Ian

Previous poll review
In the Smoke alarms poll, 80% of respondent have smoke alarms on ceilings/walls, and 16% have some in piles around the place. Ten percent have inadequate coverage. Forty percent of respondents assume it's a battery issue when they go off.

In ticky-boxes, hugs came first with 80%, followed by iridescent bubbles with 62%, and pizza with 48%. Thank you for your votes! ♥

Reading
I've put The Pursuit of... by Courtney Milan aside for now, in favour of Refuse to Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts by Matt Bell. I'm hoping it will help me finish my Yuletide stories, but I'm still in the drafting section, and that's not so much my problem. Still, it has some useful thoughts. Written with pantsers/discovery writers in mind.

In audio, I started The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, read by Sid Sagar. It's set in ancient Thebes, and Pulley's tendency to exoticise/other her non-white characters is transposed onto othering a god, which, okay, fair enough. I'm enjoying the voice.

Kdramas
Same as last week: Undercover Miss Hong, One Spring Night, and Love Scout (ahhhh!). A delicious three-course meal. (I may have oversold One Spring Night last week when I compared it to Austen. What I meant was it's observational. It doesn't have the kinds of flashbacks you usually get in a Kdrama, showing the POV characters' thought processes and emotional reactions. Instead, it seems equally interested in everyone, in a way. The editing is so slow that it feels like a play: the actors' reactions linger on the screen, rather than the camera flicking away.)

Other TV
Finished Ponies, the spy story set in 1980s Moscow, which was great, sometimes brutal, sometimes funny. Ended on a cliffhanger. Emilia Clarke is awesome!

1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed -- a documentary made up of interviews with mixed-race kids in the Bay Area. Lovely, thought-provoking, reminded me of the movie Uproar in which Minnie Driver plays the solo mum of Māori kids.

More of The Pitt. (The latest episode was super upsetting, and it really stuck with me. It's so good.)

Rooster, a new comedy set on an Ivy League campus, starring Steve Carell and feat. unexpected Jamie Tartt. Quirky and charming (and that's despite my side-eyeing Carell because of his role in The Morning Show and my difficulty with compartmentalising). We've watched the three available episodes.

Started a rewatch of Paper Girls, which contains one of my all-time favourite narrative devices (people meeting their child selves; see also Disney's The Kid and one of Richard Bach's books). It's such a great show. I'm still so sad it was cancelled on a cliffhanger.

The first episode of the Scrubs reboot. (I never watched the original, but this is fun enough.) And some more Cheers.

Regularly scheduled Fringe and Bluey with my sister.

Audio entertainment
The usual suspects, but not much. I'm having a rest week.

Onling life
520 Day sign-ups (part 1) are open for two more days. \o/

Offline life
I stood on a wasp, and wow, that hurt. | We went up the coast to see my parents (lovely sunny day, nice drive, good to get out of town). | Been biking a lot. | Indulging in too many hot cross buns. | My day's to-do list is super daunting; I may have to give myself a 24-hour extension.

Writing/making things
My first rewrite of WIP #1 didn't work out, so I've spent a lot of this week revising again, and I think I've finally cracked it. It's back at beta. Cross your fingers for me!

I have about 9 days to finish WIP #2, but they're busy days (by my standards). Ahhh!

Link dump
America built the greatest cultural machine in history. Then quit. Here's what filled the vacuum. (Rodrigo Brancatelli substack chronicling the rise and fall of US soft power, and what South Korea learned from the US's example).

Good things
Nada Bakery hot cross buns. To-do lists. Awesome betas and co-mods. Figuring out writing stuff. Guardian! Dreamwidth! You all!