Nerd Church - The World Is On Fire

 

So - the world is on fire.

Like, literally.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, released this week, is bleak.

The outlook on climate change is bad. Humans are the cause.

We may already be too late to fix some of the affects, we're running out of time to stop others.

We need governments and industry to make massive changes. Fast.

Friday Fics Fix - A SamBucky Rec List

 

I wrote a Sam and/or Bucky rec list a little while back, but I've rec'd a few The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (TFATWS) fics since then - so I figured it's time for a mini-list highlighting some specifically SamBucky fics!

Because in this house, Bucky Barnes is Queer af, OK? OK.

SamBucky, sometimes known as WinterFalcon (though SamBucky is generally preferred - at time of writing anyway - by most fan-creators,) is the name of the ship between, well, Sam and Bucky - which is kind of self-explanatory, really.

Micropoetry - April + July 2021

 ...because I wrote one piece in April, and then there was a big gap 'til the next one in July *shrugs*

Apparently I was having a Shakespearean references moment in April. 

And was feeling things about Wales and our place in the world - and within (or maybe not) the United Kingdom - in July.

Y Ddraig means The Dragon in Welsh. You can check out a pronunciation here if that's something you're interested in.

So - this is what came out of all that! Enjoy!

As always, the poetry is in the alt-text for those who use screenreaders, with / marks showing line breaks

Nerd Church - The Writer Diaries: Musings On Medium (and Blogging in General)

 

In March I started – tentatively – sticking some of my blog archive onto Medium.

Medium is kind of a weird-a** combo of blogging, freelance journalism, and social networking. And it pays.

Don’t ask me the ins-and-outs of how it pays – it uses some form of occult ceremony to distribute the tithes paid by the ardent congregation (only they call it Medium membership, but meh.)

But anywho, it pays.

And since I lost my Amazon UK Associateship (which is a long story which you can read on Dora Reads here, or on Medium here,) I need to work on other modes of monetisation.

Because one of these days I would like to hit an income bracket above ‘Starving Artist™’ – but that’s enough about that.

Friday Fics Fix - Loki, Gender, and The TVA (Fandom Is Here For It)

 

‘But as the days wore on in the TVA, blending together as they did, Loki realized that what they missed was magic.

And the freedom that came with it’

 

I mean… it’s probably no surprise that I’ve been absorbing large amounts of Loki fanfiction as if I can somehow merge them with my DNA.

(Which… I feel like there’s probs a fic out there somewhere that’s based on just that scenario, but I’m too scared to look. Because I’ll find it. 😅)

But if you’re new around here: I’m Marvel trash, btw.

And of the many specific types of Marvel trash that I am – being part of Loki’s Army is right up there.

Month in Review(s) - July 2021

(Warning: this post briefly discusses Coronavirus/Covid 19, and vaccinations/needles)

July was way too fricking hot.

Like, climate change is real - summers were never like this when I was a kid. And while I'm the wrong side of 25, under 30. So some time in the last 10-20 years, things altered majorly with our weather.

It's not normal. It's not pleasant. It's gotta be some sort of punishment from the world for our collective environmental sins.

Nerd Church - Witch-Hunts and Fear: The Emotional Maturity of ParaNorman

 * = commission link

I love the movie ParaNorman*. It’s hugely underappreciated.

This beautiful, weird, stop-motion mash-up of classic horror and kids’ adventure tale is surprisingly emotionally mature.

It explores the way that fear creates hatred, which in turn creates fear and hatred. And that adults can sometimes act out when they’re scared, in ways that can hurt the people – the children – around them.

Warning: this post contains SPOILERS for the film ParaNorman, and discusses: persecution (including religious-based persecution,) Ableism, Transphobia, Homophobia, horror elements, executions, death

I’ve seen ParaNorman quite a few times now – it always strikes me like it’s the first time I’ve seen it.

I think I forget, in between watches, just how good this film is.

First-off, of course, I appreciate anything made with stop-motion animation – stop-motion uses puppets or models, which are imaged, frame-by-frame, as they are moved incrementally by hand.

When the still images are put together (at a rate of around 24 frames per second,) it generates the illusion of movement.

In order to create smooth-looking movement, the positioning of the models from one frame to the next has to be both minute and precise.