BlackberryJam

Jaime and Brienne have many rom-com tropes! Enemies to friends. Stuck together in a road trip. Beauty and the Beast. Inverted Beauty and the Beast. Dreaming of each other. Insulting nicknames. Jaime cracks the jaw of a guy who speaks ill of Brienne. Jaime jumps in a bear pit, unarmed, to save Brienne. When she asks why he did it, his answer, “I dreamed of you.” That’s some romance. The ASoIaF canon is so damn dark and depressing. There is only so much that can be done within it, and it’s unfinished. How many takes on Lady Stoneheart can there be? (Answer, a LOT.) Not that I’ve done a study or a poll, but it seems to be the JB authors start with canon and then find it restrictive and move into different AUs. There are some fantastic regency AUs. There is a great baseball AU. A The Americans AU. A Remington Steele AU. I could go on. There is a fandom joke that absolutely anything can be made into a Jaime and Brienne story. The fantasy football one, Stannis is the league commissioner and they are all vying for the Iron Throne trophy. It’s done in like a discord chat and has around 2 dozen characters who all manage to have their own story threads. One line that cracks me up every time is Ned is asked by someone about why Catelyn’s sister doesn’t like him, and he answers that they bottle fed their kids. (iykyk) It’s so perfect and reads so deadpan. In the fandom, I also think the AUs give the writers a chance for closure of the Jaime and Brienne story without having to tackle the nightmare that is ASoIaF Endgame. I mean, even George Martin is too intimidated by Endgame to finish his own damn series. There are some insanely high quality writers. I’m just braggin’ on them.

I’m with you. The illusion fabric on the sleeves is thick and wrinkly and the Basque waist is dated. The flower appliqués look like they were made from wrinkly bed linens. Her skin looks amazing and I love the bouquet.

Life has its own angst so I've been re-reading the funny, Mod AU fics. There is a fantasy football one that is 9 fics in a series that still makes me laugh 10 years later. There are some great Hallmark movie style fics too.

In my fandom, Jaime Lannister had 7 TV show seasons and five books of character development tossed out the window for a super shitty ending, while Brienne was left to pine for his memory. It SUCKED. The fandom though is mostly supportive. The larger GoT/ASoIaF fandom has a lot of gatekeepers (mostly male) who pretty much ignore everything the author has said about Jaime and Brienne. They devalue the individual characters and mock the ship. I’ve learned to avoid those fandom spaces. Rarepairs, those are rough, because it’s hard to find fandom friends. Especially when your fandom has no new canon material being produced. I realize I’m lucky. GoT/ASoIaF has almost 100k fics and JB has over 10k of those. JB is the #1 ship in the fandom. Which is a little crazy because they didn’t even get together until the mid-point of the last season. Anyway, I’ve taken to re-reading old fics that I love.

I’m a big reader of Jaime/Brienne fanfiction from Game of Thrones/A Song of Ice and Fire. The fandom is of course struggling because the show is off the air, Winds of Winter is not forthcoming and the pair got a shit ending on the show. So I’m grateful we are still getting fic. Very grateful. Unfortunately, some of my favorite writers seem to have taken a step back or moved on to different fandoms. There are a lot of unfinished stories out there which seem abandoned. It makes me sad.

Yeah…the writers of HIMYM stuck rigidly to an ending, losing the characters that they had developed. I remember the writer of Dawson’s Creek saying that as he was writing the finale, he had always planned for Joey to end up with Dawson, but then realized that didn’t work for the characters anymore. So he made the change.

They did go to Italy and Marshall became a judge later after going back to corporate law. Ending still sucked. Robin and Ted were so wrong for each other.

It’s not that I dislike RW, it’s just that I think it’s overhyped. It has the potential of being amazing or being a disaster, but often turns into just okay food served in a terrible manner.

I think I'll like this change.

I wonder if they are experimenting with editing and production. It’s a fail if they are.

Walt wore the hat, not Joel. Here is the SAD episode with Walt. https://screenwritingframeofmind.com/2014/12/21/northern-exposure-una-volta-in-linverno/ This is the episode with Joel not sleeping. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0662369/

I enjoyed this last episode. I liked that they recognized cultural appropriation without making that the motive for the murder. I figured out who done it pretty early and that it was Gina's birthday. Just a nice fun episode.

Wow, I’m surprised at Rasika. She didn’t make great food or strategize properly.

Oh yeah...she practically hid to avoid having to serve a dish.

I thoroughly enjoyed that episode. Chalmers has really grown on me.

Barr's descriptions are great. She does great scenery. Anna's internal monologue is just annoying. I'll keep reading them though. MC = Main Character. Sorry. Just started The Princess of Las Vegas by Chris Bohjalian. It's about a Princess Di impersonator with a residency in Vegas and the hotel co-owner gets murdered. So...kinda ridiculous, but why not? It's a beautiful day for an audiobook.

That was a very classy interview. It's frustrating not being able to find photos of the dishes online. My memory of Rasika's dish is that it looked so unappetizing.

I was tired of hearing Jane complain about Scotland. Yes, it's cold and windy. We get it. I plowed through the Gethsemane books before I knew they were ending. I hope the author is writing more, but I haven't seen her active on SM or goodreads since 2022. Bummer. The Benjamin Stevenson books seem like they'd have a limit. Ski resort, train, maybe cruise ship is next. Then what? Also, I suspect Ernest will get on my nerves. Here is the blurb on the Ryan, Monster Hunter/Door County mysteries. So the first one was a Loch Ness-type monster. The second deals with Bigfoot. They aren't supernatural mysteries though. More, "murderers hiding their murders by making people think..." but still leaving open the possibility of the existence of the monsters. I think the MC does a good job of debunking myths while still being hopeful. I also like the fact that she's not pushed around by her family and isn't poor and being saved by a male lead. I might try the Skalka books, because I'm always looking for a new series. I had been reading the Anna Pigeon books because the National Park settings are great, but the writing is weak and just how many times can scrappy Anna physically beat the bad guy? Ugh. I DO NOT recommend I Only Read Murder by the Ferguson Brothers. Just a horrific MC.

Books I’ve read lately: What Happened to Nina? By Dervia McTiernan. I have some feelings about this, but I’m not sure I enjoyed it. A bit of a condemnation of wealth, the use of social media, and true crime obsessions laid over a boring murder. Amina Akhtar books. Kismet. Not a cozy. Very weird. Multiple POVs, including the POV of a flock of ravens. So…weird. But in a good way. Enjoyed it and recommend. There is another, Almost Surely Dead, not a sequel, which really leans into the obsession with true crime, but I didn’t feel like the ending resolved that. Family Reservations by Liz Palmer. An interesting book about family dynamics and horrible parenting. Three daughters of a super successful chef who have always been pitted against each other. There are a couple characters in the beginning that I wanted more of, and they just got dropped. This is one of those books where I can’t recall any male characters, which is kind of nice. A Season of Monstrous Conceptions by Lina Rather. I love this author. I guess this book is queer, feminist, historical, science fiction. Maybe? Main character is a midwife in training. Many women are giving birth to children with tails and other “deformities.”

@blackwing We read a lot of the same books. I just finished the latest Jane Wunderly, love the Gethsemane Brown books, and have made the Anthony Slayton books a purchase and not just wait from the library. I enjoyed the second Benjamin Stevenson, Everyone On This Train Is A Suspect, more than the first. Still not great, but enjoyable. The Launch Party by Lauren Forry had a lot of enormous plot holes. I mean, if you’re going to put a mystery on the moon, research the science. I am enjoying the Door County mysteries by Annelise Ryan. The sleuth is a cryptid hunter, which is interesting. Really good use of the Wisconsin setting. I am recommending Mark De Castrique series, starting with Secret Lives. The protagonist is Ethel Crestwater, a septuagenarian retired FBI agent who runs a boarding house. It’s a bit of a spy series crossed over with mystery. I enjoyed The Busy Body by Kemper Donovan which is thinly disguised Hillary Clinton solves a murder fanfic.

I get that the challenge was confusing, but neither of them made good food, and that's the real sin. There were a couple of dishes that the judges called too safe, but those people weren't up for elimination. I think grace for not understanding the challenge was definitely given. Michelle was up for a food that didn't taste good and pork that was poorly cooked. Rasika was up because her food was flavorless with a gross texture. Neither of them was up for elimination because their food didn't fit the challenge.

It looked like a slab of blubber on top of whipped cream. Really unappetizing.

I haven't really been wowed by the food except really Michelle's and...Soo's. His LCK food looked amazing. I know Rasika was doing well, but I felt no mouth-watering hunger looking at the things she made. That makes it hard for me to care that she's gone. I don't know if it's the chefs or a change in production, but the food just doesn't sound incredible and amazing when they describe it. I used to watch TC episodes and just crave the food. That's not happening in the same way this season. The LCK food has looked so much better to me.

Doesn't Soo have a Michelin star? It may be rigged for him to get in, but damn if he isn't a ringer. At this point, Michelle and Soo are my favorites. I like the Power Bottoms, but their cooking hasn't risen to the level of their cuteness. I also think Rasika is making good food, but I'm not excited about what she makes.

I support this and stand with you.