blueshiftofdeath: phoenix wright tapping his documents of evidence (paper)
[personal profile] blueshiftofdeath

Top Secret!, by the creators of Airplane!, is a parody of WWII movies and "Elvis" movies, in which the Elvis-like American protagonist, Nick Rivers, stumbles into being a hero that helps the resistance against East German fascist regime.

(Feel free to go watch Top Secret! and then return to this post.)

One of my and [personal profile] ebaths's favorite scenes in Top Secret! is one in which Nick is captured and tortured by the regime. In the middle of his torture, Nick passes out and has a nightmare that he's "back in (high) school" and missed all of his finals. Then he wakes up to the real life torture, realizes it was a dream, and says, "Thank god!"

This great little sequence clocks in at under a minute in length!

It's funny because of the delivery (I love the out-of-it performance of the dream classmate), the familiarity of the dream (I couldn't find any statistics on how many people have this dream, but it's incredibly common even after graduation, and there are multiple articles on the subject; here's one I found just now), and the absurdity of Nick preferring getting beaten over the mundane and relatively harmless scenario in which he missed his exams.

I think part of the humor also comes from how true it rings. It's absurd that Nick would prefer getting beaten, but in some way also very real. To me the scene, though comedic, is a fantastic illustration of how human experiences are all determined by how we see them. This is often brought up in the context of how we can change our views, and I think less often in the context of how aging changes our world and therefore the way we perceive events-- the latter of which is particularly relevant to Nick Rivers's high school nightmare.

It's easy to forget how little you know as a child; for example, kids often need to have concepts like death explicitly laid out for them since it's not something they'd pick up on their own, whereas as an adult the existence of death (at least in its most abstract form) is second nature. With knowledge so limited, your world is easily defined by the adults around you. They might introduce you to religious concepts or the idea of something like Santa Claus, and though later you may reconsider your beliefs, as a kid typically these concepts are easily absorbed into your idea of reality.

Ideas around school fall into this category. If you're given the sense that you "must" get certain grades, or complete certain milestones (like taking final exams) or else your life is over, then that'll become your reality. Later on, after graduation, you'll likely realize that failing or missing exams don't end your life, even if they cause a lot of stress and extra headaches. In retrospect, the stress of needing to pass your chemistry final may seem almost trivial. Even if the event of "missing your chemistry final" doesn't change, your experience of the event (in terms of your emotions leading up to and following the event) can change if your perception of the world changes.

In the movie, Nick Rivers is a suave, unnaturally "chill" guy, ready to roll with it as he suddenly has to start risking his life. You can imagine that he's seen enough at this point to realize that whatever happens, he can probably make it work, and if not... he's enjoyed his life enough to not freak out too much over the end of it all. But as a teenager, he wouldn't have had acquired this life experience; it seems he was likely relatively sheltered (also funny) and like so many of us, had his brain trapped in the world (perhaps unintentionally) constructed by his parents and teachers-- a world where he had no way of seeing beyond the apparent horizon of doom that was missing his final exams.

So while being imprisoned and physically tortured is definitely worse than missing your final exams, it makes sense for Nick to find torture more tolerable than the dream-- because in the dream, he's not only living out the scenario of missing the exams, he's also re-living the mental state of being in high school. He's been reverted to the him that has no way of knowing that school isn't life or death, and has no sense of how much control he really has over his own life or how many opportunities still lay ahead.

Put another way, the high school nightmare represents not a single situation (such as being in school or missing exams) but a different world (mentally living in a reality in which you have no agency and you perceive that any misstep will be catastrophic). Though the "torture" situation of reality is less desirable than the "missed exam" situation of the nightmare, perception is what defines experience, and Nick naturally welcomes back the world of reality (in which he is an adult that sees near-infinite options for his future) compared to the world of the nightmare (previously described).

today's window into another world

Jul. 10th, 2025 10:39 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

a circular lamp embedded in a cracked paving stone, with green leaves visible beneath the glass

(I am continuing to think a lot about sensory systems; today I have mostly been discovering how many of the things I thought I half-remembered about nerves are wrong.)

FAKE Ficlet: Anywhere With You

Jul. 10th, 2025 06:55 pm
badly_knitted: (BSP 5 - Dee & Ryo)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 



Title: Anywhere With You
Fandom: FAKE
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Ryo, Dee.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 773
Setting: After Like Like Love.
Summary: Ryo has been offered a position on a new task force, but there’s a serious downside.
Written For: [personal profile] sarajayechan
’s prompt ‘any, any pairing, anywhere I would have followed you’ at [community profile] threesentenceficathon.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
 
 


badly_knitted: (Immortal)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Taking Care Of Business – Part 2
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Dekker, Agent Johnson, Alice, Steven, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2573
Spoilers: Children of Earth Fix-it.
Summary: Jack struggles to find a way to stop the 456.
Written For: Weekend Challenge ‘Oh The Places You'll Go 2,’ at 
[community profile] 1_million_words.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
 

Embodiment requires sacrifice

Jul. 10th, 2025 11:00 am
sporky_rat: Garrus, Mass Effect 2 (hurt)
[personal profile] sporky_rat

Stupid little walk for stupid little brain chemicals in stupid heat.

It was either heat or humidity, so heat.

sineala: (Avengers: Tony: And there you are)
[personal profile] sineala
Establishing Shot (7854 words) by Sineala
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616, Iron Man (Comics)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Henry Hellrung & Tony Stark
Characters: Henry Hellrung, Tony Stark
Additional Tags: Character Study, First Meetings, Alcohol, Acting, POV Outsider, Comic: Iron Man Vol. 1 (1968)
Summary: When Henry Hellrung lands the role of Tony Stark on the upcoming Avengers TV show, he's thrilled. But first, he needs to know what makes this guy tick. But when the cameras are on... Tony's acting. Who is Tony Stark, really? Henry meets Tony in person, to see if he can learn the truth. What he finds is something he never expected.

It's been a while since I posted a fic, hasn't it? This is actually a gen fic written for the zine Transistor-Powered Heart.

It's also not actually as long as it looks; the second chapter is a bonus version with several deleted scenes.

Sunshine Challenge #3

Jul. 10th, 2025 10:53 am
pensnest: PP full face (Pedro Pascal)
[personal profile] pensnest
Journaling prompt: What are your favorite summer-associated foods?

My grandma grew raspberries. She had a lovely square patch of canes, and I often helped pick them, which was a great way to sneak extra raspberries into my mouth instead of into the bowl. Delicious berries. And they remind me of my grandma, which is never bad.

FIL also grew raspberries. Back when he had two allotments (!!) and a respectable back garden, he used to make raspberry jam, which was *excellent*. However, he also used to freeze raspberries with so much added sugar that they tasted more like sugar than raspberries, which was a practically criminal waste.

I have my first serious raspberry harvest this year! Picked a good bowlful on Sunday morning, and my Boy came round for lunch and interview prep. We had a generous portion each (fresh raspberries! from my garden!) and there was still enough for me to enhance my breakfast for a couple of days afterwards.

There are more on the canes. \o/


Creative prompt: Draw art of or make graphics of summer foods, or post your favorite summer recipes.

Hmm. I spent two hours yesterday drawing people, in the final class. Copying a photo is so much easier than drawing from life! We spent half an hour on the photo (an elegant Black woman in profile), then drew one another for five-ten minutes using pencils, graphite sticks, charcoal and oil pastels, then one final 'portrait' in whatever medium we chose. It was actually easier to do the 5-minute ones, because there was no expectation that we'd do it well....

All this to say, I'm out of drawing today.

As far as summery food goes, I guess I eat more salad in the summer and more soup in the winter, but salad merely involves cutting/tearing and throwing into a bowl a selection from: lettuce and similar, from a head or a mixed bag or both, spinach, tomatoes, bell peppers, spring onions, feta cheese, salted cashews, sprouting beans, mushrooms, anything else I have that seems reasonable.

I am, however, inspired to create a Summer Pudding. Nigella has a recipe here https://www.nigella.com/recipes/summer-pudding but all you really need to know is: pudding basin, slightly stale white bread, mixture of berries, sugar. Line the basin with the bread, fill the centre with lightly heated berries and sugar, saving some of the delicious juice to coat all the bread. Cover the top with more bread, and juice that, then put a weight on top and leave it in the fridge overnight. Serve slices with double cream.

Eton Mess is good, too, with the additional benefit of not mattering what it looks like.

Icon is Pedro Pascal because he is also delicious.

today I have mostly been at the plot

Jul. 9th, 2025 11:58 pm
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

I had a first-thing physio appointment, so I dragged myself over to the hospital for that and then nestled down in my Surrounded By Green and... mostly read Murderbot, with occasional fruit harvest and weeding.

(I have also had lots of opportunities to practise self-compassion, both in re the number of things I did not manage to harvest before they went over and in terms of having realised within the last half hour or so that one of my pens has vanished from all of the bags it was nominally in; I hope that if I go and poke around the table etc tomorrow it will rematerialise...)

DS Story: Y Is For Yuki

Jul. 9th, 2025 02:58 pm
grey853: (DS_FK2_koshi700)
[personal profile] grey853
Series: Due South Alphabet Series
Title: Y Is For Yuki
Author: Grey/Grey853
Fandom: Due South
Pairing: Benton Fraser/Ray Kowalski

Tags: male slash, explicit sexual content, explicit language, alternate universe-canon divergent

Summary: Ray and Ben get a new wolf-dog. Ray's life is in danger from a previous case. Vecchio makes a huge life decision.

Word Count: 28,153

Link:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/67319440

Snippet:

″What about Yuki?″

The tiny white fluffball suckled Ray’s little finger. The pup was still only a few weeks old, but growing fast. ″Yuki? Yuki for what?″

″For his name. It’s Japanese for snow.″

Leave it to Ben to know another name for the white stuff. The little guy snuffled and whined so Ray leaned over the wire barrier and returned him to his husky mama Hazel and two hungry siblings. ″Yuki, huh?″

″I know we’ve bandied several names around, but since he’s all white, I thought it might be appropriate.″

″Guess it’s classier than Snowball or Bubba.″

Ben chuckled. ″You really want to name our new dog Bubba?″

″Not really. Snowball would be even worse. Imagine calling out either of those names when we’re trying to get his fuzzy butt back into the cabin after a call of nature.″

″I am, which is why I’m suggesting Yuki.″

Ray thought about it and stared at the wriggling pup snuggled up close to his mother. Ben had been reluctant to get another dog, but had come around after the pups were born. Ray knew he said yes just to please him. If letting Ben choose the name helped him feel better about being a new pup dad, so be it. ″Yuki it is.″

Enemies to lovers

Jul. 9th, 2025 10:29 am
sholio: two men on horseback in the desert (Biggles-on a horse)
[personal profile] sholio
I ended up nominating a few things for Enemies to Lovers (hush, I'm using it as a bribe for finishing my other assignments xD) and this made me spend some time thinking about which of my ships actually qualify - I had some trouble coming up with a third fandom, and trying to figure out where exactly I'd draw the line. (Like, I wouldn't call Sam/Bucky E2L - more like people who mildly antagonize each other to friends/lovers. But some might!)

So I got to wondering how other people define it. I selected check boxes since some people might have more than one answer. I mean, *I'm* not even sure where I fall in all of this!

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 51


How would you define Enemies to Lovers? (or Enemies to Friends, if you're not a shipper)

View Answers

Must try to kill each other (or at least want to), or be on opposite sides of a conflict with life-or-death stakes
17 (33.3%)

Rivalries like sports rivalries are fine, but there needs to be a strong personal element and/or unhealthy fixation on each other (not just regular sports team conflict)
25 (49.0%)

Any kind of rivalry or antagonism will do
11 (21.6%)

For me it's about the Vibe™ - from distrust/antagonism to trust, whatever form that takes
23 (45.1%)

I do not accept it as proper E2L if there's any softening at all - they must remain antagonists
0 (0.0%)

I know it when I see it but don't get too fussed about definitions
8 (15.7%)

My thoughts are too complex for your ticky boxes (answer in comments)
1 (2.0%)

Not my trope so I don't care, but I want to click something.
3 (5.9%)

Wednesday Reading Meme July 9 2025

Jul. 9th, 2025 01:34 pm
kitewithfish: (Default)
[personal profile] kitewithfish
What I’ve Read
The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York by Robert Caro -
By god, what a book, what a monster of a book! Like many, I picked this up because the lure of a good book club is a siren song – the podcast 99% Invisible decided to do a year long project on this book, one extra episode a month to discuss the book and have a conversation with someone about it. (They got great people, too, including the author!)

I fell behind schedule of the podcast but kept listening and reading on my own, and eventually, to finish this book, I ended up owning it in paperback, ebook, and three audiobooks of 1/3rd of the book each. 1200 pages makes a lot of audiobook!

This book is huge story look at one man’s life in public administration of the parks and roads and buildings of New York City. At every stage, the power of an unscrupulous, brilliant, and determined mind is at play in every project he sets his hand to, and the resulting works show his massive ego and talent and all his bigotries. Robert Moses was a fascinating and complicated man, and his legacy is fascinating and complicated. It’s also a key lesson in how difficult it is to get out of power someone who is entrenched and well supported. It also shows someone who’s unethical in small things will be unethical in big ones.

Key thoughts: If you get started on a project, public figures are more embarrassed by half finished project that wastes moderate amounts of money than by one that goes wildly over budget but gets completed. Public goodwill can be purchased by getting the papers on your side, but only for so long. You can’t just be right, you have to be smart.

As a reading experience, Caro is a skilled guide thru a tangled mess of history, legislation, and construction projects. It really can just be picked up and read chapter by chapter – he’ll give you the context you need to understand. Caro’s got a great sense for a revealing anecdote and occasionally a real admiration for the people he writes about as skilled political actors.

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett
– a very decent murder mystery in a fantasy world with some good characters and fun world building. Both the main characters and the world have mysteries built into them, and I found the whole thing very engaging. I don’t want to say more lest I spoil things.

Star Trek Lower Decks Warp Your Own Way by Ryan North and Chris Fenoglio – A graphic novel in the Choose Your Own Adventures style that is also a very fun Star Trek legacy piece. I don’t know Lower Decks at all but this was a fun introduction. Clearly made by people who love and appreciate Star Trek’s weirdnesses and with a eye on what makes someone heroic. I will say, it was a kind of confusing read – the Choose Your Own Adventure elements sometimes interact with the text, so you have to go thru several branches before getting enough information to figure out how to pick the right branch. It’s an iterative experience, but well written and charming enough to Trekkie that I did not get tired of it.

What I’m Reading
The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo – A reasonably interesting premise but I feel like the story is being weighed down a bit. I am about 25% in and we still haven’t gotten the main character to the Big Meeting.

Someone You Can Build a Nest in by John Wiswell – A weird and gooey book with a monster main character.

What I’ll Read Next


The Deep Dark
Track Changes
Alien Clay
Service Model
Monstress, Vol. 9: The Possessed
Navigational Entanglements
The Butcher of the Forest
The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain
Speculative Whiteness: Science Fiction and the Alt-Right
The Brides of High Hill
The Tusks of Extinction
“Charting the Cliff: An Investigation into the 2023 Hugo Nomination Statistics”
“Signs of Life”
“By Salt, By Sea, By Light of Stars”
“The Brotherhood of Montague St. Video”
“Loneliness Universe”
“The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion”
“The Four Sisters Overlooking the Sea”
“Lake of Souls”

BtVS Triple Drabble: Bad Influences

Jul. 9th, 2025 06:11 pm
badly_knitted: (Rose)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Bad Influences
Fandom: BtVS
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Joyce, Buffy.
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Setting: Everything up to School Hard.
Summary: Joyce is worried that Buffy has fallen in with the wrong kind of kids.
Written For: Challenge 483: Amnesty 80 at 
[community profile] fan_flashworks, using Challenge 448: Influences.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Triple drabble.
 


 

FAKE Double Drabble: Pride At Work

Jul. 9th, 2025 06:02 pm
badly_knitted: (Dee & Ryo black & white)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Pride At Work
Fandom: FAKE
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Dee, Ryo, Chief Smith.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the manga.
Summary: It’s Pride month, and the detectives of the two-seven are flying their colors.
Written For: Challenge 483: Amnesty 80 at 
[community profile] fan_flashworks, using Challenge 451: Rainbow.
Disclaimer: I don’t own FAKE, or the characters. They belong to the wonderful Sanami Matoh.
A/N: Double drabble and a half, 250 words.
 


 

Double Drabble: Sole Survivor

Jul. 9th, 2025 05:52 pm
badly_knitted: (Immortal)
[personal profile] badly_knitted
 


Title: Sole Survivor
Author: 
[personal profile] badly_knitted
Characters: Jack, Ianto.
Rating: PG
Written For: Challenge 873: Salvage at 
[community profile] torchwood100.
Spoilers: Set after Children of Earth, but Ianto is still alive.
Summary: Jack and Ianto go down to the wrecked Hub to see if anything can be salvaged.
Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
A/N: Double drabble.
 


 
muladhara: (Default)
[personal profile] muladhara
Bullet points because I don't do coherent segues!

# I am not going to talk about how many hours I am working this week, suffice to say it's ridiculous. One shift was my own fault for taking it on, but the rest were not.

Maybe I'll whine about it next week.

# I was supposed to have counselling today, but I got a text from my counsellor very early on saying she was sorry, but she had to postpone our session because she wasn't feeling well. Which is fair! And also I'm relieved, because I didn't have anything specific to talk about, apart from telling her how my new meds are going. I'm hoping next time I speak to her, I will have a bigger update for her/something else to talk about, hopefully.

# I'm changing my mind about what I want to do with (some of) the walls in my house - I was originally going to wallpaper upstairs and paint downstairs, but now I think I might just paint the lot? Especially because I think the colour I picked for the hallway has been discontinued??? I have one can of it, but that won't be enough for all the walls that will need doing.

But it's annoying, because they've literally made this colour FOR YEARS, and now I choose it as the one I want, I can't get it anywhere!

(There is a similar colour by the same company, which hopefully is still in production, so I can get that, but I am currently very >:( at it all).

I don't know what I will do with the wallpaper I haven't used, though. (I did think about partially papering the front bedroom, but idk right now).

# Wyrdwood season 2 starts on Friday! I am very excite!! I won't get to watch it till at least Sunday evening, but I am excite all the same!

(no subject)

Jul. 8th, 2025 08:26 pm
twistedchick: watercolor painting of coffee cup on wood table (Default)
[personal profile] twistedchick
In the category of continuing COVID side effects, add the inability to taste strawberries properly.

I realize the berries available locally or in the non-chain market where we shop aren't going to be the ones I used to eat up north, but the ones this year were so acidic and unsweet that I couldn't eat an entire bowl. They were making my stomach turn over. They weren't that way last year, so I can only assume it's another COVID side effect.

I used to eat a quart a day when I grew my own, up north.

This is just disappointing.

(no subject)

Jul. 8th, 2025 03:37 pm
loup_noir: (Default)
[personal profile] loup_noir
After spending so much time on the floor for my back, I made a decision: it was time to get a gardener. Simple, right? However, finding someone to do any sort of work here is an exercise in frustration. It took time and a couple of false starts, but someone else is weed-whacking the road this year. I'm still doing a lot of the weeding and pruning, which is much easier work on cranky back.

Tomorrow is my last day of weeding for a week. We're running the bar at the local volunteer fire department's barbeque this weekend, which translates to moving both commercial and homebrew kegs around. While the WBH is puzzling together his various lines to the kegs and CO2 bottles, I get to move umpteen boxes of beer glasses and wine cups from the container to where we serve. After set-up, it'll be beer, beer, cider, and more beer for five hours. I'd much rather pour beer than deal with people. Our locals are nice, but I can only handle so much dithering and enforced chitchat.

Media consumption: the newest Longmire (gets a strong B grade) and Squid Games (gets a C-, mostly for the final episode).
kaberett: Trans symbol with Swiss Army knife tools at other positions around the central circle. (Default)
[personal profile] kaberett

Apparently I'm not writing up a detailed version of this, so in brief...

Bodily functions feature heavily. )

(no subject)

Jul. 8th, 2025 01:25 pm
sholio: sun on winter trees (Default)
[personal profile] sholio
I have discovered Enemies to Lovers exchange. o deer.

THAT being said, I really need to put a cork in the new exchange signups for a bit. Summer of Horror and Temperature Flash both reveal somewhere around this weekend, as well as that being the Casefic submission deadline. I have a pinch hit, I have things to edit, and I haven't even started Just Married.

Today it's rainy AND smoky, a wonderful combination.

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