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Saturday, March 21st, 2026 10:57 pm
We went and saw Project Hail Mary this afternoon. It was terrific. I loved it.

You can read my (positive and spoilery) reactions to the Project Hail Mary book at this post from 2024.

If spoilers matter to you, I recommend very strongly going in as unspoiled as possible, including not watching the trailer.

Talking about the movie some more, and movie vs book )
Saturday, March 21st, 2026 11:59 am
I posted some more Babylon 5 fic in the last couple of days: a new Londo/G'Kar fake dating fic plus a new chapter of the B5 catacomb WIP.

It's been a year this month since I started watching the show - my first post under the B5 tag was posted March 3, 2025 after watching the first couple of episodes. Still completely gone on it! I regret nothing!

In other news, NYT gift link to an article about Paul Brainerd, creator of Aldus PageMaker and inventor of the term "desktop publishing." This was a fascinating nostalgia read for me because, while I had no idea of the actual history, this guy (and Adobe and Apple) created the professional world of my young adulthood. My first job out of college in (I think) 1998 was working in the layout department of a newspaper that had just recently (last few years) gone from paste-up to an all-Mac layout room using a program similar to PageMaker from a third-party software maker that no longer exists. PageMaker - which I also learned to use in the college computer lab, and later at work - was the direct predecessor of InDesign, widely used even today. It's interesting to think back on those old newspaper days and how thoroughly they shaped me and continue to shape me. The computer/layout/marketing experience I got as a layout artist in the late 90s and 2000s has been immensely useful for my current self-publishing career.

It continues to be horrendously cold. We've been sitting under a high-pressure ridge and have had gorgeous sunny days that are absolutely freezing. It was -20F when I got up this morning and it's 0F out there right now. My husband's (uni-age) students are over here today because they wanted to help him dig out an ancient non-working snowblower that someone gave us ages ago from a snowbank and try to get it working again. (We do actually have TWO other snowblowers. This is just for fun.)

I took this picture on a walk up our driveway to the highway to get the mail a couple of days ago:

a long expanse of snow-covered road with piles of snow on each side

At least at this time of year, the sun warms it up SOMEWHAT during the day - in January it can sit at -40 24/7 for weeks; at this time of year we're still experiencing 20-40 degree increases during the day .... which is still barely enough to push us above 0F. The 10-day forecast shows that it will be glacially (haha) warming up, but still may not have crawled into above-freezing temps by the end of the month. UGH, I'M READY FOR SPRING.
Saturday, March 21st, 2026 01:05 pm
Assortment of black and white speech bubbles

Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?
Wednesday, March 18th, 2026 01:32 am
... resulting from making that vid this past week.

One thing that I was thinking about is the sheer challenge of costuming this show, because most of the costumes are directly patterned after their manga/anime looks. So whereas most of the time in most shows, you can probably source the characters' everyday wear from basic mass-produced clothes or even vintage or secondhand shops, aside from really specific superhero costumes or whatever, this is more like a historical production in that everything has to be made from scratch. (Only, if possible, worse, because unless you're doing an unusual time period, normally you could probably go to the warehouses of Elizabethan or Regency costumes or Roman togas that no doubt exist.)

Here, even the relatively normal clothes are directly echoing something specific, like the patterns on
season 2 character'sTashigi's
distinctive shirt, or
another season 2 character'sMiss Valentine's lemon-patterned
dress.

Anyway, it's just interesting to think about. Even the simplest costumes are more complicated than they seem, because it's not just an unusual shirt that the costume people found at a vintage shop; they're having to explicitly pattern-match or color-match or style-match items from the manga and anime.

More specific spoilers about characters' fighting skills )
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 10:38 pm
So this is apparently the latest installment in an accidental series about gardens. This is based off some bits in [archiveofourown.org profile] hauntinghouses's lovely post-canon fixit Out of the Woods (not necessary to read before this one, but you should read if you like Londo & G'Kar stuff; it's lovely, with some neat Narn worldbuilding), which was in turn inspired by one of my older ones. This is not meant to be in direct continuity with either hauntinghouses' fic or the other fic it was inspired by; it's off happily living its best life in its own AU 'verse.

Green Growing Things (Londo & G'Kar, 2800 wds)
It is post-canon, and there are gardens.

Fic also posted under the cut )

Bonus extras from Tumblr )
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 11:33 am

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk



Given this has been awards show season, have you ever attended a TV watch party? And if not, would you like to? Take the poll and tell us more in comments!

Poll #34379 Watch Party
This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

Have you ever gotten together with people outside your household to watch something on TV?

View Answers

Yes
20 (74.1%)

No
7 (25.9%)

What sort of viewing was it?

View Answers

Awards show
2 (10.0%)

Sports
4 (20.0%)

Special event
3 (15.0%)

TV series (any kind)
18 (90.0%)

Movie
10 (50.0%)

Gaming related
1 (5.0%)

Weekly watch party
3 (15.0%)

Other
0 (0.0%)

Have you ever done a group viewing regularly?

View Answers

No
14 (50.0%)

Yes, for some things but not others
5 (17.9%)

Yes, as part of events
0 (0.0%)

Yes, as an activity with friends
11 (39.3%)

What's your favorite thing to watch with a group?

View Answers

Start of a TV show season
2 (10.0%)

A weekly watch of a show
11 (55.0%)

Debut of a new show
1 (5.0%)

Special TV event
4 (20.0%)

Something I have a bet on/gambling pool
0 (0.0%)

TV show rewatch
13 (65.0%)

Something we can play along with
1 (5.0%)

Other
2 (10.0%)

Monday, March 16th, 2026 12:12 pm
A vid about the Marines. Clips from seasons one and two; spoilers.

(CW: guns, violence, smoking - the usual show stuff. No fast/stuttery cuts.)



Music: Janelle Monae
Length: 2:48
Crossposted: On AO3 | on Tumblr

Download: 212 Mb MP4 (zipped)
Sunday, March 15th, 2026 04:53 pm

https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PodficBigBang2026

We are open for business, baby! If you're done already, go ahead and post your podfic. If you're not ready, there's still two weeks and some change left to finish up. The collection is UNREVEALED until April 1st AOE.

This year, I PROBABLY won't be awake until midnight AOE (5am my time), so things won't reveal PRECISELY at deadline, but instead when I wake up around 7am PDT (which is UTC-7). So don't worry when there's a small delay! I'm just not awake and frantically finishing my podfic, for a change!

I will be mostly unreachable from 3/21 to 3/28, on the JoCo Cruise. If there's any fellow JoCoNauts, I'd love to meet up!

Well...I think that's it. Go forth!

OH, WAIT! I almost forgot! Before you go....
🔪🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪🔪🔪⚔️🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪🔪🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪🔪🔪⚔️🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪🔪🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪🔪⚔️🗡️⚔️🗡️🗡️🔪

Orderly line, orderly line, everyone. One knife per person, don't get greedy. And don't back out, now! Caesar isn't gonna stab himself, am I right?

Saturday, March 14th, 2026 12:07 pm
Assortment of black and white speech bubbles


Welcome to the weekly roundup post! What are you watching this week? What are you excited about?
Friday, March 13th, 2026 09:52 pm
I watched it this week and enjoyed it as much as the first season if not more, since I remembered fewer of the plot specifics, and this season introduces some more of the characters I really like. It's still absolutely bonkers. If you've seen season one, you know what to expect.

Spoilers, occasional anima/manga comparisons, vague references to future events )
Tuesday, March 10th, 2026 10:51 am

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk



The opening of [community profile] marchmetamatterschallenge coincided with a post lamenting how critical examinations of canon content are increasingly challenged as the wrong way to do fandom. Meanwhile other groups engage in ranking wars, artificially raising or lowering general audience feedback to shows or music.

Do you enjoy getting into the weeds with your TV viewing? Do you find viewer rankings of shows to be helpful? Or do you find thinking too much about what you watch ruins your fun?
Monday, March 9th, 2026 12:26 am
Whoops, I keep forgetting to post the third check-in!

In 6 more days, I'll create and post the link for the AO3 collection. Anything you post there will remain hidden until April 1st, when the collection closes and is revealed!

So, that's 23 days left to get those podfics done! How is everyone faring? The fanfic I WANTED to post entered a hiatus, so that bit of work is being put aside, for me. However, last week I was able to record all of a fanfic I REALLY love, so now all I have to do is edit!

I hope everyone is feeling confident! It's been good to see so many people sign up, and I am very excited to see how things go on reveal day!

Happy recording! Or, at this point, hopefully happy editing!

-Kit