lunabee34

I just realized I never posted about the series finale of Gotham. I will say outside the cut that I was very satisfied with it, and I think those of you who haven't been watching lately will be pleased with the way it ends if you decide to catch up on the show.

( spoilers )


Lazy Person Recs: all Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede

Cimorene/Mendanbar

The Balance of Affection by RecessiveJean

In Which Cimorene's Sister Comes to Call by AlexElizabeth

In Which It Is Theoretically Possible by AlexElizabeth

Cimorene/Mendanbar + Morwen/Telemain

Having the Constitution for It by redletters

Morwen/Telemain

In Which Morwen's Cats Have a Valid Point by bienenalster (pinkspider)

Morwen

The Golden Apple Tree by Flamebyrd

Ensemble Gen

Settling, without Dragons by betony

1. ( spoilers for the past couple episodes of Gotham )


2. ( SPOILER FOR JESSICA JONES )

1. I have suspected for awhile that I might have Sjogren's Syndrome. My grandmother had it, and I have some of the symptoms of it. I've not pursued getting a diagnosis because the symptoms have been pretty mild and also could be attributed to either Hashimoto's or celiac. Didn't seem worth the expense to just confirm that I have it.

( SPOILER ALERT: now it seems worth it )

2. So, Applejack, Apple Bloom, and Big Mac's parents are clearly dead in MLP. They never use the word dead or say exactly what happened to them, but the show clearly intends to convey that they have died. Yesterday, we watched the episode where the Apple kids find out about their parents' Romeo and Juliet style romance, and I ugly cried because it was so damn sweet, and then when it was all over, I was like, wait.

I have been assuming that Twilight and the gang are supposed to be the equivalent of college age or just past college age. They are treated like adults and able to make their own decisions. Apple Bloom seems like she's in junior high. So, there's at least 10 years between them. Applejack and Big Mac don't remember their parents. So, either they don't remember parents that died when they were about 10, or Apple Bloom was born after they died.

I saw a fan theory that Apple Bloom is actually Applejack's illegitimate daughter rather than her sister. I will wait for that episode with bated breath. LOL

3. Gotham!!!! ( SPOILERS )

4. So, I've been bopping along with my poetry writing plan: reading lots of poems, thinking about how they work, writing in my notebook. I had the thought that writing about my fear of death might be fruitful. It was if by fruitful I mean anxiety attack inducing. LOL Turns out that dwelling on my fears does not exorcise them but exercise them. I shall not be the 21st century voice of Thanatopsis, alas.

5. I finished the big project at work for values of having finished the most horrible, time-consuming part of it. I AM AWESOME! And it's done. That's the main part.

Bonus Track: I have decided to stop cross-posting to LJ. I always forget to answer comments there, and my flist is mirrored on DW entirely. Feels like the end of an era.

1. Am I losing my mind? I thought one of y'all had posted last night/yesterday for Snowflake about your process (one of the first points was about writing fic as a kind of meta with a list of examples), and I was going to respond today because a lot of it resonated with me, but I can't find it! I'm starting to wonder if I dreamed it.

2. executrix sent me the most awesome cheese book. ( Cheese, glorious cheese )

3. Last night's My Little Pony reduced both me and Emma to sniffles. Twilight's new castle doesn't feel like home, so her friends volunteer to decorate it for her. At first, they mess up and decorate her house according to what *they* like, but at the end, they make her a chandelier from the roots of her old treehouse and hang all their favorite memories of her in crystals from the roots. Twilight was crying, I was crying, Emma was crying, Josh had to leave. Good times.

4. New episode of Gotham: ( SPOILERS )

5. I am unreasonably amused by the new Progressive commercial in which Jamie is revealed to live in a mansion with a beautiful family and to have exceptional singing talent. :)

1. We're closing on Thursday. I got the final closing statement yesterday, and closing costs are going to be 3100 dollars less than the original estimate they gave us at the beginning of the month. I am so relieved. That estimate made me all *wah*; this is much more in line with what I was expecting. I am just so grateful. This month has been high on the gratitude.

2. ( Review of Essex Serpent )

3. ( SPOILERS FOR LUKE CAGE )

4. ( SPOILERS FOR GOTHAM )

5. So, Abby's final episode of NCIS: I haven't watched NCIS in ages, but I tuned in for this one. I expected them to kill her, so her living was a bonus. I doubt I'll watch the show again; it started going downhill for me when Ziva left, and it really went downhill for me when they killed Bishop's boyfriend for no reason. After that I only watched intermittently; now so much of the original cast is gone that I really don't care as much. I do still dig Jimmy; even though it aired when I was barely paying attention to the show, one of my favorite episodes is the one where Jimmy talks the guy down from the ledge. They really do need to end this show, though. I mean, it's almost ready to graduate high school and go off to college. Enough is enough.

1. ( reviews of the last two episodes of Lucifer )

2. ( reviews of much Gotham )

3. After watching the commercial for Beaches resort get away, Fiona said, "That's a dream cremation."

4. ( Some books I read )

1. I got my annual evaluation today. Exceeds expectations in teaching and service; meets expectations in scholarship. I am pleasantly surprised by the latter; I fully expected to get needs work. It's really gratifying that the efforts I'm making to transition from a position that didn't require scholarship to one that does are being acknowledged.

2. ( Lucifer reviews )


3. ( Gotham review )

4. ( spoilery thoughts upon Westworld rewatch )

5.

Authority by Jeff VanderMeer

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I didn't think it was possible, and yet this book is even better than the first installment. It contains more dialogue, action and character work than the first; it's a song with words as opposed to the orchestral piece of the first novel.

Authority is from the perspective of a newly introduced character, Control, who's come to take charge of The Southern Reach after the psychologist, now revealed to have been the SR Director, doesn't return from the 12th expedition. Control is an outsider; he knows very little about the SR or Area X or what's really going on, and the reader learns the truth with growing horror alongside Control. A great deal of what we think we know from book 1 gets subverted or changed in some way in this sequel; our understanding of the psychologist in particular deepens.

Control learns that the border has always been a conceit; that Area X has never been bound by that invisible line and that it has been changing the people who work at SR for years now.

In addition, a doppelganger of the biologist, Ghost Bird, has returned to the real world as have doppelgangers of the other expedition members minus the psychologist. Control eventually ends up with Ghost Bird on a far northern coast looking into a rift Ghost Bird has created that leads back into Area X. Far south behind them, the facade of a border has come down at the SR, and the world is changing quickly as Area X advances. The novel ends with the two of them jumping into the portal.

I don't think I do this novel any justice with my review. It's just fantastic both on its own and as a continuation of/commentary on the first. Highly, highly recommend.



View all my reviews

1. I don't know if Gotham intends my takeaway from this week's episode to be that Zsasz and Headhunter need to be murder boyfriends, but that's pretty much where I went. They can go shopping for cool assassin outfits and compare notes on how weird Penguin is when he cries into one of Ed's old suit jackets. I'd read about a million words of that.

2a. I am on an SGA nostalgia kick. I've started re-watching the show with Emma, and I think I want to start writing fic again. I've been reading a whole bunch of Old School McShep and, and I just miss how much fun I had writing in that fandom. And the fic holds up; I go back and read some Old School Buffy, and a lot of the time, my tastes have moved on, but not so with the Old School SGA fic. Such high quality stuff in that fandom.

2b. I'm thinking of writing a McShep fic first, but I'm open to anything. If you were in SGA fandom, what fic did you always want to read that never materialized? Give me all your prompts--any genre, pairing, trope. Or just talk to me about the show and the characters and dynamics you wish had been explored but weren't. I'm having so much fun sticking my toes back in these waters. Come swim with me.

4. Josh saw Thor today; my turn is tomorrow. I can't wait.

5. Emma is really struggling with friend issues right now, and I don't know what to do to help her. One of her friends is really messed up; she's living in a neglectful, borderline abusive, household (but nothing I could call child services about); the girl has a lot of issues as a result. I'm pretty sure she has an eating disorder. Emma is mature enough to understand that this girl's wildly fluctuating behavior and propensity to take out her anger on others comes from serious issues that the girl can't control, but she also knows it's not okay for this girl to be ugly to her. *sigh* Another friend is having parental issues that seem weird to me because I know the parents, but I don't have the sort of relationship with the parents where I could potentially intervene (not an abuse situation). Another friend is dealing with the fallout of having sex she wishes she hadn't had (at 13). Her closest friend is a grade younger than her and does a lot of extracurriculars, so they've spent very little time together this academic year. So Emma is feeling lonely and abandoned by her small friend group and also worried for her friends. This age is so hard. I'm so glad she and I are friends and that she trusts me and talks to me and also that she's not having sex.

Downton Abbey

( SPOILERS )


Gotham

( spoilers )