☆❀☆

Mon, 25 May 2026 05:36:30 GMT

+ I took some time to read fanfiction this weekend. It's not something that I normally have time to do. On the one hand, I probably could have done something else - there are Tasks that went unfinished - but on the other hand... I'm feeling weirdly inspired to work on my own projects after experiencing someone else's enthusiasm about something they enjoy. That's always nice.

+ Speaking of which, it only just occurred to me, after reading the aforementioned fic, that Project Hail Mary is a good fandom for gen. And this makes me think I should go poking around in it more. Though my own fic output is the exact opposite, I really do appreciate a well-executed genfic. Will have to put this on the to-do list. Among many other things.

+ My fic for FTH is coming along. And considering everything, I think I might do my best to work on it in the evenings in the upcoming months. With the summer weather coming - it was +25C the other day - it's getting to that unpleasant point where electronics are throwing too much heat. Better for me to limit that, and spend time working with pen and paper instead. We'll see. Depends on whether I can get my brain in the right mode, I guess.

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Mon, 09 Mar 2026 04:02:30 GMT

Saw somebody refer to Squidgeworld Archive as "Squidward" and now I will never be able to read it as anything else for the rest of my days.

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FTH Offers

Sat, 28 Feb 2026 22:43:07 GMT

Whoo! I'm participating in the FTH charity auction once again. Offers are open for browsing.

You can see my offers here. You can also see a list of all fandoms on offer here.

Bidding opens on March 03!

This year I'm offering up to 5k of Hetalia, Promare, or any fandom I've written in the past (such as Ex Machina, Vatican Miracle Examiner, Frozen, etc). I'm offering any characters/pairings.

If you're interested in this but don't really get how it works, I might be able to help - I've participated on both the offering on bidding ends before.

I'm really looking forward to seeing whatever the winner requests; in the past I've had asks for pairings that I normally don't write, and in the end those often turn out to be some of my best fics.

Anyway! Whoo! Let's see how this goes!

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Wed, 10 Dec 2025 05:16:19 GMT

Sometimes there are those moments where I come across something that makes me think about my OTP, and it still, after all these years, brings me so much joy.

Feels good!

I should make something with them soon. It's been a while.

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Sun, 19 Oct 2025 04:13:37 GMT

Apparently one of my fics was recced in a comment on Pinterest. Not sure which post specifically, mind you.

I wasn't aware that place even had a comment section.

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Recent things

Mon, 22 Sep 2025 03:55:46 GMT

+ Posted the fic I've been agonizing over for ages, hooray. Writing that was like pulling teeth but it seems to have actually turned out rather well.

+ Today was Race Day. I participated in the 3k; didn't actually run, but speedwalking. It was fun, but I am very exhausted. Might walk the 5k next year; we'll see. Or maybe I'll do 3k again but actually try to jog bost of it.

+ Skipped out on judo all week because of a headcold.

+ I've been trying to make some attempts to talk to people in fandom a little more. It's super hard, though. I feel like there are fewer opportunities for casual interaction than there used to be. Or maybe I'm just disappointed that so many people I used to know have moved on, and also frustrated by the current platforms (I miss when journal format was primary, that worked really well for me). ...Anyway, I'm taking what opportunities do come up, at least, trying to think of conversation topics and so on. And come to think of it, maybe I should use this as motivation to finish and post more fics - people tend to be more talkative when I'm more visible.

+ Received two PMs on tumblr from people looking for someone to roleplay with. I was kind of surprised - one of them was from somebody I've never interacted with, and this kind of cold-calling is a totally different approach from how it was done back when I actually played. Anyway, I actually do miss roleplaying a lot, but the thought of doing it anywhere other than Dreamwidth feels kind of weird. (And now I am reminded of all the old threads that will never be finished because my partners dropped off the face of the internet).

+ The past few weekends have been so busy and I'm honestly pretty cranky that I haven't had time to do any more paintings. I swear next week I will work on the two that I've already started. e_e

+ Vaguely contemplating a trip to Charlottetown next year, probably around September. I've been to PEI before, but not Charlottetown, so it'll be nice to go somewhere completely new. Kind of thinking about combining with a trip to Halifax too - it's been ages since I was last in Nova Scotia. Anyway, we'll see. Meanwhile, I'm starting to really look forward to my trip to Edmonton in November.

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Sun, 16 Feb 2025 17:49:56 GMT

Man, I wish it were easier to find discords that are active (but not TOO active) and fit my tastes and don't have any rancid wankers.

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Sat, 11 Jan 2025 16:23:37 GMT

Bloody hell, the only PMs and friend requests I get these days are from spammers and scammers.

That notification rush - "Oh, someone wants to talk! Oh, potential new fandom friend! :D" followed by "...Well fuck me, never mind". It sucks!

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Ao3 - Hetalia - Finally!

Thu, 25 Jul 2024 04:05:17 GMT

Aha!

Ao3 has renamed the Hetalia fandom tag from Hetalia: Axis Powers to Hetalia (Anime and Manga).

I've been hoping for a change like this for a long time. Hetalia has been through three different title changes; it's been Hetalia World Stars since 2014. But most people just call it Hetalia, and Ao3's renaming reflects current fandom usage.

It looks like existing works still display as Hetalia: Axis Powers, but I went and renamed the fandom on all of my existing works using the mass-edit instructions on this tumblr post.

Text version of the instructions under the cut.
( Read more... )

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Wed, 10 Apr 2024 22:32:36 GMT

I wish Ao3 had a way to mark things as read/kudosed/commented. Sure, there are scripts that can do this, but it'd be nice to have it as a built-in feature.

I feel like I go through this every time I start poking around in a new-to-me fandom. :V

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Mon, 08 Jan 2024 04:48:40 GMT

My flist has reminded me about More Joy Day. The idea is to spread joy in some way through small acts. Could be online, could be offline. Leave a fic comment! Buy a friend a coffee! That kind of thing.

Anyway, it's January 12 - this upcoming Friday. It's such a nice idea. I'll have to think of something.

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Misc +++

Sun, 29 Oct 2023 15:19:23 GMT

+ It's around that time of year when the internet gets boring. People are busy! NaNo is around the corner and all the writers will disappear for a month (unlike October, when the artists treat us to awesome inkwork for a month :V). Real-life events are coming up for many. ...Maybe I'll dial things back a bit too; there are few things cozier than curling up with a book and some hot tea on a cold evening, and obviously I can't do that and be an internet lurkbeast at the same time.

+ It snowed the past couple of days. I still don't have my snow tires on. Things are going to be interesting until I get that done, oh boy. I have an appointment, but I assumed I'd have more time. Famous last words. :V

+ Thought I was feeling better and that I was over this cold, but yesterday mom said that I still look like death, so I don't even know any more. And meanwhile, still resting my foot. Ugh, I am going absolutely stir-crazy over here. (Impatiently waiting for my physio appointment on Thursday... hopefully he'll have something good to say to me.)

+ Made a Bluesky account recently. An artist that I like is jumping over there, so I decided to take a look. It's very much a Twitter clone, and I haven't played around with it enough to know if there are any features I prefer at Bsky rather than Xitter, or what's even there as far as fandom goes... Anyway, I'm yuuago over there as always. I have 5 invite codes - if anyone's interested, let me know that you'd like to try it out, and I'll PM one to you.

+ Book rec: Last Call by Elon Green. True crime nonfiction about a series of murders in NYC in the 90s; the victims were gay men picked up at piano bars. I thought it did a pretty good job with the research, exploring the period, the victims, and what was going on culturally (gay bar culture, AIDS, etc), as well as the in-community activist response to the murders. And whathaveyou. Obviously, kind of a depressing subject, but worth a read if it's your thing and you're in the mood for it. Apparently there's a rather good documentary series based on the book, but I haven't seen it myself.

+ Found myself kind of missing the Duolingo forums. I was never super active there, but sometimes there were really useful resources posted, and it was nice to read some of the more thoughtful posts people made discussing their strategies and progress. Does anyone know of an online language-learning community like that?

+ The Dead South released their latest single a few days ago, "Tiny Wooden Box" [Bandcamp | Youtube]. Oh, this is bluegrass goodness. It's nice to hear something new from them; their stuff is always great. I see the album Chains & Stakes is going to come out in February; I'll have to keep an eye out for it.

+ Halloween coming up. Trick or treating isn't much of a thing in my apartment building, so I assume it's just going to be me, candy, and a horror movie. Well, that's not a bad way to spend it, anyhow. Question is, should it be Crimson Peak or The Exorcist?

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Fri, 21 Jul 2023 19:15:05 GMT

Came across this blog post about Twitter users moving to Mastodon (and then a lot of them having a difficult experience with Mastodon): Why did the #TwitterMigration fail?

Thought it was interesting. I'm unlikely to use Mastodon for a whole lot of the reasons outlined in the post. I gave it a look for half a second, and thought, "Nah". I can see why some people might like it, but it's not for me.

Right now I'm kind of thinking, though - some of the same stuff might apply to attempts at moving from Tumblr to DW. I see it happen a lot, and it rarely sticks. I wouldn't be surprised if the reasons for that are similar: harder to find things due to the format, smaller amount of stuff going on, more tinkering required, etc. Though there is a major difference - with Twitter and Mastodon, you're going from one microblogging system to another. With Tumblr and Dreamwidth, you're going from an image-based microblogging site to a text-based longform journal site. That's gotta' be quite a change for someone who's not used to it.

It's also why Tumblr fandom is unlikely to jump from there to here. I've seen some stir-ups and attempts recently due to some UI changes Tumblr is experimenting with, but as always, I'm like... "Good luck, and I'll believe it when I see it".

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[Ao3/OTW] OTW membership sponsorships

Tue, 27 Jun 2023 03:17:40 GMT

PSA: petra is offering to sponsor OTW memberships. If you want to vote in the upcoming OTW board election but find the membership fee too steep for any reason at all, this person is willing to spot you the 10 USD, no questions asked. More info over here; comments to that entry are screened, so you can leave your email for further discussion about the paypal transfer.

There are a lot of slots still available, so if you are interested in voting but need a hand, do consider it!

You have until 19:59 EST on June 30 to get an OTW membership if you want to vote.

As for me, I did end up getting a membership after all. ...This'll probably end up being like how I paid to vote for the Hugos that one time due to drama and then never again. But like. Whatever. :V

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Sat, 17 Jun 2023 01:31:19 GMT

I've been seeing rumblings about people wanting to post on DW more. Kick up a little activity around here. My thoughts on that, as always, are "I'll believe it when I see it". I expect, as usual, that it'll be a bit busy for a few weeks before it fizzles out. (But if my expectations prove incorrect, I'll of course be pleasantly surprised!)

I've also seen people talking about using it as an alternate fic posting platform. As a matter of course, all my stuff goes up over at roesslyng, and I do really like posting here in terms of formatting - I prefer uploading fic here rather than Ao3. The downside is that there's no way to gauge response - over on Ao3, people might not have anything to say, but they're willing to slap the kudos button even if they don't have an account. And of course there are bookmarks and stats and whatnot. There's no equivalent to that over here on DW, and even when Anon is turned on, people don't make use of it for commenting.

This isn't an issue for me per se, because I typically don't care so much, and a lot of the writing that I post on DW is scribbles and bite-sized things that I wrote as exercises, nothing special. But occasionally, I do write something that I want to share more widely, and... what to do in that case? Hell if I know.

In the meantime, I'm just going to continue as usual, I guess.

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Ao3/OTW/WTF

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 00:25:02 GMT

I was putting together a short list of links for a friend re: the recent conversations about Ao3's structural problems, but it was getting a little long for a PM on the service we were using, so I copied it over here. Most of you on the FList have already seen these, I think.

( Continued )

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Misc +++

Tue, 15 Nov 2022 15:29:21 GMT

+ [Family] Went to visit relatives in Calgary. Hung out with cousins, saw the new baby, had a nice time. I haven't seen them since around 2019 - these were relatives who couldn't come to my brother's wedding - so it's been a while. Great trip, but I'm very glad to be home now.

+ [Fashion] Managed to find myself a winter coat while we were down in the Big City. High-quality one too, suitable for our extreme weather, at a fraction of the original price. It's kind of a relief - I was worried about replacing my old one because they're so expensive. (I could have worn the old one if I had to, but it's much too big for me now... I stuck with it last year and I was absolutely swimming in this big heavy thing, augh.)

+ [Books] Started reading Nona the Ninth, finally. I've been trying hard to avoid spoilers, though I suppose it wasn't necessary, because most of the time Locked Tomb spoilers sound nonsensical out of context. Enjoying it thoroughly so far, though I kind of wish I had re-read the previous novels first.

+ [Twitter/Plurk] I've seen lots of people looking for alternatives to Twitter. One of my mates wrote up a tumblr post suggesting Plurk. Plurk is a more obscure social site even though it has been around for a long time - it's based in Taiwan, and on the English-speaking side, I've only seen it used by Dreamwidth roleplayers. It's side-scrolling, chronological, and each conversation is rolled up into its own little box. You can take a look at my pal's Plurk to get a better idea of how it is visually (I'd link my own, but it's locked). Anyway, this one is very good if what you want is the equivalent to a personal Twitter that you use to talk to your friends.

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Sun, 07 Aug 2022 14:53:01 GMT

That feeling when -

An artist you like posts that they're going to be selling an artbook.

It'd require a proxy to get it, so it would be mildly expensive, and kind of a pain in the ass. But you like this artist a lot, so you're going to seriously consider it.

And then the book sells out before you even get a chance to look up instructions on how to order it.

That sure solves that dilemma. ;)

Probably for the best - I really do not need more artbooks. I MEAN - I'd make exceptions in the case of some very specific artists, but it's best not to make that list any longer. I only have so much shelf space!

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Bleh

Sat, 30 Jul 2022 02:37:30 GMT

+ Work has been ridiculous lately. There's a stat holiday on Monday, and I think everyone just kind of mentally checked out on Wednesday afternoon, to be Quite Honest. (Not including me, mind you.) So many paperwork mistakes, argh! I try not to be too bothered about it, but this has been getting on my last nerve.

+ Family stuff coming up next week. Everyone running around like headless chickens, including me. Lovely.

+ Trying to edit this fic for IIBB, and hating every minute of it. This thing is so over-written, it's ridiculous. I know the vibe that I was going for, but there's just too much frosting on this cake, to put it figuratively. Also realized that there was part of a scene that I re-used almost exactly in a fic that I drafted later than this one (posted now), and that actually worked much better characterization-wise in the other fic, with a different pairing. So, that's interesting. Anyway, I'm going to have to do so much re-writing.

+ Scored a commission slot from one of my favourite fanartists. Trying to describe what I want them to draw for me made me practically die of embarrassment. ...Even though what I was asking for was very much in line with what they draw on their own time, and it's a pairing that I know they like. I guess I feel very self-conscious about asking for stuff outside of exchange contexts, even if I'm literally paying someone for it. (????)

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[Events] Sunflower Auction

Tue, 26 Apr 2022 01:36:09 GMT

sunflower_auction: A fandom charity auction in support of the people of Ukraine!

If you've participated in one of these before, you know how it goes. People sign up to do fic/art/beta reading/whatever; others bid on those offers. All money raised is donated directly to charity.

Signups for offers are open from now to May 10! More info over here.

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Don't call me a content creator, thanks.

Mon, 03 Jan 2022 02:42:11 GMT

I posted this on my tumblr earlier today*:

There's something I'd like to make clear.

My fics are not Content. I am not a Content Creator. I do not Produce Content. I do not Promote Content.

I'm a person with a not-for-profit hobby who is here to make friends and write about my favourite characters kissing. I like reading fic and looking at fanart by other fans. Maybe if we like some of the same things, we can be friends! If I find something cool by a fellow fan, I'll tell everyone about it so they can enjoy that cool thing too.

I'm not here to pound out extruded fic product or ~promote content~ so faceless people can ~consume it~.

Get out of here with that marketing speak.

The reason behind it is that a random post reminded me of that awful Discord experience I had a couple months back*. Something that upset me almost as much as that bait-and-switch was that the person who invited me referred to me as a content creator, that she kept calling my fanworks content.

I tried not to let it bother me initially, because this is just the way that a lot of people talk these days, but man did it ever piss me off. I find this way of talking about fandom absolutely repulsive. But it's difficult for me to articulate why in a coherent way.

It just reeks so much of corporate speak. Creating content, ~driving engagement~, Promoting Your Brand. It's marketing all the way down.

And if you're someone who's taking commissions and whatnot, it does make sense to think of it that way, to a degree. Because there is money involved in that case, and there is marketing involved. I'm not inherently against making a profit off fanwork, and my issue isn't with that per se (though I would never do it myself because it wouldn't be worth my time).

When people approach all fandom activity in this corporate, marketing-focused way, that does bother me. Or rather, it bothers me when people try to include me in it, I guess you could say. Because even if someone isn't thinking about it that way, it sure comes off as a commercial focus to, well, everything. And that isn't how I do fandom at all. And I don't like it when people approach me with that.

It's a hobby. Fandom is a hobby. And if I'm talking to someone that likes the same fandom that I do, the things I tend to think about are "Maybe we can be friends", and if we hit it off, it might turn into "Let's do something together!" (whether that be just discussing fandom, or working on our fannish projects separately, or collaborating on something, or whatever). And it sounds kind of childish when I put it that way, I guess. "Let's do an activity! :D" But that's how I like to do things in fandom.

I'm here to muck around and make friends and have fun. That's all.

Just... fuck, I hate it when people talk to me like they're making me a business offer. Bloody hell. (And I guess I'm still mad about it, since I'm writing this post. But there we are.)

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Hetalia discord misadventures

Sat, 06 Nov 2021 05:59:27 GMT

I received a message on tumblr inviting me to a 21+ Hetalia Nordic-centric discord server. This was unexpected, but initially I was pleasantly surprised.

( Continued, long )

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Ao3 open doors + kink meme imports

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 03:08:20 GMT

The Disney Kink Meme (disney_kink) is being imported to Ao3 via the Open Doors project*. This was actually announced last year over on the kink meme itself*.

To my knowledge, this is the first time a kink meme's been imported to Ao3. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

A while back, the topic of "Hey, what if hetalia_kink was imported via open doors?" came up in conversation - I think with kanadka. I had some mixed feelings about the idea of kink meme imports at the time. I still have mixed feelings!

There are some things specific to kink memes that seem to me like they'd be tricky to accommodate.

Prompts - Ao3 does have a prompt meme function. I've used it once or twice, but not extensively. It has some limitations, the most important one in this case being anonymity. There is no way to truly post a prompt as anon, because you can't post prompts without an account. There is a checkbox to have your prompt show as anonymous, but this is not true anonymity. When it comes to archiving prompts, that isn't an issue, but if an imported kink meme is intended to be open for receiving prompts after importing, that could make things tricky. I feel like having true anonymous as a prompt option is really important for a kink meme.

This seems to not be a huge issue with Disney-kink because they don't have enforced anonymity for prompts/fills, so the checkbox for "semi-anonymous prompts" would probably fulfill its needs if it's going to continue to be open for prompts after import. But for a kink meme with mandatory and enforced anonymity, like the Hetalia one, it seems like it would be a sticking point. (Frankly, the idea of a Hetalia kink meme without enforced anon gives me hives.)

Fills - This is less of a structual issue, but. For works posted anonymously, there could be problems with claiming de-anoned works. Like, somebody could de-anon their works, but if the original was posted as anon, there's nothing to prove that the person posting the work on Ao3 (or on a DW archive in my case) is the person who wrote them. There's nothing to prove that any person who says they wrote a fic posted anon on LJ/DW is actually the person who wrote it. Admittedly, it's unlikely that someone would plagiarize in this way, and it's probably a subject that's come up before with other Open Doors projects, but it just feels weird to me.

...Anyway. With regards to the Hetalia kink meme, this isn't something we need to worry about. It's sluggish/inactive here on Dreamwidth, but the account owner is still keeping the lights on (I spoke with them a while back), and I've been renewing its DW subscription to keep it searchable. I think it's unlikely to get imported unless Dreamwidth threatens to go belly-up. I don't see that happening.

As for the Disney kink meme - I'm interested in seeing how this will work out in practice. Like I mentioned before, there haven't been many (any?) other kink meme imports, so I'm really curious to see how they'll integrate the prompt function. ...And who knows, maybe after all the fics are imported to Ao3, I'll find something to read, heh. That's definitely one advantage to importing like this - stuff being filterable/more easily searchable, rather than having to be manually indexed.

If this works out well, it might lead to other kink memes getting imported in the future. That could be interesting.

[EDIT Nov 07]
hetalia_kink has replied in a discussion thread about imports on FFA. They say they have no plans to consider importing unless DW becomes as unstable as LJ. So there's now an official word on that.

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Multifandom Drabble Reveals (mostly TMA + some Witch Door)

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 03:12:17 GMT

Fics for the Multifandom Drabble Exchange have been revealed! Yay! The collection for this round has over 330 fandoms, wow.

I wrote two works:

☆ Borrowing a Door for Fencesit. The Witch Door, Katariina/Tzofiya, 400 words, G/0+. Snapshots in the course of a relationship.

☆ Happenstance for laughs_in_distortion. The Magnus Archives, Gerry Keay & Michael Distortion, 100 words, G/0+. Gerry has a chance encounter after acquiring a Leitner through dubious means.

And I received two Magnus Archives works! Voila:

☆ Wasteland Waiting by LookingForDroids. Adelard Dekker, 100 words, G/0+. A fragmentary audio recording, found among the personal effects of one Gertrude Robinson.

☆ My heart is thrilled by the still of your hand (It's how I know now that you understand) by laughs_in_distortion. Sasha James/Michael Distortion, 200 words, T. Sasha thinks of her encounter with Michael.

There were a lot of TMA fics in the collection for this round, and I enjoyed all of them (except the one that I didn't read due to spoilers).

Of the fics that weren't written for me, my favourite was:

☆ Memento Mori by LookingForDroids. Original statement giver, 300 words, G/0+. Statement of Sarah Chandler, regarding an archaeological text.

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Three things make a post

Sat, 15 May 2021 00:46:15 GMT

☆ There's a fandom charity auction going on now on DW to fundraise for organisations that support migrants/refugees/asylum seekers in the UK/Scotland: noraidsauction. Options are both auction and BIN.

This is on a quick schedule. Offers open from May 14-19; bidding/BIN open from the 20th-24th. It's open to Dreamwidth users only. Currently undecided if I'll offer a slot, but if I do it'll be for quick-and-dirty canon-blind beta reading. (Anyone interested?)

☆ Mdou Moctar released the soundtrack to the film Akounak Tedalat Taha Tazoughai|Rain the Colour of Blue with a Little Red in It. The film is biographical, about how Mdou Moctar made a name for himself in Niger's music scene; I might see if I can track it down.

Anyway, this music is his older stuff, which I haven't listened to much previously. But ahhh I wish I hadn't held off on that, because it's all excellent. Just as good as the newer work; the texture is slightly more raw, but I like that. Give it a listen if you love electric guitars.

☆ I suddenly recalled today that there are no mosquitoes in Iceland. Ordinarily, it's not a place that I particularly want to live. But sometimes, damn, is that dream ever tempting. (The mosquitoes aren't out over here yet, but it's just a matter of time.)

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