you do the math, you expect the trouble
Apr. 9th, 2026 05:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
musesfoolToday's poem, for which I had to turn on the rich text editor and still couldn't get the spacing quite right sigh:
Seaside Improvisation
by Richard Siken
I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.
*
Seaside Improvisation
by Richard Siken
I take off my hands and I give them to you but you don't
want them, so I take them back
and put them on the wrong way, the wrong wrists. The yard is dark,
the tomatoes are next to the whitewashed wall,
the book on the table is about Spain,
the windows are painted shut.
Tonight you're thinking of cities under crowns
of snow and I stare at you like I'm looking through a window,
counting birds.
You wanted happiness, I can't blame you for that,
and maybe a mouth sounds idiotic when it blathers on about joy
but tell me
you love this, tell me you're not miserable.
You do the math, you expect the trouble.
The seaside town. The electric fence.
Draw a circle with a piece of chalk. Imagine standing in a constant cone
of light. Imagine surrender. Imagine being useless.
A stone on the path means the tea's not ready,
a stone in the hand means somebody's angry, the stone inside you still
hasn't hit bottom.
*
Graphic Novel Favorites From My Recent Reading
Apr. 9th, 2026 09:14 amforestofglory posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ladybusinessAfter years of struggling to read new-to-me fiction, I’ve recently entered a phase of reading graphic novels and comics and I’ve been reading so much! (It helps that I accidentally got into a comics-based fandom via stress-reading fic late last year.) It’s only April yet I have already read more books this year than I have in any year since 2020, it's truly wild. I haven’t had this much fun reading in ages!
I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been enjoying, so I thought I’d write a rec list. I find graphic novels easier to focus on when I’m stressed than prose novels, and I also love getting to see so much art. I’ve been mostly reading MG and YA works – it feels like there is a lot going on in that space right now! Plus it’s a space where there tend to be many stories focused on friendship, which I really enjoy. I’ve also been choosing more lighthearted things to read. The world is stressful and I can’t deal with stressful reading at the moment.
( Read more... )
I wanted to share some of the things I’ve been enjoying, so I thought I’d write a rec list. I find graphic novels easier to focus on when I’m stressed than prose novels, and I also love getting to see so much art. I’ve been mostly reading MG and YA works – it feels like there is a lot going on in that space right now! Plus it’s a space where there tend to be many stories focused on friendship, which I really enjoy. I’ve also been choosing more lighthearted things to read. The world is stressful and I can’t deal with stressful reading at the moment.
( Read more... )
multifandom icons.
Apr. 9th, 2026 09:13 amwickedgame posting in iconicFandoms: Addicted, Bridgerton, Cobra Kai, Elite, Guardian, I'll Turn Back This Time, Mako Mermaids, One Piece, Shadowhunters, Superman & Lois, Zorro
the rest are HERE @mundodefieras
the rest are HERE @
mundodefieras Aurendor D&D: Summary for 4/8 Game
Apr. 8th, 2026 09:38 pmsettiaiIn tonight's game, ( the rest under a cut for those who don't care. )
And that's where we left off, because the DM's internet died again (as the game's start was already delayed because of internet issues).
And that's where we left off, because the DM's internet died again (as the game's start was already delayed because of internet issues).
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Icons
Apr. 8th, 2026 09:08 pmflareonfury posting in fandom_iconsSince a little obsessed with the series, the following icons were made for various challenges:
"Some secrets cannot be contained...." fortvmovie20in20
"I'm Keiko Miura. And you may call me Doctor Miura...." forcharacters20in20
"If we can’t put the greater good before our own desires, we risk losing everything....." forships20in20
"Some secrets cannot be contained...." for
tvmovie20in20 "I'm Keiko Miura. And you may call me Doctor Miura...." for
characters20in20 "If we can’t put the greater good before our own desires, we risk losing everything....." for
ships20in20 
but I sit silent and burning
Apr. 8th, 2026 05:25 pmmusesfoolI was taken with the need to do an Orphan Black rewatch and there's so much I forgot! Tatiana Maslany is so good, which you all knew, and the supporting cast is *chef's kiss*. It makes very few missteps, and watching in marathon fashion means even storylines I disliked originally (CASTOR) work much better. It's on Netflix, so if you are in the mood and don't mind the grossout body horror, it's a good watch.
And this poem seemed fitting:
This Poem Will Get Me On Some Kind of Watchlist
by Jessie Lochrie
I'm dancing at a nightclub
when someone behind me
places a hand on my shoulder.
I assume it's a friend until
the hand slides down my chest.
Boiling with gin and rage
I grab his wrist, whip around,
and punch him in the jaw.
It doesn't land well—
I've never hit anyone before—
so I punch him in the gut,
just for good measure.
I look at him doubled over and spit
Never do that to a woman again,
and then I run. My friends laugh in the cab:
You punched a guy!
but I sit silent and burning.
In Crown Heights, in Union Square,
in South Williamsburg: men leer and
whistle and smack their lips.
I ignore them, or flip them off,
or tell them I'm married.
When they purr que guapa
I yell callate and they all laugh.
I can't tell if they're laughing at me
for being a white girl speaking bad
Spanish, or at the idea that anything
I say might actually shut them up.
In my impotent rage I dream of a world
where I am not public property. I would
start wars for my right to walk down a street
unafraid, a thousand wars for a single day
in which my body belongs to me alone.
An army raised against each cat call. A bullet
for every man who ever told me to smile.
***
And this poem seemed fitting:
This Poem Will Get Me On Some Kind of Watchlist
by Jessie Lochrie
I'm dancing at a nightclub
when someone behind me
places a hand on my shoulder.
I assume it's a friend until
the hand slides down my chest.
Boiling with gin and rage
I grab his wrist, whip around,
and punch him in the jaw.
It doesn't land well—
I've never hit anyone before—
so I punch him in the gut,
just for good measure.
I look at him doubled over and spit
Never do that to a woman again,
and then I run. My friends laugh in the cab:
You punched a guy!
but I sit silent and burning.
In Crown Heights, in Union Square,
in South Williamsburg: men leer and
whistle and smack their lips.
I ignore them, or flip them off,
or tell them I'm married.
When they purr que guapa
I yell callate and they all laugh.
I can't tell if they're laughing at me
for being a white girl speaking bad
Spanish, or at the idea that anything
I say might actually shut them up.
In my impotent rage I dream of a world
where I am not public property. I would
start wars for my right to walk down a street
unafraid, a thousand wars for a single day
in which my body belongs to me alone.
An army raised against each cat call. A bullet
for every man who ever told me to smile.
***
2026 Books, Post 4
Apr. 8th, 2026 03:27 pmlady_ragnellI think six of these books have been read in the past week and a half? I went through something of a stuck spot for a while there, but I'm back in the habit again, at least somewhat! Having an easier time with ebooks than paper ones at present, maybe because I keep having reading time when I'm away from my bookshelves and haven't been reading paper books that fit in my purse.
The Husband Gambit by L.A. Witt
Earth Earls Are Easy by Catherine Stein
A Legionnaire's Guide to Love and Peace by Emily Skrutskie
The Connection by Kate Simpson-Shaw
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
The Great Balance Series (A Lady of Vision, A Scholar of Beauty, A Thief of Treason) by Jen Lynning
Not Another Family Wedding by Jackie Lau
The Painted Crown by Megan Derr
That's all for this time! With a work break coming up week after next, I'm hoping I'll be back with another one of these sooner rather than later.
The Husband Gambit by L.A. Witt
This one was a contemporary queer marriage of convenience story that was pretty good! A bit of a Cinderella story, to some extent, dealing with the "prince" in the situation's shitty family (including his horrible homophobic father who is trying to move from a Hollywood producing career into politics, and that didn't hit home at all!). It had enough going on that it didn't quite use all of it to the extent I could have wished, but I did enjoy the ensemble even if they weren't used super effectively at times. Not one I'll remember long, but not one I regret reading either.
Earth Earls Are Easy by Catherine Stein
One suspects Stein may have thought of the title first and based not just this book but what seems to be the setup for a series on it. But for all that, I had a good deal of fun with this one! I have run across, now, a few books in this wildly specific genre of "societal structures etc. are old-fashioned but it's set on Mars" (a book that was basically Chalet School only on Mars, this one, and one I haven't yet read that seems to be like WWII evacuees in Britain on Mars), and frankly I love it? More of this? This was basically a Victorian (I wouldn't say Regency, I'd say pretty solidly mid-to-late Victorian) romance novel, just set on Mars, and without the pretty historical costumes. A bit of an action romance, think more the type where there are spies and shit than just social dramas. Not always as graceful or deft as perhaps it could have been, but frankly I had a great time with this one so I don't really care.
A Legionnaire's Guide to Love and Peace by Emily Skrutskie
I really enjoyed this one! This was a fantasy romance that did a lot of things I really enjoyed with worldbuilding (cool magic system that had some implications and myth stuff I'd have loved to see more of), shockingly well-researched battle tactics (using the Roman century model), had a whole plot point about building a road, and above all else for me, is about the aftermath of defeating the Great Evil and mopping up the smaller evils in its wake and seeing what will get built in its place. The romance was sweet, but really not the part of things that I enjoyed most--not that it was in the least bad! I was just too busy enjoying the other aspects to really get swept in by it too much. (Which can also sometimes be a danger of a friends to lovers situation for me where all of the moments of building trust and affection happened off-screen before the story began.)
The Connection by Kate Simpson-Shaw
A little bit of sapphic contemporary fluff that I picked up when it was either quite on sale or free recently. It was sweet, not much to say about it! There was a minute there when I thought we were going to go WAY more gothic than the bright pink cover implied and do some sapphic incest business involving one of the love interest's sisters romantically pining for her, but that didn't end up happening (even if it would have made more sense, weirdly, than where Simpson-Shaw tried to take things). Not that I mind it being exactly what it said on the tin, but that was my thought process while I was reading!
The Wishing Game by Meg Shaffer
I really liked this! Books about books, you know? Eccentric author of a children's book series who hasn't published one in a while has written a draft and has summoned four people to take part in a contest for ownership of the draft, all four being adults who while children ran away to his private island that's a mirror of the one from his book series. Our heroine desperately needs the money to adopt a small boy she's bonded with, and our hero is the illustrator of the author's books. It's maybe not the deepest or most gorgeously written version of this story, but I just really liked it! A sweet thing to read right before a really stressful week!
The Great Balance Series (A Lady of Vision, A Scholar of Beauty, A Thief of Treason) by Jen Lynning
Reviewing these all together, because I've read them all in the past week, though with a book in between books two and three! Read an introductory novella to this world a year or two ago, and saw this was either on sale or free at some point so I picked it up! I keep wanting to be more excited about indie fantasy romance the way I was a few years back before it got Super Trendy and thus picked up a lot of Tropes That Have To Be There, and I liked this a lot more than I've liked a lot of what I've run across recently--I mean, obviously, to the extent that I finished the series! Mostly I like the worldbuilding mechanics in this, that there are prayer-magics that can be invoked to create certain effects but that have to be balanced by equal and opposite effects (for instance, a minor character in the second book traded the beauty of her lovely singing voice to become physically beautiful, but there are also technological uses, the second book is the most fun for those). I liked the middle best, though the romance was a slightly hard sell for me, but overall, if not exactly groundbreaking, I was just glad to have some fantasy romance that's its own thing without doing the trends too hard. Also, the novella in this series is pretty much required reading, FYI, it's not in this bundle but I think it's free on the author's website?
Not Another Family Wedding by Jackie Lau
Contemporary romance I don't have a ton to say about! I always appreciate a romance where the couple explicitly does not want to have children, plus there's an abortion in the heroine's past, which is VANISHINGLY rare. However, I was a little irked by both the hero and heroine clearly not wanting to have kids and having been friends for a long time but them not telling each other that being pretty much the main thing keeping them from committing for 2/3-3/4 of the book. People don't always communicate perfectly, obviously, and if they did it would make for boring books, but that miscommunication didn't work so much for me. Mostly I was really invested in the heroine and her family as she and her sister struggle through something and as she assimilates the failure of her parents' marriage and the ways they failed her when her sister was born.
The Painted Crown by Megan Derr
I'm going to say: I think I discovered Derr's earlier work first, maybe, and was charmed by the inexpert indulgence in it, and keep reading her newer work when I want the sheer indulgence and not quite finding it as much as I wish I could. Is this objectively better than some of the earlier works by her that I read? It very much is! There's fun politics going on, some sharpshooter rescue mission stuff happening, this and The Engineered Throne are both actually really solid fantasy romances. It's just that I picked it up hoping for Absolute Fluff and I shouldn't have, Derr's recent work has too much range for that! I should keep her in mind for fantasy romance cravings that don't succumb to the Trends I mentioned above instead of Absolute Indulgent Fluff now. (Though I do need to find a new supplier of Absolute Indulgent Fluff, apparently.)
That's all for this time! With a work break coming up week after next, I'm hoping I'll be back with another one of these sooner rather than later.
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Fic: Unexpectations (Mass Effect)
Apr. 7th, 2026 06:38 pmsettiaiUnexpectations (2345 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kelly Chambers/Samara
Characters: Kelly Chambers, Samara (Mass Effect)
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange
Summary: Looking back, it wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kelly Chambers/Samara
Characters: Kelly Chambers, Samara (Mass Effect)
Additional Tags: Complicated Relationships, Developing Relationship, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Not Actually Unrequited Love, One Shot, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange
Summary: Looking back, it wasn't something that came out of nowhere.
Fic: Falling Apart, Coming Together, and Everything In Between (Mass Effect)
Apr. 7th, 2026 06:36 pmsettiaiFalling Apart, Coming Together, and Everything In Between (1975 words) by Settiai
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Kaidan Alenko, Thane Krios
Additional Tags: Break Up, Developing Relationship, Getting Back Together, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, One Shot, Polyamory, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange, Thane Krios Lives
Summary: Falling in love had been as easy as breathing.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Mass Effect Trilogy, Mass Effect - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Kaidan Alenko/Female Shepard, Thane Krios/Female Shepard, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios, Kaidan Alenko/Thane Krios/Female Shepard
Characters: Female Shepard (Mass Effect), Kaidan Alenko, Thane Krios
Additional Tags: Break Up, Developing Relationship, Getting Back Together, Mass Effect 1, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Mass Effect 3: Citadel, One Shot, Polyamory, Spectre Requisitions Rare Pair Exchange, Thane Krios Lives
Summary: Falling in love had been as easy as breathing.
each nonetheless keeps the perfect arc of his distance
Apr. 7th, 2026 06:00 pmmusesfoolToday's poem:
An Epistemology of Planets
by Annie Dillard
Mercury
A brook runs on all night;
a book, shut,
still tells itself a story.
So you, out of thought,
you, forgotten Mercury,
still spin and spend the circles of your fury.
Venus
Evenings, after I've eaten
dessert, you rise, you wear
your barest, shining skin.
Later, mornings, you up
and do it again.
Do you think I've forgotten so soon?
Earth
Planets, alone, and grieving,
look who you're running with:
look at our baby-blue planet the earth
and all of the people, waving.
Mars
Mars keeps its dignity,
its networks of cool.
Certain photographs reveal
an air of longing, still.
Jupiter
Swings, spattered
by shadows of Jovian moons:
Io, Europa, Callisto,
the giant, Ganymede.
Companionable, each
nonetheless keeps
the perfect arc of his distance.
Saturn
It is to you I come in my dream,
you, dancing alone in the dark, light-heart,
asleep inside your spinning hat!
Uranus
Uranus, cold face,
old rock and ice,
remembers a song
and sings it once
round the dark, twice.
Neptune
Banished, Neptune,
luminous, green,
sleeps, and dreams of the sun.
Awake, he holds her round
as tight as he can.
Pluto
Spends twenty years
wandering in Cancer,
that old celestial
crab. Takes years to touch
carapace, jointed foot
on jointed leg; nudges
mandibles, roving, awed,
in every season.
Getting to know
you, still, I find you clear-eyed,
cloistered, clawed.
***
An Epistemology of Planets
by Annie Dillard
Mercury
A brook runs on all night;
a book, shut,
still tells itself a story.
So you, out of thought,
you, forgotten Mercury,
still spin and spend the circles of your fury.
Venus
Evenings, after I've eaten
dessert, you rise, you wear
your barest, shining skin.
Later, mornings, you up
and do it again.
Do you think I've forgotten so soon?
Earth
Planets, alone, and grieving,
look who you're running with:
look at our baby-blue planet the earth
and all of the people, waving.
Mars
Mars keeps its dignity,
its networks of cool.
Certain photographs reveal
an air of longing, still.
Jupiter
Swings, spattered
by shadows of Jovian moons:
Io, Europa, Callisto,
the giant, Ganymede.
Companionable, each
nonetheless keeps
the perfect arc of his distance.
Saturn
It is to you I come in my dream,
you, dancing alone in the dark, light-heart,
asleep inside your spinning hat!
Uranus
Uranus, cold face,
old rock and ice,
remembers a song
and sings it once
round the dark, twice.
Neptune
Banished, Neptune,
luminous, green,
sleeps, and dreams of the sun.
Awake, he holds her round
as tight as he can.
Pluto
Spends twenty years
wandering in Cancer,
that old celestial
crab. Takes years to touch
carapace, jointed foot
on jointed leg; nudges
mandibles, roving, awed,
in every season.
Getting to know
you, still, I find you clear-eyed,
cloistered, clawed.
***
Truthwitch and Windwitch by Susan Dennard
Apr. 7th, 2026 02:59 pmlightreadsTruthwitch and Windwitch
3/5. First two books of five in this upper YA epic fantasy about two chosen sisters separated by circumstance trying to find their way back to each other as war brews and there’s an underlying magical plot happening, and obviously there’s a prophecy.
These are definitely a cut above the norm. They have that frenetic YA pacing and some POV bloat even by book two, neither of which are my favorite. But they also have a density to the worldbuilding and a thoughtfulness about character that you don’t usually get. As well as a commitment to super slow burning the romances. Also, there is a sort of chosen one character (though that gets complicated as we go) and she is refreshingly, wonderfully a hot mess. If there’s an arc towards heroism here, it’s a long, slow complicated one full of lots of impulsivity and bad decisions.
So yeah, I get why this one floats to the top of everyone’s lists of YA fantasy. It does really have something. Two books worth, which is saying a lot for me, since I’m lucky to make it a quarter into anything YA these days. So when I say I’m good after two books, that’s actually a compliment. If you want chewy plotty long YA that prioritizes platonic sister relationships and lets all the character arcs breathe, here you go.
3/5. First two books of five in this upper YA epic fantasy about two chosen sisters separated by circumstance trying to find their way back to each other as war brews and there’s an underlying magical plot happening, and obviously there’s a prophecy.
These are definitely a cut above the norm. They have that frenetic YA pacing and some POV bloat even by book two, neither of which are my favorite. But they also have a density to the worldbuilding and a thoughtfulness about character that you don’t usually get. As well as a commitment to super slow burning the romances. Also, there is a sort of chosen one character (though that gets complicated as we go) and she is refreshingly, wonderfully a hot mess. If there’s an arc towards heroism here, it’s a long, slow complicated one full of lots of impulsivity and bad decisions.
So yeah, I get why this one floats to the top of everyone’s lists of YA fantasy. It does really have something. Two books worth, which is saying a lot for me, since I’m lucky to make it a quarter into anything YA these days. So when I say I’m good after two books, that’s actually a compliment. If you want chewy plotty long YA that prioritizes platonic sister relationships and lets all the character arcs breathe, here you go.
Critical Role
Apr. 6th, 2026 10:30 pmsettiaiI'm very, very, very behind on Critical Role at this point, and I'm very heavily considering starting Campaign 4 over the from the beginning to ease back into it and hopefully properly catch my attention again. Things were so hectic late last year that I was only half paying attention at times, which is really not a good thing for me when it comes to a new show and is probably why I've been struggling to get caught up. And, for all intents and purposes, CR4 is a completely new show from the previous campaigns despite still technically being Critical Role.
Things at work are quickly calming down, as this is one of our off periods, so right now I'm hoping that I can curl up on the sofa this weekend and properly watch at least the first few episodes ago. The hope is that will help get me re-interested in everything so that I can more easily marathon through the rest of it once I properly care for the characters again.
We'll see how it goes?
Things at work are quickly calming down, as this is one of our off periods, so right now I'm hoping that I can curl up on the sofa this weekend and properly watch at least the first few episodes ago. The hope is that will help get me re-interested in everything so that I can more easily marathon through the rest of it once I properly care for the characters again.
We'll see how it goes?
Guest Review: Empathizing with the Abuser: The Poet Empress by Shen Tao
Apr. 6th, 2026 05:33 pmhelloladies posting in ladybusinessPlease welcome our anonymous reviewer!
The Poet Empress by Shen Tao is a debut Chinese-inspired fantasy centered on a poor village girl who rises from a concubine to the empress-in-waiting to an abusive prince heir. In a bid to save the kingdom from the tyranny of his reign, Wei decides to kill him in the only way she can, by writing a magic poem. Only deathly poems have to be love poetry, and only by knowing him well enough to love him can she kill him.
( Read more... )