We're having to rebuild the search server again (previously, previously). It will take a few days to reindex all the content.

Meanwhile search services should be running, but probably returning no results or incomplete results for most queries.

Reading: Maybe it's a winter-based desire for comfort reads, but if it's not Murderbot or Rivers of London, it's not holding my attention right now. I have read the first chapter of The iron will of Genie Lo, which is now staring mournfully at me from the corner of my desk, after having had it's loan renewed for the second time. /o\ I did start listening to Robbery Under Arms - a classic Australian novel about bushranger Captain Starlight - and while it's fascinating it's very "If I'd just done the sensible thing at this point then I wouldn't be in jail waiting to hang", which gets a little repetitive. I'm still waiting on </>Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, the second book in the Edinburgh Nights series by T.L. Huchu, which my account tells me I requested as a purchase 12 months ago. The first book in the series was very good!

Watching: Dude has been making me watch Stranger Things. It's not usually my kind of thing, but I quite enjoyed season 2 when we watched it...over a year ago? We watched the first ep of season 3 a week ago and I said, "Who are these people and why are they like that?" so we skipped to the finale, which was satisfactory. The first couple of eps of season 4 are verging on too much horror for me, despite the arrival of Eddie.

Now he is making me watch ALL the Thor movies, including the bonus material. The first one is a fun romp. The second one wasn't as bad as I'd been led to believe. The Thor/Loki moments were golden, and Stellan Skarsgård is great. I felt sorry for Christopher Eccleston, as I think they cut his best moments. The next two will be rewatches.

Gaming: I bought a copy of Rayman Origins on GOG and have been happily slogging my way through the Jibberish Jungle. I'm stalled out on my other games as I seem to keep making the same mistakes. I guess what I need is to put more of my limited time into them. :-/

Other stuff: I have five different knitting projects sitting around. I should maybe finish the baby cardigan before my grand-nephew outgrows it, which means my friend's shawl will probably be ready for next winter. I have done a tiny bit of spinning, just to test what my shoulder can handle, but it's a test project in some boring leftover fibre so I'm not strongly motivated to work on it. I'm about half way through a jigsaw of a village on Santorini, which is a lovely warm contrast to the weather.

Life stuff: Work is quieter, as exams are over and results for the semester have been approved. We can take a little bit of a breather before getting ready for next semester. At home, we're planning to replace our ducted gas heating with reverse cycle air conditioning. It also means decommissioning our evaporative cooling which I'm not really happy about, but we need to cut our gas usage and this seems to be the only option. We're hoping to get a bit of rain this week.

Title:  Tea.  Lady Grey. Steaming.
Author: Rhi/Gryphonrhi
Prompt:  Miss Marple walks into a bar and meets.... Amanda!
Fandoms: Miss Marple -- Agatha Christie novels, Highlander: the Series (TV)
Word count: 3,119
Rating: Gen/PG-13
Contents: No warnings needed.
Summary:  Jane Marple so rarely gets to intervene before the crime is committed
Alternately, Rosie the Riveter did not fade into Heidi the Homemaker with the snap of male fingers.

AO3 link:  https://archiveofourown.org/works/66987256

An Iranian Journey

Someone posted this on tumblr and I wanted to share it with you. We're all just people trying to live our lives despite the whims of our rulers.

And now if 'ere by chance I put
My fingers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe

Anyone who recognises this without using a search engine has my admiration, because it took me the best part of half an hour to remember enough lines to trigger recognition. ;-)

In the 'random drive-by rec' category...

I need to preface this by saying that The Murderbot Diaries are currently so important to me that I generally avoid fanfic. The canon is precious and I don't want it to get blurry with other people's stories, no matter how good they are (generally, I'm happy to roll around in the giant sandbox we made out of media). That said, the following fic beautifully laid out some things that it made my eyes leak a little. Bonus awesome fanart linked at the end.

rogue condition (8092 words) by shamoosh
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Asshole Research Transport/Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries)
Characters: Murderbot (Murderbot Diaries), Asshole Research Transport (Murderbot Diaries), SecUnit 3 (Murderbot Diaries)
Additional Tags: Non-Sexual Kink, Overstimulation, Post-Book 7: System Collapse, the rewards of being loved, 2 bots 1 hardware, once again it's only EMOTIONALLY horny, konmari the governor module, fuck it we’ll do it live school of kink negotiation, Sharing a Body
Series: Part 2 of sandbox environment
Summary:

You can’t be this stupid, ART said, which was insulting but also relieving, because it never talked to me that way during the trauma treatment. Maybe this wouldn’t turn into a BARF after all. Turn off your governor module, you idiot. It’s giving you brain worms.

It was -7C here this morning. I made sure to wear gloves when hanging out the washing. Hope you're all doing okay. ♥