#kerrykhat

[bedlamsbard]

What are some books you’ve read recently (either new or rereads) that you’d recommend to folks?

oh god I hate reccing books because I have trauma about it! lol. but here are some of my faves:

Martha Wells' Raksura novels (the first one is The Cloud Roads) -- Wells is better known these days for the Murderbot books, which are great, but the Raksura ones are probably my favorite of her books. They are not comparable to anything else, they're incredible; if you like the way I worldbuild, you will like Martha Wells. (I also love her Ile-Rien books and her standalones. Her tie-in novels -- she did one for Star Wars, right before the EU got legends-ized, and two for Stargate Atlantis -- are also wonderful adventure romps.

Barbara Hambly -- like, any Barbara Hambly, she has SO MANY books. Mystery fan? The Benjamin January novels (the first one is A Free Man of Color, set in 1830s New Orleans). High fantasy fan? Almost all the rest of her repertoire -- if you're approaching her for the first time, I'd say Dragonsbane if you want quote-unquote "classic" high fantasy (as someone who grew up reading high fantasy novels, Dragonsbane is just comforting) or the Windrose books (the first one is The Silent Tower) for something that's essentially portal fantasy but it does something you will not expect. My favorite Hambly books are Stranger at the Wedding (set in the same universe as the Windrose books) and Bride of the Rat God, as well as Sisters of the Raven/Circle of the Moon (duology) but I also have a soft spot for The Rainbow Abyss/The Magicians of Night (which is another duology that does something you will just not see coming). Like, do not look at the back cover copy for The Magicians of Night if you're going to read The Rainbow Abyss, I want you to have that moment of 'what the FUCK' I had when reading it for the first time. (I'm currently rereading her Darwath books, which was her first pub.) Those Who Hunt the Night is the first of her vampire novels. (She is also the person who did a Star Wars tie-in best known for Luke having sex with a ghost back in the 1990s.)

[ezrisdax-archive]

for @kerrykhat

-insp

[ekjohnston]

Why did you choose the ending that you did?

(I chose synthesis)

I chose synthesis because:

I wanted to break the cycle, and that was the cleanest break.

I wanted to preserve as much life as possible, even though it was going to cost my own.

I couldn’t let EDI die.

I made it to the Citadel by making people make friends, and it seemed like a good plan to keep doing that.

Destroy and Control had been tried in variation and had failed, and Synthesis was new.

[lodessa]

L & T for the meme?

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

Worf tries really hard.  Look, I have a hard time liking him a lot of the time.  He’s the straight man, he got in the middle of my OTP when I was very young, he’s a total parenting fail, I don’t think he’s evolved enough for Jadzia.   But he’s not a bad person.  He’s doing his best.   He wants to do the right thing.   I think that’s maybe why Starfleet appealed to him.  He knew he needed more than his own rigid interpretation of Klingon honor.  He needed guidance and purpose and to work on learning more.  And that’s more than most people would do, seeking to put himself in a position where he would have to change.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

I don’t think anyone wants to hear me scream again  about how Chakotay is not a dom/top ever and never will be so let’s go with something else.

I think that Phryne and Mac must have experimented as children do with body/sex play stuff.  And it meant something very different to each of them as they got older, and I don’t think Phryne understood until later the complexity and awkwardness for Mac.  Clearly they got through it, but there must have been a time where it was very painful and shameful for Mac and Phryne was going on unaware, talking about this boy or the next.  Of course, later when Mac got a girlfriend and Phryne found out or when Mac came out to her, none of the scenarios played out the way she’d feared, but then it was Phryne who had to go back through a lot of things in retrospect.   

[ezrisdax-archive]

To a night of unbridled debauchery.                       for @kerrykhat

[bedlamsbard]

Occasionally my Spotify will throw up songs and it’s like… “oh so that’s where bedlam got that tag/fic title/series title from!” Today it was “better in the morning” and a few weeks ago it was the “how dare you love me like you’ve never known fear” one

ahahahahaha my flawless titling/tagging strategy strikes again! someday I'll actually do a playlist that's just titles. (I think every chapter title in Horizon -- as well as the actual story title -- is a song lyric, as are most of the Yonder chapter titles. Morning and Reaches I gave up on doing chapter titles, though for both the story titles are song lyrics.)

[ezrisdax-archive]

edit request meme - @kerrykhat​ asked: Mass Effect + fave rare pair >> Ashley/Kaidan

[bedlamsbard]

Do you have any favorite yarns or dyers? I’m building up my stash and I’m always looking for nice yarn recs

I’m in the U.S.and I’m almost exclusively a sock knitter, so that skews what I buy a little.  I’m still slowly building my stash back up after not knitting for almost four years after injuring my wrists in 2013, so for a long time I was knitting off the stash I had then before buying anything else.

Right now I’m really into The Farmer’s Daughter Fibers (U.S.)!  I find the aesthetic extremely soothing at the moment, and they’re Native American and female-owned, so I feel good about them, plus they’ve been doing “Small Business Alliance” kits recently which are a bunch of fun -- they’re usually a pattern, yarn, and then coordinating products from other small business. (I just finished knitting up a cowl from one, so that was the cowl pattern, the yarn to go with it, a hand-thrown mug, bean-to-bar chocolate, and tea; and another one just came in the mail which is a shawl pattern, yarn, a candle, and a foot soak.)

I have a ton of gorgeous yarn from Jellybeans Yarn (UK), which does some of the most incredible colorways I’ve ever seen, and it knits up very soft and squishy.  She carries some very neat notions, too  (I will note that I last ordered from them RIGHT at the beginning of everything going into lockdown, and it took a month to come; when I ordered from them last year it got here within a week, but I think everyone knows about the international mail situation at the moment.)

The yarn I’m knitting right now is from Rebel Woolworks (US); I like the yarn but the colorway (Electric Mermaid) isn’t my aesthetic, it just showed up more muted on my monitor.  She has some very nice colorways, though, and I just ordered more yarn from her.

I also have my eye on Republica Unicornia (US), whom I haven’t ordered from yet but who’s local to me.  I’m waiting for a couple of colorways to come back in stock before I order next.