There's Too Many Badgers In Here.
Feb. 13th, 2026 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rionaleonhartAfter seeing Christmas Carol Goes Wrong at the Apollo Theatre on 14 January, I wrote a post outlining some differences between the official published script and the actual performance I saw. I crossposted it to Tumblr, and a couple of people thanked me for sharing details you wouldn't get from reading the script, so I thought I should see if I could dig up anything else!
Now that I've read through the script in full, here are some more differences I've picked up on between the script and the staged version. Some of these are outright changes from the script; some of them are just performance details (e.g. interesting moments of body language) that aren't included in the stage directions. As this was originally written for a Tumblr audience, there's a bit of overlap with things I've already mentioned on Dreamwidth (specifically in the post I made straight after seeing the play).
( More differences between the script and the actual staged version of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )
Getting into a theatre fandom is so strange! It feels like there's simultaneously not enough canon and an infinite quantity of canon, because it's impossible to see every performance. I'm glad The Goes Wrong Show means that at least some parts of Goes Wrong canon exist in a concrete, tangible, rewatchable way.
Now that I've read through the script in full, here are some more differences I've picked up on between the script and the staged version. Some of these are outright changes from the script; some of them are just performance details (e.g. interesting moments of body language) that aren't included in the stage directions. As this was originally written for a Tumblr audience, there's a bit of overlap with things I've already mentioned on Dreamwidth (specifically in the post I made straight after seeing the play).
( More differences between the script and the actual staged version of Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. )
Getting into a theatre fandom is so strange! It feels like there's simultaneously not enough canon and an infinite quantity of canon, because it's impossible to see every performance. I'm glad The Goes Wrong Show means that at least some parts of Goes Wrong canon exist in a concrete, tangible, rewatchable way.
What Am I Reading Wednesday - February 11
Feb. 12th, 2026 07:23 pmlebateleurPosted on the following Thursday, for reasons.
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Dog Stars – Peter Heller
This book did not agree with me and I HAD THOUGHTS. ( Strap in. )
What I Am Currently Reading
Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie
I'll have this wrapped up by next Wednesday for sure.
The Goddess and the Tree - Ellen Cannon Reed
I read the prologue.
The Laws of Brainjo – Josh Turknett
A reread; first completed in 2023.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired Danielle Jensen's A Fate Inked in Blood, 김미정의 한나랑 떠나는 신나는 성경여행, and 한재홍의 콩쥐 팥쥐.
これで以上です。
What I Finished Reading This Week
The Dog Stars – Peter Heller
This book did not agree with me and I HAD THOUGHTS. ( Strap in. )
What I Am Currently Reading
Lake of Souls - Ann Leckie
I'll have this wrapped up by next Wednesday for sure.
The Goddess and the Tree - Ellen Cannon Reed
I read the prologue.
The Laws of Brainjo – Josh Turknett
A reread; first completed in 2023.
What I’m Reading Next
This week I acquired Danielle Jensen's A Fate Inked in Blood, 김미정의 한나랑 떠나는 신나는 성경여행, and 한재홍의 콩쥐 팥쥐.
これで以上です。
(no subject)
Feb. 12th, 2026 06:14 pmkradeelavlowkey considering commissioning a low-poly silver cobra headed cane for myself just to complete the 'haxxor with a pimp stick' aesthetiq i got going right now.
... i'm either going to immediately regret this or be inseparable from it lmao
... i'm either going to immediately regret this or be inseparable from it lmao
Fanfiction: Sleep Well (The Goes Wrong Show, Robert/Chris)
Feb. 12th, 2026 04:46 pmrionaleonhartAnother Goes Wrong fic that grew out of a fill for the Three-Sentence Ficathon! I haven't posted the fill in question to this journal, but it was for the prompt 'goodnight kiss'.
'Riona, why would you name a fic Sleep Well if you already have a fic called Sleep Tight in a different fandom?' - look, leave me alone, titles are hard.
Title: Sleep Well
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG
Pairing: Robert/Chris, slight everyone/everyone
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: On account of a booking mishap, the Cornley Drama Society are forced to share a single hotel room. The consequences are confusing.
( Sleep Well )
'Riona, why would you name a fic Sleep Well if you already have a fic called Sleep Tight in a different fandom?' - look, leave me alone, titles are hard.
Title: Sleep Well
Fandom: The Goes Wrong Show
Rating: PG
Pairing: Robert/Chris, slight everyone/everyone
Wordcount: 1,600
Summary: On account of a booking mishap, the Cornley Drama Society are forced to share a single hotel room. The consequences are confusing.
( Sleep Well )
(no subject)
Feb. 12th, 2026 07:44 amskygiantsI went into Lessons in Magic and Disaster somewhat trepidatiously due to the degree to which her YA novel Victories Greater Than Death did not work for me. The good news: I do think Lessons in Magic and Disaster is MUCH better than Victories Greater Than Death and actually does some things remarkably well. The bad news: other elements did continue to drive me up a wall ....
Lessons in Magic and Disaster centers on the relationship between Jamie, a trans PhD student struggling to finish her dissertation on 18th-century women writers at a [fictional] small Boston college, and her mother Serena, an abrasive lesbian lawyer who has been sunk deep in depression since her partner died a few years back and her career simultaneously blew up completely.
Jamie does small-scale lower-m magic -- little rituals to make things go a little better in her life, that usually seem to work, as long as she doesn't think about them too hard -- and the book starts when she takes the unprecedented-for-her step of telling her mother about the magic as a sort of mother-daughter bonding ritual to see if her mother can use it to help herself get less depressed! Unfortunately Serena is not looking for a little gentle self-help woo-woo; she would like to UNFUCK her life AND the world in SIGNIFICANT ways that go way beyond what Jamie has ever done with magic and also start blowing back on Jamie in ways that eventually threaten not only Jamie and Serena's relationship but also Jamie's marriage, Jamie's career, and Serena's life.
Serena is an extremely specific, well-observed character, and Serena and Jamie's relationship feels real and messy and complicated in ways that even the book's tendency towards therapy-speak couldn't actually ruin for me, because yeah, okay, I do think Jamie would sometimes talk like an annoying tumblr post, that's just part of the characterization and it doesn't actually fix everything and sometimes even hurts. But the book's strengths -- that it's grounded very much in a world and a community and a type of people that Charlie Jane Anders clearly knows really well and can paint extremely vividly -- are also its weaknesses, in that it's also constantly slipping into ... I guess I'd call it a kind of lazy-progressive writing? The book is full of these sharp, vivid, messy moments whenever it's focused on this particular relationship and Serena in specific, and without that flashpoint, the messiness vanishes. Jamie goes into her grad school classroom and thinks about how the white men are always so annoying but the queer and bipoc students Always pick up what she's putting down. Jamie's partner Ro sets down boundaries in their marriage after a magic incident goes wrong and they are Always right and Jamie is Always humble and respectful about it, because respecting boundaries is Always the Correct thing to do. (Ro is the sort of person who says things like "this is bringing back a lot of trauma for me" while Jamie's mother is actively, in that moment, on the verge of death. I'm all for honesty in relationships but maybe you could give it a minute?)
I don't know. I think there is quite a good book in here, but I also think that good book is kind of fighting its way a little bit to get out from under the conviction that We Progressive Right-Thinking People In The Year 2025 Know What Righteous Behavior Looks Like. You know. But sometimes it does indeed succeed!
I did really enjoy the book's hyper-local Cambridge setting. Yeah, I see you name-checking those favorite restaurants, and yes, I have been to them and they are pretty good. Also, as a b-plot, Jamie is uncovering some lesbian literary drama in her dissertation that gives Charlie Jane Anders a chance to play around with 18thc pastiche and write RPF about Sarah Fielding, Jane Collier, and Charlotte Clarke and sure, fine, I didn't know very much about any of those people and she has very successfully made me want to know more! There were a bunch of times she'd drop something int he book and I'd be like "that's SO unsubtle as pastiche" and then I'd look it up and it was just a real thing that had happened or been published, so point again to Charlie Jane Anders.
Lessons in Magic and Disaster centers on the relationship between Jamie, a trans PhD student struggling to finish her dissertation on 18th-century women writers at a [fictional] small Boston college, and her mother Serena, an abrasive lesbian lawyer who has been sunk deep in depression since her partner died a few years back and her career simultaneously blew up completely.
Jamie does small-scale lower-m magic -- little rituals to make things go a little better in her life, that usually seem to work, as long as she doesn't think about them too hard -- and the book starts when she takes the unprecedented-for-her step of telling her mother about the magic as a sort of mother-daughter bonding ritual to see if her mother can use it to help herself get less depressed! Unfortunately Serena is not looking for a little gentle self-help woo-woo; she would like to UNFUCK her life AND the world in SIGNIFICANT ways that go way beyond what Jamie has ever done with magic and also start blowing back on Jamie in ways that eventually threaten not only Jamie and Serena's relationship but also Jamie's marriage, Jamie's career, and Serena's life.
Serena is an extremely specific, well-observed character, and Serena and Jamie's relationship feels real and messy and complicated in ways that even the book's tendency towards therapy-speak couldn't actually ruin for me, because yeah, okay, I do think Jamie would sometimes talk like an annoying tumblr post, that's just part of the characterization and it doesn't actually fix everything and sometimes even hurts. But the book's strengths -- that it's grounded very much in a world and a community and a type of people that Charlie Jane Anders clearly knows really well and can paint extremely vividly -- are also its weaknesses, in that it's also constantly slipping into ... I guess I'd call it a kind of lazy-progressive writing? The book is full of these sharp, vivid, messy moments whenever it's focused on this particular relationship and Serena in specific, and without that flashpoint, the messiness vanishes. Jamie goes into her grad school classroom and thinks about how the white men are always so annoying but the queer and bipoc students Always pick up what she's putting down. Jamie's partner Ro sets down boundaries in their marriage after a magic incident goes wrong and they are Always right and Jamie is Always humble and respectful about it, because respecting boundaries is Always the Correct thing to do. (Ro is the sort of person who says things like "this is bringing back a lot of trauma for me" while Jamie's mother is actively, in that moment, on the verge of death. I'm all for honesty in relationships but maybe you could give it a minute?)
I don't know. I think there is quite a good book in here, but I also think that good book is kind of fighting its way a little bit to get out from under the conviction that We Progressive Right-Thinking People In The Year 2025 Know What Righteous Behavior Looks Like. You know. But sometimes it does indeed succeed!
I did really enjoy the book's hyper-local Cambridge setting. Yeah, I see you name-checking those favorite restaurants, and yes, I have been to them and they are pretty good. Also, as a b-plot, Jamie is uncovering some lesbian literary drama in her dissertation that gives Charlie Jane Anders a chance to play around with 18thc pastiche and write RPF about Sarah Fielding, Jane Collier, and Charlotte Clarke and sure, fine, I didn't know very much about any of those people and she has very successfully made me want to know more! There were a bunch of times she'd drop something int he book and I'd be like "that's SO unsubtle as pastiche" and then I'd look it up and it was just a real thing that had happened or been published, so point again to Charlie Jane Anders.
wednesday books are empathic
Feb. 11th, 2026 10:13 pmlandofnowhereAlien Clay, Adrian Tchaikovsky. That sure was an Adrian Tchaikovsky novel! It succesfully did what it did but I've read enough Tchaikovsky that I didn't feel like it really stood out.
Chroniques du Pays des Mères, Élisabeth Vonarburg. Still having to resist from reading ahead of book club pace, but also this past week I went and reread/skimmed everything I'd already read to help keep track of all the plot/worldbuilding details. Our protagonist has just left home for the first time and I'm curious to know what comes next.
Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously, by Jessica Pan. Saw this recommended as a self-help book, and thought I'd try it. It's very readable -- the author is the sort of shy introvert that I can easily relate to, and I appreciated that her writing voice was very confident in discussing her anxiety. This sort of self-help memoir is a bit odd in that she's trying to position herself as an everywoman, but reading between the lines it's clear that she wasn't just working to break out her shell so she could make more friends and overcome anxiety, but also so that she could write a book based on it; which seems like it has advanages both in motivation and in getting access to expert professionals to provide advice.
To Ride a Rising Storm, Moniquill Blackgoose. Sequel to To Shape a Dragon's Breath. At heart these are school stories, and even when they're not at school the focus is still on the characters and relationships, with a lot of social commentary about colonialism in an AU North America, with the political plot and the dragons and alchemy, while present, being less of the focus. I liked the new characters here, in particular the Jewish ones. (This AU, instead of "Jewish", uses a different word with Slavic etymology; I'm aware there's a related word in Russian that's an offensive slur; I wasn't bothered but some people migh be. Anyway AU Judaism does not seem to have any noticeable differences from our world.) This book ended on a rather abrupt cliffhanger, so now I can't wait for the next one.
Chroniques du Pays des Mères, Élisabeth Vonarburg. Still having to resist from reading ahead of book club pace, but also this past week I went and reread/skimmed everything I'd already read to help keep track of all the plot/worldbuilding details. Our protagonist has just left home for the first time and I'm curious to know what comes next.
Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: An Introvert's Year of Living Dangerously, by Jessica Pan. Saw this recommended as a self-help book, and thought I'd try it. It's very readable -- the author is the sort of shy introvert that I can easily relate to, and I appreciated that her writing voice was very confident in discussing her anxiety. This sort of self-help memoir is a bit odd in that she's trying to position herself as an everywoman, but reading between the lines it's clear that she wasn't just working to break out her shell so she could make more friends and overcome anxiety, but also so that she could write a book based on it; which seems like it has advanages both in motivation and in getting access to expert professionals to provide advice.
To Ride a Rising Storm, Moniquill Blackgoose. Sequel to To Shape a Dragon's Breath. At heart these are school stories, and even when they're not at school the focus is still on the characters and relationships, with a lot of social commentary about colonialism in an AU North America, with the political plot and the dragons and alchemy, while present, being less of the focus. I liked the new characters here, in particular the Jewish ones. (This AU, instead of "Jewish", uses a different word with Slavic etymology; I'm aware there's a related word in Russian that's an offensive slur; I wasn't bothered but some people migh be. Anyway AU Judaism does not seem to have any noticeable differences from our world.) This book ended on a rather abrupt cliffhanger, so now I can't wait for the next one.
✞ new site & blog
Feb. 11th, 2026 09:32 pmasukarkreutzWell, it's been awhile, hasn't it?
I figured I would update that I am now back to posting semi-regularly (for now...) at my own site over at fear.garden/blog, and if it happens to interest you at all, I do have an RSS feed set up for it. I'm debating on cross-posting some of entries over here, but idk if I feel up to it just yet as I would have to do it manually (not that it would be hard).
Anyway, I finally managed to get back into updating my site as of January, and I've had some fun with that -- I've rediscovered the beauty and elegance of 3-column layouts, and now my site looks like this:
Who knows how long I'll keep updating, though? I feel like I tend to fall in and out of it... I just reached my 9th anniversary of having a public-facing website, which feels absurd considering it doesn't feel like my 5th anniversary post was that long ago lmao. What do you mean next year it'll officially have been a decade??