Patron Saint of Falling Over Things

So cold this morning. For values of cold in Australia, which is to say there's frost on the grass and I have my giant scarf on. I am having crappy, crappy low moods but weirdly and ferociously creative times. It is strange and I don't understand the rhythms of it at all. I feel like the world is being sucked into a black hole, and yet I cannot stop writing POI fic.

Five things about winter Saturdays in rural Australia:
- Frosty, foggy mornings that will become clear and sunny by twelve
- The footy scoreboard shining orange through the fog as the under-twelves play the 8am match
- Teenage girls in netball skirts with goosepimpled legs, poor things
- People leaving their shoes at the front door so they don't track mud through the pharmacy
- Farmers all hollow-eyed from helping calves into the world, eating hot pies for breakfast

I want to say some things about media I've been enjoying but I keep procrastinating because I don't have the time to write long and involved things. So, here are some short thinkings on things:


Five things about Wonder Woman

- That perfect hour or so of Themyscira and all the amazing women. Amazons encountering bullets for the first time and fucking adapting mid-battle. Amazons on their battle horses. (Such gorgeous horses!)
- Antiope in particular. Antiope knowing what Diana's going to face, at least in abstract if not in specific, and wanting her to be ready.
- Little girls all over the world pretending to be little Diana learning to fight. Not in the movie. In real life.
- WWI being shown as the fucking slaughter that it was
- Diana. DIANA. Diana with her sword on her back. Diana catching bullets. Diana cutting a line through No Man's Land. Diana.



Five things about Legion

- I stg I had no idea what was going on for 3/4 of this whole season, but it was pretty and weird and Aubrey Plaza kept being in it so I kept watching. It was worth watching, for the plot payoff, for the tie-in to the X-universe, and for the horror story.
- Aubrey Plaza is amazing, steals every scene, is a goddess, I don't want to be all tumblrina about this, but my crops are watered, my skin is clear. Aubrey Plaza is amazing and if Parks and Rec wasn't a handheld nightmare, I'd be all over that right now.
- It isn't perfect. It is ablist. Imma get that out right now - if you have triggers relating to the treatment of mental illness, this might not be the show for you. There is a canon gay couple, but one of them is portrayed as a villain, though not for his sexuality. (I actually liked him a lot.) There's a lot of body horror and violence. And drug use. And blatant callbacks to A Clockwork Orange, but I forgive those. They were loving.
- They do good and weird and creative things with mutant powers. Cary/Kerry Loudermilk, for example, is two people existing in one body who can occasionally be two bodies. Ptonomy Wallace does my favourite thing with mindscapes. (Actually, the whole show is a delight of mindscapes.) Jermaine Clement appears sporadically, and is always a delight.
- The soundtrack is astounding and sometimes terrifying. (Try Choir with Crickets.) The costume and set design are gorgeous and also terrifying, and they do this deliberate thing where you cannot pin down a time period for the show.



Five things about Twin Peaks

- entj has reaction posts at twinpeaks for the new episodes, so you can pick and choose according to what you've watched. (I will never get used to this all-at-once thing with TV. I'm bad enough at mainlining things. I'm a one episode a week person, me.)
- David Lynch did the sound editing, which is why even the white noise is scary.
- David Lynch will, apparently, never be done with the archetype of gentle competent man and his shrew of a wife. It's a bit tired.
- I am surprisingly fond of Dale!Douggie in his lime blazer. In any incarnation, Dale is kind and inquisitive, and that is carrying over here. Though I could do without the bathroom desperation kink. Kinktomato and all that, but omorashi is not my thing.
- ETA: I just realised that was only four things. How surreal of me.
Oh, David Lynch. Never stop being you. (But stop the kind man/shrew thing, that's stupid.)



Five Things to Do
- Via leecetheartist, a zooniverse project based in Western Australia: Western Shield Camera Watch. Their description: Western Shield is a government funded conservation project that is dedicated to managing introduced predators, primarily foxes and cats, that threaten native wildlife in Western Australia.
This is a very gentle and calming kind of thing to do, I enjoy it a lot. You get to identify kangaroos and emus and all sorts of weird little hopping things. You could also identify this murderous looking bird:

[A giant, yellow eyed bird, going at the lens of a camera with an angry beak]

- springviolets is talking about communities on Dreamwidth: active comms, comms you'd like to see become more active. let's talk communities

- read this Beatles zombie AU webcomic: Eleanor Rigby
(when i was very small i assumed this song was about some lady who literally kept a human face in a jar by the door and since father mckenzie buried her that meant that he also killed her and basically i thought eleanor rigby was about zombies until i was like 12 years old)

- Check out this new prompt comm, picture_prompt_fun, write a story for a picture prompt.

- sign-up for multifandomdrabble, and write someone 100 words. I did this last year, when it was being trialled at Imzy, and it was fun! More details here.


Five Linkspams to make your day a little better
- This woman's joyful reaction at a woman proposing to her girlfriend at a museum: No One Can Get Over This Older Lady's Reaction To A Woman Proposing To Her Girlfriend (This gave me life at a time when I was feeling very bitter at yet another friend's marriage where they did not do anything about the hateful 'Man and woman' clause of the marriage act that must be read out at a wedding in Australia. Like this: Objectors block out Marriage Act's 'union of man and woman' words at civil weddings.)

- The Grenfell Tower fire is a horrible, terrifying tragedy. I am buoyed by the stories of how people have helped, how emergency workers have been amazing. (Like Mr Rogers: "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, 'Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.' To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.) Today in my email, I saw this about pharmacists dealing with the logistics of people losing all their medication and prescriptions and records: Pharmacists in West London have been working to help people affected by the Grenfell Tower fire tragedy.

- Remember Tommy Westphall and the snowglobe phenomenon? Check in with it again here: The Tommy Westphall Universe. Apparently reboots have really kicked the database into overdrive this year. I saw a pack of Morley cigarettes on Twin Peaks, which means the Twin Peaks verse doesn't exist. No surprises there, though.

- Knitting spies!! The Wartime Spies Who Used Knitting as an Espionage Tool

- From some of my Person of Interest research: The 10 Best Bottles of Vodka in the World. Linked because the tasting notes are even more amazing and wanky than wine tasting notes. For example: Soft and laser-precise on the palate with a seamless balance and great length of flavor.

Now I want vodka. But it is illegal for me to drink vodka and be a health professional. So cruel.

Son of ETA: As people have asked, yes, I am legally forbidden to drink vodka only while I am at work being a health professional. After work, I may freely engage in the drinking of vodka, and indeed, many other spirits.