not today or tomorrow

► ( link to directory )

Managed a few fills for 3 Sentence Ficathon season! I feel like I managed to almost have a theme here. 1 Jurassic Park, 1 Scavenger's Reign, 2 Finisterre, and 1 TMNT.

( and mostly only 3 sentences. mostly. )

I was going back through my 'meme' tag and found this old one. It's always been a bit of fun, so lets whip it out again. Don't be shy!

Link me to a fic you've written, and I'll tell you something I like about it! c:

All fandoms and original fic welcome - though if you're going to link me to your 300,000 word magnum opus, a nominated chapter would be nice.

I need to quit my job so bad 😐

But first! A holiday.

• Zoo City was an almost-great book - the writing style was engaging, the protagonist was compelling in her bitterness, the concept of being Animaled was ballsy in its co-opting of Pullman's dæmons. It just kind of forgot to let anything the protagonist did... matter? Oops.

• "A demon-hunting KPop group finds itself on a new battlefield when the demons launch their own boy band" is such a perfect comedy movie premise! For some reason, though, the movie also wedged in a cliche dramatic plot-line it didn't really have time for or do anything new with, and in fact the more I think about said plot-line the more questions I have. KPop Demon Hunters was still, somehow, a pretty fun watch. The energetic animation and catchy songs definitely helped.

• Re-read The Prefect, which was the first Alastair Reynolds book I ever read, back in the day! Reynolds' character work has always been fairly average, but his character and world concepts are so thought-provoking I tend not to mind.

• If I had ever been a big Murderbot fan, I suspect I'd be genuinely very annoyed by the TV adaptation. As it is, I'm still exasperated by some of the choices and by the fact streaming seems to have permanently crushed the industry's ability to tell a well-paced logical fucking story, but I'm at least enjoying individual segments. It's a strong cast (Mensah especially) and when they get a well-scripted scene, they deliver on it! Alas...

• I'm nearly at the end of Babylon 5's first season, which may get its own post if I can find the energy. I'm into it overall, and it's very interesting to experience in a time-capsule sort of way as well, which is the mark of good sci-fi.

Title: Pigeon Talk
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: Widdershins (Jack O'Malley, Ben Thackery)
Wordcount: 3,478
Summary: One week he's the bastard second cousin of the king long kept in hiding, a rumour so far outside anything Mal's ever had hurled his way before that it's almost funny. The next, he talks to pigeons.
Remarks: How did this end up as long as it did. Good grief. Anyway, deeply hypocritical for Mal of all people to complain about Being Perceived on a discomfiting level, but also he totally would.

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( what's a pigeon got to talk about anyway? )

Title: Under Your Skin
AO3: Link
Rating: PG
Series: A House of Many Doors (Char Dvetistek/Kinetopede Captain)
Wordcount: 1,100
Summary: Char doesn't worry. Except when she does, a little.
Tags: Mild Spoilers for Canon, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied Sexual Content, Body Horror
Remarks: I've been playing HoMD again and delighted to find that since my last delving the creator launched a HUGE patch that has cleared up many bugs, including Char's romance! Hilariously, it so far seems to be about what I'd already headcanoned. Nobody here has an emotional IQ worth squat. Honestly, most of this fic was just an excuse for me to muse on how Ira lost her hand.

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( don't think I haven't figured it out - you're hooked on something )

As a long-standing fan of Alastair Reynolds who is finally getting around to watching Babylon 5, it's a bit like... so Mass Effect really just mashed these two things together (and sprinkled a bit of other sci-fi flavouring on top), huh.

Not a crime, of course; and I don't think Mass Effect has ever pretended to be anything but deep and affectionate bow to all things space opera. It's getting a rueful chuckle out of me nonetheless. O to get to file off those serial numbers so successfully.

Well! That was certainly an election.

My greatest fear was that we'd see a repeat of 2019, when the (incumbent) conservative Coalition won over one of Labor's more centre-left offerings despite campaigning almost exclusively on "see how this guy wants to change things, arguably for the better? yeah we simply won't do any of that" - or worse, a crushing conservative victory founded entirely in nationalist scare tactics such as in 2013, supported by a Trump-inspired far right surge amidst the fringe parties like One Nation and Palmer's latest and most cringe-inducing effort yet to ride the populist wave ('Trumpets for Patriots'? gaaaaag).

My greatest hope was that we'd see the trends of 2022 continue instead, strengthening the crossbench with a slew of socially-left minorities and independents to bolster Labor as the leading party while also holding them accountable and dragging them away from their more centre-right proclivities. I've been a political donor these last three years for the first time in my life - those shock successes through Climate 200 had me paying attention.

...And we didn't get either of these things! But we did get a hell of a lot closer to the second than the first with the Coalition taking the absolute worst ass-beating of its life - so bad leader Peter Dutton lost his own seat, a viciously vindicating moment for anyone who's had a healthy loathing of the man since he spent his time in border security pissing on refugees. One Nation saw a small surge, but nothing like I was most sweating about, and Trumpets for Patriots seems to have netted little but memes about how annoying everyone found it being constantly texted by the guy.

On top of that, the Teal independents are holding strong! Reports suggest that the vast majority are holding their seats and are actually seeing a strong swing from being second to first preference, and they may even scoop up one or two new seats. Thrilling! I love it! Keep going!

The downside to all this is seeing the Greens backslide massively from their 2022 wins, which is not totally surprising when you look into the complex machinations of preferences, but still dampens the mood a bit by confirming Australia still simply is not ready to consider true reform on the social and environmental fronts. They did still see an overall increase in first preferences, I believe, and have maintained a healthy presence in the Senate, so that's something.

What are the Coalition going to do from here? Self-destruct, one almost hopes... certainly there has been an amount of denial and doubling-down spilling out from predictable quarters. Ideally, they'd shape up and take some damn cues from the Teals already.

In the meantime, I'll take some heart in Albanese prioritising words like 'kindness' in his winning speech, emphasising his commitment to indigenous issues despite the catastrophe that was the Voice, and dedicating Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again to Dutton on the radio (no way, get fucked, fuck off!).

Anyway, if you'd rather skip my rambling, here's the obligatory "emotional election journey set to Offenbach" video.

Title: Sewer Stories
AO3: Link
Rating: G
Series: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT)
Wordcount: 1,504
Summary: Drabbles set in the TMNT 2003 universe.
Remarks: Had a bit of fun drabbling recently, so cross-posting across the first batch.