See them run now you're gone, dream on

[dolorosa_12]

Number of cats in our garden: 2
Number of cats we own: 0
Amount of time said cats spent in a tense stand-off on the outdoor furniture: at least 20 minutes.

They then started wandering in circles around the cherry tree, glaring at each other.

It's been a mixed bag of a weekend. I spent most of last night and this morning panicking about the aphid-infested chilli plants I inherited from notasapleasure, which had begun infecting all the other indoor plants. I'm still a bit dubious about what to do with them, since spraying them with soapy water doesn't seem to have solved the problem (I think they were just too far gone for anything to work, to be honest). I'll consider it a win if the other indoor plants survive.

Far more enjoyable has been the gymnastics world championships. This normally wouldn't happen in the same year as the Olympics, but the pandemic meant that it's followed the Olympics in quick succession. This has then meant that most of the big names in women's gymnastics have elected to sit out the Worlds, meaning more chances at medals were available to up-and-comers, with a lot of upsets and surprises. There was a greater spread of countries winning medals (particularly in the apparatus finals), and — most pleasing for me — the medalists on floor went back to being more old school, winning on a mixture of difficulty and execution, rather (as has become more common with the dominance of US women in the sport) due to overloading the routines with difficulty but being a bit graceless in the execution, particularly the dance and interpretation of the music.

*

Yesterday, Matthias and I watched Dune, and I was surprised by the intensity of my reaction to it. I loved it, and the last time I can remember loving a film that much, it was Mad Max: Fury Road, which is actually my very favourite movie. I've read Dune, but it's not a particular favourite of mine (I don't watch film/TV adaptations of books that I dearly love, not even if every other fan of the book has told me it's a good adaptation), so perhaps big fans of the book would feel differently, but for me it felt like basically a perfect film. I find it hard to explain why I loved it so much — certainly I loved the score, and I always love Denis Villeneuve's whole aesthetic, which is very suited to the kinds of intergalactic political space opera which calls for sweeping shots of vast brutalist architecture dwarfing tiny, tiny human characters — but the best I can really manage is that the heart (and id) wants what it wants, and apparantly what my heart wanted was this specific film. I would quite happily watch it three more times in the next week if I could.

*

Other than that, I've been impatiently waiting for my Yuletide assignment, and reading a great post-canon Raven Cycle fic by likeadeuce, which has a great sense of place and found family — exactly what I want for fic in this fandom.

Recognize the World that You Call Home (24888 words) by likeadeuce
Chapters: 7/7
Fandom: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Richard Gansey III/Blue Sargent, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Characters: Richard Gansey III, Blue Sargent, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Richard Gansey II, Mrs. Gansey (Raven Cycle), Helen Gansey, Original Characters, Orphan Girl | Opal
Additional Tags: Future Fic, domestic pynch, Hiking, appalachian trail, Parenthood, Adoptive Parents Ronan Lynch and Adam Parrish, Childhood, Backstory, Gansey family problems, Floating Timeline, Kid Fic, ley lines, Iceland, Roadside Attractions, Richard Gansey International Runaway, Dreams (Gansey's this time), Dogs, Adam and Gansey are friends
Summary:

Since leaving Henrietta after high school, Gansey and Blue have been bouncing around the world looking for a place that fits. After more than ten years, they are almost ready to make some decisions, but first they decide to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail together. Along the way, Gansey revisits memories of the childhood that turned him into a lover of forests, mysteries, and traveling the world. Meanwhile, Ronan and Adam are creating their own family back at the Barns.

Written for Raven Cycle Big Bang 2021

*

I hope you've all been having lovely weekends!

Comments

[corvidology]

Cats in the garden that do not belong to him drive my championship gardener father to distraction. They're far too inclined to dig around in the beds.

[dolorosa_12]

So far they haven't done anything like that, but I'll have to keep a watchful eye. Sadly if people let their cats roam around outside there's not much I can do to keep them out.

[chestnut_pod]

I hope your two invasive cats know that I love them unconditionally and hope they don't get into a fight in your yard, or dig anything up.

Very interested to hear your thoughts on the World Championships -- I've been too busy to give over my usually recreation time to them, but I like hearing about them secondhand!

[dolorosa_12]

One of the cats is a regular visitor and normally just curls up and falls asleep on our garden furniture. The other one I'd never seen before. Thankfully, all they did was stare and glare at each other for ages before wandering off.

The World Championships was really interesting to watch, precisely because it was nice to see such a variety of gymnasts and countries on the medal podium, and almost all of them were fresh new winners, rather than the usual suspects. The next three years are certainly going to be interesting!

[superborb]

I solved my aphid problem by cutting the plant down at the root and then it regrew just fine and the aphids didn't survive without a host. I suspect this is a bit of drastic measure though ^^;

[dolorosa_12]

That feels like an extreme measure! I'm hoping less drastic solutions will prevail, as I don't think the chilli plants would grow back.

[sewn]

I had a similar reaction to Dune. I expected to like at least parts of it, but it hit me in a way I didn't even know I needed. Like Fury Road, it does things that are entirely cinematic, I suppose I'd describe it.

[dolorosa_12]

You've absolutely hit the nail on the head. Fury Road had the added bonus of speaking deeply to my experiences as a woman. Dune didn't hit me on that personal level, but it hit me on an emotional level in a way that I wasn't at all expecting. I loved it.

[merit]

There's a tuxedo cat that likes to meow at the back door, taunting my indoor cats, who always runs if I try to greet it. They certainly have personalities!

May your indoor plants survive.

[dolorosa_12]

My manager — who has an indoor cat — also seems to get random outdoor cats wandering into her house. They definitely have personalities (and chutzpah), that's for sure.

The plants are limping along so far — fingers crossed!

[lirazel]

Okay, that got me excited to see Dune! I was in love with the book when I was a teenager, so I might be more...critical of it as an adaptation, but I am glad to hear it works as a film. When a film is so good at doing what it intends to do, I can sometimes forgive it for being a terrible adaptation (think Joe Wright's Pride and Prejudice, which is an awful Austen adaptation, but a good movie when viewed as its own thing).

The gymnastics competition sounds lovely too--I'm more of a rhythmic gymnastics fan than an artistic one, but yes, it's so frustrating when the same people win over and over and only a few countries are ever really in competition for medaling. And RG has its own problems with overloading routines and then being sloppy and still winning. (So does figure skating, for that matter.)

[dolorosa_12]

When a film is so good at doing what it intends to do, I can sometimes forgive it for being a terrible adaptation

I agree with you entirely. It's just easier for me to get to a place where I can forgive the film for being a bad adaptation if I don't love the source material much to begin with. (Liking it or enjoying the source material is fine, but if I love it, I just don't feel I can be fair to any adaptation, so I avoid it entirely. I made this decision as a bitterly disappointed nine-year-old having watched Alfonso Cuarón butcher my then-favourite book, and it's served me well ever since!)

I wouldn't say it's so much as 'sloppiness' (no one could call Simone Bile's tumbling passes on floor and beam 'sloppy'), it's just a lack of attention paid to the other elements because they don't really count towards the final score, so all they're treated as is a process to get from massively high-scoring tumbling pass A to massively high-scoring triple pirouette B, and so on. It's interesting to know that similar problems persist in rhythmic gymnastics and figure skating too, though.

[lirazel]

y. I made this decision as a bitterly disappointed nine-year-old having watched Alfonso Cuarón butcher my then-favourite book, and it's served me well ever since!

A Little Princess? I mean, I love that movie to the depths of my soul, but it is nothing like the original book (which I also love).

In RG, it's particularly egregious with sloppiness--sometimes a gymnast will drop the apparatus, etc. and yet still win over someone with a flawlessly performed routine. But yes, the lack of attention to other elements is also a big issue.

[dolorosa_12]

Yes, A Little Princess. I remember being so excited to watch my favourite book turned into a movie, and then getting more and more upset as it went on (why is it set during WWI? why are they all now suddenly American? WHY DID THEY CHANGE THE ENDING??????). So, there and then in the cinema as a very upset nine-year-old, I made a solemn promise to myself that I would never watch adaptations of books I loved, ever again. I was quite a melodramatic child, but this decision has so far served me well!

[lirazel]

I think that was a very understandable reaction to that movie even if I had a different one. And I'm really glad the policy has served you so well!

[trepkos]

It's hilarious how cats decide that one's house/garden is their territory. I think I might go and see Dune! What channel are the gymnastics on? Have I missed it?

[dolorosa_12]

The gymnastics was on the BBC (I'm not sure which exact channel) but I watched the whole thing on catchup via iPlayer.

I hope you enjoy Dune if you go and see it!