Beyond Selidor

The current snowflake_challenge prompt is short and to the point: Rec Us Your Newest Thing.



My newest thing is not new so much as an old thing to which I've recently returned: Steven Saylor's Roma Sub Rosa mystery series.

( Cut because this got really long; warning for mentions of slavery )

fandomtrees has just gone live, and I've received some delightful gifts, representing the full spread of fandoms that I requested, which is particularly pleasing.

sunshine304 made me some absolutely stunning Babylon Berlin icons, ninthfeather made a great batch of Six of Crows icons, and hekateras wrote me a very creepy and atmospheric folklore-inspired fanfic:

Harvest (823 words) by Hekachoc
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Slavic Mythology & Folklore, Original Work
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Polednice | Lady Midday (Slavic Mythology & Folklore), Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Animal Death, Near Death Experiences, Death, Folklore, Deities
Summary:

Some minutes pass, but it is always midday.

I made two contributions to the fest: some vegetarian recipe recs for doomedblade, and some Six of Crows fic for isilloth:

Caught inside every open eye (1791 words) by Dolorosa
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa
Characters: Kaz Brekker, Inej Ghafa
Additional Tags: Post-Canon
Summary:

'My days of clambering up buildings and sneaking around rooftops as part of some dangerous and complicated heist sparked by your secretive and cryptic whims are long over!'

 

Inej and Kaz work together on one last job.

I love Fandom Trees, and think it's a really fun event, so I'm glad it went fairly smoothly this year. I hope everyone else who participated had a good time, and received some nice gifts!

It was warm, it was sunny, the farmers market in the centre of town was flooded with far too many people, but I can't bring myself to get too worked up about it because I just feel so relaxed and happy. We flung open the curtains, and filled the house with flowers.

I come bearing a few links.

The more observant among you may have noticed that I no longer live in Cambridge. This is (sadly) a product of the ridiculous housing market in this part of the world. When Matthias and I decided we wanted to buy a house, we basically had the option of either living on the very outskirts of Cambridge in what would probably be a house needing a lot of work, and have to spend hours every day commuting by (slow, unreliable) bus into work, or moving to one of the surrounding villages on the trainline and buying a much nicer house that would not need to be gutted and renovated from the ground up. Add to that the fact that both of our workplaces are basically not going to return us to full-time work in the office even after the pandemic is over, and the decision was obvious. We moved to Ely, which is fifteen minutes away from Cambridge on the train. While I miss some things about living in Cambridge, it was definitely the right decision.

All that by way of preamble to say that the house was finally in a presentable enough state for me to do a photo tour. I've posted three batches of photos over on Instagram at ronnidolorosa. Batch one, batch two, batch three.

Also via Instagram, a link to a wonderful photo essay (in a rather pretentious travel magazine) about the gorgeous ocean baths of Sydney. I miss the sea — and specifically the Sydney sea — so much!

Via a convoluted sequence of links in Dreamwidth, I stumbled upon this Tumblr post, which argues something I've long been struggling to articulate — my frustration and discomfort with anti-intellectualism on the left. It comes from a different place to the right-wing equivalent, but it's just as misinformed and damaging. It being a Tumblr post, I find it a touch on the polemical side, but it summarises a lot of things I've long felt, and gave me a satisfying jolt of recognition.

I also particularly enjoyed Amal El-Mohtar's newsletter this week, not least because the ritual she describes (Friday evening walks, take-away, and WandaVision) closely resembles my own Saturday evening pandemic ritual (take-away, and films), and because she is so overwhelmed with love for WandaVision, like me.

Edited to add the link to the first trailer for the Grishaverse Netflix show! In terms of the original books I only really love the Six of Crows duology (the ending of the original trilogy makes me incredibly angry, and the new series mainly focuses on characters in whom I'm not hugely interested), but the trailer is reminding me of all my intense Darklina feelings (because of course I've never met a heroine/villain ship I didn't like), and I'm very much looking forward to the series!



I hope your Saturdays have been filled with light, both physical and metaphorical.