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Wednesday, April 8th, 2026 08:59 am
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Wednesday, April 8th, 2026 06:55 pm
Books in the old unread pile: 7
Asian Folk Tales and Legends, retold by Suzee Leong and illustrated by Arif Rafhan, is a children's book that I got when I was missing my childhood folk tale books and hankering for more regional stories. The book is what it says on the tin with simple retellings, mayhaps too simple even though it is a children's book.
That said, it's a decent mix of East, West and South East Asian retellings of folk tales, some of them familiar like the stories of the naming of Melaka and Singapura, new-to-me stories of trickster characters of various regions, romances that end tragically with one or both members of the romance turning into a plant or geographical formation, truncated stories about Hua Mulan and Badang (though I would expect all of them to be truncated, but these particular stand out because I know how long the originals are), and as a surprise of some modern stories like Hachiko. It's fine, I'll probably look for something better later.
Another book from the old unread pile I started to read but stopped was a colonial translation of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, which I couldn't get past the first few pages. Something about the translation itself and the footnotes kept throwing me, so I've reshelved that, though it's very unlikely I'll come back to it unless my future self has a hankering for the Kedah Annals.
Asian Folk Tales and Legends, retold by Suzee Leong and illustrated by Arif Rafhan, is a children's book that I got when I was missing my childhood folk tale books and hankering for more regional stories. The book is what it says on the tin with simple retellings, mayhaps too simple even though it is a children's book.
That said, it's a decent mix of East, West and South East Asian retellings of folk tales, some of them familiar like the stories of the naming of Melaka and Singapura, new-to-me stories of trickster characters of various regions, romances that end tragically with one or both members of the romance turning into a plant or geographical formation, truncated stories about Hua Mulan and Badang (though I would expect all of them to be truncated, but these particular stand out because I know how long the originals are), and as a surprise of some modern stories like Hachiko. It's fine, I'll probably look for something better later.
Another book from the old unread pile I started to read but stopped was a colonial translation of Hikayat Merong Mahawangsa, which I couldn't get past the first few pages. Something about the translation itself and the footnotes kept throwing me, so I've reshelved that, though it's very unlikely I'll come back to it unless my future self has a hankering for the Kedah Annals.
Wednesday, April 8th, 2026 12:24 am
I know some people (especially in the west) have lots of legitimate concerns about LLM as AI, and many of them will not be as amused as I am by the ways in which Google's AI results present themselves in response to partial searches.
Nonetheless, I smiled at the return when I attempted to verify Old Dominion as the performer of the song "Snapback." I typed the opening lyrics "strictly out of curiosity" into google and accepted the suggestion "strictly out of curiosity what would happen"
Google's AI overview replied, "Based on the lyrics to 'Snapback' by Old Dominion, if you got with them, they would likely kiss you, skip rocks, and start something new together that night. They would focus on you in a snapback, T-shirt, and Ray-Bans, taking midnight selfies and making memories."
My point is, I'm not sure today's weather was strictly necessary.
( picture )
Nonetheless, I smiled at the return when I attempted to verify Old Dominion as the performer of the song "Snapback." I typed the opening lyrics "strictly out of curiosity" into google and accepted the suggestion "strictly out of curiosity what would happen"
Google's AI overview replied, "Based on the lyrics to 'Snapback' by Old Dominion, if you got with them, they would likely kiss you, skip rocks, and start something new together that night. They would focus on you in a snapback, T-shirt, and Ray-Bans, taking midnight selfies and making memories."
My point is, I'm not sure today's weather was strictly necessary.
( picture )
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 11:03 pm
Today in Fandom Complaints, I wish to preface my complaint by saying that since, obviously, I am enjoying watching the entire back catalog of Dimension 20 and also Campaign 4 of Critical Role, that clearly I enjoy watching Brennan Lee Mulligan's DMing.
However, I think it's really, deeply weird, that for a guy who clearly defines himself by being a big nerd who knows a lot of stuff about stuff (and, I mean, sure, that's great, I am also a big nerd) -- anyway, that basically everything I have ever seen him say about Latin is totally wrong. If there's Latin, it's wrong. (If there's Greek, it's also often wrong, but there's less Greek, at least. Still bewildered at CR C4 featuring him defining "dithyramb" essentially as "amphitheater" and then telling the audience to "look it up." I... did? It doesn't mean that.)
Yes, I was annoyed while watching D20 Fantasy High that he consistently stresses "Avernus" wrong -- the Latin stress rule is not hard, I promise -- but I told myself that, okay, maybe it's a D&D thing and D&D decided to pronounce the name of their thing differently from the real thing. Sure. Fine. Okay. I was annoyed that D20 Unsleeping City S2 decided to make the cornerstone of its season the quotation "Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo" because then that meant I had to listen to it be mispronounced and mistranslated and taken out of context a lot -- and because it's one of![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lysimache's favorite bits of the Aeneid it's also one of my favorite bits of the Aeneid. But everyone takes this one out of context a lot now (it's part of the 9/11 memorial, for some weird reason) and I guess I can accept that people don't know it's about Being Gay and Doing War Crimes and that's just how it is.
But, okay, so, I am coming up on the end of the season Mice & Murder, which is basically "The Wind in the Willows but what if we just murdered a bunch of animals at Toad Hall and then a fox version of Sherlock Holmes had to solve the mystery" which I assume is not what the book is actually about although I haven't read it. Anyway, here in the penultimate episode, the characters are given a clue to a passcode, and the clue is in Latin, and they are asked if any of their characters know Latin.
The clue is "mors est in gloria." He repeats this, like, two or three times, and he's clearly reading it off something -- it is definitely the thing he intended to say. (The closed captions spell it wrong, but that is absolutely the thing he is saying. He pronounces it very carefully.)
Because I have clearly put several points into Knowing Latin while building my real life human character my first thought is "well, that's a weird clue." Like, what the hell? "Death is in glory?" Okay, sure. Whatever. It didn't occur to me that it could have been meant to say something else. I just thought it was weird on purpose.
Then he tells the player whose character would definitely know Latin (the character is a vicar) what this is supposed to mean, privately, and they excitedly report to the rest of the group that it means "glory in death."
No. No, it does not.
It's four words. Come on. How do you get this wrong? How do you get this exactly backwards? How do you look at the phrase "in gloria" that you have constructed and decide that you nailed it and that that for sure means "in death?"
I don't expect most pop culture to get Latin right, but, like... I expect better of Pop Culture For Total Nerds, I guess. I would really like D20 to do better. Please. For me. Get someone to check your Latin.
(I also did not buy the two Game Changer pins with Latin mottos from the episode where they gave them Latin mottos because both of them had bad Latin to varying degrees. One of them was bad to a degree where it was like "okay, this contains words that obviously are Not Actual Words and therefore makes very little sense, what the fuck" and the other one was only bad to the degree of "if you know what it is trying to say, you can see how they got there, but this really only means that in Medieval and not Classical Latin." Which, eh. I guess clearly it could be worse.)
However, I think it's really, deeply weird, that for a guy who clearly defines himself by being a big nerd who knows a lot of stuff about stuff (and, I mean, sure, that's great, I am also a big nerd) -- anyway, that basically everything I have ever seen him say about Latin is totally wrong. If there's Latin, it's wrong. (If there's Greek, it's also often wrong, but there's less Greek, at least. Still bewildered at CR C4 featuring him defining "dithyramb" essentially as "amphitheater" and then telling the audience to "look it up." I... did? It doesn't mean that.)
Yes, I was annoyed while watching D20 Fantasy High that he consistently stresses "Avernus" wrong -- the Latin stress rule is not hard, I promise -- but I told myself that, okay, maybe it's a D&D thing and D&D decided to pronounce the name of their thing differently from the real thing. Sure. Fine. Okay. I was annoyed that D20 Unsleeping City S2 decided to make the cornerstone of its season the quotation "Nulla dies umquam memori vos eximet aevo" because then that meant I had to listen to it be mispronounced and mistranslated and taken out of context a lot -- and because it's one of
lysimache's favorite bits of the Aeneid it's also one of my favorite bits of the Aeneid. But everyone takes this one out of context a lot now (it's part of the 9/11 memorial, for some weird reason) and I guess I can accept that people don't know it's about Being Gay and Doing War Crimes and that's just how it is.But, okay, so, I am coming up on the end of the season Mice & Murder, which is basically "The Wind in the Willows but what if we just murdered a bunch of animals at Toad Hall and then a fox version of Sherlock Holmes had to solve the mystery" which I assume is not what the book is actually about although I haven't read it. Anyway, here in the penultimate episode, the characters are given a clue to a passcode, and the clue is in Latin, and they are asked if any of their characters know Latin.
The clue is "mors est in gloria." He repeats this, like, two or three times, and he's clearly reading it off something -- it is definitely the thing he intended to say. (The closed captions spell it wrong, but that is absolutely the thing he is saying. He pronounces it very carefully.)
Because I have clearly put several points into Knowing Latin while building my real life human character my first thought is "well, that's a weird clue." Like, what the hell? "Death is in glory?" Okay, sure. Whatever. It didn't occur to me that it could have been meant to say something else. I just thought it was weird on purpose.
Then he tells the player whose character would definitely know Latin (the character is a vicar) what this is supposed to mean, privately, and they excitedly report to the rest of the group that it means "glory in death."
No. No, it does not.
It's four words. Come on. How do you get this wrong? How do you get this exactly backwards? How do you look at the phrase "in gloria" that you have constructed and decide that you nailed it and that that for sure means "in death?"
I don't expect most pop culture to get Latin right, but, like... I expect better of Pop Culture For Total Nerds, I guess. I would really like D20 to do better. Please. For me. Get someone to check your Latin.
(I also did not buy the two Game Changer pins with Latin mottos from the episode where they gave them Latin mottos because both of them had bad Latin to varying degrees. One of them was bad to a degree where it was like "okay, this contains words that obviously are Not Actual Words and therefore makes very little sense, what the fuck" and the other one was only bad to the degree of "if you know what it is trying to say, you can see how they got there, but this really only means that in Medieval and not Classical Latin." Which, eh. I guess clearly it could be worse.)
Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 05:50 pm
Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 06:38 pm
Unexpectations (2345 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kelly Chambers/Samara
Characters: Kelly Chambers, Samara (Mass Effect)
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange
Summary: Looking back, it wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kelly Chambers/Samara
Characters: Kelly Chambers, Samara (Mass Effect)
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange
Summary: Looking back, it wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 06:36 pm
Falling Apart, Coming Together, and Everything In Between (1975 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Kaidan Alenko, Thane Krios
Additional Tags: Break Up, Developing Relationship, Getting Back Together, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, One Shot, Polyamory, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange, Thane Krios Lives
Summary: Falling in love had been as easy as breathing.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Kaidan Alenko, Thane Krios
Additional Tags: Break Up, Developing Relationship, Getting Back Together, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, One Shot, Polyamory, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange, Thane Krios Lives
Summary: Falling in love had been as easy as breathing.
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 05:47 pm
Oh, right. That was what happened when I wrote Lan Xichen/Nie Mingjue; it's coming back to me.
That is just 2000 words of soap opera, right there.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Huan says, and it’s more bitingly sarcastic than he’s been in years. “What did you want me to think? I slept with you and you decided to die. What exactly am I supposed to take from that?”
(Also it's chapter 28/30 in a story that's 14th in a million-word series, so I'm not claiming it makes sense out of context. But I really enjoyed rereading it.)
That is just 2000 words of soap opera, right there.
“I’m sorry,” Lan Huan says, and it’s more bitingly sarcastic than he’s been in years. “What did you want me to think? I slept with you and you decided to die. What exactly am I supposed to take from that?”
(Also it's chapter 28/30 in a story that's 14th in a million-word series, so I'm not claiming it makes sense out of context. But I really enjoyed rereading it.)
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 06:23 pm
This is a bundle of material for Runecairn from By Odin's Beard, a one player / one GM game system based on Norse legend, plus We Deal in Lead, a weird west gunfighter RPG based on the same rules-set, and a quickstart primer for their new game of serial killer investigation, Midnight of the Century.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Runecairn
Due to travelling over the weekend and losing all my passwords and email access (thanks, Apple and Google), I have to apologise for the delay in posting this one. I've still got 80+ emails to deal with and lots of other things to sort out so I haven't really looked at this in any detail. It looks pretty cheap and is probably worth a look if you like one on one play.
https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Runecairn
Due to travelling over the weekend and losing all my passwords and email access (thanks, Apple and Google), I have to apologise for the delay in posting this one. I've still got 80+ emails to deal with and lots of other things to sort out so I haven't really looked at this in any detail. It looks pretty cheap and is probably worth a look if you like one on one play.
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Tuesday, April 7th, 2026 08:49 am
Monday, April 6th, 2026 10:30 pm
I'm very, very, very behind on Critical Role at this point, and I'm very heavily considering starting Campaign 4 over the from the beginning to ease back into it and hopefully properly catch my attention again. Things were so hectic late last year that I was only half paying attention at times, which is really not a good thing for me when it comes to a new show and is probably why I've been struggling to get caught up. And, for all intents and purposes, CR4 is a completely new show from the previous campaigns despite still technically being Critical Role.
Things at work are quickly calming down, as this is one of our off periods, so right now I'm hoping that I can curl up on the sofa this weekend and properly watch at least the first few episodes ago. The hope is that will help get me re-interested in everything so that I can more easily marathon through the rest of it once I properly care for the characters again.
We'll see how it goes?
Things at work are quickly calming down, as this is one of our off periods, so right now I'm hoping that I can curl up on the sofa this weekend and properly watch at least the first few episodes ago. The hope is that will help get me re-interested in everything so that I can more easily marathon through the rest of it once I properly care for the characters again.
We'll see how it goes?
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Monday, April 6th, 2026 08:42 pm
Second book in the duology, which wraps up the dangling Awkward Man subplot entirely and the Peg Bowen subplot to some degree (she has some fun interactions with the kids and then just wanders off and never comes back??? Okay, then).
Interestingly, there is so much foreshadowing about a certain character's death that I thought we were going to see it on-screen, but no, it's deliberately left hanging as an ominous This Will Happen In The Future thanks to our narrator's knowledge of what's to come (since these are memoirs/recollections of a much older man looking back on childhood). What is it with Montgomery and consumption, anyway? Between this and Ruby Gillis, she has a thing going on, and I'm not sure what that's about.
Overall, I liked these books a lot; they are an interesting bridge between the early Anne books and Rainbow Valley/the Emily series, published the year before World War II broke out, though in some ways the melancholy tone and lost childhood innocence feels like foreshadowing for the hardships to come. I like the first person narrative and retrospective, which combines the adult authorial voice describing characters from the Emily and Anne books into one person, even if our narrator doesn't have much personality or defining traits compared to the others.
I have a bunch of additional thoughts, but I want to try and work them into some kind of fanfic, partly because there's so little fic for this series and partly because I think it would be interesting to discuss them in-universe. I often write fic as a way of processing my feelings about what I've experienced, or even just as a "Kilroy was here" kind of marker (though that's harder now than it used to be as my energy levels have dropped).
The Story Girl series was partially adapted in the Road to Avonlea TV series, which also combined various Montgomery short stories from Chronicles of Avonlea collection, plus occasional cameos from Anne characters, and may be better known than the original books.
Interestingly, there is so much foreshadowing about a certain character's death that I thought we were going to see it on-screen, but no, it's deliberately left hanging as an ominous This Will Happen In The Future thanks to our narrator's knowledge of what's to come (since these are memoirs/recollections of a much older man looking back on childhood). What is it with Montgomery and consumption, anyway? Between this and Ruby Gillis, she has a thing going on, and I'm not sure what that's about.
Overall, I liked these books a lot; they are an interesting bridge between the early Anne books and Rainbow Valley/the Emily series, published the year before World War II broke out, though in some ways the melancholy tone and lost childhood innocence feels like foreshadowing for the hardships to come. I like the first person narrative and retrospective, which combines the adult authorial voice describing characters from the Emily and Anne books into one person, even if our narrator doesn't have much personality or defining traits compared to the others.
I have a bunch of additional thoughts, but I want to try and work them into some kind of fanfic, partly because there's so little fic for this series and partly because I think it would be interesting to discuss them in-universe. I often write fic as a way of processing my feelings about what I've experienced, or even just as a "Kilroy was here" kind of marker (though that's harder now than it used to be as my energy levels have dropped).
The Story Girl series was partially adapted in the Road to Avonlea TV series, which also combined various Montgomery short stories from Chronicles of Avonlea collection, plus occasional cameos from Anne characters, and may be better known than the original books.
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Monday, April 6th, 2026 07:11 pm
Monday, April 6th, 2026 05:46 pm
I'm taking the dog to the park, then I'm coming back to watch episode 4. Or write. Or both.
(I should watch episodes that have Nie Mingjue in them to further the writing agenda. He's such an easygoing guy in my mind; I have no idea why. Maybe because the only time I think of him it's from Lan Xichen's perspective and I imagine them being childhood sweethearts.)
Actually I'm watering the dahlias first. But all of you are the best, just FYI.
...
Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't watch episode 4.
♥ ( Episodes 10 & 23 )
(I should watch episodes that have Nie Mingjue in them to further the writing agenda. He's such an easygoing guy in my mind; I have no idea why. Maybe because the only time I think of him it's from Lan Xichen's perspective and I imagine them being childhood sweethearts.)
Actually I'm watering the dahlias first. But all of you are the best, just FYI.
...
Okay, I'm not gonna lie, I didn't watch episode 4.
♥ ( Episodes 10 & 23 )
Tags:
Monday, April 6th, 2026 09:46 am
Monday, April 6th, 2026 11:34 am
The meant-to-be-just-a-pacing-check-except-not-really cleanup is DONE! VERY anti-climactic because of the unexpected month break right before the end XD The soul thief revision plan is good to go I think, and maybe I knew this time I was happy with it because my mind immediately switched to "finish up the witch remaining work, then we dig into the actual revisions." I even have a tracking spreadsheet ready!! AND I made a chart this time! I learnt about secondary Y axis and how to attach a data series to it so it scales properly! Lol. There may be PICTURES in my next recap XD I'm kind of planning 3-4 months for those revisions, but it's the first time I go so deep during the structural phase so I have no idea how it will go. The witch only took ~14h, but the changes were a lot simpler (to my detriment, since I ended up having to make large structural changes 3 rounds of revisions later based on beta-reader feedback. Ouch!) Very eager to find out how it will go this time!! And feed data to that chart >:D
I was so excited about my little chart that I decided to make one for the remaining scenes of the cursed witch's pacing check, too. 18 scenes left. It took me nearly 1h30 to fix up that first scene because it was a fight scene that dragged a lot. Slow, slow, slooooow. So I figured, 18 scenes, 2-3 weeks to do it! I can copy my scenes-per-week chart, with a dot for each week! Well. The pacing check was intended to be light. Only the big, you know, PACING problems. Of which there were fewer in the following chapters, so I finished it all up in several feverish sessions over a 3-day weekend 🤣 MY CHART IS A SINGLE DOT. This is so funny. If I'd known it'd go so fast, I probably would have tried to squeeze it alongside the workshop, but maybe I just needed a break.
Anyway, it was a happy surprise to return to the witch and enjoy it! I've learnt a fair bit about structure during the last month, and while -- as I feared -- I do see all the places that I would handle differently now... I don't hate it, nor feel anguish at how much better it could be? I dunno. Although, the dark side of taking yet another long break is that I feel so refreshed that I could smash myself against another round of editing... I could. Forever over and over, possibly. But I do need to learn when to move on, too.
