The Leewit @ghost_bird@witches.town

*googles 'gooseberry fool recipe'*
"I now find that lusciously thick genuine Greek yoghurt..." NO. BAD.
"...fragrant elderflower cordial and homemade custard in this simple and traditional..." WTF? NO NO NO.

(It's gooseberries, cream, and sugar. Don't fuck with it. Especially, don't fuck with it just to make it fancy for your dinner party.)

Successfully resisted the urge to buy a bain-marie... for the moment, anyway.

I'm generally suspicious of calls for more formal structure, but this is a compelling argument it's sometimes a necessity.

Watching an organisation get in trouble for not having a code of conduct... because several founder members quashed the idea back in 2011... because they were friends with someone accused of sexual assault.

The wholesome lesbian teen romance in Kindred Spirits on the Roof makes me smile... but then I feel guilty because I'm pretty sure it was written as fetishised innocence for adult men :-/

Bought a bundle of Fading Suns RPG books a while ago and I want to like it, but it kind of makes my flesh crawl.

The premise - a far-future mashup of Warhammer 40k, Dune, and Gene Wolfe done with enough dignity to disguise the worst absurdities - is promising, but there's a horrible sincerity to it that makes me think the authors aren't being ironic about the dangers of science, democracy, and free thought.

If these stomach cramps would finally go away that would be entirely OK with me.

...but I'm also thinking about the time I read a "Harlequin NASCAR" romance - which was very conservative in a fascinating way, and which tried to position the NASCAR-driver hero as a kind of aristocrat by emphasising his roots as a small farmer who owned land.

So I'm wondering if the (white, conservative) American ideal of the pioneer farmer switched from natural democrat to natural aristocrat somewhere along the line. And if so, I wonder when and how that happened?

After "Paladin of Souls" I'm re-reading "Penric's Demon"... which has me thinking about the American fantasy trope of idealised rustic minor nobility. ("We don't have much of a castle, really, and we all help out with the harvest".)

Obviously, it's attractive to a middle-class readership - nobles are romantic and they don't have to worry about status or job security, and if they're simple country folk then you also get to feel superior to them...

*"diminishing returns", even.

Finished Prey. Lots of people seem to dislike the ending but I thought it was fine, if a bit heavily telegraphed.

So... Persona 5, Tides of Numenera, or Witcher 3 next? Persona 5 is the obvious choice, but playing the best game first seems like dominishing returns.

UPDATE: it was just a lump in the lining after all. I've rarely been so relieved.

The dawning realisation that strange lump you can feel in your beanbag chair is the size and consistency of a dead mouse :-(

Cherry tomatoes, fermenting in a sweet brine with dill and garlic. Probably too many for practical use, but they look pretty.
https://witches.town/media/OebdSx1qvcjxezK7e-U

Shoutout to the writers of Prey, whose entire job seems to have been thinking up a series of increasingly flimsy reasons why you have to visit every location in the game twice.

"It makes a lot more sense when you see it on stage." Yes. (Or maybe the same amount of sense but it doesn't matter as much.)

Much respect to the person sitting opposite on the tube, who's summarising A Midsummer Night's Dream in far too much detail to their friend.

Our revels now are ended.
https://witches.town/media/t54j0kivOoLyVWvcQA0
https://witches.town/media/Lc7moN9hlM96S1aO6xg