Theatre with music in it

Mar. 15th, 2026 09:27 am
antisoppist: (Default)
[personal profile] antisoppist
Peter Grimes (Opera North)

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Operation Mincemeat (Touring Cast, Bath Theatre Royal)

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lucymonster: (horror)
[personal profile] lucymonster
Me when I catch my kids' cold: 🙁🤧
Me when my husband doesn't catch our kids' cold, meaning I get to spend like half the weekend watching horror movies in bed while he takes over the heavy-duty parenting: 😈😈😈😈😈

Get Out (2017): HOLY SHIT WOW OKAY. WOW. I confess to being surprised back in 2017 when the whole world suddenly started saying that Jordan Peele, who I knew only as one of the two guys who made silly skits about hats, was actually a huge horror genius. I get it now. This was absolutely terrifying, but in a way that feels very different from any of the other horror I've been binging over this last couple of months. It has all the cleverness and humour you'd expect from a career comedian turned wunderkind of elevated horror, coupled with villains who are straight-up bloodcurdling in their fetishistic admiration of Blackness and cold disregard for real Black lives.

Chris is a young Black photographer on a trip out of town to meet his white girlfriend's family for the first time. They present as stereotypical white Liberals: wealthy but self-effacing, welcoming but awkward, proud of their self-avowed colourblindness but incapable of meeting an actual Black person without being deeply weird about race. And of course, all those smiles and good intentions turn out to be a deliberate front: the Armitage family has a secret, incredibly sinister plot to acquire and exploit Black bodies, and Chris finds himself ensnared in it before he has time to realise his unease is a gut response to something much darker than a few fumbling microaggressions. This film blew my mind. It was scary, it was funny, it was FUN, and underneath all that it was an extremely clear-sighted callout of a kind of covert racism that almost a full decade later still often seems to get a pass.

The Conjuring (2013): I loved this! It's a straightforward haunted house/demonic possession type story - family moves into creaky old country house, bad supernatural things happen, demonologists come to the rescue with a terrifying climactic exorcism scene - but every part of it is executed to spooky perfection. It's aesthetically beautiful (of the several posters/covers, this one best captures the ~vibe imo), has a cast of likeable characters I was cheering for the whole time, and manages to sustain an immaculate atmosphere of paranormal suspense livened up with just a small handful of well-timed jumpscares. No complaints. Prime material for a semi-regular Halloween rewatch.

I've always found stories involving professional exorcists, paranormal investigators etc. oddly comforting, no matter how scary they try to be. I know I should be alarmed by the idea that the supernatural not only exists but is sufficiently widespread to have spawned a viable career path, but it's just so nice to think that if you're ever in a situation where traditional law enforcement fails you, there's some stake-wielding hero or beautiful clairvoyant or quietly powerful magic shop owner out there who will put their own life on the line to help you. It's even nicer in stories where the rules of Christian folklore apply, and you can cling to a crucifix or a bottle of holy water for protection during your hero's brief but unavoidable offscreen time. The Christians do very much have to be Catholic, though. This is theologically disappointing but aesthetically essential. Imagine if you were in one of these movies, cowering in some dark, haunted corner as you wait for your exorcist to arrive, and then in walks some Protestant fresh from his drab conference-hall worship centre wearing his clerical collar with jeans. Dude doesn't even know Latin, probably. He and the demon are going to have to communicate through Google Translate.

Paranormal Activity (2007): Katie has been experiencing terrors in the dead of night since she was eight years old. Her shitty boyfriend Micah, finding out about them after they move in together, decides to "help" her by treating the whole thing as a sleuthing game and antagonising the demon attached to her while filming the whole thing. This is some seriously stripped back horror: something like half the runtime is just footage of the couple sleeping, while the other half is an increasingly weary Katie begging Micah not to film her, all happening inside the same few rooms of a neat, modern, unremarkable suburban American house. And it is SCARY. It had me on tenterhooks the whole time, heart leaping into my throat with every footstep noise or flicker of shadow. The final shot almost had me out of my seat.

Unlike The Conjuring, there are no comforting demonologists to save the day here; they exist, but they're, like, super busy and can't help you. I think that part might actually have been even scarier than the demon.

A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984): A group of teens start having vivid nightmares about the same disfigured man with knives on his fingers; if he kills them in their dreams, they die in real life. Now, this one I definitely did watch back in high school! Almost none of it actually jogged my memory, though, besides the Freddy costume itself and the scene where he slits his abdomen to reveal all those maggots. Man, though, what a fun slasher. I'd forgotten how funny Freddy is, the way he does his murders like they're playful capers - and then how scary it is at the end, when he loses his temper at being bested by Nancy and that playfulness turns to unbridled rage.
conuly: (Default)
[personal profile] conuly
Seriously, asleep more than I've been awake. And I never did manage to work out the logistics to get to the memorial, which halfway sucks but halfway is "Welp, social anxiety" so....

*********************************


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regshoe: A. J. Raffles, leaning back with a straw hat tilted over his face (Raffles)
[personal profile] regshoe
but 'The Field of Philippi'... 'where Caesar came to an end'... the Ides of March.

(Of course it wasn't; the battle of Philippi was what happened after Julius Caesar's assassination, and the poetical Bunny is probably not predicting his own doom. But I thought it was neat, all the same.)

Anyway, happy Ides!
magnavox_23: A piece of the stargate is visible from the bottom right corner. Next to it, the caption reads "Forever". (Stargate_forever)
[personal profile] magnavox_23
Title: "Stealin' Stargates"
Artist: [personal profile] magnavox_23 
Character/Pairing: Team
Rating: PG


(click to embiggen)

2x14 Touchstone


2026 Disneyland Trip #14 (3/14/26)

Mar. 14th, 2026 10:38 pm
torachan: jason momoa/ronon smiling (ronon)
[personal profile] torachan
We decided to go for dinner tonight to avoid the worst of the heat and it was very pleasant by the time we got there. Not too crowded, either.

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Daily Happiness

Mar. 14th, 2026 10:29 pm
torachan: palmon smiling (palmon)
[personal profile] torachan
1. Last year when we went to Japan we parked at the airport and it was pricey but not too bad, but this time we're going for longer and I looked into it and the prices are kind of ridiculous, unless we park in the offsite lot and take a shuttle, which brings it down to about what we paid last year. So I think we're going to just leave the car at home and uber instead. The main annoyance with that is that if we put both cars in the driveway, Alex and Nessie will have to park on the street when they're over for cat sitting. But I think if we pull both cars all the way into the backyard, they'll both fit and then leave the driveway free, so I'm leaning towards that. I'm glad I recently took that work trip and am now familiar with using uber more, specifically at the airport (I'd only ever used it once before).

2. Recently Carla ordered a set from the lego store and it was stolen off our porch. We never have issues with packages getting stolen and would not have even realized what happened except she happened to find the empty shipping box on the street a couple doors down. When we checked the delivery info the picture of the box on the porch was really awkwardly posed and the time of delivery was when multiple people were in the living room watching TV and the windows were open, making it odd that no one heard it, so I think it was probably the driver who took it. We live on a sort of cul-de-sac, so there's not a lot of foot traffic, especially on a Sunday evening, and would be really weird for someone to come up onto the porch to take a package when there are noises from inside making it clear people are right there. Anyway, she submitted a complaint and lego sent a replacement, which arrived today safe and sound. I do wish lego didn't send their packages with a return address label that says lego on it, though.

3. We had a nice dinner at Disneyland tonight. It was pretty warm during the day, but not anywhere near as bad as last weekend, and had cooled off nicely by the time we got down there.

4. Cutie Chloe.

SGA: Postcards to Jeannie by Sholio

Mar. 15th, 2026 05:00 pm
mific: (Teyla serious)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Characters/Pairings: Jeannie Miller, Teyla Emmagan, John Sheppard, Rodney McKay, Ronon Dex
Rating: Gen
Length: 5000-10,000 (best guess) - the individual postcards are mostly text-based, in different fonts, but it's too hard to add it all up. There are 8 or so sets of postcards/images, plus two longer narrative interludes.
Content Notes: Not all of the postcards or notes have text equivalents, so it's not fully accessible. Rodney at one point talks about a relationship he had at uni with an older woman he describes as a "sex addict".
Creator Links: Sholio on AO3, Sholio's own site
Themes: Siblings, Epistolary, Friendship, Family, Team as family, Unconventional format and style

Summary: (more notes than a summary) Contains spoilers for the Season 3 episode "McKay & Mrs. Miller". I might be taking a certain amount of liberty with the timeline; let's assume that a few months went by between "M&MM" and "Return".
This is a very image-intensive story. Illustrations and photos are all by me, aside from one or two photos taken by my husband. A couple of the postcards utilize (heavily Photoshopped) patterns that I got off the Internet to represent fabrics and such, because I didn't have anything suitable.

Reccer's Notes: This is a heartwarming epistolary story in which Teyla and Jeannie (Rodney's sister) write to each other. Eventually the other team members are brought in as well, especially John and Rodney. It's a mix of tales about Jeannie's life, and of the team's, especially Teyla's, adventures, and although the format as a series of postcard/image pages is a little awkward to negotiate, it's very much worth reading. The postcards start off somewhat formally, and quickly become more personal, and one theme is of the correspondence bringing Rodney and Jeannie closer together. It's touching, funny, tinged with the realities and sadnesses of life in the Pegasus galaxy, and an excellent read.

Fanwork Links: Postcards to Jeannie (and the sequel is Pictures for Jeannie)

flareonfury: (Crossover)
[personal profile] flareonfury posting in [community profile] crossovers

[community profile] galorechallenge is a returning Crossover Fic Challenge from LiveJournal where you would find a crossover, grab a prompt & start writing! NO CLAIMING NESSARY! Post your story to the community (or at least link to it) once you're done. Feel free to grab more than one prompt, and more than one crossover! There are no limits on how much you can write per round. Check out the rules for more information.
Also once the round ends, we'll vote on our favorites by fandom & you can get a fancy award. Or if there is only 1 crossover for a particular fandom, it will move on to the next round.
While it is a multi-fandom challenge, and SO MANY fandoms are allowed, there are some restrictions, so check out the fandoms currently allowed.
Round 14 is open until June 30, 2026 @ 11:59 EST.

Rules & FAQ | Prompts | Submit New Prompts/Crossovers |

Book 21, 2026

Mar. 14th, 2026 10:57 pm
chez_jae: (Archer book)
[personal profile] chez_jae
Four-Alarm Homicide (House-Flipper Mystery #6)Four-Alarm Homicide by Diane Kelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


View all my reviews

‘Twas in the wee hours this morning that I finished reading Four-Alarm Homicide by Diane Kelly. It’s the 6th book in her “House-Flipper” series of cozy mysteries, starring carpenter Whitney Whitaker.

Whitney and Buck, her cousin and business partner, purchase a rundown firehouse in the Germantown area of Nashville. They’re excited about the possibilities and eager to get to work. Not long after, a woman who owns one half of a townhouse around the corner asks them to look at the structure. Joanna’s half is in good condition, but the other side has fallen into disrepair. The seven siblings who inherited it from their parents have not taken care of their half, causing Joanna to worry about the structural integrity of her portion. Knowing it’s in a good neighborhood, Whitney and Buck stretch their finances thin and manage to get all the heirs to quit claim ownership to them. Trouble begins not long after. Several people in the neighborhood begin vying to buy the townhouse before work even starts, and the Bottiglieri siblings start making noise about not getting paid enough. Things really come to a head when Joanna reels into the firehouse one day and collapses. She later dies. At first it seems like a tragedy, but Whitney begins to wonder. Joanna exhibited symptoms of mercury poisoning, but when Whitney points that out, she becomes a suspect in the murder. On top of all that, she’s trying to finalize plans for her upcoming wedding to Detective Collin Flynn. If she doesn’t want to get married behind bars, Whitney must step up to unmask a killer.

The story was likable enough, but certain things stuck in my craw:
Spoilers )
All that aside, I did enjoy the story. Characters were compelling, and Whitney spent plenty of time actually working.

Favorite lines:
♦ “Two Cousins Transformations?” // Buck snorted. “That makes it sound like we turn into werewolves on a full moon.”
♦ “I hope they threw the book at him.” // “Me too. Breaking and entering. Property damage. Failing to put i before e except after c.”
♦ “There isn’t a cat owner alive who doesn’t have a million photos of their cat on their phone.”
♦ “I’ve got those cake samples to live for.”

I wish I could award 3 ½ stars. I’ll be kind and bump it up to four.
flareonfury: (Crossover)
[personal profile] flareonfury posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo





[community profile] galorechallenge is a returning Crossover Fic Challenge from LiveJournal where you would find a crossover, grab a prompt & start writing! NO CLAIMING NESSARY! Post your story to the community (or at least link to it) once you're done. Feel free to grab more than one prompt, and more than one crossover! There are no limits on how much you can write per round. Check out the rules for more information.
Also once the round ends, we'll vote on our favorites by fandom & you can get a fancy award. Or if there is only 1 crossover for a particular fandom, it will move on to the next round.
While it is a multi-fandom challenge, and SO MANY fandoms are allowed, there are some restrictions, so check out the fandoms currently allowed.
Round 14 is open until June 30, 2026 @ 11:59 EST.

Rules & FAQ | Prompts | Submit New Prompts/Crossovers |

10trueloves: accident

Mar. 14th, 2026 10:07 pm
senmut: All five Justice League members standing in a circle (Comics: JLA YO)
[personal profile] senmut
AO3 Link | Sound of Crashing (300 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DC Comics (General)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Lian Harper & Dinah Lance
Characters: Dinah Lance, Lian Harper
Additional Tags: Triple Drabble, Slice of Life, +Modern Age (1986-Present), Post-Crisis
Summary:

Dinah is babysitting...



Sound of Crashing

The moment she heard the crash, Dinah was on her feet and moving, uncaring what had been broken as long as it wasn't that little girl who had stolen her heart. She skidded into the kitchen before Lian had made her escape from the counter, the drawers askew to let Dinah know how the girl had gotten up there on it. She was beside the refrigerator, from which the ceramic cookie jar in the shape of a coyote had tumbled to the floor.

The cookie jar was not salvageable. Lian's face was a picture of contriteness, and Dinah just moved to get her down.

"You sit on right here, Dart," Dinah said, depositing her on the kitchen table which was at least lower than the counter. "Until I get the pieces swept up, the floor is lava and you don't have firefighter boots!"

"Didn't mean to break Mąʼii."

"I know, sweetie. And you did a lot of problem solving to figure out how to get it while I was on the phone. But next time, you should ask, and I can help." Dinah found the broom and a bucket, picking up the larger pieces before sweeping up the rest of the debris. She's need to get a box or a large jug to put the shards in, but for now, she just wanted it off the floor.

"Okay, so I need to find a new cookie jar, and we're going to need new cookies," Dinah said. "Ready to go shopping?"

"Yes!"

Dinah reached for the girl, picking her up and settling her on a hip, even if Lian was a little big for that, especially for her shortness. She hugged Lian tight, glad nothing had been hurt on her.

"You do have to tell your daddy you're sorry."

"Will do!"

Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange

Mar. 14th, 2026 09:48 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith posting in [community profile] gardening
Yesterday I discovered the Seed Library Network. I was delighted to find one near me.

Today we visited the Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange. It's on the second floor. We rode the elevator up, and the display was big enough to be seen from where the elevator lets out. Seeds are stored in drawers, sorted by type. There are sections for flowers, herbs, and vegetables. Some of the really popular ones have their own drawer; others are grouped together. Unopened packets of commercial seed are filed as they are, for folks who want to know exactly what they're getting. Opened packets or homegrown seeds are put in envelopes by library staff. With wildflower and landrace seeds, especially mixes, you may get more surprises.

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anghraine: uhura confidently sits at the weapons panel while kirk remains tensely in the captain's chair, both bathed in the red lighting of "balance of terror"; text: "you're the only one who can do it" (from "mirror mirror") (kirk and uhura [bridge])
[personal profile] anghraine
Incidentally, my best friend J happened across a copy of the famous novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture and gave it to me for Christmas last year. We have been doing dramatic readings of the chapters to each other, complete with air quotes and loudly emphasizing the many, many, many unnecessarily quoted or italicized words/phrases/paragraphs. Although it was fun in its own unhinged way, it was also kind of shocking to realize just how terrible Roddenberry's... like, everything was without being able to lean on good writing/editorial staff like Sturgeon and Fontana, figures like Gene L. Coon to temper his worst impulses, the visual brilliance of people like Jerry Finnerman and William Ware Theiss, and the warmth and charisma brought to even much of the weaker writing by superb theatrical actors like Nichols, Shatner, and Nimoy. For all the novelization's extreme sleaziness, it is one of the coldest and most inhuman-feeling published novels I've ever encountered.

The attempts to salvage the footnote are largely nonsense, IMO—like, yes, it does accidentally imply that Kirk is just a bisexual who rather prefers women rather than a totally super manly straight guy, and his description of Spock and their super special eternal psychic bond does sound incredibly gay, but this is clearly because Roddenberry was constitutionally incapable of writing about any relationships in a non-horny way and loathed women. He was definitely going for desperately recuperating Kirk as the hypermasculine hyper-heterosexual seasoned middle-aged commanding captain figure with a weakness for women but also distaste for them that he'd always envisioned for his ideal of "the captain" (it's all over his writing of April and then Pike), and his resentment of what TOS Kirk actually became in the show is extremely visible (his Kirk dismisses TOS Kirk as a twee fictionalized version he actually hates and TOS in general as terrible and fake, unlike the real story in the novelization, etc). Like, it's 100% an attempt at no-homo and gender essentialism, he's just very bad at no-homo and also at writing people.

But the thing is, the footnote (and the other material straining to find a heterosexual explanation for TOS) may be - and is - homophobic, but this is actually the least of the novelization's problems. It is even more misogynistic, racist, incredibly petty, and so incredibly awkward that I was starting to think "justice for the OG Mary Sue writers, they were far better than this and honestly seem to have understood Star Trek itself rather better," given the weird 70s dystopia aspects he's got going.

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mific: (Heated rivalry)
[personal profile] mific posting in [community profile] fanart_recs
Fandom: Heated Rivalry
Characters/Pairing/Other Subject: Shane Hollander/Ilya Rozanov
Content Notes/Warnings: implied nudity, but this version's not explicit.
Medium: digital art
Artist on DW/LJ: n/a
Artist Website/Gallery: realcardiac on tumblr
Why this piece is awesome: These are season 1 shower scene portraits, but with female Hollander and Rozanov. It's the first rule 63 version of them I've seen where the likenesses are convincing. Femme Ilya is especially compelling.
Link: Shower scene, backup link here

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