under_the_silk_tree]

Agatha Raisin is one of those series I have always meant to read but haven't gotten around to. The other day, I saw an advertisement for the TV series. It looked good.

I rarely go to Pinterest anymore unless I am looking for recipes. Too bad they are going so overboard with banning.

The Gospel of Loki sounds good as well. I am not as familiar with Norse myth I was obsessed with Greek when I was younger.

[meridian_rose]

I often find Agatha herself frustrating but the books are an easy read; she's often described as an unlikeable heroine though, so it's intentional.

I would rec this one if you can borrow it from the library! I did remember certain myths as I read but some parts I'd never heard of. Greek myths were also the ones I read most when younger. The Egyptian and Celtic ones came much later.
There was a great Young Adult series I read when my younger sister had them from the library with a lot of Norse elements The Forbidden Game by L J Smith creator of the Vampire Diaries books.
Also the New Zealand show "The Almighty Johnsons" had the characters as reincarnations of Norse Gods, waiting for the reincarnation of Odin so they could return to Valhalla. Again, some characters I was familiar with, others less so!

[meridian_rose]

I'm sure they'd enjoy that :)

Ooh, nice! It's always fun to see places you know on TV, or to visit somewhere filming's taken place. I've got pics from Cardiff Bay somewhere from Torchwood :)
The diner looked very American so is it an American themed place? :)
edit: I love the icon :D

[meridian_rose]

I hope the Sunshine Revival inspires everyone :)

Ooh, nice! Yes, Taggie is dyslexic in the show too, I just thought it was clever of her to record herself where today she could use a SatNav inbuilt to the car or GPS/Google Maps on her phone. The 80s were a different time!

In my not so humble opinion the AI situation in general is insane. It's everywhere and it's causing chaos and destruction all over the place.

I'm paranoid about losing stuff, so yes, I keep back ups!

LOL, I'm quite a friendly bull. Unless I'm angry about AI or something! ♥

[kitarella_imagines]

Oh yes I hope it does.

Yes the 1980s...I feel nostalgic about them. Before computers were everywhere controlling everything *sigh* I used to wait on tenterhooks til the next Jilly Cooper book came out. I haven't got the concentration to read a huge book like that anymore though...

I feel dismayed at the increasing AI everywhere, I think it will isolate humans from each other even more than we are now. People seem to have AI companions now instead of human friends. And it apparently sucks up lots of energy, so that's yet another downside to it, as well as it stealing people's jobs. 😬

Gosh I wouldn't cope if I lost my fics, they are the only thing keeping me sane!

I'll avoid talking about AI to you as a bull then 🐂<--that is supposed to be a bull, but it looks more like a bear!

[tellshannon815]

It is indeed American themed!