Rusalka's ramblings

1. Made a big batch of linguine with meat sauce. That's dinner tonight and tomorrow taken care of.
2. Solved today's Wordle in three tries.
3. Walked 2 miles yesterday and another 2 today.
4. Made a duck!

I wanted to used up some of the bits and bobs of leftover yarn in my stash, so I poked around on Ravelry and found a really cute pattern for a plushie mallard duck. The original pattern didn't have feet, but after poking around some more I found another knitter who'd made it and added feet and left notes on how they did it, so I was able to follow. The final product is about life size and totally adorable.

Click on thumbnails for larger photos.



This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/673027.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

What I finished:
The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman.. The 8th book in the Invisible Library series, and while the author's note says there may be more eventually, it still works as a finale. There are major revelations about things that were only hinted at in earlier books, and a confrontation with The Shadowy Masterminds Behind it All (TM). I felt like Irene's survival and ultimate victory at the end felt a little hand-wavy, but not enough to really bother me. Oh, and Irene and Kai still aren't banging Vale, even though he keeps declaring his loyalty and demonstrating his competence and blithely following them into horribly dangerous situations that are technically none of his business. But at least everyone in my OT3 is alive and well and living in the same universe. I can live with that.

Don't know what I'm reading next. I have several cool-looking choices on hold in Libby, so I'll probably just go with whatever comes in first. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/672895.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

You guys, this is so awesome! My little yuletide story about talking yarns got made into a podfic:

[Podfic] Curses, foiled again (71 words) by caminante, Aliteralgarbageheap, GoLBPodfics, Rindle, irrationalpie, thesleepyskipper, ButterfliesInMyBrain, swankster, Aether
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Knitting (Anthropomorphic)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Yarn (Anthropomorphic), Malabrigo Sock Yarn (Anthropomorphic), Homespun Yarn (Anthropomorphic), Noro Kureyon Yarn (Anthropomorphic), Red Heart Super Saver Yarn (Anthropomorphic)
Additional Tags: Fluff, Crack, Fluff and Crack, Knitting, Attempt at Humor, Bickering yarns!, Holiday hijinks!, Podfic, Podfic Length: 20-30 Minutes
Summary:

The residents of Yarn Stash Cabinet are concerned about their crafter’s holiday knitting plans.

The have different voices for all the characters, and cute cover art, and it's just too adorable for words. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/672680.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

Happy new year, everyone!

My wonderful Invisible Library OT3 story, A Lovely Beginning was written by the equally lovely impala_chick.

I wrote Curses, Foiled Again for bardicraven. I was sure, as I was writing the story, that no one except the recipient would care to read it. Instead, it became my most popular yuletide story ever. Apparently fandom has a large contingent of people who want to read about sentient yarn. Who knew?

Off to explore more of the archive now. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/672384.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

The one everyone else is doing.

1. Your main fandom of the year?
I don't think I really had one. My fannishness is kind of free-floating these days, bumping up against many canons but never really settling on one.

2. Your favourite film you watched this year?
Black Widow

3. Your favourite book read this year?
The Huntress by Kate Quinn.

4. Your favourite album or song to listen to this year?
"Therefore I am" by Billie Eilish

5. Your favourite TV show of the year?
Only Murders in the Building.

6. Your best new fandom discovery of the year?
Like a few other people in my circle, I was rather surprised to find myself liking The Wheel of Time. I bounced off the first book when it first came out, and never attempted the series since, but TV show is good silly fun.

7. Your biggest fandom disappointment of the year?
Natasha is still dead. Grump.

8. Your fandom boyfriend of the year?
Giuseppe Dell'Anno can come bake for me any time!

9. Your fandom girlfriend of the year?
Uhm... can I have a threesome? I don't want to choose between Yelena Belova and Nina Markova.

10. Your biggest squee moment of the year?
Kate and Yelena bantering over macaroni and cheese on Hawkeye.

11. The most missed of your old fandoms?
Marvel 616. I can't remember the last time they put out a comic I actually wanted to read, let alone feel fannish about.

12. The fandom you haven't tried yet, but want to?
I might give Hawkeye a try, especially if Kate/Yelena becomes a thing. Or at least Kate & Yelena.

13. Your biggest fan anticipations for the coming year?
Both the Invisible Library and Rivers of London have new installments scheduled to come out. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/672133.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

Happy holiday to everyone for whom this is a holiday.

My yuletide author wrote me a lovely Invisible Library Story with Irene, Kai and Vale (on their way to becoming Irene/Kai/Vale) reuniting after Book 1. It's got wonderful, wistful Vale POV, and group hugs and everyone being happy to see each other.

A Lovely Beginning (1161 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Invisible Library - Genevieve Cogman
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Irene/Kai/Peregrine Vale
Characters: Peregrine Vale, Irene (The Invisible Library), Kai (The Invisible Library)
Additional Tags: Pre-OT3, Pre-Relationship, Reunions
Summary:

Vale isn't sure if he is ever going to see Irene and Kai again, but then they break into his house and surprise him.

Makes me want to go and reread the whole series (which I should probably do anyway, as the next book is due out any day now.)

My recipient left a happy comment on the story I wrote for them, as did several other people, which surprised me, as I thought it was a niche little thing that nobody would read except the person who asked for it. Then again, this is yuletide, where niche fandoms go to find their people, so I'm just going to bask in the comments and be happy. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/671781.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

I've been pretty swamped with work the last couple of weeks, as well as finishing my yuletide story, so there hasn't been a lot of time to read, but I did manage to finish Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda before it went back to Libby. I found it odd, but in a very enjoyable and easy to read way. It's a series of very short ghost stories (vignettes, really), all set in the modern day but inspired by traditional Japanese tales -- there's a section at the back of the book summarizing the original stories that inspired the book. All of the ghosts are female, none are malevolent, and the people interacting with them are generally pretty chill about it. There's no real plot, either to most of the stories or to the book as a whole, but a loose connecting thread does appear as the book progresses. The translation is smooth and readable, and I'd be totally happy to read a hundred more stories in this world. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/671644.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

What I finished:
How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse and How the Multiverse Got Its Revenge by K. Eason.. Fun, snappy space opera with a fairy tale twist. Rory Thorne is a princess of a far future planetary empire, and also a descendant of the princess who was Sleeping Beauty. Like Sleeping Beauty, she gets a bunch of fairy gifts and one curse at her naming ceremony as a baby. These play into her ability to deal with an unwanted arranged marriage, a sinister conspiracy against her fiancé, and a threat of alien invasion. The characters are engaging, and there's a fair amount of humor and tons of loyalty kink between Rory and her royal entourage/pirate crew. (Yes, she's a space fairy tale princess who becomes a space pirate! Sorry, privateer). If you like this kind of thing (which I do), then this is the kind of thing you'll like.

The Sweetest Remedy by Jane Igharo. About Hannah, a young biracial woman from San Francisco who travels to Lagos to attend the funeral of her father, whom she only met once as a child (he had a brief affair with her mother and didn't stick around). There's some minor drama with Hannah's Nigerian family, who had no idea she existed until she shows up, and a low-key romance with a nice young man who's connected to the family, but I think the main focus of the story was to give readers a picture of Nigerian life that goes beyond the usual Western stereotypes about African countries. Hannah's father, we discover, was incredibly rich, and everyone in the family is hip and glamorous and sophisticated. There's not much by way of stakes to the story; every now and then somebody says something mean to Hannah and upsets her, but then somebody else takes her shopping for fancy clothes or to dine at a fancy restaurant or whisks her off for a romantic getaway at a fancy resort, and everything's fine again. It's total wish-fulfillment fantasy (starting with the fact that Hannah is a twenty-something who makes a living writing articles for an on-line women's magazine and somehow earns enough to live alone in a nice part of San Francisco), which I enjoyed, but it's not the kind of book that's going to stick with me in the long term, I think. And I do wish the romance was more developed. I didn't get a sense that Hannah had any real connection to Lawrence beyond "we're both young and hot and nice, and also he's the only male character in the book who's my age and not related to me."

What I'm reading now:
Where the Wild Ladies Are by Matsuda Aoko: a collection of linked ghost stories with a feminist bent.

Nancy Wake: World War Two's Most Rebellious Spy by Russel Braddon.. All those Kate Quinn books about women being heroic in WWII made me want to pick up some non-fiction about the topic, so this.

What I'm reading next: I'll find out when I get there. This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/671281.html. You may comment there using OpenID.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone who's celebrating. I wish you good food, easy cleanup, and plenty of time to relax.

The Boy and I are doing ham instead of turkey for the second year in a row. We ordered it, along with a bunch of side dishes, from the local snooty gourmet market, so all I have to do is make dessert, which is the fun part. I've already made the cheesecake last night, and the cookies are in the oven right now. I put cassis in the cheesecake, and topped it with a gelee made from some red currants I froze back in the summer. It looks very festive; we'll have to see how it tastes. And I'm making these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies on the principle that there should be some pumpkin flavored dessert for the occasion.

On the fannish front, I've hit the minimum word count on my Yuletide pic, and I think I'm about half-way through the story, so I should be able to finish on time. That's something to be thankful for, right?

I have the day off tomorrow, so I've made an appointment for my booster shot. Something else to be thankful for.

In the department of "things that only happen at SIO," there was a mass e-mail at work yesterday with the subject line "Spine in a bag found" and the first line "One of our lab members found a spine in a bag in the parking lot." For a moment I felt like I was in an episode of CSI, or maybe Bones. But as it turned out it was, in fact, a fish spine.

I thought I'd give Simba a treat, so I bought one of those toys that's like a puzzle that you put treats in, and the kitty has to get them out. I saw lots of Instagram and YouTube videos of kitties playing with it and happily getting their treats. But Simba? He just sits next to it and stares sadly at the treats he doesn't know how to get. All he has to do is push them with his little paw, but it seems to be beyond him. What can I say, I may claim he's the world's cutest cat but I don't claim he's the world's smartest.

Time to go get the cookies out of the oven... This entry was originally posted at https://marinarusalka.dreamwidth.org/671104.html. You may comment there using OpenID.