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Just when you thought Victorians were grim and stodgy:

Things get weird.

Happy holidays to those who observe, and my wishes for a prosperous, peaceful, and healthy New Year.

Jay

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This angel/lunatic has written one of the best post Winter Soldier fics EVER - Four Minute Window. And then they built an entire universe around it that gives both Steve and Bucky and The Avengers the world that Marvel Cinematic Universe messed up so badly.

Every year for, wow, forever - there's been a Christmas gift for Stucky fans.

The Four Minute Window Advent Calendar continues to expand and enrich the world Speranza created with vignettes of the World That Should Have Been.

This year's work is starting to appear - go, read, enjoy, and give Speranza love.

Chapters: 1/17 Fandom: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers Additional Tags: Advent Calendar, Multiverse Series: Part 23 of 4 Minute Window Summary: There are many stories about Steve and Bucky. All of them are true.

Chapter 1/17 - December 8 Chapter 2/17 - December 9

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I'm doing this far too much lately. Saying goodbye to a friend I never met.

The man in the striped shirt is Shane MacGowan, first lead singer and songwriter for The Pogues - the first Irish punk band anyone had heard of widely in the USA.

He died today, November 30,at the age of 65. With Shane if you didn't know him the first things you might think is, " Oh he passed pretty young" . If you did it was, "Wow he made it that long?"

Shane was a towering talent, a junkie, a poet and often a complete bastard. His own band had to put him out because of his drug problem and general arsehole behavior - supposedly he said, "What took ya so long?"

In the early 80's there were rumbles in the music magazines about a band who went by Pogue Mahone ( which my mom used to yell at people who cut her off in traffic). They had to change it to just The Pogues because too many people knew the same phrase and they could not get any television spots or be on MTV.

Elvis Costello was a fan and helped produce their first widely played USA album "Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" in 1985. I was in my punk/proto New Wave phase at the time and was able to get someone to drive me to the nearest large city in order to buy the LP in a ratty little store next to a CBGB wanna be bar. I'll admit that the title was the big selling point for my immature self and I had no idea what to expect (as Mr. Joel said, you can't get the sound from the pages of a magazine, even if that magazine was CREAM).

The 5th track was "A Pair of Brown Eyes" and Shane's plaintive not quite on key voice caught me as he mourned the cost of death and hate while staying intensely human. On Side 2 was "Dirty Old Town" by Ewan MacColl. For an Irish American kid from a dying mill town who didn't even have a word for her sexuality the lyrics and Shane's voice put words to my experience even an ocean away from the trauma and violence of Ireland in the 80's. "Dreamed a dream by the old canal. I kissed my girl by the factory wall... " that was me, a bumbling scared girl in a tiny canal and mill town hiding to kiss a girl because it just made more sense even if I knew it would make life even harder.

And that album has never left my possession, changing formats but bringing me back to who I once was when I owned that first LP. Nostalgia is sweet when you know you will never have to be that self in that situation ever again. But good music is good music.

I kept up with Shane through the wild swings of his career and life . Though I don't think his post Pogues music was ever up to the level of those albums - "Red Roses for Me" to "Hell's Ditch" set the standard and pointed the way for bands like Dropkick Murphy's and Flogging Molly with the blending of Irish traditional influence and modern storytelling.

And he made it to 65,changing music, writing the song "Fairytale of New York" ( will somebody explain to me why this is considered a Christmas song staple? Has anyone besides me actually listened to the real lyrics which require cutting on broadcast radio? Just because Christmas is mentioned several times doesn't make this a happy Christmas song!)

I'll stop clutching my pearls and get back on track.

I needed to write this to just get my feelings out . Shane and the other members of the Pogues were the soundtrack to a vital part of my life where I found love, lost it, and found that love had never really gone , I just needed to get my self in good enough shape to accept it.

Thank you Shane, you magnificent, miserable , romantic, drunken junkie of a poet and music maker. Your voice is always in my memories of a muggy summer evening by an abandoned paper mill in Nowhere , New York.

If you haven't heard anything by Shane besides "Fairytale" go now and give a listen to " Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash" and its follow up "If I Should Fall From Grace with God".. You will see that even punk Irish bands during the IRA's height - with all the anger, sorrow and joy that life means, can make you want to get up and dance.

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Sacrifice to the gods of cheese - and I assume tomato soup.

That wonderful home cooking! #vintage #cottagecore #supertaster #aesthetic #momcore

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Hello!

Okay, let's type something to prove I'm not dead.

Though I still love the first 2 seasons of The Mandalorian, I've mostly left the Star Wars universe behind as I did the MCU. My elderly self doesn't want to have notecards in the theater or in front of my tv in order to keep track of increasingly bizantine story lines.

So I have invested myself in The Rest of Us and Our Flag Means Death ( HBO - Take My Money!) More OFMD thoughts in the future from an old queer who used to survive on such subtle coding of queer attraction in entertainment that two men sharing the same cigarette was exciting. ( Their lips touched the same filter! I KNOW they're doing it! 🫨)

Also I have expended my scratch cooking repertoire from pickling things to ricotta cheese and bread making. Gotta do something with the milk Mouse(My Spouse) keeps buying. Since Mouse( My Spouse) is the main beneficiary of this, I've picked up a sneaking suspicion that their milk buying has an ulterior motive. 🤨

The Mouse (My Spouse) and I celebrated our 25th anniversary of commitment to each other in the past month. Plus we have known each other for forty five years and were instantly the closest of friends who then took twenty years to get out shit together.

The benefit of knowing someone for so long is they fill in your memory gaps as you age. The problem is they remember every silly, stupid, and embarrassing thing as well. The person who has photos of your fashion choices in 1982 has a lot to talk about.

You also have much more patience with each other's quirks - such as SOMEBODY'S devotion to playing Bob Dylan very loudly versus my devotion to Kabuki music ( I admit it is an aquired taste but studying Kabuki got me through the damn pandemic. Along with explicit non Kabuki fanfic. A03 - Take My Money!) We have compromised and enjoy our fandoms at the opposite ends of our place leaving the dining room DMZ for the cats who flee from the sound of both harmonica and shamisen.

Enough nattering - be well, all who read this. Stay safe in the insanity of the world and I hope you find a smile everyday

Jay

The cheese awaits.

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Sorry kids, we aren't alone anymore -

Behold

These are Australian kites, several species of which have been witnessed spreading bushfires in order to flush prey. A kite will pick up a smouldering branch, fly with it to another area and drop it, thus starting a new fire. Aboriginal people had long claimed this happened but until it was caught on film they weren't believed ( what a shock, right?).

They don't start a fire from scratch but these birds use it as a tool.

Now think about this -

These are birds.

Birds are a type of dinosaur.

So logically other dinosaurs might have learned to use fire.

And now tell me you aren't seeing a Tyrannosaurus Rex whipping a burning tree around to scare the Triceratops into stampeding.

Go ahead.

“sex/romance/empathy makes us human,” they say. awful. pathetic. what makes us human is the urge to set things on fire

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THIS - the above post my friends, is what I've felt about every live action squel to the OG trilogy (I pretend the prequels were a fever dream).

When dealing with animated versions of the OG characters or characters that stand outside the trilogy story but told in parallel like Rebels or Season 1 +2 of The Mandalorian, extended the Universe can work. The original actors can do voice overs in animation though I find the eletronic mishmash used for Vader and Luke's voices lifeless and creepy. Same for the "youthening" effects that turn Luke into a walking wax museum dummy.

I was part of the original audience for Star Wars: A New Hope (yes many of us are still alive and still fans of the Star Wars Universe). The original actors are very dear memories. But at a certain point filmmakers need to take the plunge and recast - that is how you can weave in Jedi Luke Skywalker et. al. into future stories. Or stick to animation - and pay the animatirs a decent f'ing wage Disney -where the characters can be both part of the story and forever young.

Thus endeth the lesson.

A post script: Check out a YouTuber going by "Chad the Bird" for his(?), their? - it's a puppet doing comedy at a Chicago bar for g-d's sake - discussion of the latest Disney/Filoni canon rewrite fuckery - changing the Cantina music from "jizz" to "jatz".

Warning, it is both very loud and floridly obscene. And hilarious.

Star Wars is a mess guys

Why did Ahsoka feel like a fanfiction?

Also that might have been Grand Admiral Thrawn but it was NOT Mitth’raw’nuruodo. Thrawn is such a fascinating character and this show barely scratched the surface. It didn’t go into his motivation, his people, his background, his friends. It didn’t show why he’s so terrifying because of the loyalty he inspires BECAUSE he of his nature as an anti-villain. It felt cheap.

And where was Luke? This is the problem with it being live action. They can’t tell the story they need to tell simply because of the restrictions placed on them by their chosen medium. The scenes would have been more impactful as animation as well - it would’ve felt more familiar.

I was picturing Ezra’s face at the end, over the actor’s expression.

I think that says it all honestly.

I’m not denying that casting was brilliant and the actors were amazing. But that doesn’t mean this story as a live action will work.

It should’ve been animated or a book.

I’m glad I wrote my own version of Ahsoka and The Mandalorian S3. This just isn’t canon to me.

I don’t think Star Wars works anymore. The franchise is doomed if they continue trying to tell a story that they simply don’t have the parts or skill to tell.

It feels like Filoni is just doing stuff he thinks is cool like he’s writing a self-indulgent fanfiction. Except he’s banned from using certain characters, gay people aren’t allowed either (Star Wars is so, so hindered, limited and held back by how mainstream it is and how much Disney doesn’t want to dip their toe into ‘politics’ but that’s a whole other topic), and he can’t create anything too new or original or Disney gets scared (and so do the fans which is probably part of the problem as well).

God, Star Wars right now is like chewing steak for too long. It’s so dry.

Feel free to comment some links to fix-it or alternate versions of Ahsoka fanfics. I love stuff like that. I’ll put the link to mine below.

I say we all unite with fanfic and fuck this shit. DinLuke forever 💛

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Nearly forgot that I had this Tumblr.

Have spent a summer of back pain problems but finally around again. Doing some pickling, clearing out garden and making chutney.

Adirondack Balloon Festival coming up on 9/21 - 50 years. The ballons used to be brought over my parent's house by prevailing winds and I never needed to attend the airport lift offs. That's how I found that hot air balloons are both noisy and silent - the ear ringing blasts of the burners, the silent as smoke drift. Love them still and have only attended lift off twice in 49 years. They come to me on the autumn hilltops I climbed as a kid. Silent as smoke, loud as a jet. Beautiful as breath.

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Nearly forgot that I had this Tumblr.

Have spent a summer of back pain problems but finally around again. Doing some pickling, clearing out garden and making chutney.

Adirondack Balloon Festival coming up on 9/21 - 50 years. The ballons used to be brought over my parent's house by prevailing winds and I never needed to attend the airport lift offs. That's how I found that hot air balloons are both noisy and silent - the ear ringing blasts of the burners, the silent as smoke drift. Love them still and have only attended lift off twice in 49 years. They come to me on the autumn hilltops I climbed as a kid. Silent as smoke, loud as a jet. Beautiful as breath.

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@ofcoming4th adds : I never thought part of the burden of being queer would be the marketing. Does this kit come with tiny homophobic protesters? Feels as if it should, somebody inside this might be a tiny drag queen with a dangerous book.

Pooh.

Babe, what’s wrong? You’ve hardly touched your favorite homosexual self identity bungalow

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Strange Way of Life (2023) trailer + Tumblr reactions

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I believe. And I believe ‘cause I can see. Our future days. Days of you and me…

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God, I need to see this! Almodóvar and I have grown old together. But it does make me think of a joke in BROS about gay cowboys being Oscar bait.

No Cumberbatch needed.

Strange Way of Life (2023) dir. Pedro Almodóvar

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Maps & Legends - (2023)

Inspired by the amazing works of illustrator Ed Fairburn, two drawings of Sherlock and John using a London map, with Baker Street on the left (in red)

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I imagine that the armor must get pretty funky - especially inside the helmets. ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ

Okay TBOBF and Mando Season 3 have been twenty pounds of stupid in a ten pound bag a lot of the time, but it’s funny if, like, ever since then and the destruction of the Razor Crest that Din has been collecting friends and allies just so he has a variety of places to shower and piss and do his laundry at. Frequent pit stops waltzing in and out of Tatooine and Nevarro and Ossus just for that purpose. He stayed friendly with Bo Katan because her Gauntlet has a fresher in it.

Luke: (meditating with eyes closed) Are you here to do your laundry again. Din: (awkwardly hiding bag of dirty flightsuits behind his back) …I love you? Luke: You didn’t answer my question. Luke: …I left you some food in the fridge and also we’re low on milk, can you bring some by next time. Grogu: Patoo.

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This is the Way. THE MANDALORIAN 2019- • 3.08: Chapter 24 - The Return