A New Hope
Star Wars | Jack/Robby | 27,600 words | Written for thepittbigbang. Huge thanks to sheafrotherdon and thermocrying for betaing, and to trinityofone for letting me bug her with questions.

(Also on AO3)

( A long time ago in a hospital far, far away… The city-world of Coruscant is the only home that Robby’s ever known—but when he’s forced to flee it in the company of Imperial Navy deserter Jack, he learns what it means to find family and purpose in the unlikeliest parts of the galaxy. )

Today's is probably going to be a short one, because the stomach bug came roaring back yesterday and I feel like ass. I was up and down all night trying to expel everything I'd eeaten during the dya. It was not pleasant. This morning, I'm still running to the bathroom, plus I'm nauseouse as fuck.

So, short one. Up until about 7, I was feeling better. I was able to eat some bland food and I kept it down, but towards the evening, I started to feel kinda crappy. Then, blech.

Work wasn't bad. The phones weren't super bad, I learned that I too can creep on people with our new phone system. They gave me access to the dashboard where you can see what everyone's doing. Part of my job will to make sure that they're not fucking around when they're supposed to be on the phone. It's a little bit creepy, but sure, I can do that.

We had our weekly meeting, but we all were so burned out from the week that it was very quiet and short. We were off the phone in time for my normal lunch.

After that, we relaxed for a bit, and then I started feeling cruddy. I had some dinner, which was a mistake, and then the tummy troubles started.

I think once I finish this, I may go lay back down, since my sleep was very disjointed. I'll take a zofran and maybe a weed and nap. We'll see.

We're supposed to have a game tonight, but I'm thinking that may need to be moved.

Tomorrow, we also have a game, but hopefully, since I don't run that one, I'll be up to playing.

Still no boarding passes for our trip, which is annoying. I want my boarding pass!! Maybe later today it'll come up.

And on that note, I'm going to go take a nap. Everyone have an amazing Saturday!

Okay, so, general update then some happier HR stuff. NZ now has about 16 days of onshore diesel left and there's nothing in the news about it. The official govt fuel update page says no worries, prices will just be a bit higher next few weeks, no need to ration. Surendran says we only have stocks and some diesel incoming on two ships as we're outbidding poorer nations, which is causing other countries in our fuel supply chain around the Asian-Pacific rim to side-eye us as they've all imposed restrictions on their own populations, being collectivist cultures. So NZ is looking like a selfish, short-sighted, individualistic nation, which is just great, if we ever need their help. Fucking National government dickheads.

I mailordered a bunch of things on the basis of why not while I still can, and am now faced with needing to tidy and reorganise my spare room and garage to store stuff. Ugh. I'm too physically lazy to be a survivalist.
Maybe I can hire a boy scout? Do boy scouts still exist? I also need the boy scout to change bulbs in my kitchen as I don't think I'm safe on a stepstool any more. Rats. I got my second shingles vax and over the next two weeks will get a flu shot and covid booster.

Lots of rain and thunderstorms recently but still many nice days, although temps have dropped so definitely autumnal. The liquidamber trees are bronzing up - the main tree that reliably has autumn colours here in the subtropics. I'm going to revamp a couple of my wheeliebeds and plant kale and spinach, also pansies are available, so yay. Potted colour for interesting times.

On the HR front, have been arting, and posted another podfic. Lots of fiddling!
Ilya and Friend - portrait of a contemplative Ilya with rabbit (kind of for Easter)
cut to the feeling - podfic of Charlotte_Stant's wonderful fic
Collectors Items - picked up 4 art pinch hits for the ICE OUT donations challenge. This one is hollanov in Topps card format.
Everyone's Issue - for ICE OUT. A mental health poster format with Shane and Ilya.
Best t-shirt ever - Scott/Kip, domestic fluff, for ICE OUT.
I got you something - Troy/Harris and the NY Pride pin for ICE OUT
podfic of Torture Me (With All I've Wanted) - excellent fic by toomuchplor (teenage Shane/Ilya bonding on a long bus ride)

HR recs:
(I've lost track of who reccd what so some of these will already have been reccd by friends.)
Retirement, apparently by cheryl123
Hilarious romp of crack taken seriously. Post retirement from hockey, Shane and Ilya end up in VERY different reality tv shows, with iconic results.
Knock on Wood by McShrug
Hot as hell fic in which "just the tip" becomes part of Shane's superstitious pregame playoffs ritual.
Is this thing on? by arustyspork
I saw this ask on tumblr - someone suggested a post-retirement fic where Shane and Svetlana have a hockey podcast together. Arustyspork took up the baton, and it's marvellous! They have a segment called "why Ilya Rozanov owes me money" in which guests relate terrible/funny things Ilya did to them. They won't let Ilya himself come on the show and it drives him crazy!
i carry your heart by corvidcordelia
A complete AU where they're competing literary fiction writers having rivalrous sex in a retelling of the show. CC adds in mocked-up covers for their bestsellers and extremely real-feeling & pretentious rave critic reviews, plus quotes from Cummings and Austen. Brilliantly done. As usual, Svetlana and Rose (their literary agents) do some emotional heavy lifting.

And, new to me HR writers that I'm now reading everything of:
ghoulien
Cheryl123sing
HH_Arrow

Okay, enough for now! Today was supposed to be a writing day, ha.
Hugs to you all!

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A couple years ago, I did a daily tarot prompt (see this tag), which I'm thinking about doing again, but realising that consistency isn't going to be my best point, I'm not sure if it's a good idea. I guess I could draw a card when I remember to do it, and not commit to writing a drabble/ficlet every day? I really did have fun last time, but I also wasn't... fully burned out. so

Thoughts?

Does anyone know where I can get a Trinity Santos icon?

*

Always need some Dorianne Laux during poetry month, so here's today's poem:

Prayer
by Dorianne Laux

Sweet Jesus, let her save you, let her take
your hands and hold them to her breasts,
slip the sandals from your feet, lay your body down
on sheets beaten clean against the fountain stones.
Let her rest her dark head on your chest,
let her tongue lift the hairs like a sword tip
parting the reeds, let her lips burnish
your neck, let your eyes be wet with pleasure.
Let her keep you from that other life, as a mother
keeps a child from the brick lip of a well,
though the rope and bucket shine and clang,
though the water's hidden silk and mystery call.
Let her patter soothe you and her passions
distract you, let her show you the light
storming the windows of her kitchen, peaches
in a wooden bowl, a square of blue cloth
she has sewn to her skirt to cover the tear.
What could be more holy than the curve of her back
as she sits, her hands opening a plum.
What could be more sacred than her eyes,
fierce and complicated as the truth, your life
rising behind them, your name on her lips.
Stay there, in her bare house, the black pots
hung from pegs, bread braided and glazed
on the table, a clay jug of violet wine.
There is the daily sacrament of rasp and chisel,
another chair to be made, shelves to be hewn
cleanly and even and carefully joined
to the sun-scrubbed walls, a sharp knife
for carving odd chunks of wood into small toys
for the children. Oh Jesus, close your eyes
and listen to it, the air is alive with bird calls
and bees, the dry rustle of palm leaves,
her distracted song as she washes her feet.
Let your death be quiet and ordinary.
Either life you choose will end in her arms

*

A science fiction novella about aliens, communication, and certain dark topics which are spoilery to mention. Though if you read the blurb for this book, it very strongly implies those topics and the specific shocking twist that involves them. It reminded me of China Mieville's Embassytown, though the latter benefited from its longer length.

Ro's species, along with some others, can jump into the minds of Star Eaters, the mysterious species that alone can mine the mineral that enables space travel. Ro is told that doing so is the only way to study them, and while jumping into their bodies extinguishes their minds, they are extremely long-lived beings and their minds definitely come back, so Ro is only doing the equivalent of causing a day-long blackout. The Star Eaters were apparently once enslaved, but now work voluntarily; communication with them is difficult and puzzling. Once you jump in, you're stuck for the rest of your life, but Ro is such a curious and skilled linguist that he's willing to give up everything to understand this oddly mysterious race. (I guess the possessing being's mind is supposed to only live for its species's normal lifespan? This is not explained.)

If you've read much science fiction, or many books in general, you have probably already figured out what's really going on. In fact it's so obvious that it seems strange that it takes the characters so long to do so, but of course no one knows exactly what story they're in.

Everything involving alien communication is great. But the plot is so predictable and grim that I didn't enjoy the book much.

( Read more... )

103 Doctor Who icons (Eleventh Doctor era), 16 House of the Dragon icons (season one), 1 Womb/Clone icon, 8 Christopher and His Kind icons, 8 The Death of Bunny Munro (should be non-spoilery, but hasn't aired in the US yet)

Teasers:



icons @ my personal journal

Autobiographical

Did u hear about the Rose that grew from a crack
in the concrete
Proving nature's laws wrong it learned 2 walk
without having feet
Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams
It learned 2 breathe fresh air
Long live the rose that grew from concrete
When no one else even cared!

- Tupac Shakur

I've been doing a lot of staring at bookshelves (bookshops, libraries), online library catalogues, publishers websites, book recommendation sites, online book retail sites and a range of other places that seemed like a good idea at the time. I have not completed the full systematic search I want to have done, but I'm allowing that some of that is going to happen during the writing phase, because I do not actually expect to find the kinds of books I'm after in most of those places.

My spreadsheet of books now has over 150 entries. Quite a lot fail one or more of the inclusion criteria, and some of those are duplicates because I'm attempting to capture the sources as well (will I analyse that? no, probably not. Am I capturing it anyway because I think it will have the potential for me to talk about? yes). Several I've already started reading. I'm most excited about Attack of the Smart Speakers, which I'm halfway through, and as I'm writing my reading notes I keep writing enthusiastic commentary. This one is a bit frustrating because it is a library copy, and so I'm writing more than I would if I could just mark up my copy -- I've now ordered a me copy to annotate.

I'm also really happy with Orion Lost, although I'm not sure how much that one is going to fall in a heap in terms of getting done, because the next set of plot beats have the potential to go places I'm not comfortable following. Yes, it is middle grade fiction, and it will be resolved, but some of where it has already gone has required a few breaks. (I'm aware that these are me specific emotional land mines and that they aren't affecting my interpretation, just how fast I can cope with it). Plus, I put it aside to deal with library books that are due next week (I found three possibles of which two are yeses).

Which brings me to my evening -- I have spent some hours on The Nile and Fishpond websites looking for books that might suit my parameters. On The Nile, I found searching for 'AI' and then filtering to books / fiction / children and young adult did a reasonable job; on Fishpond I found no search that was useful. And then at the end of that I looked through my spreadsheet, picked what was reasonably priced and high in my priority rankings and was a variety of options, and ordered Slightly Too Many Books. Including one co-authored by Farah Mendelsohn, which was has been in my wishlist for multiple years and was about half the price I remember it being (Farah is going to be the GUFF delegate to the local con this year, so I'm extra motivated. Will I take everything I own of theirs to be signed? probably not. But I'm not ruling out the possibility).

And now I have to wait. The original delivery date range when I looked was mid May, and when I checked out it was early to mid June, so who knows when I'll get any of them. I have no shortage of things to be getting on with, but I'm presenting my initial findings at the end of May!

Geoff and I are leaving for the Channel Islands in a week and a half!

Whee! and also 😱

The Channel Islands were the runner-up for choice of destination last year, but we decided to go to Wales instead -- partly because we could do a supported hike there. But the hike turned out to be on the verge of too hard for us; apparently we are several years older than we were the last time we did one, which is just unfair. Anyway, this year we're just going to park ourselves in one place -- well, two places, ten days each on Jersey and Guernsey - and do day hikes out and back. Both islands seem to have good bus systems, so we should generally be able to take a bus to a starting point, hike for *mumble* hours, and catch another bus home. And we'll try to do a day trip to Herm, or maybe Sark, but Herm looks more appealing if we only go to one.

It's a little strange and stressful planning a trip entirely on our own! I mean, we had time on our own in Wales after we finished the supported hike, but we expected to be exhausted, so "eh, we'll just noodle around Aberystwyth and visit the National Library" was plenty of planning. Here, though, I keep trying to research specific hikes we could do, and getting overwhelmed by the confusing and incomplete way info is presented. Like, a site just gives a text list of walks, but I want to see them plotted on a map so I can tell where they are relative to where we're staying. An app tells how to get to the beginning of a hike by bus, but gives no information about what buses can get us home from the end. Another site shows walks on a map but says nothing about how to get to them, so I have to have the walking site, the island's bus route map (very schematic and abstract), and Google Maps open to try to cross-check bus routes and stop locations. After a while I just throw up my hands and hope that the tourist info places will have better info on site.

(Ahahahah, I initially typed "better" as "beer," and, well, yes please, that too.)

We have booked a couple of activities in advance. The seabed slopes very gradually away around the islands, so when the tide goes out it goes waaaaaaay out, and we have booked a three-hour guided walk across the exposed sea floor, which sounds amazing; and the next day we've booked a couple hours of guided sea kayaking around the coastline. Other than that, though, we're winging it!

Well, winging the day-to-day part. We have booked our hotels and our ferry tickets between Jersey and Guernsey in advance, because I don't feel comfortable trying to arrange things like that on the fly. And after our hotel snafu in Aberystwyth, I have made sure to directly contact each hotel with a plausible-sounding query ("we'll be arriving before our room is likely to be ready, would we be able to drop our luggage off?" is always a good one) that translates to "please confirm that you have actually received our reservation and planned for our arrival"! Yes, this wouldn't be a problem if I booked directly instead of going through Booking.com, but the fact is that many hotels don't have direct booking anymore; they outsource it all to third parties like B.c.

And of course there's the ongoing uncertainly about the world's supply of jet fuel. Will we be able to get home? Geoff keeps bringing this question up, and saying we ought to look into our options if there's a problem, but he doesn't come up with anything really actionable. Other than exploring UK-to-CA cruises? But I'm like, there is absolutely nothing we can do to affect the possibility of our being stranded for a bit; if British Airways cancels our flight it will be on them to find us an alternate means of travel; it will still be both faster and cheaper to wait for a new flight than to try to sail across; we are fortunate enough to have the ability to absorb an unexpected extra few nights in a hotel if necessary; sweetie, you are stressed about this and you're dealing with your stress by just venting it in my direction, please stop. I mean, yes, it's a stressful prospect (and I acknowledge that the whole goddamn world is a stressful prospect right now and "what if our vacation in a few days longer and more stressful than planned?" is completely a "diamond shoes gave me a blister" problem), but since there is absolutely nothing we can do I prefer not to spend nervous energy on it, thanks.

Anyway, on top of all that hiking, we want to visit some of the Neolithic passage tombs, and also some of the museums of the Nazi occupation. *shiver* And I plan to eat my own weight in seafood, although Geoff won't join me in that. And maybe we will even lounge about!

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Urianger Augurelt & Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Ardbert & Urianger Augurelt, Unrealized Ardbert/Urianger Augurelt, Pre-Urianger Augurelt/Warrior of Light
Characters: Urianger Augurelt, Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Ardbert Hylfyst, Elidibus, Unukalhai, Tataru Taru, Minfilia Warde, Warrior of Light, Dewlala Dewla, Y'shtola Rhul, Yugiri Mistwalker, Thancred Waters, J'Rhoomale, Blanhaerz, Lamimi, Naillebert, Haneko Burneko
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Angst, Religion, Isolation, Loneliness, Patch 3.4: Soul Surrender Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen Warrior of Light, Female Warrior of Light, Canon-Typical Violence, Guilt, Emotional Repression, Child Neglect, Childhood Memories, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 75,514 / 92,000
Chapter: 12/15

Summary:

Heartbroken after the loss of his dearest companion, Urianger labors to save two worlds in which he has never felt more alone.

Notes:

If you're new here, please start with Chapter 1!

Final Fantasy XIV is owned by Square Enix. This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction.

( Read on AO3 )

( ...or below! )

Well, that was a fun day. The stomach woes continued yesterday, coming to a head around lunchtime, wehn I went full exorcist. I ended up calling off work early so I could be a giant lump. I slept most of the afternoon, getting up to throw up again around 5, and then going back to bed. Still not 100% sure whether this is somach bug or Mounjaro, but I'm leaning towards stomach bug, but I suppose time will tell.

Yesterday, I felt poorly enough that after I finished posting, and doing my morning things, I went back to bed. I may do that today as well.

I'm still queasy, and lower digestive tract is not happy either. I've been running to the bathroom this morning. I skipped my early morning coffee in favor of a ginger ale, which is how you know I must feel bad. I may actually drink some tea!

I've got a game tonight that is on entirely shaky ground right now. We'll see how I'm feeling after work. Right now, I would say cancel, but it's been waiting forever and a day, so I hate to push it. We're pretty near the end of the module, so it would probably be a short session. I'll see how things go.

Still no boarding passes yet. I am waiting patiently for those to arrive. But the meal choice on our flight to Seattle was ready to pick. They had some good things. I (and everyone else but Jess) opted for Parmesan chive eggs, bacon and potatoes. Jess is getting the Bananas Foster crepes, which sound delicious. If it weren't for needing protien, I'd have considered that one.

Tomorrow will be 14 days til the boat, so I'm assuming that we'll be getting the boarding passes then. On the other hand, it's now 13 days today that we leave.

I'm a bit anxious about the cruise. I've never done one, and we are a sold out, or near sold out cruise. How will I do with the people. How fat friendly is the boat? Will I do okay with all the walking. If I'll get seasick. If everyone will have fun. I hope so! I'm definitely going to have to adjust my sleep cycle, which will suck, but I'll get there. The first day, we're going to be awake for nearly 22 hours. Hopefully that'll reset us to PST. Coming back, we span an entire day in one six hour flight. We leave at 10am PST and land at 6:30 EST. Fortunately, coming back I'll have access again to my weed stash, which should help me to go to sleep early. I'm going to miss the relaxing peppermints while we're away. It's going to suck. I wonder about that, too. How well will I sleep on this trip. I'm hoping that most days I'll be too tired not to sleep, but I'm a little nervous about it.

Tomorrow, whether I feel better or not, I need to do some packing adjustments. I went ahead and bought a small carry on suitcase, so I need to move a few things from my personal item and from my suitcase to bring the weight down a touch. Plus, then I'll have access to a fleece if I need one. RIght now, it looks like Seattle and Vancouver are going to be in the 60s's, so even with getting in early, a light fleece will be plenty. I know on the way back, I may get hit with the $100 overweigh fee anyway. It's a very small suitcase, so it's not going to hold a ton, but I will try to switch a few things over to lighten it. I do need to add a dress to the carry on, just in case our bags are late getting to us. Though, since we are the Pinnacle Suite, they'll probably come fairly early.

Apparently uber to the game is super pricey, but the hotel shuttle will drop you at the light rail, which seems to go from SEATAC to the Stadium for a reasonable price. Need to do a bit more research on that, though. I'm debating between joining him to go into Seattle proper and grabbing lunch and sightseeing vs having a quiet day at the Cedarbrook Lodge. Both sound enticing. I guess we'll see how much we get done in Seattle and how well we like it as to whether we want to venture out.

I can't say I wouldn't enjoy a second shot at Pike Placie, on our own time, when the limo isn't waiting. We might be able to hit that French restaurant that I really want to try for a late lunch/early dinner. The last day on the cruise should be pretty chill, so I might feel like a little excitement.

I just plan to have all our documents printed out and in hand when we board. The BIL is not great with technology, so I don't trust him to pull up his boarding pass in terminal. I've got an itinerary with all the phone #s of the vendors and hotels we're using in case anyone needs to get in touch with us. (Mostly the BIL's family.) But it's going to be a great vacation, and no one is going to need anything from us. BIL's mother is going to be fine, his sisters are going to be fine and on our end, Yoda is going to be fine at the daycare/kennel.

I just need to re-figure dinner for the day before the cruise, since apparently people from the Facebook group would like to get together before we go on the cruise, so I'm down for that. It'll probably mean going to a boring restaurant, which will suck, but I started the group for this sailing, so I feel like I should probably be there. Maybe we can sneak in something in Chinatown for lunch. We'll just do Granville Island Public Market for second breakfast. Or first real breakfast for Jess, since they don't like eggs and probably won't have many options at the hotel breakfast.

We'll be on the boat on Sunday, so no Sunday brunch in Chinatown. But we will have the Alaska Brunch. I think we'll finish up our game by then. Let's see, we'll be starting at 9 PST, and finishing about noon. I think the brunch goes til 1, so we might have time for that. I may see if we could start a wee earlier, so we have a little more time. That'll be in the main dining room, which may be the only time I go there. Though I may go there for Tea our last sea day. That would probably be nice. We can have tea delivered to our room every day of the cruise if we want, but since we'll be at port some days, that isn't likely to happen.

I'm planning to take a ton of pictures and hopefully some video of everything we see. It'll all get uploaded to my Alaska folder on Google Photos. If anyone would like to follow along, please feel free. I will probably also be posting some of the best, most exciting pictures on here in the mornings, but I'll put them behind a cut so as to not spam anyone who's not interested. Hell, you might see the occasional afternoon post pop up with "I saw a whale!" If you follow me on bluesky, you're also going to get occasional pictures there as well. I'll save the spam on facebook until we get back, since that's under my wallet name and I'd like my home unburglarized.

So, y'know, my apologies if you see the same pictures repeatedly.

I can't believe that this time two weeks from now, I'll be sleeping in Vancouver, dreaming of Granville Market the next morning. It still seems like a completely made up idea, a scheme that would never actually happen. But I have the airline tickets and luggage tags to prove it, and that's just weird.

The next week and a half at work is going to seem SO long, especially Wednesday. Wednesday is going to drag. I'll have another 6 hours of PTO, so I may leave at noon, so I can flit about the house and watch the clock instead of doing it at work. I know I'm going to be packing my pills and a daily pill case to put them in that night. They recommend taking the bottles. I can fill another daily pill case for the night and morning pills that I'll need before we go. Then in the morning, I pack the cords for the phone, since I'll want it to charge over night. I'm still debating on whether to take the portable charger. On one hand, it could be useful. On the other, fire risk on the plane. Maybe I'll wait and buy an inexpensive one in Canada, and then toss it before we come back. That might be a good plan.

The other day, we were watching a video about the steakhouse we're going to first night, Hy's. It looked so good, even in my vaguely queasy state. It's super expensive, but we're going to live it up. I'm torn between getting the tableside prep of Steak Diane, vs the ungodly expensive 20 oz dry aged ribeye. It's a tough call, because I do love ribeye steak, but tableside flambe also sounds good. It's sure to be tasty no matter what.

Okay, I've babbled enough for one day. Everyone have a most excellent Friday!