Animalia Paradoxa

the beginnings of an Inge masterpost for my reference

2026-06-19T07:20:52Z

Porting over more OC lore in the interests of creating a masterpost - this time, it’s my sad disaster envoy Inge’s turn. dragonologist-phd tagged me in an OC question meme, which I answered here.

( a non-comprehensive dossier on my wretched little fungus toff (affectionate) )

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“she’s evil AND traumatised. women contain multitudes.”

2026-06-18T01:42:52Z

Keeping up the tradition of making occasional Character Lore crossposts from tumblr, since I do not trust the stability of that site and want to have them available for future reference. I’ll probably end up creating a masterpost for each character/worldbuilding discussion/etc. and throwing them all in there, but until then… some backstory details for my dreadful little Fatebinder from Tyranny, posted here first (ft. some expanding on the canonical grimness of the pit fighter background, which has to be one of the worst in a game full of bleak backgrounds).

( What traditions or stories does your OC carry forward from their childhood to the rest of their life? (+ one more question) )

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letter meme, re-redux!

2026-06-15T10:26:38Z

I have a lot to talk about, which of course means it's going to be a million years until my next life update. In the meantime, have a slightly downbeat letter meme! esuds gave me the letter C a while ago - as always, drop me a comment if you'd like a letter of your own.

Something I hate: All the Cs that come to mind right now are heavy ones, alas. Capitalism. Consumerism. Climate change. Christmas. (Okay, maybe that last one isn't quite as heavy as the others. UGGGHHH the ubiquity of commercialised Christmas in some culturally Christian countries, UGGGHHH having to endure the "everyone but you is having a wonderful time with their perfect families, P.S. buy all this shit so said perfect family will love you" advertising. 'Tis not the season, but my irritation is never too far from the surface.)

Something I love: Cats! They've been part of my life for as long as I can remember. I've also worked with them professionally and made them the subject of my master's dissertation (it's about human perceptions of free-roaming cats and their impact on the ecosystem), so... yeah, my existence is pretty cat-centric at this point. Feline behaviour and body language often make more intuitive sense to me than the human equivalent, honestly.

Somewhere I have been: The Capuchin Crypt. Most writers understandably focus on the crypt itself, but the museum up top is also fascinating (if biased toward the order). I'm still haunted by the Crypt of the Three Skeletons. I also let bad taste win the day and bought a horrible mug in the gift shop; it's still my favourite for drinking tea.

Somewhere I would like to go: Canterbury. Both the Aotearoa NZ and UK ones, for different reasons. (This also falls under "somewhere I have been".)

Someone I know: My auntie C, who (like Auntie L from one of my previous letter meme posts) is not my auntie by blood or legality. She and my mum grew up together, moved countries together, then fell out of touch for a while and didn't reconnect until I was in my twenties. I only really got to know C in my own right after my mum died, which I regret - but it's been good to talk to her as an adult rather than a child.

Best movie: For some reason, my brain read this and went "I have never in my life seen a movie starting with C, let alone loved one". I know that's not true, brain! I'm just going to go with the most recent C (sub)title I saw, which was... Alien: Covenant, according to my list. "Best ever" might be a stretch, but I do think it's underrated. It has flaws aplenty, but there are lots of good/interesting elements in there too and some scenes that have stuck with me (proud papa David smiling beatifically...) Also, some truly gorgeous shots (solar sails!) Also also, yet another alien planet that's Literally Just Piopiotahi/Milford Sound (you love to see it).

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letter meme, redux

2026-04-12T07:53:57Z

cmcmck gave me the letter S for this meme literal ages ago and I never got around to doing it, so I'm reviving it now while we all shelter indoors from the storm! Toss me a comment if you'd like a letter.

Something I hate: SLEEP DISORDERS. I almost said “sleep”, but… as inconvenient as the need can be, there’s nothing wrong with it when you can actually achieve it. Being cosy in bed without any time pressure is fun! Lying awake until 7am because you’re stressed and your brain decided to turbo-delay your sleep phase is not!

Something I love: The sea, the sea! I live high up on a hill next to the ocean and walking down there (or climbing to the top for a full panoramic view of the bay) always rescues my mood. Swimming off the beach is even better, though very very inadvisable right now due to weather conditions. I never feel fully at home when I have to live somewhere landlocked, though rivers, lakes, and other waterways help a lot. Some of my favourite research projects have been ocean-related, even if the topics were... depressing.

ALSO: snakes and spiders, which I feel obligated to mention as well because both need to be appreciated so much more.

Somewhere I have been: Singapore Changi. I specify the airport because while I did have to stop there for longer than planned after getting violently sick on my first ever long-haul flight (outside the one I don’t remember taking when I was a baby), I never went through customs before flying onward and so still have not entered the country. One day, maybe, if I can ever afford it! HOWEVER. If you have to pick an airport to get stranded solo in with a non-contagious illness, Changi is the way to go. They have a butterfly garden!!

Somewhere I would like to go: Suva (Fiji). I’ve done a bunch of video calls to there for work-related reasons, so it would be cool to meet people in person and see the places we talked about/I glimpsed over their shoulders!

Someone I know: My lovely housemate and friend, S.! Finding people to live with is such a coin flip (as certain other housemate experiences have attested); it’s always nice to stumble into an arrangement that works well, where you’re not just compatible sharing-wise but also have plenty to talk about.

Best movie: Saving Face is a delightful romcomdram that was also hugely formative to me as the first lesbian film I ever saw (and I think the first queer film I ever saw, full stop). LGBTQ+ media of any kind was much harder for me to access as a teenager in the mid-aughts, so I grabbed on to everything I could find with both hands and also went on the internet a lot. Some of the scraps I clung to back then were terrible, but Saving Face is an absolute joy and a classic that has always held up. I should do a rewatch…

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five LJ/DW questions

2026-03-29T10:17:55Z

My first go at thefridayfive, from last week! I saw several people on my rlist do this one and liked how metabloggy it was.

What was the reason you began a Dreamwidth or LiveJournal account (or both)?

I got my LJ invite code from a friend I met on ff.net (back before they banned NC-17 works and split into fanfiction.net for fanfic/fictionpress.com for original fic, so a fair old while ago). FFN didn't have a PM system or comment replies at that point, so the only way you could meet people there was by dropping your email somewhere public and hoping they would message you. LJ felt like a revelation for thirteen-year-old me, especially after I fell headlong into LOTR/Tolkien and Star Wars fandoms.

A lot of my friends moved over to Dreamwidth during LJ's long collapse, so I made an account here in 2009 to follow them just like I had on other LJ-clone/alternative journalling sites (there were a LOT of them at the time). I didn't use it that much, though - once my mourning period for LJ was over, I ended up on tumblr instead. After returning to DW, I remade a couple of times before settling on this journal as my permanent home.

How many DW or LJ communities do you subscribe to?

Had to check this! Thirty communities, according to my profile, but it's been forever since I looked in on any of them (should change that...) I deleted my old LJ account a billion years ago when the TOS situation got Really Bad, so don't remember how many communities I followed over there. Definitely more than I ever managed to keep up with...

Do you have a favourite community or one you check out often to see what's new?

Not any more. :c The personal-journals-only version of the reading page is the most convenient to access, so that's what I always end up defaulting to. Should change that x2, because in theory I like the idea of fostering more community on DW.

How did you pick your user name?

I'm named after the cosmic jellyfish! When I made this journal, I was working on the beginnings of a project about human perceptions of deep-sea environments and had ocean beasties on the brain (even more so than usual). Plus... look at the creature!!

If you could change your user name, would you?

No, I wouldn't. People who've been around for a while will remember I was a chronic username-changer up until quite recently, but I now see the benefits of. Not Doing That. I do like having different (linked) usernames across sites, though - it satisfies my craving for novelty without making everyone go "who is this again?" every five minutes.

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just spotted on tumblr: writing for donations

2026-01-18T10:45:59Z

petra is offering to write drabbles, fannish poetry, or original poetry for anyone who donates $25 USD/equivalent to a food bank, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières, or an organisation listed at Stand With Minnesota.com from now until the end of the Trump administration. It’s on the honour system, so no keeping track of receipts/screenshots required.

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Speaking of books

2026-01-16T20:59:52Z

If anyone wants to be friends/mutuals over on Storygraph, I now have an account here! So fresh it’s still in the process of importing my reading data…

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books I plan to read in 2026…

2026-01-16T07:39:18Z

…a shocking number of which were on my “books I plan to read in 2025” list, but! I will be even more overwhelmed this year and so even more in need of a distraction.

sideways tagged me in this meme over on tumblr; I’m crossposting (because I lack the energy for High-Effort Dreamwidthing right now) and tagging anyone who wants to get in on it. Tell me about your books!!

Summer Will Show, Sylvia Townsend Warner

Earthlings, Sayaka Murata

The White Mosque, Sofia Samatar

The Spear Cuts Through Water, Simon Jimenez

Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver

Pride and Joy, Louisa Onomé

The Whale: A Love Story, Mark Beauregard

Deep Water: The World in the Ocean, James Bradley

Villette, Charlotte Brontë

BONUS sneaky not-yet-released tenth: The Iron Garden Sutra, A.D. Sui (very very excited for this one!)

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⭐ sticky: media eaten in 2026

2026-01-11T22:10:15Z

Wishing everyone a happy belated new year (or at least a new year with plenty of Good Things in it!)

Time for my annual media post, 2026 edition. Maybe I will even get around to writing some reviews this year, I say with eternal hope. The usual rules apply: nothing read/watched/etc. specifically for study or work gets recorded here, just to keep the list from getting too unwieldy.

( books )

( films )

( tv )

( games )

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because I feel like this needs to be shared everywhere

2025-10-13T01:04:34Z

All episodes of Revolutionary Girl Utena are free to watch with English subtitles on Nozomi Entertainment’s youtube channel. It was geoblocked in my location the first time I checked, but now seems to be open. With or without Ways and Means, enjoy!

Thinking of doing a full rewatch + reread of the manga so I can compare them side by side this time, since I read the manga (including that version of The Adolescence of Utena) well before I saw the show + movie. Alas, I no longer have my copies to hand…

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reblogged this humble bundle over on tumblr already, but am sharing it here in the nick of time!

2025-09-12T11:49:47Z

There’s about a day left to go on the Martha Wells’ Murderbot & More book bundle, which is just what it says on the tin. I’ve read most of the books included in this and highly recommend them all! You can grab the lot for a minimum of $34.96 NZD/equivalent or pay less to get some of them. All the charity proceeds go to World Central Kitchen.

(I’m especially excited to see her standalone novels bundled in here! City of Bones and Wheel of the Infinite, my beloveds. …this has also been a reminder that I need to hurry up and read Witch King.)

ETA: looks like the deadline’s been extended!

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[crossposted] what are you currently…?

2025-09-01T20:14:16Z

I promise I will have updates that are neither tumblr crossposts nor tucked away on a filter soon, but for now, have a “what are you currently…?” meme I was tagged in over there.

( reading, watching, playing, making… )

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crossposted: books I would like to read maybe soonish

2025-05-28T09:17:56Z

I’m all out of energy for making life updates at the moment, so have a tumblr crosspost!

darkwingerduck tagged me in a “books you want to read in the New Year” meme that I… did not manage to fill out in January, let’s leave it at that. I read to procrastinate and have a lot of procrastination in store this year, so we’ll see how this goes.

( some top contenders from the to-read files )

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and in happier news…

2025-04-17T23:18:30Z

…though interested parties may have already seen it by now: Colossal squid filmed live in ocean for the first time (with a video of the footage). Very relevant to a presentation I’m ~~stressing about~~ giving next Saturday, so that’s EXTRA BONUS HYPE for me! Much more fun than the (also relevant to my subject area) direwolfcourse.

(Shuffle really came through on the song for this post.)

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doing what I can from the other side of the world…

2025-04-17T22:04:42Z

…as tiny and fragile as those efforts feel at the moment.

Courtesy of cmcmck: Change.org Petition - Overturn the UK’s New Legal Definition of a Woman. (Ref. the recent UK Supreme Court judgement, for those who haven’t seen it - warning for transphobia and transphobes celebrating.) This one can be signed from anywhere in the world, regardless of residency or citizenship.

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get in, loser, we’re doing book lists

2025-04-08T12:03:22Z

I hear rumours of reading memes on the wind, so here: 100 books that have influenced me, stuck with me, or otherwise attached themselves to my brain over the years. I tried my best not to overthink (ha ha) and just went for the first titles that popped into my head, which means a lot of my favourites aren’t there (wailing because I remembered Cherryh’s The Dreaming Tree, but forgot my beloveds The Faded Sun AND Foreigner…) I also tried to go for a decent spread of books from childhood to right now, which was a mixed success. Very much did not succeed in limiting myself to one title per author. Some faves weren’t in the system at all - Mieko Kawakami! Peter Dickinson! About half of Tanith Lee where are youuuu - but overall, it was pretty decent at pulling up even more obscure titles.

Standard disclaimer that this is not a rec list - just a list of books that got their claws into me at some point (though I WOULD rec a lot of them!) I’m having a lot of fun going through everyone else’s and adding to my gigantic to-read list, too. This has given me some thoughts on my reading habits and childhood nostalgia, but those will have to wait until I’ve had some sleep…

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am still extremely in my thirties

2025-03-25T21:57:06Z

It’s my birthday today (March 26th, for timezone clarity!) I will be spending it sorting through/identifying old arachnid specimens at the museum. Then: HOME to eat the saltiest pizza known to humanity! Anchovies, olives, and capers, fuck yeah.

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the supermoon is especially super tonight

2025-02-12T10:23:23Z

hokuton_punch sent me this wonderful article about NASA ( which I am sticking behind a cut because it deals with awful current events/politics )

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letter meme (ft. my overuse of the humble bracket)

2025-02-08T06:00:59Z

pauraque gave me the letter L! Drop me a comment if you'd like a letter of your own.

Something I hate: The absolute state of the Labour Party back in the UK. Yes, I was and am firmly in the "anyone but the Tories, with the obvious exception of even further-right parties” camp. Yes, I breathed a sigh of relief when they got in. Yes, we can do much MUCH better than current and past crops of bigot-enablers. I will stop here before I need to break out the LJ cut.

Something I love: Lightning! Ideally not striking super close to me (it has happened before, once to the tune of a whole flat block's worth of electronics), but I love watching it. We don't get many thunderstorms here, which makes them all the more special to me when they happen. I sailed across the bay a while ago with a very obvious and somewhat unsettling storm brewing up, but the weather was kind enough to hold off until I got home. The first thunderclap sounded about a minute after I got through the door and curled up with The Kitty.

Somewhere I have been: ...would it be cheating to list places I've lived and worked? Because if not, the first L that leaps to mind is London. I have mixed feelings on central London - it's full of cool places (and cool people!), but many parts of it are also sensory overload on a stick. Having lived there for a fair chunk of my childhood, I'll always have some affection for [the London borough of] Croydon as well. Shhh, it's home - one of them, anyway.

Limiting it to places I haven't lived/worked in long-term: Leicester! Also full of cool places, cool people, and interesting history, but massively underrated by visitors. Both the last and second-to-last places I lived in before moving countries were a shortish train ride away, so I ended up spending a decent amount of time there.

Somewhere I would like to go: Lisbon! Partly because I love Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet so much (need to read more of his poetry), but I also just think it would be a fun city to visit. Also, it's very hilly and I love hills. Except when I'm schlepping groceries up the side of the one I live on.

Someone I know: ME okay, okay, I feel like that would be cheating. I'm thinking of my "auntie" L - not a familial auntie, but someone I've known since childhood and still keep in touch with. Some of my earliest fuzzy memories feature her humouring me while I crawled around her flat on all fours meowing and headbutting furniture (mini!me desperately wanted to turn into a cat and thought "fake it 'til you make it" might be the way to go). Thank you, L!

She's also my first remembered example of a single childfree woman whose life was cool as fuck and clearly not ~incomplete at all, which was quite a big deal in the context of the very churchy evangelical-leaning community my parents got into after moving to the UK (or back to it, in my Welsh father's case). I still occasionally find myself thinking "what would L do?" when I run into Situations.

Best movie: I watched Lawrence of Arabia for the first time last year and it has wormed its way into my brain. Kind of want to see it again, but I never seem to get around to rewatching epics cover to cover...

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oh! hello hello! hi friend hellooooo!

2025-01-30T12:00:49Z

Subject line is almost word-for-word my reaction upon spotting a wētā at my window (missed Animal Ark alliterative book title opportunity). Imagine it said in a whisper, because my housemate was sleeping a few rooms away. We love a big bug.

(Our house is halfway up a heavily forested hill, so they are very much Around - but I’ve never seen a living one this close before!)

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crossposted: tumblr ask about OC sibling relationships

2024-11-24T02:12:59Z

My corner of Tumblr is feeling increasingly empty lately (possibly due to Bluesky drift?) and I am as ever unconvinced that it is a Stable Website. These seem like good reasons to port over a few posts I want to keep. This one is a response to an ask I got about OC sibling relationships.

( I answered for Vin'ath, which means SAD GITHYANKI CHILDHOOD HOURS )

(I’d like to get around to making a personal update soon, but I moved house not long ago and still don’t have a desk. Situation not conducive to longform typing!)

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♥

2024-11-19T10:18:35Z

Oop, I dropped a ~~powerup~~ heart! ⬆️ It’s free to anyone who wants it.

(Hugs are also free. Just because.)

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“Neil Gaiman can fuck off into the sun” - Adri Joy

2024-08-22T10:53:35Z

See title.

( warning for discussion of rape/sexual assault/abuse - nothing graphic in this post, just links to resources )

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don’t meme tired

2024-08-10T10:58:42Z

Yoinked from - oh, so many people on my rlist.

🎶 Last song I listened to: “King”, The Romanovs. hokuton_punch introduced me to this band + song years ago by pointing out that it was almost too perfect for Eris Morn from Destiny, which is still 100% TRUE.

📺 Currently reading/playing/watching:

Reading: Juggling several books on the go as usual, but The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is my main focus. (I think I’m due a Proper Ishiguro Reread + Catchup - he’s a fave of mine, but it’s been so long since I last read him outside of this…) Forever climbing walls over the POV. Stevens may be one of my favourite narrators ever.

Playing: Baldur's Gate 3, Pillars of Eternity (in theory - since moving, I haven’t switched my laptop on for much outside of the odd gloomy poke at work/study/my CV).

Watching: Nothing right now (see above re: laptop). Saw the first episode of House of the Dragon S2 before I left, but have not stuck with it. I’m taking show/film recommendations if there are any you particularly want to throw out there!

🌶️ Sweet/Savoury/Spicy?: Savoury. My sweet tooth is as picky as it is powerful + while my palate loves spicy foods, my reflux tragically does not. (I still eat them sometimes, but have to be careful.)

❤️ Relationship status: Single, sleepy, staring at the sea.

🤩 Current obsession: Like sideways, I’m falling back into the Pillars of Eternity hole - blame the Avowed release date, which is nebulous but SOON(ish). Current main playthrough is Taran's, but I’ve been bouncing back and forth between all my Watchers. There may be a post coming up once I get back into the game. ALSO: boats and birds. (I wish it were my dissertation, but alas…)

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Trans+ History Week

2024-05-12T14:38:42Z

rydra_wong posted about Trans+ History Week, running from May 6th-May 12th (so I’m just in time!):

Trans+ History Week exists because Trans+ people exist and always have done.

Trans+ History Week makes space for the Trans+ history lesson we never had.

It is a week-long reflective period to learn and celebrate the momentous and millennia-old history of transgender, non-binary, gender-diverse and intersex people.

May there be many more, at least until the day comes when everyone’s stories are an equal part of the regular curriculum.

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