I sometimes abuse ampersands

Title: My Redemption
Fandom: Star Trek: Discovery & Star Trek: Section 31
Music: My Redemption by Halestorm
Summary: 'don't need saving to save myself/ don't need forgiveness to bless my guilt'
Notes: Premiered at wiscon_vidparty 2026!
Warnings: quick cuts, flashing lights, blood, violence

AO3 | bsky | DW | tumblr | YouTube

⌈ Secret Post #7079 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1011.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Sarah Rees Brennan, All Hail Chaos: Volume two: ( more isekai )

Cameron Reed, What We Are Seeking: ( stunning diversity )

Daryl Gregory, The Porcelain Sisters: ( creepy doll  )

Bob Proehl, The Nobody People: ( X-Men vols. 1 & 2 )

Meg Elison, Foundling Fathers: ( cloned Founders )

Kemi Ashing-Giwa, The Splinter in the Sky: ( f/f sf )

Matt Dinniman, A Parade of Horribles:( the beatings will continue until morale improves )

Martha Wells, Platform Decay: ( I love you, narrator Kevin R Free )

Robert Jackson Bennett, A Trade of Blood: ( Sherlock Holmes with leviathans )

Adrian Tchaikovsky,( Tyrant Philosophers and Dogs of War books )

T. Kingfisher, Wolf Worm: ( worms are big )

Charles Soule & Ryan Brown, Eight Billion Genies:( careful what you wish for )

Reading: I am still slowly working through Braiding Sweetgrass, which is well suited to a gradual reading of one chapter at a time. I've also started in on The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible. And I started reading Diary of a Keen Gardener (Mary Keen), but I think I'm bouncing off it after a chapter; no slight to the book itself, but so far I don't think it's my thing.

I finished reading To Ride a Rising Storm and now have to wait for however long for the next book. (Ah, for that window of childhood when I was quite young and ransacking the adult SFF section of the library and thus completed series were in epic supply. OTOH, it was all by definition books from the '80s or earlier, so.) I'm currently reading Eden Robins' Remember You Will Die, which is really neat so far.

And my copy of the new Yotsuba&! (vol. 16) arrived and I devoured it almost immediately. It remains the one manga series that gets read AT ONCE whenever there's a new release. It remains impossibly charming. It's also not a series I would ever have imagined making me rear back in surprise--the scope of the story is incredibly small! It's a slice-of-life about a five-year-old!--but this volume did that. Amazing.

---

Watching: A bit more Justice in the Dark (we're now one episode shy of halfway through) and a bit more Witch Hat Atelier. (I have now confirmed via Goodreads that I only ever read vol. 1 of the Witch Hat Atelier manga, back in 2020. The timing may explain why I remembered essentially nothing about it.)

Happy birthday, catlinyemaker, heleninwales and ruudboy!

1. We had a nice morning at Disneyland. There's new Mandalorian and Grogu menu items, plus Smuggler's Run has been rethemed for the movie, so there was lots of new stuff to check out.

2. Finished up another puzzle today. This is one I bought a while back before I really started doing the 1000 piece ones, but now I'm ready for it and it was a lot of fun!



3. This sweet Jasper has gone three weeks without an accident. We're still on alert, but I really hope this means he's over it.

They've got a bunch of new stuff to go along with the new Mandalorian and Grogu movie and all that started on Thursday, so that was our main focus for today. I saw some posts yesterday and apparently lines were ridiculous on Thursday, but thankfully while the park was busy (it's Memorial Day weekend, after all), the Star Wars stuff wasn't mobbed.

( Read more... )

Omer Bartov, Israel: What Went Wrong?:( internal/external causes )

Jef I. Richards, A History of Advertising: The First 300,000 Years: ( factoids )

Hal Brands, The Eurasian Century: Hot Wars, Cold Wars, and the Making of the Modern Century: ( geography and politics )

Paisley Rekdal, Appropriate: A Provocation:( what is appropriation? )


Mel Stanfill, Professor Superstar: Fandom and Anti-Fandom of Academia: ( fans and anti-fans of academia )

Roger Kreuz, Strikingly Similar: Plagiarism and Appropriation from Chaucer to Chatbots:( plagiarism and some related stuff )

Farah Mendelsohn, Considering the Female Man: Or, as the bear swore: ( lit crit )

Joshua Clark Davis, Police Against the Movement: The Sabotage of the Civil Rights Struggle and the Activists Who Fought Back: ( how to destroy a movement with law )

We were originally from LJ, made the import last year, but hope to see some new works/faces! If anyone from over there still wants to focus on their claim, feel free - just let me know of any updates (to either your claim/name/table location!)

⌈ Secret Post #7078 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 39 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1011.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Not so much re-inventing the wheel, as having to point out something that is already known and has been for a long time (it was not really news when my primary-school teacher was making the point): Children’s reading should prioritise pleasure over learning, says laureate. Sigh.

***

Also on perhaps a similar theme that the obvious straight road is not actually the way there: science is not simply a sequence of tasks that can be optimized:

It advances through a process analogous to Darwinian evolution: variation across many independent efforts; selection through critique, replication, and competition; and retention of robust results. This distributed structure is what allows science to correct itself and to generate novelty. Independence is not incidental; it is the mechanism that produces both reliability and discovery.
....
The scientific system thrives on inefficiency: redundant efforts, failed attempts, and divergent paths. These are not costs to be eliminated but sources of discovery. By contrast, optimization pressures drive convergence—faster iteration within a constrained search space. The result may be more output but less exploration of the unexpected.

***

I stumbled across a remarkable collection of photographs:

There are several images in the collection of relevance to queer history, not least in those that record varieties of touch between men that would later become discouraged. In one, we see four young men sitting together on a bench in a garden: two of them hold hands. In another, a man takes another man on his lap, posing as lovers in a pose that mimics the popular visual culture of the day.
But the collection is arguably of most interest to LGBTQ+ history, specifically trans history, for the kinds of gender play it records. Several images in the collection illustrate traditions of gender crossing in British culture. Some show pantomime dames and another perhaps shows the role of a boy character taken up by a woman.

?Normal for Norfolk???

***

An extraordinary story of people who appear to be the 'good guys' (Liberal representing the anti-slavery interest in Lyme Regis) absolutely knee-deep in electoral corruption. Bonus appearance of Mary Anning!

What is most striking about Pinney’s career as an MP is not just the willingness of a fairly advanced Liberal to engage in wholesale electoral corruption, but his own attitude to slavery given his family background. As early as 1832 he had called on the hustings for its complete abolition and in 1838 he willingly voted for the Whig government’s apprenticeship reforms.

***

This is fascinating: The Plotland Houses of Britain: How a 20th century working-class housing movement was stifled, but I'd like to see some consideration of how the post-WWII prefab housing developments and attitudes thereto would fit onto what's described here.

(Also resonates with account in Houlbrook's Songs of Seven Dials about what well-intentioned progressive town-planners wanted to do to those traditional parts of inner London, but in the event, didn't.)

Happy birthday, szandara!

1. It's the start of a three day weekend! I'm very excited about that. No particular plans, but an extra day off work is exciting on its own.

2. The weather is back to high 60s/low 70s after those couple days of heat we had earlier this week. I just checked the forecast and it looks like it'll stay that way for the next week or so at least.

3. I just happened to look at the calendar for next month and saw that my birthday is on a Friday, so I put in for that day and the Monday to give myself a four day weekend.

4. Where could Ollie be!?

Recently Finished
Kills Well with Others
Sequel to Killers of a Certain Age, about middle aged female assassins. I liked this one, too. Not sure if there will be any more, because it's hard to keep going "okay this time we've really for real retired" with each book lol.

Secrets Typed in Blood
Third in the Pentecost and Parker series of historical murder mysteries. Still enjoying this series (in fact I think I liked this one better than the first two) and have already requested the next one from the library.

Nobody's Baby
Second in the Dorothy Gentleman sci-fi mystery novella series. I liked this one, too, though not as much as the first. And I'm not sure if there were some details in the first book that I missed or if this one just made it more clear. I thought it was sort of a retro sci-fi setting but it seems to be even more than just a retro vibe, but rather the spaceship having left earth sometime in the very early 20th century, based on various references to technology and attitudes on earth before they left. So I'm curious to see if more of that gets explored in future books.

Nodame Cantabile vol. 1-5
This is one of those modern classic manga series that I've heard about for ages but never read. It's set at a music college. I've read another series by the author (Tensai Family Company) ages and ages ago and liked it, so I'd always meant to get around to this someday but just never had. I got the first three volumes free off Amazon Japan a while back and just now got around to reading them, then switch to the English translation for the rest of the series as it's 25 volumes total and I don't love it enough to want to buy the whole thing. The English translation is pretty shoddy quality, both in terms of translation skill and the typesetting. It feels very much like a scanlation rather than a professional job, but I'm getting it for free from the library so I'll stick with it.

⌈ Secret Post #7077 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


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Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1010.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Anyway, I was dipping in again to the Violet Hunt Tales of the Uneasy and in 'The Operation' there is the backstory where a man's first wife -

had smoothed and made easy the path of divorce for the man she loved.... full of zeal to give him his freedom. It was hardly human, so the woman who had profited by her action thought, and certainly not very womanly. Florence could not imagine herself allowing a cold business-like lawyer to dictate her a letter bidding Joe come back to her herewith; a summons intended, of course, for ultimate publication. It disgusted Florence, this horrible business of sueing for restitution of conjugal rights!

Only a divorce-law nerd like moi would probably be able to decode this?

This was the cleanest way a woman could get quit of a husband pre 1923 - he had of course to be adulterous (or appear to have been) and refusing to restitute conjugal rights counted as desertion.

Otherwise she had to prove cruelty (which could include knowing infection with a loathsome disease) or that he was guilty of a sexual crime (rape, sodomy, incest....).

But in a situation where the man had, presumably, already run off with Another Woman, having to go through that legal rigmarole of asking him to come back so that he could refuse and be legally deserting does strike one as a very chagrining procedure.

I decided to walk over to Disneyland rather than taking the monorail, since it's actually not that much further to the park than to the monorail stop, and the monorail only goes one direction, which is opposite to where the park is from our hotel. So you walk a little less to get to the monorail but then have to go three stops to get to the park entrance. Carla wanted to preserve her energy for in the park, so she planned to take the monorail over to meet me, but I just walked over and it was quite a nice walk.

( Tokyo Disneyland Part 1! )

A current very-Canadian thing is that payments for the Loblaws (one of the national grocery giants) bread settlement (the Canadian Packaged Bread Class Actions Settlement) are trickling out to the tune of $49.01 per claimant. I've been seeing mention of it all week on Bluesky. The notification about mine arrived this morning. I doubt Loblaws even feels the settlement amount, and God knows the mainstream chains are wringing every cent out of people that they can, one way or another, but it's still nice to see them actually paying for a wrongdoing. I will take my not-quite-fifty-dollars, thank you.

---

I was happy to see this morning that The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible is on sale in ebook, so I've snagged that to supplement the hard copy of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible.

---

On the weekend, scruloose and I decided that we'll take a Friday off to visit the local non-profit's seedling sale, since it's Friday to Sunday for the duration of its run. We were having a few very warm days, so we briefly considered doing it today, but thankfully sense prevailed, given that there was a frost warning last night and there's another tonight. So. Maybe next Friday, but going in two weeks is probably a better idea. (The local standard for "we're FINALLY sure there won't be more frost" is "after the full moon in June", but this year's isn't until June 30th. [There are two this month--May 1st and May 31st.])

(I know lettuce and spinach are very fond of cool weather, so I'm as reasonably sure as possible before going out to look that our seedlings will be okay, but I can't help a bit of reflexive worry.)

---

Occasionally I remember that I can just upload images on Dreamwidth. Have a pic of some of our tiny lettuce seedlings on their second day poking up from the soil. (These are the Freckles variety, and yesterday it looked like we had some popping up from all the lettuce types except the Black Seeded Simpson.) The plant marker behind them, despite appearances, is not a popsicle stick; the markers we bought are noticeably larger than that.

1. I started playing Yoshi and the Mysterious Book and it's super cute! It's an entirely exploration focused game, and I do love exploration. I do miss bashing enemies a bit, though, lol.

2. One of my meetings today got cancelled and one for tomorrow got rescheduled to next week, and when I was looking at the calendar I realized that a recurring meeting that's every other Thursday had somehow gotten deleted from my to-do list, so I wasn't expecting it today, but thankfully I realized well ahead of time and didn't miss the meeting.

3. If I fits, I sits!

⌈ Secret Post #7076 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.



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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 06 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1010.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Years ago, when Handmaid's Tale the TV show came out, I was living with a roommate who had a viewing party with friends every week. And when the show started airing they watched it every week, and I joined them, because it was an easy social activity where I never had to leave my own apartment.

I discovered through that experience that I apparently had a LOT more feelings about the original book (novella?) than I thought, because I had a LOT of feelings about how the show was doing things Wrong. It was tough for me to articulate why it bothered me so much, at the time, as the differences in S1 between book and show were still fairly subtle, but I decided the rest of the show wasn't worth my time, and felt very justified when it ended and I caught up on what they'd done with it all.

Anyway, all of which is to say, when The Testaments came out I was like - DEFINITELY reading that book! And then, the war in Ukraine, and October 7th, and another war, and another war, and another war... let's just say sinking into a fictional gender dystopia with bonus rape content on top was not something I really felt like doing.

So, the show came out, and I told myself I'd wait until I read the book. But I am very out of things to watch, and needed background noise for my day, and so started the first episode.

Boy howdy, if you ever need a form of entertainment know that you can watch an episode of The Testaments with me and I will pause about every 3 minutes and rant at you for like 20 minutes. For the entire episode. Guaranteed.

I can't say when this has EVER happened before, but legit the first 15 minutes of that episode annoyed me SO MUCH that I went and borrowed the book from the library ON THE SPOT and am now 25% into it, after less than a day (when I wasn't planning on having any reading time).

Do I ENJOY sinking into that particular one of Atwood's worlds? Not really, I'm still not mentally in a great place for it. But do I feel like I NEED her book so my braincells can recover from 15 minutes of the Hulu show? ABSOLUTELY.

My brain is basically treating it like medicine. Does it taste good? It does not, but we need to down it in one shot, as quickly as possible, so we can move on with our lives.

And yes, in case you were wondering, the medicine absolutely does work. How does that meme go? "Begone, you demons of stupidity"? That's me with that TV show.

*

I've been reading and enjoying so much The Pitt fic. Give me all the oldschool slash fics where it's just (presumably) straight dudes on a workplace show and then all of them being together in some combo or another.

1. Hot Under the Collar (85475 words) by itsflippinCJ
Chapters: 16/16
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Jack Abbot/Dennis Whitaker
Summary: In which Dennis "I'm obviously just a beta with a really mild scent and a huge thing for Alphas" Whitaker is completely obsessed with his chief and the night shift attending, and it's all totally normal and completely ok and 100% Not A Problem.

I read this fic during the break between S1 and S2, it doesn't require any knowledge of S2 canon (or really more than a few episodes of S1 to understand who everyone is). Dennis is a beta who is actually an alpha, and Robby and Jack are alphas too, and this is 85k of my favorite sort of porn-is-plot writing. A++, stellar work.


2. In their eyes shall shine (6066 words) by Irrelevancy
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch
Summary:“You really think, after all we’ve seen together—hell, after all I’ve seen, you’ve got something crazy enough in your head that it’d scare me off?”

Now, this is VERY much a post S2 fic, but it's maybe my favorite one so far. It's medical kink, it's going into the deep end with Robby, it's exactly the dynamic I LOVE with him and Jack.


3. the taste of truth (16646 words) by Saturn
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch
Summary: “I haven’t had a heat since I was fourteen,” Robby said, not meeting Jack’s eyes. “Never planned to again, but today…” He shrugged. “I guess today was too much. Game over.” Robby has his first heat in 40 years, after his suppressants fail. He can’t hide who he is anymore, but the last thing he wants is an Alpha.

OK, so, I could honestly just send you to read all of Saturn's fics and that would be its own reclist, but this is the first one read (because of course I started from the omega-verse). This is post S1, and it's wonderful and lovely and again dynamics I absolutely love and spot-on voices and just, everything.


4. save me, serve you (26213 words) by sweetsabbatical
Chapters: 5/?
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Jack Abbot/Dennis Whitaker
Summary: Everyone presents around the time they come to adulthood as either Dominant or Submissive. Dominants and Submissives alike require regular domination or submission to keep their hormone levels in check. Submissives are especially vulnerable to sickness if they do not enter subspace on a regular basis. Hucklerabbot biological BDSM AU.

Look, this is a WIP, I have no idea whether it'll ever be continued or finished, and I generally don't rec WIPs. However these types of AUs are so rare these days, and this one is really fun imo, and there's already 26K of it, and I don't feel like the chapters end in cliffhangers, so. I really enjoyed this, and if you're into these kinds of AUs you deserve to know this one exists lol


5. sweet sounds coming down (7827 words) by Saturn
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/John Shen (The Pitt)
Summary: “Hey, thanks,” Abbot said, picking up the coffee cup. “Even if it’s a self-serving gesture, I appreciate it.” He gave John a wide grin—one that went all the way up to his eyes, highlighting his crow's feet—and John’s belly fluttered in response. He could practically feel his heart beating in his chest, and his palms were suddenly clammy.

Have I mentioned how great Saturn's fics are? SO GREAT. This one is Jack Abbot/John Shen and I enjoyed it a lot. I love the idea of them on the night shift together, I think it teases out a really interesting and different dynamic for Abbot that he doesn't get with Robby or Whitaker, and I wish to read more fics for this pairing.


6. Your Husband wants a Taste (15105 words) by AHumbleFan
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker, Jack Abbot/Dennis Whitaker, Michael "Robby" Robinavitch/Dennis Whitaker
Summary: Dennis Whitaker and Dr. Robby have an arrangement. After a little slip-up while on the job, Dr. Robby becomes aware of Dennis's situation. He can't afford the expensive price tag that comes with blood bags, and he can't remember the last time he's had a proper meal. Who would Dr. Robby be if he didn't lend a hand to his favorite vampire? Besides, it benefits both of them in more ways than one.

So, this fic really threw me for a loop. I read the summary on AO3 and skimmed the tags, and the fic turned out to be completely different than what I'd assumed. So, definitely read all the tags and summary carefully! Do not make my mistake! LOL but even though this has several tropes I usually avoid this ended up being a fun read that I'd recommend. Dennis is a vampire, Jack and Robby are werewolves and alphas, there's a whole load of worldbuilding and kink, and there's a second fic in this series as well.


7. let me look at you (3903 words) by Saturn, amalli
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch
Summary: Before Robby can think better of it, the edge of his buzz hanging on, he adds to his text message, Can’t even get myself off the way I used to. He stares at his phone, at the reckless message he sent, his body heating, watching the dots on his phone pulse as Jack types a response.

Again SATURN. But honestly, if you only read 1 Robby/Jack fic, let it be this one. Where at no point are they in the same room together! LOLOL but seriously it's so spot on, so fun, such a great "is it a relationship if your friend is helping you to get off???" fic, just, fantastic.


8. wolf's bane (20112 words) by astrifere
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Pitt (TV)
Rating: Explicit
Relationships: Jack Abbot/Frank Langdon, Frank Langdon/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch, Jack Abbot/Frank Langdon/Michael "Robby" Robinavitch
Summary: Nothing is a secret in the Pitt for long—it’s a miracle he’s kept it under wraps for this long, despite the near-deadly dose of preternate inhibitors he’d had in his system for nearly a decade. Yeah. His physician at rehab had had a thing or two to say about that. So, here Frank is: emergency med resident, recovering addict, recent divorcee, and not-so-secret wolfshifter.

A Langdon/Robby/Jack fic appears! Definitely a post S2 story, that basically gave me everything I wanted from the Robby/Langdon dynamic, with bonus Jack on top. Also normally I skip stories where being an alpha or a werewolf or whatever involves actually shifting into an animal, but I gave this one a shot and it didn't disappoint.

A very loose take on "Little Red Riding Hood," set in modern times post-apocalypse!

Cordelia, nicknamed Red because she hates her given name and always wears a red hoodie, is the sole survivor of her family. She's traveling the post-pandemic wilderness to get to her grandmother's house in the woods, armed only with an axe. She's used a prosthetic leg since losing one in a car crash when she was a child, so people underestimate her. They shouldn't.

The story alternates between her post-pandemic journey and the events leading up to it, when Red lived with her mom (a Black college professor), her dad (white, I forget his job) and her older brother Adam. Red is about 20, Adam is about 22; they're both college students. Red is extremely into horror movies and preparing for danger, so she sees the urgency of the pandemic well before most people. Unfortunately, that's not enough to save her parents and brother.

I was absolutely glued to this book, staying up past midnight to finish it, despite its many flaws. If you, like me, enjoy a small scale apocalypse story with a focus on the logistics of survival, this is a must-read. The logistics of survival bits are GREAT.

It's repetitive (HOW many times do we need to be told that Red can't run fast because she has a prosthetic leg?), everything is over-explained, Red is somehow able to use a small axe to kill multiple men armed with guns (all at once in addition to sequentially!) despite having no training, and the ending is incredibly abrupt and has more loose ends than a half-finished sweater. I cannot believe the author's chutzpah in setting up all sorts of fascinating mysteries only to have Red conclude that she's not the main character (what?) and so no longer cares that she'll never know the answer to any of them. Okay, but I care!

And yet, I enjoyed the hell out of it, right up to the non-ending. I am just a sucker for people searching for beef jerky in looted supermarkets and rescuing kids.

Spoilery details.

( Read more... )

Halfway through this book, I was looking up all of Henry's other books, which are horror or thrillers, many dark fairytale retellings, so I could read them all. When I got the end, I looked up their reviews. Many mention "abrupt" endings and none of the rest are post-apocalyptic, which was by far the best part of the book, so I will probably leave my reading of her books right here.