elisi's humble abode

I have talented friends. <3

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 20:08:35 GMT

mecurtin has a fascinating post:

Hiding in Plain Sight: Autism in Jane Austen’s Emma
A 5000 word draft on Mr. Woodhouse as an autistic character in Emma, looking for your comments, critique, and input.

~

kerk_hiraeth posted fic, although I would say it's poetry. Beautiful and tragic:

The Briefest of Heroes
(re-post for Halfamoon 2026 Prompt #01 – The Innocent) (This is not a happy story with a happy ending.)
Summary: Amongst all the Slayers born into new powers; what happens to those who are alone; untrained and unfound. This is an account of one such abandoned innocent.
Length: 350 words

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Round-up

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 17:09:21 GMT

Sad things:

Wilfred Mott | IT'S MY HONOUR (R.I.P BERNARD CRIBBINS) by MARGARITA LIFE

I shall have more to say about the trailblazing, incomparable Nichelle Nichols, who shared the bridge with us as Lt. Uhura of the USS Enterprise, and who passed today at age 89. For today, my heart is heavy, my eyes shining like the stars you now rest among, my dearest friend.
— George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) July 31, 2022

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Happy things:

Football came home - the end of 56 'years of hurt'! :)
England created history by winning their first major women's tournament in a dramatic Euro 2022 final against old rivals and eight-time champions Germany at Wembley.

All About Spike is Moving to the AO3
It was the BEST fic archive, I'm so happy it's being saved.

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Other things:

I encourage people to donate to mermaids as I do every year on this day. Ringing your helpline was the first time I had heard someone tell me personally "it's ok to be trans". I think you saved my life, whoever you where. Thank you so much @Mermaids_Gender .#TransRights pic.twitter.com/B0P1eXsLNZ
— Liam of the closet (@GuyCalledLiam) July 31, 2022

Having finished The Goblin Emperor I then read Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (I adore her books, but somehow never read the Crestomanchi series, which my children have been chiding me for for ages). After that I picked up We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, and am about halfway through. From the blurb on the back:

Set in the twenty-sixth century A.D., Zamyatin's masterpiece describes life in the regimented totalitarian society of OneState, ruled over by the all-powerful "Benefactor". The inspiration for George Orwell's 1984, We is the archetype of the modern dystopia, or anti-Utopia: a great prose poem detailing the fate that might befall us if we surrender our individual selves to some collective dream of technology and fail in the vigilance that is the price of freedom.

It was written in 1920–1921 and was first published as an English translation by Gregory Zilboorg in 1924 by E. P. Dutton in New York, with the original Russian text first published in 1952.

I was partly curious due to it being the inspiration for 1984, but (disappearing down the rabbit hole) I discovered that Jerome K. Jerome's short story The New Utopia has been cited as an influence on Zamyatin's novel. I went to look for it, and here it is, online:

The New Utopia

It's only about 10 pages, and clearly satire. But what's fascinating is that reading it I can 100% see the influence, and how Zamyatin clearly thought 'This is a brilliant idea - I will expand on it and write a story set in this world'.

Finally, have another photo. Taken yesterday when we went for a walk, this shows Tórshavn (the capital) - or rather parts of it, it's a sprawling city:

(Basic info: The Faroe Islands are situated halfway between Scotland & Iceland. There are 18 islands, 17 inhabited, and the population is approx 50k. It's a tiny place where modern life/technology co-exists with traditional culture.)

Disabling comments as I have no idea when I will be able to reply. Also tomorrow is my 25th wedding anniversary. :)

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Holidays and fic

Wed, 27 Jul 2022 15:56:05 GMT

Hi all. Sorry about the radio silence, but we went on holiday. See below (actual photo, taken on my phone - yes it is that beautiful). ETA: Went on holiday 'back home' [the Faroes] for me, and are still here. It's been 4 years since we last visited, thanks to covid... (It's possible that we all caught it on the way as we're all various degrees of coughing/sniffly - a combination of airport + plane, or possibly just the small coughing child behind us on the plane - but we're mostly fine. It's probably just a cold.)

~

As holiday reading I brought with me The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison, as it was heartily recommended by kaffy_r. It proved delightful and very enjoyable. The world building is brilliant, the characters wonderful and complex, and although I found it nigh-on impossible to keep track of the names I loved it to pieces.

~

Finally, I managed to edit this short fic, with thanks to Owls for the sensitivity read-through and to kathyh for the beta. <3

Family Matters: Cousin Barry.
Summary: Josh meets Jamie's extended family (the bad and the good).

(Part of my 'Seeker' verse, more info/notes on Ao3. Again, a little FitB type thing, posted after being sat in a drafts folder for... um... 10 years?)

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And now for something completely different!

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 20:13:52 GMT

I'm not much of Royalist (I like the tradition & the pageantry, and I'm glad we don't have a President Johnson), but a Royal family is an expensive luxury, and I'm not sure it's very humane to keep people in gilded cages. ANYWAY, thanks to the Jubilee I have a four day weekend, which is nice!

A couple of takes from Twitter:

The Impudence Of Youth
(Photo @lealolivas) pic.twitter.com/8DwC4iYZr1
— Larry the Cat (@Number10cat) June 2, 2022

This’ll lose me some followers🤣 pic.twitter.com/EeGNmgezjI
— Michael Warburton 🇺🇦 (@MichaelWarbur17) June 1, 2022

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And this is fascinating:

“Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott was a transgender man
“I am more than half-persuaded that I am, by some freak of nature, a man’s soul put into a woman’s body.”

Sidebar: I have never read Little Women. Indeed, I didn't know it existed until I was an adult. You are welcome to yell at me in the comments. :)

~

Daily Dimash: Okay

New song is here, now with a fabulous video (I love 'proper' videos that tell a story). The song is very very lowkey (not sure how else to describe it), none of the crazy highs or lows, but it has grown on me, the way good pop songs tend to...

It's another Igor Krutoy creation (the premiere of which was pulled b/c of Russia's invasion of Ukraine). You can read about the idea behind the video here. :)

Reaction videos:

DIMASH "OKAY" | Análisis / Reacción | Vocal coach (Possibly the most excited reaction you will ever see to anything! :) Make sure to put on the subtitles.)

Actor and Filmmaker REACTION and ANALYSIS - DIMASH "OKAY" MUSIC VIDEO! (Lots of insights into what the video is doing, A+ commentary)

Dimash Masterpost

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War and Doctor Who

Tue, 22 Mar 2022 19:27:32 GMT

Two videos by Margarita Life:

Posted 20 March 2022
Doctor Who | LIFE MUST WIN
This video is not my best. But that's all I can do for now. I understand that you would like to see more fan videos than videos about Ukraine. So I will try to do my best.

It's technically a Doctor Who vid (using footage from all of New Who, right up to & including Flux), but it's art doing what art does best: showing truth through a story.

Posted 9 March 2022
UKRAINE | I hear more screams than anyone could ever be able to count
Age restricted, due to the footage. I am sure you can guess, from the title, what it depicts. (The speech is one of the best speeches in the whole show, and yet I hate how relevant it is, and always has been.)

The music is Sarajevo by Max Richter.

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And speaking of Doctor Who and war - a book by Aboud Dandachi (Kindle price £0.99):

The Doctor,The Eye Doctor and Me: Analogies and Parallels Between The World of Doctor Who and the Syrian Conflict

"Never cruel or cowardly. Never give up, never give in" - The Doctor's Promise

"Assad or we burn the country" - The Eye Doctor's Promise

The Doctor, the lead character in the BBC’s phenomenally successful TV show “Doctor Who”; a time-traveling alien hundreds of years old. A compassionate person with the curiosity of a child and the wisdom of the ages.

The Eye Doctor, Bashar Assad of Syria, whose ophthalmology studies in the UK were interrupted to enable him to inherit the presidency of a country from his father.

"The Doctor, the Eye Doctor and Me" is the world of Doctor Who and the Syrian conflict as seen through the eyes of Aboud Dandachi, an activist and refugee from the city of Homs. The book attempts to explain the events of the Syrian conflict by exploring the remarkable analogies, parallels and contrasts between the war and the adventures of the Eleventh Doctor.

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Free book!

Mon, 15 Jan 2018 18:25:29 GMT

Doing Time on Planet Earth by our very own shadowkat is FREE on Amazon Kindle today through Friday!

Go, support a local writer! :D

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Thread

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 19:03:12 GMT

Originally posted by xkcd_rss at Thread

https://xkcd.com/1893/

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Pimping!

Sun, 17 May 2015 08:40:37 GMT

shadowkat67 wrote a book!

Doing Time on Planet Earth is a character-driven dark comedy/off-beat mystery that’s filled with snarky satire, dry wit, and absurd situations as three very different individuals find their lives intertwining in the strangest of ways.

More info if you click the cover picture above.

Currently (TODAY 18th of MAY!) free on Amazon Kindle.

Go, read, review, spread the word!

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Too good not to share.

Fri, 06 Mar 2015 13:31:14 GMT

My favourite Christian Grey story so far:

Schoolboy barred from World Book Day over Christian Grey costume.

And, related (World Book Day wise, not 50 Shades):

World Book Day costumes: fun for children, horror for parents (SO TRUE!!!)

Finally, obligatory Doctor Who World Book Day story:

NEW VIDEO! What do you think Michelle Gomez (Missy in #DoctorWho) is reading on #WorldBookDay?

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The continued saga of attempting to bring up sensible daughters.

Sun, 10 Oct 2010 09:08:06 GMT

Miss M (12 in November), is currently reading two books: Jane Eyre and... Twilight. She found the former in her school library (SO MANY BOOKS! \o/) and - even though we of course have a copy - decided to borrow it. (The school one is, naturally, better.) She likes it very much and was telling me how exciting it was, since Jane liked Mr Rochester and Mr Rochester liked Jane, but neither of them was telling the other - and I realised that she's never really come across this trope before, and to have her first experience be Jane Eyre is pretty fabulous. :)

She also (since ALL her friends are into the series) decided to borrow Twilight off one of her friends, and I figured that if she read it alongside classical, romantic literature it might show itself up for what it is. And this has indeed been the case. Verdict so far? Terrible book, but she can't stop reading. Plus Bella focusses only on Edward and that got old pretty quickly. Also, of course, she's noticed how clumsy Bella is (which she finds pretty hilarious) and how she has all the other boys running after her (I explained how this was probably a reflection on SMeyer's desire to rewrite her own High School years...).

My girl has a well developed sense of snark, and I have a feeling it'll come out in force before long. Plus we can have lots of talks about what constitutes acceptable behaviour when it comes to relationships. (Not that she's there yet - boys are annoying and stupid and loud, mostly.)

Anyway, she's giving Jane Eyre a rest, since it's just become VERY SAD because Jane's left him, and Miss M is rather worried. ♥

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