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Who is stalking the son of the man convicted for causing the Seryong Lake Disaster?

Seven Years of Darkness by You-Jeong Jeong (Translated by Chi-Young Kim)

lacerta

Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Pairing: Ilya/Shane
Rating: E
Length: 2k
A/N: I'm so ill about these two, Iook at me writing fic again like it's 2014. Unbetaed, with a word of protest from my personal Russian ex-hockey player that pierogi in Russia are something completely different. Some mention of Shane's disordered eating. Title from Eyes, Lungs, Arms and Mind by Khan. AO3 link.

Summary: There is no reason Shane should eat from his own plate. D/s, handfeeding. Set in/after ep 6.

( While the water is coming to a boil, Ilya turns bag of frozen pierogi over in his hands and studies it critically. )

rmc28

This is an 800 year old play based on events 2,500 years ago in China, the first Chinese play to be translated into any European language (about 300 years ago). The Royal Shakespeare Company commissioned James Fenton to adapt it for a production about 13 years ago, and a student theatre group are putting that adaptation on at the ADC in Cambridge this week.

I went to see it last night with Charles, and also Olivia, one of my friends from Womens Blues. (We then found two of my Huskies teammates in the audience so it became an accidental hockey social.) We saw a little first-night talk beforehand from the director and some of the actors, about why they chose this play and some of their favourite lines and aspects of the characters they play. The play itself was very good, very gripping, a revenge tragedy with a very high body count and an ending I didn't quite expect.

The kind of evening that makes me remember how much I like living in this weird little city in the fens.

(and, in further "wow I love living in walking distance of the ADC" news, here's what I'm hoping to get to between now and early May:

Into The Woods (famous musical)
Olympus Unscripted (improv show on greek myths theme)
Chekov's Four Farces (what it says on the tin)
Next to Normal (musical about mental illness)
The Ferryman (play about the Irish Troubles)
Medea (musical adaptation of Euripedes play)

)

ysabetwordsmith

On Monday, I picked out what I wanted for the Prairie Moon order. This is meant to be the last catalog order of the spring.

Spicebush (plant)

American Plum (plant)

Early Figwort (seed)

Late Figwort (seed)

Common Ironweed (seed)

Purple Love Grass (seed)

Lead Plant (seed)

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

On Monday, I picked out what I wanted for the Select Seeds order.

Old-Fashioned Climbing Petunia (plant)

Lantana 'PassionFruit' (plant)

Penstemon 'Dakota Burgundy' (plant)

Painted Tongue 'Select Superbissima Mix' (seeds)

Yarrow 'Flowerburst Red Shades' (seeds)

Coreopsis 'Corusco Cream-Red' (seeds)

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Current Mood: busy

delphi

If anyone's interested in checking out some queer comedy theatre with a slate of great trans and gnc performers:

The Joy Who Lived: March 31st to April 12th

You can find a list of shows by date or you can browse by category. Shows are running both in person in Los Angeles and as live streaming events that are also available to view up to two weeks afterwards. I tuned in a while back for their fundraising show, a chaotic live runthrough of the Ocean's 11 script called Gender Heist, and it was a heck of a good time.

ursamajor

Stuck in my head this week: the CHVRCHES cover of Such Great Heights. Lauren Mayberry was the opener for the Northeastern leg of the Postal Service anniversary tour, and I have been enjoyably earwormed with her band's version of this song. It's making me want to do a ukelele cover of it, somehow.

( YT video within )

*

I don't usually pay that much attention to celebrity news, nor am I a fan of horror movies (I tend to run screaming the other direction), but it feels right to rewatch Army of Darkness upon hearing the news that whatever cancer Bruce Campbell's just announced that he's got is "treatable, but not curable." But jeez, that's like two major ones of these "fuck cancer" announcements in just a few weeks now. Le sigh.

Of course, this means I'll need to figure out how to get ahold of a copy of said movie, and I'm feeling just cantankerous enough about the state of media preservation that I'm wondering where I can pick up a physical copy on DVD (yes, DVD, we don't have a BluRay player). And it turns out there's apparently fifty bajillion editions, heh.

*

This year's hamantaschen flavors: vanilla dough with cherry preserves, vanilla dough with apricot hot pepper jelly, chocolate dough with raspberry preserves, chocolate dough with peanut butter. I tried out Smitten Kitchen's dough recipe this year to see how a buttery dough behaved compared to the oil-based recipe I usually use from

noghri, with mixed success. The chocolate dough options remained intact, probably partly because I didn't roll it out to 1/8" thin, partly because I froze the peanut butter balls before folding them into the dough, and partly because the raspberry preserves were thick enough to not spread. I think it came out a little dry relative to the fillings, probably two minutes too long in the oven. The vanilla dough behaved with the apricot hot pepper jelly because it wasn't really a jelly, definitely more of a preserves texture. But with the cherry "preserves," it was another story, because the texture of that was much closer to an improperly-set jam, which I only realized starting to scoop it into the cookies. If you think all of the blowouts were the cherry ones, you'd be right!

Had friends over for dinner to help eat the hamantaschen, and I also made chicken adobo and rice and a mizuna salad with seaweed dressing. K brought fancy fruity sodas from TJ's, and we didn't remotely realize how late it had gotten until one of us looked at our watches and gasped that it was after midnight, heh. I really ought to do that more often; I like hosting my friends and us gossiping around a table until all hours. Plus, it's good motivation to keep things a bit tidier around here!

And it felt good to show off progress in the library/my office. Still need to figure out the desk situation; still need to frame the art I want to hang up in there; still want this rug to drape over the back of the glider chair. And I need to figure out a good reading lamp. But now that we've been here almost five years, figuring out how to make things the way we want; what we want to change, what we want to keep.

*

I never did post about our Super Bowl menu, but we made:

- Seattle: Teriyaki Wings, because it's a thing; every Seattle local friend I've ever visited there has taken me out for teriyaki there.
- Boston: Miso Clam Chowder. Used the Saveur recipe as a base, then to get it closer to Oga-style, added an assortment of Japanese mushrooms. Subbed out the cream for coconut milk, but that swung the flavor profile significantly more Thai, so I may need to consider other options if I want it to taste like Oga's. And I'll go ahead and pick up some ume next time for a topping, I think it needs just a bit of that fermented sourness to taste right.

I ran out of steam before making it to the Boston Cream Pie (Joanne Chang's, of course), but I did also make a smoked salmon dip: cream cheese, lemon juice, dill, onion powder, green onions, garlic, chili crisp, and smoked salmon on top.

Current Mood: melancholy
Current Music: i hope this song will guide you home

james_davis_nicoll

NDP MP Lori Idlout crossing floor to Liberals, bringing Carney closer to majority

ysabetwordsmith

Remember when DART struck an asteroid? New surprises!

Don’t miss this astounding 40-second video. It shows the DART spacecraft’s strike of the asteroid moon Dimorphos, in the year 2022, from the vantagepoint of a camera on the spacecraft. It was a test of our capabilities in planetary defense from asteroids that might strike us. Afterwards, we knew the strike had slightly changed the orbit of Dimorphos. Now a new study shows how the DART spacecraft also affected the orbit of the primary asteroid in this system.

Current Mood: busy

kaberett

Back at the beginning of January beadsbuttonslace wrote up some reflections on this book, which interested me enough that I put in a hold on my library's only digital copy, which was an audiobook, and then I managed to listen to it in under a week, and now I am subscribed to Johnston's newsletter (and reading its archives) and also trying to work out whether I want to buy a physical copy or a digital copy for my own library.

Which is to say: I liked it. A lot.

( Read more... )

And some final notes:

it was only earlier today that I realised that an article that did the rounds a little while ago, The new MacBook keyboard is ruining my life... is BY THIS SAME PERSON
at least two of you will be delighted to know that in the Epilogue, she ( spoilers... )

pauraque

This is part three of my book club notes on The Black Fantastic. [Part 1, part 2.]

All of this batch of stories are available online!

"The Venus Effect" by Violet Allen (2016)

( The authorial voice repeatedly tries to write stories in different genres, only to be stopped each time by the Black protagonist falling victim to police violence. )

"The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington" by Phenderson Djèlí Clark (2018)

( What it says on the tin, in an alternate universe where magic is part of daily life. )

"The Hospital Where" by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (2018)

( An aspiring writer makes a Faustian bargain. )

"The Ones Who Stay and Fight" by N.K. Jemisin (2018)

( A response to Le Guin, in which a utopia has a dark side. Maybe. )

mekare

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

ysabetwordsmith

Today is partly sunny, breezy, and quite warm. It's 76℉ already.

I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

The first hostas have sprouted, and more bluebells are putting up leaves. More things are sprouting in the water jugs too. The first daffodils are blooming under the maple tree.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I put out my indoor flat of fruit tree sprouts to get some sun and air.

I took pictures around the yard.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- It's 79℉ now. Earlier was overly warm; now it's just plain hot even with a brisk breeze. We had to turn on the air conditioning. In early March. Fuck climate change. >_<

We hauled the two bags of topsoil from the car to the old picnic table bench. We put the solid-top pallet in the garden shed.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I trimmed the woody stems from the wildflower garden. Lots of miniature irises are blooming there. :D

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I started trimming woody stems from the septic garden.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I brought in the fruit tree sprouts. I've seen a fox squirrel bounding across the ground.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 3/10/26 -- I finished trimming woody stems from the septic garden.

I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

james_davis_nicoll

Desperate passengers and crew escape their ailing starship, only to find an angry, vengeful oligarch waiting to greet them.

This Insubstantial Pageant by Kate Story

ysabetwordsmith

This video looks at magic in worldbuilding. It lays out four points ...

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

james_davis_nicoll

Canada Roles Awards seeks to celebrate the games and art created by the Canadian tabletop Roleplaying Game Industry.

2026 Canada Roles Awards

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and chilly with gusts of wind.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.

I put out water for the birds.

In the water jug greenhouses, a few shady wildflowers are sprouting. :D

EDIT 3/9/26 -- My gold curly willow cuttings have arrived! \o/ I have put two in water and one in a pot.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I took cuttings from the older serviceberry tree and a shellbark hickory sapling to put in the willow cups.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I cracked open some peach pits. It was a lot easier than I expected. I found a natural hollow in the concrete step, where I balanced a peach pit on its edge. A seam goes along the sides. I put a flathead screwdriver point into the seam and tapped the handle with a hammer. Most of the peach pits popped apart neatly, releasing the seed. A couple chipped in fragments. I think I got several viable seeds, which I put in a baggie of damp sand. I also bagged up some leftover persimmon seeds. Then I put the baggies in the refrigerator for cold stratification to see if they'll sprout.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I tried using an ax to hack away at one of the saplings in the driveway. I certainly made more progress than I did with the saw. It's slow going, but I might be able to beaver it down eventually. The question is whether I'll have the time and energy for that, with all the other spring yardening to do.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 3/9/26 -- I transplanted a few more snowdrops from the parking lot to the apricot tree.

I am done for the night.