I'm lucid, but I still can't think
Good news! According to the ENT this afternoon, I do not have a sinus infection. I have the aftermath of two months of sinus infection and therefore get to put steroids up my nose until it gets better. We live in a wonderful world.
1. I had never heard of Jinwar, the Yazidi women's commune and I strongly feel I should have. Especially since "Jinwar grew out of the democratic ideology that has fuelled the creation of Rojava, a Kurdish-run statelet in north-eastern Syria, since the civil war broke out in 2011 . . . The women's revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava's philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters." I should have heard about that.
2. I'm mostly boosting this article about Mesopotamian stargazing because I studied with the professor quoted within. He was one of the best parts of my time at Yale.
3. Discussing the fading of the Ruritanian romance as a popular genre with
moon_custafer a few months back, I said that I thought its scarcity in the second half of the twentieth century had more to do with the fact that the landscape of Europe shifted so comprehensively that any further entries would have to be period pieces—after 1945, Europe was simply no longer covered with plausible small monarchies into which English or American strangers could wander and be caught up in swashbuckling intrigue. The essential conceit of creating fictitious, generally Central European countries never died out, but I think the majority of it was diverted into secondary-world fantasy or into more realist modes like Jan Morris' Hav or Ursula K. Le Guin's Orsinia or even Wes Anderson's The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), which is explicitly a romance until it runs into history. Does this hypothesis actually match other people's experience? Is there an entire school of contemporary Ruritanian romance that I've just missed? Are they just mostly post-Soviet states these days?
It's snowing outside, quietly dusting down into the street. Earlier this evening I watched Johnny Eager (1942) because it was on TCM and I will never cease to love that movie; I ate some goat's milk custard for dessert and kindly did not take pictures of Autolycus while he had his head stuck in the plastic container. I have hopes of actually sleeping tonight.
1. I had never heard of Jinwar, the Yazidi women's commune and I strongly feel I should have. Especially since "Jinwar grew out of the democratic ideology that has fuelled the creation of Rojava, a Kurdish-run statelet in north-eastern Syria, since the civil war broke out in 2011 . . . The women's revolution, as it is known, is a significant part of Rojava's philosophy. Angered by the atrocities committed by Isis, Kurdish women formed their own fighting units. Later, Arab and Yazidi recruits joined them on the front lines to liberate their sisters." I should have heard about that.
2. I'm mostly boosting this article about Mesopotamian stargazing because I studied with the professor quoted within. He was one of the best parts of my time at Yale.
3. Discussing the fading of the Ruritanian romance as a popular genre with
It's snowing outside, quietly dusting down into the street. Earlier this evening I watched Johnny Eager (1942) because it was on TCM and I will never cease to love that movie; I ate some goat's milk custard for dessert and kindly did not take pictures of Autolycus while he had his head stuck in the plastic container. I have hopes of actually sleeping tonight.

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That's a great solution and I want to read it. Would you mind if I asked for a link?
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This is tremendously belated, but: I wouldn't mind! Unfortunately I never actually posted any of what got written. I'll have to see what the braintwin and I have between us and see if there's anything actually fit to post!
(The actual original notion was a Mission Impossible rock star AU, and that was where most of the plot was and what I think most of the writing that actually got done on? But we ended up with MCU to boot as Will's Other Band because Jeremy Renner, and then I ended up with quite a lot of Darcy, Will's rigger, and Ansgar Odenson (Loki) running around being amusing in my head. Most of the MCU people acquired nicknames due to the various viewpoint characters, so we had Miss American Pie (...probably obvious), Mr. Theramin-You-Can-Wear (hi Tony!), Smooth Jazz Bongoes Guy (also probably obvious), Electric Dulcimer Guy (Leif Odenson), and Mr. 30lb-of-Leather-Is-Totally-Streetwear (Ansgar Odenson). I think my favourite nickname, though, was Sergeant Gaga -- that'd be Miss American Pie's best-friend/boyfriend/????-no-one's-actually-SURE who is/was military and starred in a video that went somewhat viral of him and others doing a surprisingly credible rendition of the Bad Romance music video, except in the middle of Afghanistan desert. In clothing/gear that was probably originally military uniforms but definitely was not regulation as worn in the video. You will be shocked, I'm sure, to learn that Sergeant Gaga was later medically discharged after losing an arm.)
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I had to use my Claude Rains icon, I was so shocked.