incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

I was busy! But now I get to wander around mentally singing "I'm freeeee!" a la Elsa. And also, err, start our household taxes and do a lot of laundry. Minor details!

A kid anecdote I told elsewhere on social media when it happened:

Me: time to get up!
The Pip: tell me something I don't know.
Me: The square root of 81 is 9.
The Pip: I knew THAT.
Me: New York does not impose franchise tax on certain 501(c)(3) corporations.
The Pip: I have no idea what you just said.
Me: Something you didn't know! So get up!

And here's a video of a marble run the kids and I improvised last night out of a pretty lousy kit. Design mostly by SteelyKid, because she has spatial abilities and engineering instincts and I do not.

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Have a bunch of links:

• I saw this cover and I suddenly had a burning ambition to learn to write fiction, sell a novel, and have my publisher get Kevin Wada to do a cover. Since that will literally never happen, enjoy his Steve/Peggy/Bucky art.

• Look at this dog's face!

• Also look at this couple's faces. I would like a million stories about them, please, and also to be the one on the left.

• I don't understand some of eShakti's design choices, I really don't.

• This is old but timely again: imagine what we could have had for the Good Omens adaptation.

• Commentary track by the Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse animators!

• Stashing this Ken Liu post on trying to learn about China by reading translated Chinese SF for future reference.

• Slate provides Everything You Wanted to Know About the Two-Wombed Woman Who Gave Birth Twice in 26 Days.

• I really like this picture of Charlie leading two puppies.

• Congratulations to all the Hugo nominees I know! File 770 has links to the works.

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( Two Avengers: Endgame thoughts based on teasers )

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Finally, io9 has a big piece on Farscape which reminds me that I watched a few episodes several years ago and just never kept going. That was long ago enough that I'd probably have to start over; so is there a spot in S1 that people would recommend I start at, or episodes in S1 that I should skip? (Admittedly I may just need to not watch in the middle of the night while up with a very small child, which I'd forgotten was my previous mode until I checked the tag, but still.)

The Pip has been sleeping poorly, which means Farscape in the wee hours.

( S01E04, 'Throne for a Loss' )

( S01E05, 'Back And Back And Back To The Future' )

Spoil me and have your food ration eaten by a puppet.

*goes looking for Moya icon*

This is what happens when I am ridiculously busy: I have all these things I want to talk to you all about, and then when I have a little time, it all comes flooding out (I even wrote a booklog post!). Another post written on Amtrak: TV catchup.

I should say that I watch TV mostly with the Pip in the same room, so anything violent or scary is out--not that those are really to my taste anyway. (At this point in SteelyKid's life I'd ditched The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but though the Pip is acquiring language right now, comprehension at that level is a long way away, I was too cautious before.) Mostly what I want is something with people I like that doesn't make me angry.

Leverage: I would have watched the hell out of the season six they were setting up, so I'm bummed it was canceled. ( spoiler )

Face Off: the SyFy reality show that's a makeup artist competition. I liked this season better than last because (1) no audience vote determining the winner and (2) it shifted the "win your way back on" to a web series for the next season. Also it made more sense logistically that they didn't bring back all the contestants for the finale, just enough for two helpers each.

Elementary: because the first episode opens with a murder, these episodes kept scrolling off the DVR until I picked it up with the episode with the safe, which turned out to be very low-violence indeed (and, with a couple notable exceptions, much more like the rest of the show). I've since seen all the subsequent episodes except "M.", plus the ones that CBS has re-run. This was probably a good place for me to pick it up, where Holmes and Watson are already more firmly into their friendship/partnership. I enjoy the two of them a lot, and I find it ridiculously refreshing to watch something that is actively opposed to the "Holmes as lone super-special genius" idea and (gasp!) cares about its female lead's agency and choices and life. I saved this past week's episode as a treat for myself because ( spoiler )

The mysteries are, unsurprisingly, not very good, but I don't watch TV for mysteries so I don't really care; I like hanging out with the characters and watching Watson learn to be a detective and their friendship.

Edit: I meant to link to these two gen Joan-Sherlock friendship fics that I enjoyed:

The Art of Negotiation (6767 words) by language_escapes
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson (Elementary)
Additional Tags: Boundaries, Negotiations, Male-Female Friendship
Summary: For them, negotiation is less about boundary setting and more about upping the ante.

waltz across naïve wood floors. (4101 words) by paperclipbitch
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Elementary (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & Joan Watson, Irene Adler/Sherlock Holmes
Characters: Sherlock Holmes, Joan Watson (Elementary), Marcus Bell, Alfredo Llamosa, Clyde the Tortoise (Elementary)
Additional Tags: Slice of Life, Platonic Relationships, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, Platonic Soulmates, My First Work in This Fandom, written at least partially during accidental medication withdrawal
Summary: "You're wearing my underwear again, aren't you," Joan says.

(There are, right now, five fics that list Clyde the Tortoise as a character. Sometimes I love fandom.)

Farscape. A few weeks ago I decided I was going to watch this to keep myself awake when the Pip woke up at night (as opposed to sitting down with him and waking up in the rocking chair three hours later with a stiff neck). I've only seen the first episode and half of the second at this point, but more SF shows should use puppets and non-CG effects for their aliens. I've already been warned about the fourth season, and I seem to have lost some momentum, but I really like Browder and Black from their SG-1 run and do intend to go back to it. (I almost immediately abandoned my vague plan to keep up with the AV Club's watch when I realized it was doing two episodes a week after the first episode, but those of you who've already seen the show, they usually do a pretty good job, though I don't know if the comments on this are the quality of those on--of all things--the Korra coverage.)