(no subject)

A List, fannish and not:

I finally finished watching Mando S2 which had me texting the group chat (kids+their D&D crew, aka, my Millenial enablers) ( spoilers )

I'm also caught up (to E3) on Hawkeye and ( spoilers + spoilery speculation from comics )

Non-spoilery: I am seriously contemplating circling back on my HawkeyeSquared fic and mentioning that it's really NOT MCU Hawkeyes, but very firmly the Fraction/Aja Hawkguy and Kate that I'm writing. I mean, these two are great and I really like their interactions but yeah, not shipping them at all.

I've started in on the holiday movies -- new this year has been A Castle for Christmas, complete with a Scottish castle (ish, more like a grand house, but, eh, close enough), a grumpy duke (Cary Elwes and he wears a kilt *very* well), snow, horses, and a tiny, plaid taxi. Also, knitting and main characters not in their 20s. From a previous year was The Knight Before Christmas, which I watched as I put the tree together (more on that later), which was good b/c even with hand-fluffing an 9-foot tree I had to practice deep breathing as our titular knight, time-traveling from 14th Century England to Ohio, as one does, and pretend he was waxing rhapsodic about Christmas trees because he got to burn the ceremonial tree down in the village square? He had a very pretty horse,though. And at least he was wearing chain mail, not plate armour. And was very heroic.

As mentioned obliquely above, I finally caved and bought an artificial tree b/c real trees in the size I like are too heavy to deal with alone and really, much of the reason I resisted for all these years circles back to my dad, who, as some of you might recall, was a real piece of work (or an abusive asshole, take your pick. I try to go with unmedicated bipolar and sit with a little gratitude for how well he took care of Mom after all the cancers, but yeah, ISSUES, I has them.) Anyway. At some point during this ridiculous pandemic cycle, I decided that I could spend the money to get a tree that didn't look fake, put it together at my own pace, and burn a Diptyque Sapin de Nuit candle. So, I managed to get a 9-foot Fraser fir on sale from Balsalm Hill (unlit, b/c O.M.G. the pre-lit ones were more than I spend on trees for 10 years (and I am not known for buying cheap Christmas trees from Home Depot.) And they come all scrunched up so you have to fluff them. Branch by branch, section by section. It took forever, but it's done, it doesn't look fake, and I am hopefully going to get lights on it tomorrow when I am off work to deal with some health stuff for D.

And finally, to the last of the popslashers on my circle/flist: sorry for earworming you with the icon, but do like the song says and enjoy!