teach me the art of war

The Incandescent by Emily Tesh was a delightful read. snickfic described it as "aggressively pleasant" but not life-altering, which I think is very accurate, but it won extra points with me because I am pretty much exactly the target demographic: bookish, bisexual younger Millenial women who formed a key part of their identity around Harry Potter but have since become conscious of flaws in the worldbuilding and grown to identify more with the adult characters than the kids. The Incandescent is about a teacher at a modern day magical boarding school who must battle the demonic forces threatening to devour her students while balancing her ordinary administrative obligations and her rather stunted personal/romantic life. It is drily witty, relatable to anyone who regularly deals with kids, and extremely fun if you're the kind of person who finds fantasy-flavoured bureaucratic tedium fun.

Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire is pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: an examination of which animals we consider to be pests, how different animals have gained and lost the label in various times or places, and how rooted the very concept of a "pest" is in our own species' urge to exert control over our natural environment. Essentially, a pest is any creature with the temerity to exist where we don't want it, and our disdain for pests - not just a pragmatic need to preserve our grain stores, but a vicious, morally tinged desire for their total eradication - is tied to the Western imperialist mindset, to industrialisation, urbanisation, and an internalised sense of righteous dominion over nature itself. This was an enjoyable and informative read, though as someone who already keeps rats as beloved pets, I was disappointed by the author's choice to focus on more "palatable" pests and exclude invertebrates entirely. I was rather hoping she'd challenge me on my personal yearning for a worldwide cockroach extinction event. It deserves to be challenged, but I don't know how to do it myself - the kneejerk is too strong.

Thunderbolts* is the "just one more, for old time's sake" MCU movie I thought I was never actually going to watch. But I enjoyed it! Yelena, still mourning her sister's death, reluctantly partners with a squad of mediocre not-really-heroes to defeat a threat that even in-universe is very clearly more about mental health than superpowers. I appreciated that this one wasn't trying to escalate the stakes from prior films or convince us that it was an important part of some massive unfolding multiverse apocalypse; it was humans dealing with regular, relatable human shit, with the capes and telekinesis mostly just there for the aesthetic. It wasn't enough to resurrect my dead interest in the MCU as a fandom but I don't regret watching it.

Hunter x Hunter is more my husband's thing than mine, but it's so rare for him to get consumingly obsessed with a piece of media that I'm happy to be along for the ride! He's rewatching episodes. Listening to podcasts. That never happens.

Anyway, if you don't already know what this anime is about, I'm not sure I'm in a position to help yet - it's shonen fighting with your typical ill-defined superhuman powers? A plucky kid is on a quest to become a hunter and track down his absentee father? He's winning hearts and minds along the way? It's silly and fun and reminds me of the old days binge-watching Bleach, I guess mostly because it's from around the same era and aimed at the same demographic. I like the main characters but so far I'm finding the antagonists pretty much all uniformly repulsive, which is disappointing. There's a very horny serial killer dressed up like a deck of cards, and a nasty little middle-aged man with pungent feet whose evil schemes mostly seem to involve diarrhoea, and a creepy robot full of pins who shape-shifts into one of the heroes' even creepier abusive brother. Give me a proper, sexy villain who I can stan and THEN I suspect I'll suddenly find the plot much easier to follow.

Books
First and most importantly, osprey_archer has released a new book, Enemies to Lovers! It's f/f, fandom-savvy, full of all our favourite tropes, and the very next thing on my reading list once I get through my current crunch. I've unreservedly loved all of osprey's writing that I've read to date, so I already know it's going to be good.

Also new on the to-read pile is Sisters of the Vast Black by Lina Rather, which has promised me nuns on a mercy mission in space. Ever since I read and loved The Book of Strange New Things, I've been poised to find the idea of interstellar Christian outreach appealing, so I'm looking forward to giving it a try.

I do have one book that I've managed to finish recently - about the admittedly niche topic of housewives' duties in 1880s Australia - but I enjoyed it so much that I'm saving it for a post of its own.

Video games
I'm most of the way through Horizon Zero Dawn, and enjoying it hugely. It's an AIs-gone-rogue apocalypse story told through the eyes of a girl, Aloy, living generations later in the aftermath; her personal quest to uncover her own origin story intersects with a much bigger push to learn what happened to humanity's ill-fated ancestors and prevent long-lost history repeating itself. The worldbuilding is super impressive: at the start you're given this sort of reverse-cyberpunk setting, where Aloy's small, insular tribe is living a rough hunter-gatherer lifestyle using broken bits and pieces of salvage from a clearly much more technologically advanced society. Their religion is built around a sealed 21st century bunker with a computer-operated, LED-lit blast door behind which they believe the Goddess lives; all other similar sites are forbidden places, and an elaborate system of superstitions has grown up around technology in general due to the tribe's fear of provoking the gods to unleash Metal Devils on them like they did to the Old Ones. The terrain is strewn with the wreckage of tanks and futuristic war machines that paint a clear apocalyptic picture to the viewer but make very little sense to the characters. You can collect stray items like 'ancient chimes' (car keys) and 'ancient vessels' (ugly mass-produced mugs with corporate logos on them - at least one in-game merchant has devoted his life to studying the possible ritual uses of these rare artefacts, and will pay you a handsome price for your finds).

As the game progresses, Aloy's able to piece together the full story of the apocalypse through the surviving digital records that she finds while delving in her tribe's forbidden places. I don't want to give too much of it away in case anyone else here is interested in playing it, because this game is a rare case where I haven't wanted spoilers: despite knowing from the start that the Old Ones' story will end in tragedy, the suspense of not knowing exactly how or why they died is exquisite, and the gradual reveals have had me sobbing my heart out through multiple cut scenes. Watching the fall of my own civilisation through a heavily clouded historical lens, knowing that all these ancient people (who, timeline-wise, could include my children or grandchildren) are doomed, seeing their desperate efforts to prevent the total extinction of the human species even though they themselves never survived to find out if it worked ... it's intense.

I also really like the gameplay, though it took some getting used to. Combat never lets you forget that you're a squishy, under-resourced human fighting giant metal machines; you're forced to get clever about laying booby traps, exploiting small weaknesses, and switching up your gear depending on what kind of robot you're fighting. If I have any complaint, it's that the game does take a while to really hit its stride; the setup at the start really does feel like setup, and the game mechanic tutorials are so boring that I skipped most of them and then had to learn very fast on the fly when facing actual enemies. But it was so worth pushing through that first hour or two of ambivalence to get to the good stuff. I hardly know how I'm going to concentrate on my work today, knowing that the last few pieces of main quest are waiting for me.

Music
First, the good: YouTube has been an unusually source of good recommendations lately! It introduced me to Wagakki Band, who did a gorgeous live cover of Bring Me to Life with Amy Lee. I'm in love with the three-way fusion - 2000s nu-metal, Western orchestral, traditional Japanese - and I've since been listening to a lot more of their stuff, though the Bring Me to Life cover can't help but be my favourite.

I also really love this cover of Kiss from a Rose that the algorithm spontaneously but accurately decided I would enjoy. I know I spend most of my time on this blog gushing about obscure death metal, but I'd hate to give the impression that I'm any kind of Serious Metalhead - hits are hits for a reason, my cheer-up playlist is like 90% Bon Jovi, and Seal fucking knows how it's done. So metal covers of shmoopy classic pop songs? Be still, my heart. <3

Then there's the meh: the new Darkthrone and At the Gates albums, and the new Iron Maiden single, aren't quite scratching any particular itch for me at the moment. I want to be excited about them, but after duty-listening to each of them once (Darkthrone twice, just to be safe), I haven't been back. There's nothing actually wrong with any of the music. It just isn't hooking me.

Movies and TV
Between Loki and Black Widow, most of my recent time in front of the telly has belonged to the MCU. I feel like I should have more to say, but tbh I don't, except that I liked both but loved neither. I think maybe I'm just burnt out on the whole MCU schtick at the moment. My reaction to each new sinister world-controlling shadow conspiracy they introduce has faded from 'ooooh, what's next' to 'oh, another one'. But even if the new instalments are no longer winning my heart, they're always fun and flashy and a pleasant way to kill a couple of hours. Yelena was a particular treat, and I hope we get to see plenty more of her.

I'm home and recovered from my visit home over Easter. Family holidays are always equal parts restorative and draining, but mostly I'm just glad I got to GO this year. The dogs were great; the horses were great; the birds were a bit unfriendly, but that's normal. Also my folks have a cat now, despite the fact that they and all their children are painfully allergic. She's an absolute darling and well worth the industrial quantities of antihistamines I had to take to be able to pet her. I took my rats, who found the change of scene alarming in a way that's probably good for them. Shake off the ennui a bit. Change their sleepy little lives up.

Anyway, I have some flist catch-up to do soon. I also have updates on both fandom stuff and media consumption. It's all a bit of a hodgepodge.


Fandom

My exchange, kinkluckydip, is all wrapped up! I'm really happy with how it went and still working my way through the collection of amazing works people produced for it. I got six (!!!) gifts, all of which I adored and can whole-heartedly recommend:

a little egg transfer between friends by snickfic  - MCU, Minn-Erva/Valkyrie - oviposition and alien heat/breeding cycles with belly kink, cervix penetration and tentacles. This fic was WILD in the greatest way, and I enjoyed the fun, carefree dynamic between Minn-Erva and Val every bit as much as the iddy kink content.

Feeling Zabimaru by cherryontop - Bleach, Byakuya/Renji - insanely hot, manga-accurate art with bondage and weapon play (because we ALL AGREE every shinigami has at one point or other fucked their zanpakuto, right??).

In the Middle by ambiguityisnoonesfriend  - Star Wars, Poe/Finn/Ben with background Poe/Finn/Ben/Rey - double penetration and inappropriate use of the Force. The balance of attraction and resentment was perfect, and the smut blew my tiny mind, it was SO HOT omg.

Lady Lion by filigranka - Star Wars, Leia/Phasma - beautifully callous First Order Wins noncon. This late treat came in right when I already thought I'd been spoilt to perfection, and made everything even perfect-er. Fair warning it is DARK, but that's why I love it.

lay him down on a bed of thorns by lamiacalls - Star Wars, Ben/Rose - needleplay, skin-sewing and some bloodplay. This was my first time reading anything of the sort, and I was blown away by both how sensual it was and how well it suited the characters. Angst and self-hatred and aaall the good shit.

Sketches by TheseusInTheMaze - Descendants, Evie/Mal - foot kink, clothing kink and loyalty. This was the perfect, kinky Descendants-for-grown-ups treat that captured everything I love about the ship while making feet hotter to me than they've ever been before.


Viewing

Hobbs & Shaw and The Fate of the Furious - I've now seen every single Fast & Furious movie, which is unfortunately the price I pay for marital harmony, only this time I wasn't even mad because Hobbs & Shaw is actually GREAT. No shade on Vin Diesel, but there's only so many hours I can watch him brood before it starts to get old. I liked having him out of the way for a movie. The Rock and his one-liners never get old. I don't think there was a single joke in whole thing I didn't laugh at (yes, I laughed my arse off at Mike Oxmaul and Hugh Janus; yes, there's a chance I'm closer to the target audience for these ridiculous movies than I like to pretend). Seeing Jason Statham shoot up terrorists while nursing a tiny baby also bypassed my entire neocortex and went straight for the lizard brain. 10/10, will almost definitely watch again with friends, pizza and large amounts of beer.

SCP: Overlord - I know next to nothing about the whole SCP thing, but this short film piqued my interest. It was exactly my kind of horror, creepy and atmospheric and mercifully gore-free. I don't have much to say about it except that I loved the concept, thought the execution was really impressive, and would like to see more.

Traffic Cops - I know. I KNOW. My mum, a lifelong fan of police procedurals, has been branching out into reality TV. I decided to take a polite interest. Next thing I knew, I'd spent two full days of the Easter long weekend parked on the couch with every other female family member, white-knuckling it through car chase after car chase and thirsting over Derbyshire PCs Jason Potts and Alex Boniface. Fucking hypnotic, I'm telling you. They've made 21 seasons of this shit. God help me.


Reading

What Every Body is Saying by Joe Navarro - I went into this book with a healthy amount of skepticism, because I associate the study of body language mostly with dumb urban myths about how if you touch your nose or glance to the right then it proves you're a lying liar who lies. Actually, Navarro is emphatic that there's no reliable way to detect dishonesty through nonverbal behaviour. What you can detect is discomfort, which might mean someone is lying to you but might just as well mean they're afraid they left the stove on or your perfume reminds them of a hated ex. I hope this knowledge reaches the general pop-psych enthusiast community soon. I have heaps of involuntary behaviours straight off one of those 'how to tell you're being lied to' lists, and they're all purely social anxiety related. No, I'm not lying to you because I broke eye contact and put my hand on my neck! I'm just replaying the last joke I told on loop, trying to crystal-ball discern if your laughter was fake and you actually think I'm an unfunny loser.

Overall it was a good book. A lot of it boils down to putting labels on the kinds of subtle physical cues we often pick up on instinctively, but labels can be helpful, I think. 'Jim spent the whole meeting thinning his lips and angling towards the exit' is a lot more compelling than 'Iunno, boss, I just get the vibe we don't have full team buy-in yet'.


Listening

I've set myself a mini-project to include more female vocals in my music - harsh female vocals, especially. I gravitate towards genres that are unfortunately still a bit of a sausagefest, but there are some amazing women out there making metal just as raw and heavy as any male growler.

This week I've had For I Am King on repeat a lot. They're melodic and catchy and have a cool backstory: Alma Alizadeh is an Iranian refugee who started her music career on bass and taught herself to scream on a whim. I'm completely obsessed with their whole second album, I. Prey, Forever Blind and Misery are particularly my jam. 

I enjoyed it! Good, solid, glossy superhero fun that didn't stray far from the Marvel recipe but brought enough new flavour to taste fresh and exciting. It's the kind of movie I'd honestly really love to see more of: nothing groundbreaking, nothing overly messagey, just a fun flick about powered people saving the world while incidentally being badass and extremely charismatic women. 

I'm not normally the quickest off the mark to get writing for a new fandom, but Gemma Chan and her gorgeous gothy sniper character gave me so much femslash inspiration. I ship Minn-Erva with Carol like burning omg. So I got it out of my system with a bit of fic:

Thirty Years (Mature, 1148 words)