forever we try

And gosh, I don't think I realized how much I was running on fumes until Thursday, which was when I had my last exam and also when I would have gladly fallen asleep and not woken up until...today? Tomorrow? I ended up having a good bit of stuff to do on Friday, most of which was fun or at least easy but left me even more tired, and so today I've done basically nothing except sleep and catch up on some TV (Westworld, which I've wanted to watch since it first came out and haven't got around to until now; almost done with season 1 and I adore Maeve). Also read a bit, but not much. I'm excited to have the free time to be reading for fun again, and I've got a couple books I'm hoping to finish over the summer, and hopefully at least one or two in the next few weeks, before my summer class starts. I'm this close to being done with my reread of Pride and Prejudice--started it before the semester really went haywire with conferences and stuff, and now I think I finally have the brainspace to finish--so we'll see. 

Also! hurtcomfortex ! I have my actual assignment and a pinch hit to finish start writing; I meant to get them both started a good bit before the deadline and did try, but pretty much everything I worked on during finals week and the week before finals week is off the table, because even though those stories did help keep me sane, they're too...sort of wrapped up in the stress of the whole thing for me to be able to finish them. And not super well plotted, even by my standards of being a terrible plotter, since, again, I was writing more to give myself a break from final papers than because I had an actual through-line in mind. But it's okay. Now I do have some time to actually sit down and work things out, and I'm pretty excited. I've got two sets of fantastic prompts. :)

Also!! My sisters are planning on seeing Endgame tomorrow and I most likely won't come. My interest in Marvel is at an all-time low right now, and I'm not sure why because I liked Infinity War and really love certain corners of the MCU (GOTG and Spider Man, mostly). I just...don't care about seeing this movie specifically? Maybe because it's been hyped so much and at this point I know all the spoilers, or maybe because I'm kind of tired of Marvel in general? I had the same feeling about Star Wars for a good long while and I'm starting to bounce back from that, so I don't think it's a permanent thing but it's weird. It's not even that I don't like what I've heard about the movie and the spoilers. It's just that I couldn't care less about actually watching it right now. 

Read: Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich; I'm in a Russian lit class this semester, and I'm pretty sure this is the only nonfiction book we'll be reading. It's both absolutely wonderful and incredibly depressing--in the first monologue a woman remembers nursing her husband, one of the very first responders, while he was dying from radiation poisoning, and it only gets heavier from there--and I think I might end up writing my final paper on it. Maybe. It all depends on if I can work out an okay thesis, but I've already got one critical essay that could be a possible secondary source (there aren't that many critical essays on Voices from Chernobyl, especially in English) and I ordered another one through interlibrary loan, so we'll see.

I haven't had a whole ton of time to just read for fun this week. I'm about halfway through The Left Hand of Darkness, the Ursula K. Le Guin book that I've always wanted to read, and tried to read, but never got around to finishing before. I think a lot of that had to do with me coming to it when I was in high school because I'd loved the Earthsea books so much, and then bouncing off the sci-fi elements pretty hard. I like them a lot better now, and the story doesn't move anywhere near as slowly as I felt like it did the first time, so I should be able to finish it over the weekend.

Written: The first draft of my worldbuildingex  fic, which is...rough. Super, super rough, but I have a workable draft and a good amount of time left to beat it into shape, which was all I really wanted. I have a bad habit of waiting until the very last minute to start exchange fics, and since March is shaping up to be the Busiest Month Ever I didn't want to pile that stress on top of everything else. For a week or two I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to come up with an idea at all (even though I really, really loved the prompts) and so once I finally got the beginning of something that was working (at least kind of) on paper, I pretty much forced myself to just sit and write it all out. So, obviously, it's only a first draft, and it's not pretty. I finished it on Sunday and I'll probably try to get the second draft done over this weekend--I had to fight the urge to scrap everything and start over right away, but after letting it sit for a week I'm glad I did. It might be rough, but I do like the story, and I'd rather have something to work with than nothing to work with. Also, I don't edit nearly as much as I should, so this'll be good practice. 

"Where are my girls?"

I first came across the story of Winnie Ruth Judd, aka the Trunk Murderess, on an episode of My Favorite Murder (the Buzzfeed Unsolved Network also has a super-short video up that summarizes the case pretty well), and it's stuck with me ever since, probably because even though the case is technically "solved" so much about it--Winnie's motivations, whether she had an accomplice who helped dismember one of the bodies, whether she actually did it at all or took the fall for someone else--is still unknown, and almost all the theories that I've heard feel murky and unsatisfying. Not that, obviously, there's ever a really satisfying explanation for murder, especially a murder that ends with two women shot and stuffed into shipping trunks, but. This story in particular has always niggled at me. 

Basically, it goes like this: Winnie Ruth Judd was working as a secretary at a clinic in Phoenix, Arizona in the 1930s; she lived apart from her husband, William C. Judd, who was apparently a morphine addict. She met an X-ray technician who also worked at the clinic, Agnes Anne LeRoi, and became good friends with both Agnes and Agnes's roommate, Hedvig Samuelson. They even moved in together, but after a few months Winnie moved out again, and sometime around the night of October 16th, 1931, she shot and killed both Agnes and Hedvig. Three days later Winnie showed up in Los Angeles with two trunks containing the bodies, and things began to fall apart for her once a baggage agent noticed liquid oozing from one of the trunks. 

Bury Me Deep by Megan Abbot follows the basic outline of that story up until this point. In a lot of ways, it reads like an alternate-history version of the case where Winnie--except in this version she's called Marion, her friends are named Louise and Ginny, and the married lover who may or may not have been involved in the murders in real life is DEFINITELY involved here--had a little more time to make her escape, a husband who's still a morphine addict but willing to take the fall for her, and a chance to get revenge on her former lover, who in the book is portrayed as the puppet-master behind the murders and an all-around sociopath. He's charming enough that Marion never comes across as stupid for falling for him, just sheltered and repressed and pretty desperately lonely, and her relationship with Louise and Ginny is fascinating. None of them are perfect people, or even necessarily good people, but they become so dependent on each other so fast that the fallout feels inevitable and also like a punch in the gut. In real life, the theory is that the argument that ended with both Agnes and Hedvig being shot and Hedvig's body chopped into pieces had something to do with Winnie's lover, whom all three women knew. In the book, their argument starts with him, though it's also clear that it's about Louise's protective instinct and love for both Marion and Ginny, and Ginny's jealously and suspicion that Louise and Marion will eventually run off together and abandon her; Ginny, like Hedvig Samuelson, has tuberculosis and is in no position to live on her own or take care of herself. And of course, in the book, Marion's lover is in exactly the right position to know all these instincts and suspicions and to manipulate Marion and her friends through them. 

I checked this one out because a.) it's one of four old-school-noir-style novels Megan Abbot wrote, and all four have fabulously pulpy covers, and b.) I loved her thriller, The End of Everything, which is set in the 80s and also features intense female friendships and predatory men. I wouldn't call either book a fun read, and if you're not a fan of very (very) descriptive writing styles they take some getting used to, but they're both fascinating and absolutely full of tension and foreboding in a way that's, again, very noir. Bury Me Deep is also great if you like true crime (and I do)--it captures a lot of the how-could-something-like-this-ever-happen horror of the case without feeling sleazy or exploitative, and Marion's a complex and sympathetic character, even in her worst moments.

Since I've read this one before, but only once before, and since it's my favorite of Neil Gaiman's adult books (even counting American Gods), I decided to buy a copy when I saw they were selling them in the college bookstore, and I'm really glad I did. I wouldn't exactly call The Ocean at the End of the Lane comfort reading, but it turned out to be the perfect book for me when it came to taking a break from the stress of all my final papers. Because it's such a strange book, with an ending that's hopeful and bittersweet but not exactly happy, and a good bit more body horror than I remembered, and this nagging, aching sadness running through the entire thing--not to mention the Hempstock women. I loved them all the first time around, and I think I might love them even more now; there's a sense that they have goals and problems, and a history, far outside the scope of the narrator's story, but at the same time they're so incredibly kind, practical, and patient, and exactly what the narrator needs them to be, when he needs them to be. Letty especially switches between being more of a friend/big-sister type and an almost-mother, which is something I don't remember picking up on when I first read it. 

Also, even though I remembered the basic plot--middle-aged man comes back home for his father's funeral, finds himself drawn to the farm where his friend Letty, her mother, and her grandmother, lived when he was around seven, starts to remember all the deeply dark, deeply scary interdimensional weirdness that cropped up after his parents' tenant committed suicide in their car--I didn't remember most of the smaller details, including the fact that my favorite character (Letty's mother, Ginnie) actually has a pretty big role (I'd been remembering her as more of a side character than she actually is), and the fact that the main villain's characterization goes from absolutely terrifying to absolutely heartbreaking so fast it almost gave me whiplash. Or the Hunger Birds! Or the field that grows kittens! There are quite a few scenes that run on dream logic, specifically the kinds of dreams that are so weird you can't tell if they're nightmares or not. And most of those scenes do turn nightmarish (like I said, there's a lot more body horror than I remembered, though it's not all that graphic, just squirmy and disturbing), but at the end of them all there's the Hempstocks and their big, warm, comforting farm house. Even with all the weirdness and horror, the message of the book--life goes on, and you'll forget most of it, including the most important, truest parts, but at the same time, you really won't, because nothing is ever completely lost--is comforting in a uniquely melancholy, Neil-Gaiman-ish way, so maybe it is a comfort read after all? But still. Weirdness and horror. There's a lot of that, too.

The weather's finally shifted! Cold and rainy for the most part, but we've had two or three really lovely, this-is-what-I'm-talking-about, FALL days--bright and crisp and cool. The leaves are even starting to change! Not a whole lot yet, but hey, I'll take what I can get. It's wonderful to be (hopefully) done with all the humidity, anyway. And also a great reminder that Halloween's right around the corner; I've been getting into the spirit by promising myself I'll sit down to watch The Haunting of Hill House when I have just a little more time, promising myself I'll finish Penny Dreadful...tomorrow (one more episode to go now and I don't wanna), and reading Carrie for the first time. It doesn't quite top IT as my favorite Stephen King so far, but I might put it just a space above The Shining? For no other reason than that, even though I knew the story backwards and forwards years before I ever read it, I still came away haunted by Carrie. She's a wonderful character, and the way she's written puts you in the (very) uncomfortable position of getting (even if only a little bit) why she's the butt of every single joke--she's awkward and alone and pitiable in a way that makes her almost unlikable, exactly the kind of person no one wants to be in high school, and identifying with her isn't always as easy as identifying with, say, Sue, who isn't cruel on her own but makes no effort to befriend or help Carrie until it's too late. Plus, the book moves along very quickly, like pretty much all the Stephen King books I've read before, but it has the added advantage of not being 400+ pages. I breezed through it in two or three days, which was a nice change of pace. 

Well. It's been A Week. I'm keeping on top of homework (for the most part), but not much else; I'm not one of those people who necessarily needs to write every day in order to feel creative/satisfied, but more days than not would be great. I haven't had a chance to sit down, decompress, and write something that isn't related to schoolwork this entire week, and it's starting to get to me. Hopefully I can get a thing or two started over the weekend and move on from there. 

But anyway! I did manage to catch up and comment on the major two in-progress Reylo fics I'm subscribed to right now, and they were both lovely, as usual:

landscape with a blur of conquerors by diasterisms: I've talked about this one before, and the last couple of chapters have been seriously amazing--sweet and sexy and emotionally brutal. I love that even though Rey and Ben are finally "together" they're still far from being completely open and honest with each other (of course), and so there's still such a wonderful sense of tension and foreboding running through even their softest scenes.  

The Soiled Doves by fernybranca: I don't think I've talked about this one before? It's a Regency, Marriage of Convenience AU full of some of the same tropes that I adored in conquerors but with a very different twist, and the writing style mimics Austen and Austen-esque romances so perfectly that it's sometimes hard to remember that I'm not reading a published book (which, yeah, I feel like I say this about every fic I like, but in my defense, there are a LOT of good fics out there). It also does a great job of exploring both the ways in which Ben failed his parents and the ways in which he was failed by them, which makes for a nice balance you don't find in many fics. Or at least I haven't.  

I ended up having to default from both of the exchanges I signed up for over the summer, which made me feel terrible, but I still got two wonderful gift fics: 

Remember by celeste9: Rose Tico & Amilyn Holdo, aka the friendship of my dreams. I really, really wanted a fic where Amilyn comforts Rose after Paige's death, and this one delivered all the emotional hurt/comfort and female friendship/female mentor feels I could have hoped for. 

Staring at the Same Stars by Missy: Another sweet and sad story focused around female friendship; this one's about Wendy Darling and Tiger Lily. The style and tone of this fic really reminded me of the style and tone of the original book--there was such a wonderful wistfulness to it. 

(Somewhat related sidenote: I don't think I'm ever going to get used to the newest covers for The Queen's Thief series. They are pretty, and I like the black-and-gold theme, but compared to the good old-fashioned Vince Natale covers? No way. Those ones are luminous.) 

Anyway, I'm mainlining as many of the earlier books in the series as I can (for...reasons), and just finished The Queen of Attolia last night. It's always been one of my favorites, even if it tends to get overshadowed a bit by The King of Attolia (which is probably the one I've reread the most) and this time around I was blown away by a couple of things--the romance, as always; all the schemes and twists and turns, as always; Irene, as always--and also the pacing. It's so easy to forget (and I always do) that QoA actually covers about 2-3 years, especially when there's not a single unnecessary scene and everything moves along pretty quickly. Never in an overwhelming way, but there isn't a single moment wasted in this book, which gives me another reason to love it. You know, as if I needed more. The other thing rereading QoA reminded me of was that, as much as I love Gen--and do I ever love Gen--he isn't my favorite character. Irene is. She changes over the story in a way that's so low-key and often only very subtly hinted at, and so no matter how many times I reread it, by the end I'm always surprised at exactly how much she's changed. The last page or so shows it best, in the most quietly beautiful way.  

A couple entries ago I said I was burned out when it came to Stranger Things fic; since then I've written two new ST fics because...it's only when I completely give up on something that I find the inspiration to go at it again? Anyway, here's the latest, which involves a friendship I'd really, really love to see become canon in s3:

Title: i fought the law (and the law won)
Fandom: Stranger Things
Rating: General Audiences 
Relationships: Max Mayfield & Jim Hopper
Summary: “Hey, I’m not the one who said I had to be here.”(Or, Max and Hopper bond over one of the chief's favorite books.)


Seeing as they're two of my favorite characters--and the only two ST Funko Pop!s I own--it took me a ridiculously long time to come up with a story where Max and Hopper get to know each other a little better, or at least one that I liked. I think it mostly came down to me being a little nervous to write from either of their POVs; they both have pretty distinctive voices, and I didn't want to screw those voices up. 

But I do think these two could develop a FANTASTIC friendship; they both have similar styles of sarcastic, deadpan humor, and a love of reading (technically, we only really know of that being true in Hopper's case so far, but come on--you can't tell me that Max, who uses words like "presumptuous" in her everyday life, isn't a bookworm). Maybe s2 just spoiled me for unexpectedly awesome friendships and team-ups; Steve and Dustin was never one I would have predicted and loved to bits. And this would be a nice one to see come s3. 

(In other writing news, there's a reason I try not to reread most of my old fics, and the reason is I always stumble across some tiny-but-widespread "mistake" that bugs the heck out of me but that I'm also too lazy to go through and fix [and, in the case of some of my older stuff that's not getting much traffic anymore, there's no real reason to fix it, anyway]. This time around I was looking at one of my stories and noticed that I used the character's first name in a bunch of places where I could have just as easily substituted it for "he" and the whole thing wouldn't have sounded quite as repetitive. Which is something I'm sure someone reading the story for the first time wouldn't notice or care about, but it's still niggling at me. Ugh. Why is my brain like this?)

This evening I turned in the new hire paperwork for my summer job, so hopefully that will be starting up soon. I'm also (*goes to check*) exactly 431 pages into The Stand, and I think I've found one of my favorite characters. I was spoiled for the basic plot of the book quite a while before I started reading, so I know basically nothing ends up turning out well for Nadine Cross, but boy, do I love her already. The whole tragic destiny bit is probably part of it, but  so far she's both very compassionate and very calculating; tragic destiny aside, she's one of the survivors I'd most like to team up with, and feel safest with. Larry Underwood's a close second, even if I have a sneaking suspicion that that might have more to do with the fact that Stephen King fancasts him as Bruce Springsteen... 

Final Exams: Taken
Final Papers/Projects: Turned In
Exchange Fic: Finished & Submitted
Infinity War: Watched

Whew. So. April was a month that happened, and now that it's happened, I'm very, very happy to be moving on to May.

I went to see Infinity War on Sunday--I'd already given up and spoiled the plot for myself by reading the Wikipedia entry, so some of the emotional beats didn't hit me like a punch in the gut the way they were supposed to (and probably would have if I'd just been more patient). All the same, there was a lot I loved, a couple things I wasn't so wild about (more in terms of not being as interested/emotionally invested instead of disappointed), and nothing I hated. I don't think I'll ever be super interested in the Avengers when they're not hanging out with a.) the Guardians of the Galaxy or b.) Peter Parker, so it was a lot of fun to see everyone finally band together.

Couple more scattered, spoiler-y thoughts:
( Read more... )

I need to tackle all my unread/unfinished books that have piled up over the semester, but so far I've only managed to start new ones: The Stand, which I'm now almost 400 pages deep in, almost to the end of Book I, and And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich, which I just started today. I also bought myself a copy of Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston when my sister, our friend, and I went to 2nd & Charles to celebrate the end of the semester, and I've been meaning to do a full-scale Earthsea reread for a couple months now, and...yeah, yep, there's no way I'll get it all done. But it's summer, so I might as well try. 

The weather's been gorgeous around here for the past couple days--a little hot, maybe, but I'm just glad to finally get the windows open and have some fresh air circulating. I haven't been doing much besides sleeping in, writing, and writing up an abstract for one of my papers; next week I need to turn in the paperwork for my summer job, and I also still have a school-related portfolio to worry about...it's fine, though. Everything's going to turn out fine. (Maybe? Possibly? Hopefully?)

Two things on my fannish to-do list:

Catch up and/or keep up with Penny Dreadful. My sister's started watching it and managed to get me semi-hooked. Who doesn't love a good old-fashioned, capital-G Gothic horror story? The story itself is pretty creepy so far--the atmosphere is to die for. 

Start watching The Clone Wars. It's on Netflix (at least for now), and the semester's over. I really don't have a good reason to hold off any longer. 

Two weeks (counting finals week) to go until the end of the semester, and I've finally found a good writing space in the library! The way my schedule worked out this time around I'm usually spending at least four week days on campus until six or seven o'clock, which used to mean that I didn't get much writing done on those days--even though the college library has a quiet floor I've always found it really hard to concentrate up there. BUT. There's a reading table behind the stacks that I somehow never noticed until now, where it's even quieter, and just feels...a little more private, I guess? More secluded? Anyway, I've been able to get some work on fic done in between homework and classes without waiting until I'm back home and completely beat to do it; it's been really, really nice. 

My space_swap  fic is finished and submitted. I'm a little nervous for reveals, since the story turned out much angstier than expected. I'll be happy as long as the recipient likes it, though now I'm really feeling the need to write something purely cheerful. Straight-up fluff isn't my strong suit, but I've been wallowing in the angsty side of things a little too much lately. I've also hit the fannish doldrums with Stranger Things--still love reading other people's stories, but when it comes to writing I feel sucked dry. Oh, well.  

Reading: SO MANY books fell to the wayside this semester. I did just finish Leia: Princess of Alderaan (so, SO good, with a really nice focus on her relationship with her parents [I adored Breha especially] and her friendship with Amilyn Holdo [who does come off as a little Luna-Lovegood-ish, while still being her own brand of awesome], a scene where the Organas make themselves look like an absolute dumpster fire of a family in order to distract Tarkin, and a real gut-punch of a closing line.) I'm also within a few chapters of finishing my reread of The Magicians by Lev Grossman, which is getting me nostalgic for the Narnia books...