theoldbluebox | Member Posts

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I don't know that I've ever done a Friday Five before. But this one caught my eye.

1. What book frightened you as a young person?
There was one book, I think I was a teenager when I read it, but it stuck with me and I had trouble forgetting it. Nightmare Lake by Carl Laymon - it was part of that Twilight imprint, and about vampires and destiny and creeping things in the night. But probably not as epically as I'm remembering.

Amazon apparently has the book, but even nostalgia isn't enough for me to spend 20 dollars on a used book.

2. If you had to become a ‘living book (i.e. able to recite the contents of a book cover to cover upon request – reference Fahrenheit 451), what book would it be?
Oh, I know this one. I already do it a bit. Freedom and Necessity by Emma Bull & Steven Brust.

One day, I will find my dream cast for that book. I already know Lydia Leonard is my Susan.

3. What movie or TV show scared you as a kid?
This is utterly cliche, but, Doctor Who's Snakedance scared the shit of out me as a wee child of seven. My brother and I hid behind the sofa.

Nowadays, of course, the fake giant snake is laughable.

4. What movie (scary or otherwise) will you never ever watch?
Um. Quite a lot. Most of the horror genre. Also, romantic comedies, heartfelt emotional dramas, chick flicks, war dramas... I'm not a huge fan of a lot of things.

If I have to pick a specific movie, I don't think I'll ever be interested in seeing the new Blade Runner flick. (it looks so dull, you guys. Like, not even visually interesting. Just flat and dull and the same story that a billion novels and movies/shows have done. Even BSG did it better.)

5. Do you have any phobias?
I'm not a fan of the dark. And I have a very over-active imagination at times (and let's just say that if the Doctor Who episode Listen had aired when I was a child, I'd probably have that phobia...)

Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: Paramore - Ignorance

purplecat

I recently listened to the Doctor Who Book Club podcast on Relative Dementias. They quite liked it but thought it wasn't completely in control of its themes, there was too much incidental stuff to bring up the page count and its descriptions of action were confusing. All criticisms that could probably be aimed at many of the Doctor Who novels.

Crossposts: https://louisedennis.livejournal.com/411851.html

bookblather

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emeraldarrows

My latest reading took me into Until It Fades by K.A. Tucker, a surprisingly enjoyable love story.

Summary on the back: Twenty-four-year-old truck stop waitress and single mother Catherine Wright has simple goals: to give her five-year-old daughter a happy life and to never again be the talk of the town in Balsam, Pennsylvania: population two thousand outside of tourist season. And then one foggy night, on a lonely road back from another failed attempt at a relationship, Catherine saves a man’s life. It isn't until after the police have arrived that Catherine realizes exactly who it is she has saved: Brett Madden, hockey icon and media darling. Catherine has already had her fifteen minutes of fame and the last thing she wants is to have her past dragged back into the spotlight, only this time on a national stage. So she hides her identity. It works. For a time. But when she finds the man she saved standing on her doorstep, desperate to thank her, all that changes. What begins as an immediate friendship quickly turns into something neither of them expected. Something that Catherine isn't sure she can handle; something that Catherine is afraid to trust. Because how long can an extraordinary man like Brett be interested in an ordinary woman like Catherine…before the spark fades?

My thoughts: In all fairness, I'm not much of a fan of contemporary romance novels, and I have zero interest in sports, so if it hadn't been for a glowing review on tumblr, I probably wouldn't have given this book a passing glance. But I was curious, so I checked it out, and surprisingly, ended up loving it. Yes, the story is ridiculous and unlikely to happen in real life. And the ending is overly perfect. But it's all delightful - a syrupy, escapist fantasy with shades of various fairytales and fanfiction AUs tossed together to form a story that I couldn't put down and kept smiling through.

Catherine was thankfully easy to love - it's a breath of fresh air to see a character who behaves like a responsible adult and a good parent, Brett was sympathetic - even if their romance seemed a bit rushed - and Brenna was absolutely precious. A lot of writers don't seem to know how to correctly portray a child in a way that makes them believable for their age, but Brenna was perfect, and the adults interactions with her were lovely. I also really enjoyed the supporting characters, all of whom had actual personalities and unique characteristics that made them unforgettable, and the vivid settings - I could picture the diner and Catherine's home with all the excellent descriptions. And sex scene aside, the romance was mostly adorable and cavity-inducing.

Overall, Until It Fades was a largely sweet and fluffy novel that was the perfect medicine after a hard week.

Current Mood: jubilant
Current Music: "You Belong To Me"-Duprees

bookblather

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bookblather

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sweetgadget

'Eeey, who's lonely and touch-starved? *fingerguns*

Current Mood: exhausted

bookblather

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miami_tea

D&D is super fun, we started having regular sessions around the end of September - the first session was in June or July and we took a long rest after that - and I'm enjoying myself a lot.

I'm also drawing more because I guess that's what you do when you have OCs? I gave up drawing ~~along with all my dreams~~ a bit when I was finishing high school, but now since sketching is the only way I have of visualising what happens in game, I end up doing it more often. And despite being obviously rusty and having forgotten what little I knew of human anatomy over these past 5-7 years, I'm having fun.

I have so many hobbies I no longer have time for it makes me a little sad. I haven't picked up my cards or crochetted in 2017 at all, my rereads have also fallen a bit on the wayside. My only active hobbies are fandom, writing and D&D but there's only so many hours in the day, and I'm still in college alongside my 40+ hour a week internship that perhaps it's for the best if I don't beat myself up over it, but it still frustrates me a bit.

miami_tea

I'm "attempting" Nano in the sense of desperately needing the wordcount - or at least some wordcount - if I want a chance of hitting my GYWO goal. I'll consider myself happy if I can match last year's number, (10k ish?) but I'll be honest: I was roughing out the Big GenoSaiRider fanfic back then so I had a lot of room to go around, now I'm just trying to finish the small one and I feel kinda stuck.

The small one is this one:

Late Summer Evening (2660 words) by

Citro
( Summary and ratings )

Weird to say, but I'm proud of it! It's the first fanfic I've posted in five years and I think I've edited it enough that few embarrassing mistakes remain.

I kinda wish I hadn't put the chapter break where it is because as it stands it'd work as a one shot with a fade to black and I want to continue. I have a lot of headcanons for them in an A/B/O scenario I'm not sure would fit as well into the Odds and Chances/Big GenoSaiRider fic verse - which is the exact same as canon but with more Mumen Rider being there.

At the same time, and this is embarrassing to say given the amount of smut I've read over the years: I'm feeling a bit gun-shy about the natural conclusion of the story. I've never done smut before, and A/B/O by nature is a bit more explicit, not to mention I had to have them take a bike ride home when their instincts should be yelling at them to not wait another second and it's been extremely hard to balance that! And that's what's been troubling me with this piece.

I only have around 20 minutes before the "Stay up past this hour at your own peril" zone so I'll try to tackle it some more.

Current Mood: embarrassed
Current Music: luv sic. [lofi / jazzhop / chill mix] - The Jazz hop Café

next_to_normal

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Current Mood: lethargic

purplecat

In selecting this picture I became completely distracted by trying to figure out what Daphne Ashbrook (the actress who played Grace in the Dr Who TV Movie) is standing in front of. I mean, the TARDIS obv., but what is that thing on top of it? It can't be an actual TARDIS prop (because of the thing, unless there's some Big Finish publicity which involved a thing on top of a Tardis) which makes me think it must be a genuine Police Box. But I'm fairly sure this photo was taken some time in 2004 and I'm also fairly sure there weren't any police boxes still around in 2004 (outside Glasgow, where they don't look like that anyway). So I'm guessing maybe this is a genuine police box that some Who fan managed to get hold of?