missizzy

Ian alarmed us this week, with his suddenly not eating very much. This is a cat that, in his youth, made me think we ought to have named him Garfield, what with his being orange and how much he ate. Though he hasn't at any point stopped eating entirely. We think. We finally had a mobile vet come in to look at him and run some tests. He didn't find anything seriously wrong, just the general effects of his being so old. He's eating a little more now than he was. We've been bring plates to him, which may have helped a little, and we're even looking at possible new kinds of cat foods.
I also managed to finally finish the next part of this.

Title: Agent Murdock
Part: 14: Overheard at the Law Firms
Fandom: Daredevil/Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Characters: Matt/Karen, Foggy, Larry Cranston
Disclaimer: Now Disney owns them.
Warning: Lawyers, and they aren't even the ones doing the manipulating
Note: I originally came up with this idea and put it up on daredevilkink as a prompt before the second season, but after watching said season I decided to write it myself just to cheer myself up.

( Matt had expected things to go a certain way his first couple of weeks at Landman and Zack, and in all ways but one, they did. )

I saw Guardians of the Galaxy on Monday, and that proved a very good birthday present to myself. The MCU definitely is struggling to hold itself up to a good standard, and ever since hearing this new Daredevil is leaving out Foggy and Karen I've even had a reason to outright detach from it. But there still are people making movies in that universe that care about their quality and will do everything they can to make them good, and there are still those who succeed in spades. ( Where you start crying (or I did, anyway) when... ) Where are the end of the well-spun story, you still feel blown away. I don't know what will happen to any of these characters, especially since ( you know Gunn made the hard choice with one of them you can't trust the other creators to keep to... ) But the GOTG trilogy stands on its own, a highlight of modern pop/comic book/sci-fi moviemaking.
I also finally watched the first episode of HBO's The Last of Us. I watched a great deal of Brian's recent play-through of the game-enough to get a new level of appreciation for Ashley's acting ability and also anticipate the big moments of this hour and a half episode, long enough to be a mini-movie of its own-and have high standards for Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey both to meet. Bella's no Ashley, but they both did pretty well, and so did the episode in general, especially on expanding the world and story beyond what a video game will get the chance to do. I'm looking forward to the rest. Hell, I might just keep Max just to watch the second season.
And as for last night, oh man. ( Lots of stuff... )

So it turned out hoping there wouldn't be as many people at the movies on Black Friday was not a good idea, or at least wasn't when it was Black Panther and only out two weeks. Things weren't packed to the gills, but they weren't far off either. The movie was worth it, though. All the good qualities of the first one, plus Angela Bassett getting to act up a storm. ( Although I do wish... )
Today I am spending the afternoon in, if only because I don't really want to brave either any stores or the metro this weekend. I might even try to do something with Mastodon, but probably not.

My neck is still twinging a bit, but the pain seems to have mostly migrated to the shoulderblades and arms. Which raises alarming questions about whether it's the kind or pain that can be averted at all, and also as to whether my current daily tasks on site are aggravating it, even though I got help with the heaviest of the lifting and pushing this week. It might be a very good thing I've got a week off coming up, though I don't know how traveling is going to affect any of this.
I might even get to see tennis while in Toronto; the WTA's going to be in town that week. DC's event is the week before, but Toronto might work better, if only because there's a chance of it being less hot there. The worst of the heat has somewhat subsided for the moment, but it still managed to hit 90 today.
Finally finished the first episode of Moon Knight tonight; that one's kind of been low priority. I actually went in having not known/remembered much besides the basic premise and it being very violent and involving Ancient Egypt, and the first episode was actually kind of terrifying, reflecting very much the feelings of our unfortunate and endearing protagonist, and the final shot was absolutely payoff. Still don't know when I'll get around to the next episode; whether it'll live up to the first is a question there are probably answers to already out there, but I'm too tired to look for them.

It seemed every time I logged onto Twitter this week, something new had happened. Mostly bad, because that's the way it goes this day. I feel like I should've had a different reaction to hearing about such a shooting in Buffalo when I lived there for two years and I knew things were bad economically. But I don't know how much I ever really knew about the city other than that.
Today, meanwhile, I am in mourning for Vangelis, whose style I have always loved, and I have very mixed feelings about Daredevil coming back. I don't think I trust Disney not to mess it up and ruin the entire thing. I'm actually looking forward to She-Hulk more, regardless of whether any other characters pop into it or not.

We didn't try to eat outside. Instead, we sat in a very pleasant restaurant, and I probably ate too big a steak, given I woke up in the middle of the night with mild indigestion. Just enough reminder that I'm really not young and spry anymore to start age 38 with.
At least I've gotten my week off. I'll probably catch Doctor Strange as a Tuesday matinee, though my sister, who got to see it at a critic/fan screening, noted that it wasn't the best of movies, though she was glad to see a group of little America Chavezes enjoying it in the first row. (Got me to finally finish What If..., which was definitely uneven, but improved at the end.) And before this week is out, I intend to return to the zoo, probably later in it, when the temperatures will go back up a little. (I had the radiator on this weekend. In May!) But those may well be my only excursions. I'm also nearly done with a Merry Month of Masturbation fic, which I hope to get up tomorrow.
In theory, this really should also be enough time to get my song recorded. But I don't know if I'm going to escape my sinus issues at all this week.

Went to see The Eternals today. It was one movie that reinforced, more than Shang-Chi, that the MCU's going to be different now than it was in its own beforetimes, and the movies are going to be different too. The broad scope of the story and setting both made it, in its way, maybe the most ambitious movie the studio's done to date. I came away with the weird feeling that they'd landed it, but the ambition took its toll; it wasn't the most pristine landing ever.
Also now starting to again see promos for movies I want to see, including King Richard. Mom and I may go for that one on Thanksgiving, since I think she would, though I'll want the opinions of the tennis experts first. (I won't necessarily follow them, but I do want them.) But now, of course, I may end up just streaming some of them. Hell, I'm not completely sure I'm going to see the next Spider-Man in the theaters. That one's honestly feeling like an upcoming chore at the moment. (And if I hear anything about certain characters being recast, I'm definitely not watching. I don't need to. Not anymore.)

And this time it's one of my post-Infinity War ficlets, which makes me very happy. Ayo, Four Weeks Later, to be exact. This weekend has felt strange and I've had a few reasons to feel sad, but this is the highlight of everything.

awesomeladiespodfic posted today, and I contributed two podfics to this year's anthology. Also, I finished the Widojest smut.

Title: constellations
Author: nonbinarywithaknife
Original Fic: Here
Fandom: Critical Role
Characters: Beauregard
Disclaimer: Character from show. Original fic by nonbinarywithaknife.
Warning: References to child abuse

Beau is seven years old and full of anger and hurt and confusion.

Title: give the pride to the lioness
Author: tigriswolf
Original Fic: Here
Fandom: Marvel MCU
Characters: Maria, Pepper
Disclaimer: Characters from Marvel. Original fic by tigriswolf.
Warning: mostly just language

Drinks at the usual place, please, for the love of god, she texts Pepper. Someone is GOING TO DIE if I spend tonight sober.

Title: Schwanz
Fandom: Critical Role
Characters: Caleb/Jester
Disclaimer: My deepest respects to Liam and Laura. Even if they and the rest of that crew are really stressing us out right now.
Warning: Sex. With a tail. Also embarrassing German/Zemnian slang.
Note: This is to be blamed on both a piece of meta by SarcasmIsMyMiddleName and annapods' recording of it, as it was listening to the latter that made me aware of said piece of slang.

So very much like cock, being another word for rooster as well as used in porn fic, most of the commonly used synonyms for the word "penis" have a very different meaning.

I have also discovered this morning that images linked to from my website no longer display on AO3, but I'm not entirely sure what I should do about that.

I am now through most of episode 65 of Vox Machina, though my pace of watching is likely to slow during the U.S. Open. The thing about watching it in 2020 is we now are very aware of the exoticism that Marquet is made of. I haven't quite reached J'mon Sa Ord, and I am very aware of their importance as the show's first nonbinary character, but I'm anxious to see exactly how they're portrayed, and I even wonder about Matt's choice to put them in Marquet.
And I'd been very much looking forward to this episode too, since I knew already about Vax and Keyleth's high five of love. That, certainly, was worth the wait. I'd also vaguely heard about a "walk of shame," and pretty much melted when it turned out to consist of the twins having such a moving heart to heart.
Listening to this track right now, of course it's hard not to get sad again. Watching ABC's special broadcast of Black Panther last night, I largely just got absorbed in the movie all over again, but the final shot before the credits of the little black boy looking up at T'Challa now hits hard and painful.