shallowness

(I think this is the only icon I have with a baby.)

(This probably should be a fic, but I don't have the brain space to write fic right now.)

Preamble

Firstly, this isn't vague-blogging or subtweeting or whatever, and I'm not intending to tell any specific person they're wrong on the Internet. It's something that I've been thinking about since I saw FF:FS last year.

I'm further not telling anyone they should like the film if they didn't, or that they're bad for not wanting to watch a Disney movie prominently featuring pregnancy and parenthood. I'm sympathetic to having had enough of that genre and/or have been burned by it too many times. Totally fair! If you don't like plots with babies, you won't like this movie. There is definitely a baby!

I do, however, intend this to be something of a rebuttal to the "I don't like that the only female character was just a mom" line of criticism, which I've run into since the trailer. I also want to explain why I think that framing Sue's role as primarily a mother is reductive, and ignores some of the more interesting things the film was doing with her character.

( This will be long, and will spoil the entire movie )

musesfool

Things, and also, stuff:

= Work remains hectic but hopefully I will be able to send out my board package tomorrow and then finally write up several committees' worth of minutes, which I have not been able to do because every time I start, I get interrupted.

= I've been making chicken bacon ranch wraps for lunch this week and they are so good! I made bacon on Sunday morning, and bought the Perdue shortcuts grilled chicken, so I heat some of the chicken and 2 strips of bacon up in a frying pan and then lay a couple of slices of mozzarella on top to melt. In the center of a whole wheat wrap, I add some arugula (though you could use whatever lettuce or spinach you prefer), and then lay the warmed up meat and cheese on top of it, add a few squirts of ranch dressing, and roll it up. Delicious and filling!

= I stumbled upon a recipe for whipped lemonade that sounded good in theory but then it had both sugar and sweetened condensed milk in it and that sounds way too sweet to me. I get why the sugar is there - you rub the zest into it to really capture the lemon flavor, in addition to using juice, but just thinking about adding sugar to sweetened condensed milk makes my teeth hurt. I wonder if subbing whipping cream for the condensed milk would work? Or would it curdle from the lemon? Inquiring minds want to know. (I do have a recipe for lemon buttermilk sherbet somewhere, and of course, lemon sour cream ice cream is one of my faves to make, so I can kind of get there in other ways. Hmm...)

= I got interrupted by work and now it's 3 hours later and I can't remember what else I was going to say but in the meantime, I did get a laugh out of the fact that VGK and Torts have parted ways.

*

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: Pepper = Butthole Surfers

muccamukk

So I was listening to "Move On" by Kevin Powers* because Shaboozey features on it. The song is from a guy to his ex, who has gotten over him a hell of a lot faster than he's gotten over her.** The chorus asks, Who taught you how to move on? Who showed you how to make it look so damn easy? ... I know you didn't learn on your own. Girl, who taught you how to move on?

Which is, all and all, misogynistic: she can't just have gotten over this loser, some dude has to have helped, and he's now mad at the dude because dudes have more agency. Et cetera.

However, it does sound a little like he's asking for a hook up, since his rebound flings have not been satisfactory, and he would like to try out the dude who's been working so well for her. As the bridge says:

Who's been keeping you up at night?
Seems like you've been doing alright.
Maybe I'd be too if I knew:
Who taught you how to move on?

🤔🤔🤔

* I just watched the video so I could link to it, and it's very funny to me that they don't show Shaboozey actually in the motorhome because he is tol.
** I guess he could be saying "Girl" in a gay way, but I suspect not coming from Kevin Powers. Note, also, that she seems to have moved to California and cut her hair, so...

musesfool

It was very exciting to watch the Knicks win the NBA championship last night with another wild 4th quarter comeback! My brother's kids went to one of the watch parties and put me on alert that if they couldn't get home, they were planning to come here to sleep, and I said of course! And then I did not hear from them again, so at 2 am, I went to bed.

I woke up this morning and texted to make sure they got home all right, and when they didn't respond, I checked in with my brother, who told me that the subways had been shut down (I had not read or heard the news), so they ended up going to one of my nephew's friend's apartment to sleep before getting home this morning. But they said they had a good time and it looked like people were mostly being cool while celebrating from what I saw.

The parade is on Thursday! I am no longer one to stand in a crowd for several hours, so I have no intention of going, but I think it's gonna be super cool.

In other news, I was doing one of my every-so-often checks to see if there was a publishing date for Alecto the Ninth yet and I ended up on the Locked Tomb subreddit, which is fine - there is some cool meta there - but I have tried to consciously repress that Muir was in Homestuck fandom, and posts there always remind me, and I do not wish to know anything more about Homestuck than I already do, which is almost nothing. And there is still no release date for AtN. Sigh.

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Current Mood: lazy
Current Music: Landslide - Fleetwood Mac

smallhobbit

My activity over the past month:

British Trust for Ornithology: I've reported Garden Bird Counts every week. Lots of sparrows, plus some pigeons. One sparrow had a bath in our smallest water bowl, much to the disgust of the pigeon which arrived a little later and didn't fancy sparrow bird water. I've done 8 surveys for Birds in Green Spaces in two sites, including yesterday when it was Birds in Green Spaces Big Day.

UK Pollinator Monitoring Scheme: Nothing this month. It's only just stopped raining for long enough to get out for a survey.

Butterfly Conservation: Butterflies for the New Millennium. 4 counts. It has not been butterfly weather! Voted for Britain's Favourite Butterfly and took the quiz to see what sort of butterfly I was. (Large skipper - energetic and feisty)

30 Days Wild: Have gone out for a walk every day with an aim to keeping to the theme of the day. I've practised recognising bird song and downloaded a number of spotter sheets which I can continue to use over the summer. I also made a wildflower collage for

fan_flashworks based on local wildflowers.

Maintenance: Topping up the water bowls and cleaning them now it's not raining.

Sightings of note: The swans together with five growing cygnets. A furry caterpillar. Several damselflies, including beautiful demoiselle.

Other activities: None

musesfool

The New York Knicks are your 2026 NBA Champs!!! Jalen Brunson scored half the points the Knicks had! MVP!

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Current Mood: ecstatic
Current Music: Knicks post-game show

muccamukk

Re a conversation I'm having in comments with

trepkos.

I think I've mentioned before that growing up without TV reception, I really only saw shows when I was visiting Grandma or one of my cousins, and therefore my knowledge of Star Trek was largely based on the novels, and the very rare episode I caught while in town, or that someone had on VHS (mostly TNG, which was airing at the time).

I relied on the secondhand knowledge provided by the novels, which would refer back to canon events in an entirely muddled way that made it difficult to know what had happened. I was therefore delighted to discover that James Blish had written narrative versions of all the Original Series episodes.

"Great!" I thought, "Now I can get all the details straight, and understand the references in the novels."

I forget how I figured it out, maybe one of the novels contradicted the Blish versions, or maybe it was in one of the other reference books (we had, at one point, the nitpicker's guides and the encyclopedia). But I worked out that Blish was not only changing details, but sometimes changing the entire endings of episodes! Shock! Betrayal! Horror! Imagine the most outraged 9-10 year old you've ever seen!

(In retrospect, I'm wondering if Blish was writing them from memory? Or possibly shooting scripts? Does anyone know? Knowledge of this must exist.)

However, I was actually kind of disappointed when I finally saw "Amok Time," because I low-key liked some of Blish's made-up details? Well, not most of them, but there's a beat in the ending that I fully imprinted on, and that isn't in the original episode. And I know this is blasphemy, because the original ending is fully iconic, with Spock smiling and almost hugging Kirk before he remembers he's not supposed to have feelings. However, hear me out. I went and found the Blish version on Archive.org (they're all there, if you want to delight in corny 1970s renderings of 1960s camp), and it goes thusly:

[Kirk] came gradually back to consciousness in the Sickbay.* McCoy was bending over him. Nearby was Spock, his hands over his face. His shoulders were shaking.

Nurse Christine† came into his field of view, and turning Spock towards the Captain, gently pulled his hands away from his face. Kirk smiled weakly, and spoke in a faint but cheerful voice.

"Mr. Spock—I never thought I'd see the day..."

"Captain!" Spock stared down at him, absolutely dazed with astonishment.‡ Then, obviously realizing what his face and voice were revealing, he looked away.

I know it's not a masterpiece of literary genius,‡ but it does hit the niche trope of "emotionally more open character comes upon emotionally closed character secretly having a good cry, and that leads to ~~banging~~ revelations of true feelings." Which I could read a hundred thousand versions of and never tire of wanting more, and I have indeed included in at least a couple of my own fic. I'm not sure if this is the first time I ran into it, but it might have been? If so, Thank you, Mr. Blish!

Anyway, hi. I'm actually doing reading for history. Of 12th-century nuns, not mid-20th-century pop culture.

* Definite article in the original?

† Nurse Does Not Have a Last Name!?

‡ Look. The thing about being nine is you don't notice when the prose is Not Very Good.

muccamukk

Since apparently we're never going to find out what happened, and I'm not mad about that! /s

Does anyone have a rec for Gatwa!Doctor/Rogue fixit fic? Like a long h/c one with travails and shit.

I'd take other Doctors, too, but mostly want more Gatwa.

musesfool

So yesterday, I logged off a call with my boss and the CEO, and my internet went down again, just like it had on Wednesday, at almost exactly the same time (1:30 pm EDT). After some back and forth with Spectrum where they insisted it was a me problem and scheduled a tech visit, I got a message that there was an outage in my area but it would be fixed by 4:30 pm.

Unfortunately, instead of being done with work at 2:30 pm like a usual summer Friday, I had a board call from 3 pm - 4:30 pm (despite all of my written and verbal instructions to Assistant J, many meetings were scheduled on times and days I told him not to schedule things, like the Tuesday after a Monday holiday, or 3 pm on a summer Friday, but I hope this experience of having to work 2 extra hours on a summer Friday stays with him so he never does it again), so I had to be on by phone, because no one from IT ever answered my question about why I couldn't use my phone as a hotspot, the way I used to be able to. Until I was logged in on my phone - then Teams started blowing up with instructions and I was like, sorry, on a board call, can't talk right now. But it should work going forward if necessary. I was looking in the wrong spot (I mean, I was looking under "hotspot" instead of "wifi" so was I really wrong? I don't think so. and yet!), which they kindly told me.

I could have tried to switch in the middle of the call, but figured better to stay on and get all my notes than disconnect and not be able to reconnect. And then at about 4:35, the internet came back! And I still had to wait almost 2 more hours for one of my co-workers to finish editing her slides so I could PDF them and send to the chair for review. And then the slides were too large, even as a reduced-size PDF, to email with all the other materials, so I had to split it into 2 emails. I told my boss they need to slim that deck down, but one of the VPs is insisting on having his slides in there twice since he gave the same presentation at 2 meetings, instead of just saying, "please refer to slides A-K for this presentation." I am desperately hoping the chair dings him for that, but he probably won't. (If it were up to me, I'd have just deleted them but when I asked my boss told me the VP specifically stated he wanted them in there twice. It's just the pre-reads deck that probably nobody reads, so it probably won't matter to anyone else, but I think it is a bad way to manage your meeting materials.)

Anyway! In other news, I mentioned friend L is moving back to ATL next month, so she's coming to hang out here next weekend, so I need to get some of my clutter tucked away before that happens. I ordered some Rubbermaid bins to pile stuff in, which won't look great but will at least free up the chair from all my mixing bowls and cupcake pans. (I know, I know, but sometimes it's just easier to always have stuff out then to put it away and need to pull it out again three days later.)

I'm thinking about what to cook and I might do the white lasagna I like so much - I could send half of it home with her and still have enough leftover for dinner for a couple of days - plus the SK strawberry summer cake. And maybe breakfast tacos on Sunday? And some coffee granita? Idk, I'm still thinking.

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Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: The (Shipped) Gold Standard - Fall Out Boy

muccamukk

So it turns out the reward for having submitted a research paper in a (more or less) timely fashion is having to turn around and work on the next paper. So I'm def not procrastinating from that! Look! There's a nun!

I had an open tab with the outlines for book reviews for like a month, then finally managed to overwrite the saved draft with something else. Which is no loss as it was just the titles and a preamble about how far behind I am. I hope that once school is out after the 22nd, I'll be able to catch up with the handful of books I read in the last six months!

Anyway! Fun meme from

regshoe:

General Questions

This week I'm reading: Just finished The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar, and currently rereading The Mimicking of Known Successes by Malka Older.
My favourite book of all time is: Oh jeez. Prooooobably The Lord of the Rings? It's certainly the book that's meant the most to me, but I admit that I've listened to the BBC radio play from the 1980s more than I've read it in recent years. I keep thinking that I should reread, then not getting around to it.
My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months): Persuasion by Jane Austen, hands down.
The last book I bought was: Companions on the Road by Tanith Lee, which I haven't read yet.
The first book I bought with my own money: Too long ago to remember. Probably a used Star Trek novel?
The first book I received as a gift: My brother and I used to get a lot of those slim hardcover Eyewitness science books, so that seems likely. Or a used Star Trek novel.
The last book I received as a gift was: It's bad that I'm fully blanking on this. People don't give me many books, because I gave so many away last time I moved, and I may move again soon.
The last book I borrowed from the library: The Beginning Comes After the End by Rebecca Solnit.
The book physically closest to me right now: Pageboy by Elliot Page, which Nenya has been not reading for about six months now.
Do you read bookfic, and if so what is your favourite bookshop fic? I assume we're not counting fandoms with canonical bookstores, such as GO? In the case of AUs, I can't think of one (and don't seem to have one bookmarked), but I don't object to them in theory. I did want to write a Band of Brothers AU where Dick starts a queer bookstore post war. I do read fic about book fandoms though, and hope to look at my TBR tab once school's over.

This or That

(watch me be bad at binary choices)
Physical book or e-book: E-book. So portable!
Used or new: Used. The shops are more fun.
Fiction or non-fiction: Both.
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Park!
Paperback or hardcover: Paperback, but only the mass market/pocket book style, not clunky trade paperbacks.
Romance or Crime: Romance! (but it can have crime in it, if it wants)

Yes or No

(see above)
Stream of consciousness? Only by Laurence Sterne.
Poetry? Yes.
Memoirs? Yes.
Philosophy? Only theology.
Thrillers? No.
Chronicles? Like... travel books? The chronicles of Narnia? No to the former, yes to the latter.
Dialogue heavy? Usually not.

Code:

Current Mood: recumbent
Current Music: "Ta fête" by Stromae

smallhobbit

Gloucestershire Bundles is the charity I volunteer with. Recently we had a tea to thank all the volunteers.

muccamukk

So, "the cure" is like my song of the summer at this point.
(everyone: are you okay? me: fine, why do you ask?)
I was tentatively hyped for the whole album. I'm not that familiar with Rodrigo's stuff, being almost twice her age and more into folk than pop, but the two singles seemed promising. I will say the whole album is a lot more like "drop dead" of the two, which I didn't like as much as "the cure." After two listens through, I have a couple songs that I like, but no new ones that I love, and it's all a bit samey? I'll give it another listen, but you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love (great title!) is not blowing me away. Again, it's also not for me, so I hope her fans enjoy it.

Here's a great live version of "the cure," with a string section.

Watch on YouTube

smallhobbit

Questions from this week's

thefridayfive

1. What is place you have visited, or want to visit, that starts with D?
Dresden - was there about 6 weeks ago

2. What is a food that you like, or don't like, that starts with R?
Raspberries, which are my favourite fruit. And rice pudding.

3. Own anything that starts with the letter M?
Mugs, several, plus fridge Magnets.

4. Know anyone whose name (first, middle, or last) that starts with N?
I know Natalie, Norah and Noah

5. Favourite movie, book, TV show, or song whose title starts with T?
Books: Their Finest by Lissa Evans and Thud! by Terry Pratchett

musesfool

I am only here because I'm using my phone as a hotspot - something I am currently not allowed to do on my work computer so I logged off work a couple of hours ago due to this Spectrum outage, but I needed to link this: OG Anunoby, everybody! 💙🧡💙🧡💙🧡

I admit, I turned the game off at halftime, did some faffing around on tumblr, and then went to bed, so I was truly SHOCKED when I saw the headline this morning that the Knicks had pulled off the biggest comeback in NBA Finals history and WON on that OG Anunoby put-back. #go NY go NY go!

Now they need to wrap it up on Saturday!

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Current Mood: shocked

musesfool

Baby Miss L is now in her pirate era, so I found some toddler-appropriate books about pirates, plus Commotion in the Ocean and sent them to her. Today I got a video of her reading Commotion in the Ocean - she knows all her sea animals very well! - and also a thumbs up from her mom, who uses it with her students(? she is a speech pathologist who works with preschool kids at a school, so I'm not sure if they are her students or clients) too.

I'm not the most superstitious sports fan out there, but I'm a little stitious and so I would not be surprised if the vibes turn rancid at MSG tonight due to the fucking cheeto attending the game. Fucking James Dolan can go fuck. *deep breath* Still, LGK!!!

In work news, my boss informed me that they would purchase home printer/scanner for me if I had one I liked and it was under $500, so does anyone have any recommendations? I would prefer that it be small, as I don't have a lot of room, but could keep it half under my desk if I shift around the air purifier. I'd need a shelf for it, too probably, so it's not just sitting on my 1939 parquet floor.

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Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: The Riversitter - Vienna Teng

musesfool

I made chicken pesto meatballs this afternoon and they're good, though they needed more than 10 minutes to reach 165°F (15 minutes worked out). I got 18 so I guess I made them smaller than directed? and they looked like they are swimming in oil when I took them out of the oven, because I guess the pesto (I used Buitoni since it was on sale) was full of oil, so I used a slotted spoon to lift them out and soaked it up with paper towels, so the cleanup wasn't that bad. I also didn't bother adding salt based on comments saying it was too salty - the pesto is what is seasoning the meat so I don't think I'm missing out.

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Current Mood: sleepy
Current Music: Shake It Out - Florence + the Machine

smallhobbit

Following on from yesterday's

thefridayfive I'm now completing a meme

thatjustwontbreak posted at the end of April:

This week I'm reading: Agatha Christie: An Autobiography, Maigret's Mistake by Georges Simenon, The Truth by Terry Pratchett, and Marked for Death by R O Thorp

My favourite book of all time is: I still cannot decide

My current favourite book (read or re-read in the last 3 months) is: The Retired Assassin's Guide to Orchid Hunting by Naomi Kuttner

The last book I bought was: Stories for the Twelve Days of Christmas a pre-order from British Library Women Writers

The first book I bought with my own money was: Probably something from the St Clare's series by Enid Blyton

The first book I received as a gift was: No idea, but I frequently received books for birthdays and Christmas

The last book I received as a gift was: Cranky Ladies of History by Tansy Rayner Roberts

The last book I borrowed from the library was: Marked for Death by R O Thorp

The book physically closest to me right now is: The Life of Mammals by David Attenborough

This or that
Physical book or e-book: Physical
Used or new: Used, which includes library books, although occasionally I'm the first to borrow a book so it could be described as new
Fiction or non-fiction: Fiction
Read at a coffee shop or at the park: Home, in bed
Paperback or hardcover: Paperback generally, library books may be hardcover
Romance or Crime: Crime

Yes or no
Stream of consciousness? No
Poetry? No
Memoirs? Sometimes
Philosophy? No
Thrillers? Yes
Chronicles? Probably not
Travel logs? Maybe
Dialogue heavy? yes

musesfool

Yesterday after I logged off work, I made a ricotta cheesecake, and since I know my springform pans are leaky (they are old and need to be replaced), I just used a deep dish pie plate, and it was fine. I also added about 2/3 cup of mini chocolate chips that the recipe did not call for, but which seemed necessary, though it is also a delicious cake without them (the cinnamon/orange/vanilla flavor is actually super Christmassy to me? but the heart wants what it wants, even if it's June rather than December). Also the vanilla bean paste gives it those little speckles which means it's even more delicious than usual! *g* Anyway, if you need a cheesecake but don't have a springform pan or a stand mixer, and don't want to deal with a water bath, this is the way to go.

Then today, I tried to make baked mozzarella sticks instead of fried - mainly because cleaning up after frying is a lot and also the smell lingers - but I didn't realize you are supposed to freeze them for TWO HOURS so I got a late start and didn't eat until almost 6:30. They were okay but not as wonderfully crisp as they get when fried, even though I used panko. Also, despite what some of these recipes say, you really should season every layer - the flour, the egg, and the breadcrumbs. I am just saying.

My plan for tomorrow is to make bacon so there's that for lunch for the week, along with some chicken pesto meatballs - we'll see how they are. I am apparently on a ground chicken kick, because I have a bunch of recipes I want to try, and as long as it keeps being on sale, I'm good to go!

In other news, the Knicks are up 2-0 on the Spurs and only TWO GAMES away from winning a chip! They've won 13 in a row in these playoffs! What even is happening??? MSG is going to be nuts on Monday. But remember, you absolutely do not have to hand it to James Dolan. #go new york go new york go

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Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: Bad Reputation - Freedy Johnston

smallhobbit

This week's

thefridayfive

1. Do you enjoy reading?
Yes, I generally have about 4 books on the go at once.

2. What is the first book you remember reading?
It was a long time ago...

3. Who is your favourite author?
Impossible to decide - I have a selection of authors I like to read, but it depends what I'm looking for. Maybe Vaseem Khan.

4. What is your favourite book?
If it was impossible to decide on my favourite author, how am I supposed to extend the search to one book. Latest favourite The Retired Assassin's Guide to Orchid Hunting by Naomi Kuttner

5. What is the last book you read and the first you'll read next?
The last book I finished was Cranky Ladies of History by Tansy Rayner Roberts. The next book I'll be starting is The Spring House by Cynthia Asquith, which is published next week as part of the British Library Women Writers collection.

musesfool

RIP Anthony Stewart Head. He will be missed.

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Current Mood: sad

Reading

Navigation

Childproofing the World - Sue Storm's Role in The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Preamble

Cinnamon and sugary and softly spoken lies

Sorta Music Monday

can the child within my heart rise above?

Wildlife - June 2026

he deserved it, he earned it

Posting Three Times in a Day Is Definetly Not Procrastinating

Random Doctor Who question

but i'm no good at math and besides, the dollar is down

Book Meme

General Questions

This or That

Yes or No

2026 Photo #12

The new Olivia Rodrigo album

The Friday Five: Random Letters, Random Questions

"it feels cool."

you can just do a thing that you get the idea to do

but I like to keep some things to myself

Meme - Books

and still i wanna tell you everything

The Friday Five: Books!

"'Do you like my mask? Isn't it pretty? It raises the dead.' Americans!"

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