all evidence to the contrary i am not dead yet. I know a couple of people dropped me in their annual prune of inactive journals so I figured i would say that much even if I don't have the energy for a longer entry right now. *waves*

I got obsessed with Murderbot back in May when the new novel came out (some relevant tumblr posts, because I've been posting more there: exploding with feelings about ART and Murderbot and how they misunderstand each other, and a conversation about usage of names and pronouns by artificial intelligences in Murderbot); I want to vid it because of course any book I love I'm like "I want to vid this now lack of video source be damned." Anyway I have a huge collection of space/robot/cyborg/AI movies and shows I've been watching with an eye to collecting material for a Murderbot vid.

Gravity: tbh i spent a good 2/3 of this movie pondering what heist the Ocean siblings were trying to pull in space. also i am SO DEEPLY OVER "woman takes off space suit, wanders around in tank top and underwear." what a weird pointlessly objectifying trope. (Is it older than Alien? I mean, I remember it very vividly from Alien.) Also she's supposed to be wearing NASA space suit and like, that has specialized temperature-controlling full-body long underwear under it. Yes, this movie did make me spite research astronaut underwear. Also, did you know it takes like 45 minutes to get a spacesuit on, with help, it's practically impossible to get one on without help, so that scene where she goes outside in time for the space debris shower in under 7 minutes is just a bit beyond credulity.

Ad Astra: needs more Ruth Negga. There was a bit when she had just been introduced and some lackey is like "you can go now we're talking about things above your clearance level" and i was just like excuse you??? you're not even credited??? Parts of this were just headdesk. Like Brad Pitt's character (how did Rusty get separated from Danny and Debbie anyway? poor guy) sneaks onto a mission he's been banned from and in the first five minutes manages to ACCIDENTALLY kill everyone onboard. I was just like. Wow. I cannot make myself care about you. I had a really hard time figuring out when this was supposed to be set, and I finally decided it occurred approximately in the present but in an alternate timeline where basically every space probe or robot we sent out was actually humans/colonization. Mars was colonized when we sent Curiosity and Sojourner and Spirit and so on. The mission Brad Pitt's dad was on? Basically Voyager.

Edge of Tomorrow: funnily enough I didn't know about the time travel/loop element of this and was highly entertained! Also there is a chance I will end up casting Murderbot as the back of Tom Cruise's head because he's been in a fair amount of high-budget schlock and likes to do stunts that would be more readily attributable to someone with construct strength and speed.

Europa Report: I'd already seen this but decided to rewatch it, and I freaking love this movie, highly recommend if you've never seen it. It's a faux documentary of a mission sent to Europa. They encounter a lot of technical difficulties (parts of it are kind of space horror, a lot of characters die) but they are incredibly dedicated to scientific advancement and learning new thing and have this joy about finding life on another planet/moon.

Tau: Netflix movie wherein a dude is kidnapping like homeless people and sex workers (your basic serial killer move of going for the disposable people) so he can map their brains to make AI. There's a back of the neck glowing implant that's useful to my purposes. The kidnap victims stage an escape and most of them get killed (including the black guy, OH MY GOD) so the rest of the movie is a weird power play thing between Scientist Kidnapper and Attractive Blonde Girl. Tau is the name of an AI the guy already built, but finds imperfect, so it's limited to running his house and isn't allowed access to information. Scientist Kidnapper routinely puts Tau in charge of his prisoner so of course she bonds with Tau and gets it to help her in exchange for telling it about the world outside the house and looking up answers to things it wants to know and isn't allowed to read for itself. Ends in satisfying explosions.

Falling Skies: post-apocalyptic series about a semi-official militia of survivors of an alien invasion, starring Noah Wyle as scruffy hot dad protagonist. I'm about 2 seasons in (they're short seasons) and it's actually a lot more frequently about humans fighting amongst themselves than about humans vs. aliens. The mechs might be useful to me (combat bots?) so I keep skimming for big battles. The aliens enslave teenagers with a biotech slug they attach to their spines; unfortunately it is waaaay too big and organic looking to work for what I need, although the kids who have been freed and just have spikes sticking out of their backs might be useful to me. I have a complaint about an antagonist from like the second episode--the plot of that episode was a scout team gets caught by a post-apocalyptic gang of assholes who are like "society's over let's just rape and kill our way to the end" and I was like, oh no, they cast the leader of the gang too pretty, they're gonna keep him aren't they, and sure enough IMDB says he's in 48/50 episodes. I keep being like GOD why do they think they can make the murdering racist rapist a likeable character? And then I remind myself that I do know of post apocalyptic fiction where the good guys just don't put up with that shit: in Meg Elison's Road to Nowhere series, of which I've read Book of the Unnamed Midwife and Book of Etta, there's a lot of post-apocalyptic rape gang bullshit, but the town of Nowhere basically just decided they weren't having it. When people come to trade and offer to sell them their rape slaves, Nowhere executes the rapists and frees the slaves. People who responded to the apocalypse by enslaving and raping other people don't get any passes, they just get dead. So sometimes I watch Falling Skies and think to myself how if the pretty gang leader had showed up in those books, he'd just be dead. "well he saved so and so's life" he's a rapist, shoot him in the head. "he can cook!" don't care he's a rapist kill him. no excuses.

people are ... following me today? is there like a meme or something?

(just confused because I hardly ever post and most of the times these days it's locked personal shit not public fannish shit)

hi? did you want to read about my locked personal shit? it's mostly school, depression, and meds?

I posted some fic last night! Yay!

Catch Lightning in a Bottle, on AO3, by jmtorres
Fandom: Good Omens
Word Count: 1632
Rating: E
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Additional Tags: PWP, Crowley Grudgingly Has A Penis Today, just a coupla queer masc nb angels, neural stimulation, neural sex, psychic sex?, making an effort sounds like work, Aziraphale has an Idea, Dom/sub Undertones, Crowley is a somewhat uncommunicative submissive, Overstimulation, Forced Orgasm, grey-A characters having complicated feels about sexual body parts, sexy sexy physiology, Coming Untouched, A Tiny Bit of Praise Kink
Summary: Crowley's not that into manifesting genitals, but Aziraphale's really into giving Crowley orgasms, so he works on a compromise.

just some light ethereal/occult sex experiments for your casual reading

( story on DW if you prefer to read here )

I posted a Good Omens fic! It is silly.

The Thousand Natural Shocks That Flesh Is Heir To by jmtorres
Fandom: Good Omens
Pairing: Aziraphale/Crowley
Rating: Mature
Additional tags: just a coupla queer masc nb angels, kinky-ass humaning, the lube/not lube game
Word Count: 1379

Summary: It's an experiment they talked about; teased each other with, once they realized they were both a bit turned on by the thought of the restriction. To be human, limited and mortal, and to experience sex that way, fully embodied.

Explanation: ariaste posted an essay on lube in Good Omens fic that made me ponder under what circumstances Aziraphale and Crowley might actually need to think about lube. The answer I came up with was "kinky-ass humaning."

headache today, which fortunately waited until after I was done with homework to descend. It feel sinusy? except the parts where it also flashes into my scalp and the hinge of jaw sometimes? a little bit migrainey, noises and the sun were not helping it. nsaid didn't do much about it. suspect it is a rexulti withdrawal headache, despite my desire to attribute it to other things I could more immediately treat.

now that I have high hopes of getting an A in the class, I am having some of the old anxiety about the subjective part of the points, ie the discussion questions. the prof gave me full points on the last discussion question so I felt like I had to Live Up to Expectations or something? that was getting in the way of me working on it at all. I had to remind myself that it is okay to half-ass stuff, half-assing an assignment is better than not doing it, it's okay if I don't get full points on this discussion question, it might not even prevent me from getting an A if my test scores stay high.

it's after two in the morning which is about when I've been getting the sleep the last few days--last night I tried to go down at midnight but belched with GERD for three hours. Mind you now that I'm trying to write an entry I'm yawning my face off. I would like to shift my sleep schedule back so I could have actual mornings, but I am relieved that the current trend is ~8 hours a night instead of the 11ish when I was taking rexulti or the the like, 17 from a few bad days of the withdrawal.

I have an Audible account and enjoy listening to audiobooks, but I have a bad habit of buying a bunch of things during sales and then not listening to them until almost the end of the return period, which is a year. So right now I'm trying out a bunch of titles I bought last June and groaning to myself over my sale lots from july and august as well.

Stuff I've chucked back:
--The House of the Spirits, Isabelle Allende. When I bought this I had just binged all of Jane the Virgin, but I'm not longer in that fannish headspace? Because it's a year later. I did listen to about ten minutes or so to see if it would grab me, but it did not, and also had mention of someone in a cage encrusted in his own filth within that first ten minutes, and even assuming things would get better for that character, that just... wasn't quite working for me.
--The Stars my Destination, Alfred Bester. I knew very little about this but I occasionally expose myself to classic sci-fi just because, like, roots? This edition had a forward talking about the history of science fiction and how it ages, by Neil Gaiman I'm pretty sure they said, and the forward referred to the protagonist of this book as a predator, a killer and a rapist. Welp, that's very clear, thank you for the warning label, I said, and noped out.
--Existence, David Brin. I actually listened to several hours of this while driving to Phoenix recently, and I wasn't originally going to chuck it because nothing about it bothered me, but I also realized nothing about it grabbed me, either? There were it seemed like a dozen viewpoint characters and I didn't care about any of them, so.
--Somebody Tell Aunt Tillie She's Dead, Christiana Miller. I listened to the first few chapters and was super uncomfortable with how rac(ism) played in a confrontation between the white wicca protagonist and her latina Catholic landlady. Also the best friend was kind of painfully stereotypically flamboyantly gay.
--annnnnnnd safari ate half the entry because I went out to twitter to find a link so the rest of this is going to be much more abbreviated than it was before.
--The Invisible Library, Genevieve Cogman. I disliked the narrator, who made it sound as if every sentence ended with three exclamation marks, but I enjoyed the book when I checked out a hard copy from the library.

Stuff I'm keeping:
--The Golem and the Jinni, Helene Wecker. Rocky start, as before the Golem became conscious our viewpoint character was the creep who wanted to buy a golem for a wife, but he died very immediately and now she's a free golem with no master to give her orders, and I am excited to find out what happens to her next.
--The Light Brigade, Kameron Hurley. I am a sucker for time travel stuff and this loops interestingly. The final piece of causality I did not see coming, but it fit neatly.
--Fortune's Rising, Sara King. I only listened to maybe half an hour of this, but I liked the scifi premise it set up, colony world finds brain-enhancing drug, suddenly their entire economy is producing the drug and sending it back home.
--Nevermoor: The Trials of Morrigan Crow, Jessica Townsend. I listened to the whole book and bought the sequel because I couldn't put it down. 11-yr-old protagonist but apparently coming of age/kid's adventure is still a favorite genre of mine.
--The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson
--The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Meg Elison. Apocafic with plenty of dark stuff but like, queer characters EVERYWHERE. the narrator is gender-nonconforming and bisexual. I bought the sequel.


Stuff I need to listen to soonish:
--Servant of the Underworld, Aliette de Bodard--Aztec murder mystery if I recall correctly.
--Cold Magic, Kate Elliott. this one and the de Bodard were recced to me when I asked twitter for alternate history novels where Native Americans/First Nations peoples weren't colonized but were instead political players among world governments.
--Apocalypse Nyx, Kameron Hurley--I think this is short stories in the Bel Dame Apocrypha universe.
--A Perilous Undertaking, Deanna Raybourn. Sequel to A Curious Beginning, which I liked--a young Victorian lady figures out the socially acceptable way for her to Do Science and Travel and stuff is to study butterflies. There's also political intrigue.
--The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell
--Grass, Sheri Tepper
--Dreamer's Pool, Juliet Marillier
--Tooth and Claw, Jo Walton
--Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman
--Android's Dream, John Scalzi
--Fuzzy Nation, John Scalzi
--Agent to the Stars, John Scalzi there was a sale okay. I recognize I'm going to have to figure out how much I actually like John Scalzi in the next couple of months.
--Imajica, Clive Barker
--Soulless, Gail Carriger
--Broken Monsters, Lauren Beukes
--Vicious, VE Schwab

That's the list through September anyway. Tell me what I should listen to soonest (after I finish the ones I'm in progress on).

It's taken me nearly three months but I have managed to update all of the links to all of my vids from my journal and on ao3. (I think. I mean, tell me if you find a broken link now!)

full listing of vids on ao3

i've made a lot of vids. frankly more than i had realized. it's that whole passage of time thing...

spent this week ping-ponging back and forth between writing fanfic and doing homework. Usually after a lot of homework my brain is too tired to write, so I gave into the temptation to start writing early in the day and blow off homework a few times. Then did four chapters of homework in one day on Friday to catch up.

I have over 4000 words of fic written and it's getting long enough that it's starting to be a pain that I'm using the notes app on ipad, because scrolling. Also it's getting long enough that I want to post it and have feedback (well, more feedback than enemyofperfect, who is an excellent alpha reader and has been squeeing line by line) but it's definitely not a whole story yet. Like I'm not even to the main part of the story based on the rough outline I have in various chat logs. Like, even if I decided to chapter it and post it as a WIP, which is a terrible idea, I want to be able to revise it as I get further along, I think I currently have a prologue and about half a chapter. I am bursting at the seams to be able to share this fanfic and I can't write fast enough to satisfy the urge. creativity is hard.

There is a test that opens tomorrow and closes May 5th, and niqaeli will be here for much of that time so I'm arguing with myself about my weekend as a weekend vs studying a lot tomorrow to take it before she comes and not have it hanging over my head. Realistically I won't want to be studying while she's here, and I won't have a lot of time after she leaves either, I have another social engagement, a screening of Amelie with jetpack_monkey on May 4th.

Also I want to be vidding. I feel like the Magicians vid I have half of on the timeline has a very limited shelflife and I need to get it out soon, but I haven't actively worked on it in weeks. Because school, and writing, and the show itself being a big downer.

so i'm contemplating working on that magicians vid about how it's like getting punched in the face,,, I need to look through footage and see if there's ever a shot of Kady's fist just coming at the camera

it is incredibly difficult to tell the difference between "I'm sick and don't feel like doing anything/should rest until I recover" and "executive function has not switched on for the day"