During this year's fkficfest I wrote a NN story called One Loss Too Many.

That storyline is now continued in the sequel One Death Too Many.

There will be a concluding third part. So stay tuned...

Like most adults, I don't get to raid often during the work week, and less and less as oncoming autumn contracts the days (raids start sunrise to sunset only, it seems). But I am making more of an effort to spend my free daily raid passes to keep my Mewtwo options open since that mechanic was announced. Even if only on a Level 1 or 2 raid by myself before work, at lunchtime, or a really quick afternoon break, whenever I'm lucky enough to have (and notice) a raid pop nearby, I check my schedule.

On one of the 3 raids I managed to complete this work week, I dared a Level 3 alone. And I did it! I met my longstanding game goal of taking down a Level 3 raid boss by myself! It was close. And it was just an Arcanine with pure fire moves (no bite, crunch, or wild charge). But still! I solo'd a Level 3 raid boss! It took 4 pokemon: my 3 leveled-up Golemns with 2 rock-type moves each, and my biggest, best Vaporean. (Obviously, wild charge would've destroyed my Vaporean.) Shiny Gyarados with hydro-pump was my anchor, in the sixth slot, but we didn't get to her.

Previously, I'd tried soloing Arcanine and Flareon bosses with ground types (which are common around here). I've concluded that the ground-type moves will never be fast enough to solo them, not at any level.

A happy belated birthday to Ben Bass, whose birthday was yesterday, 14 August.  He has played in many TV shows, both as recurring characters and as a guest, as well as a few TV movies.  Most recently he played Sam Swarek in Rookie Blue.  In Forever Knight, he played Javier Vachon.

There's an Articuno raid at the park nearest me right now. What's happening? Is Articuno back, or is this a glitch...?

I'd planned to post briefly this morning to share that I was so very lucky as to catch a 100% IV Zapdos yesterday! Yay! And then I was going to say that I actually hope summer legendary season will end tonight; I'm game-exhausted by these limited-time-only availabilities of the legendary birds. And then I was going to comment on the rampant Ho-Oh speculation. But...

Apparently, Mewtwo has been a raid boss at Pikachu Outbreak! People have caught Mewtwo! And clearly there's this Articuno right now, here, when we all thought that Articuno wouldn't be seen again in the game for many months, if not a year, if not ever.

Why does Niantic do these things on Mondays (work days) instead of weekends?

If all the legendaries are back in the game at high availabilities, I may perhaps feel a little ill-used or tricked for having invested time and effort in catching them while we were told they were limited-time-only. Hmmmm.

Addendum 10:56 PM: Niantic has spoken: Mewtwo and "other powerful pokémon" are coming soon to "Exclusive Raids," and all 4 legendary birds are back through the end of August. Read all about it.

For the month of July, in my corners of social journaling, here are the Forever Knight items that I happened to see:

Ficathons, fests & communities that welcome FK

• wip_amnesty, an event to encourage progress on works-in-progress, holds its first round 8/10-8/24.
• ficpositivity is encouraging a positive feedback meme (no deadlines).
• underheard is a new recommendations community for underappreciated fiction.
• Recommendation communities recap: fanart_recs, het_reccers, gensplosion, recshelf, underheard, and fancake. (Know more FK-friendly rec communities? Tell me about them!)

FK fanfiction & other fanworks
Archive of our Own (AO3) Summary: 7 of the 782 FK stories on the AO3 show posting dates in July.

• Untitled Canada Day ficlet by abby82 (~750 words) (PG-13, m/f)
• "Sesquicentennial" by greerwatson (~750 words) (G, gen)
• "Reshaped in His Image" by rhodrymavelyne (~250 words) (Unrated, m/m)
• "Ein Mädchen von edlem Geblüt" by LucySummerlove (~141K words) (R, m/f) (German)
• "Die Konkubine - 1. Teil" by LucySummerlove (WIP, ~16K words) (R, m/f) (German)
• "Schmetterling und Nachtfalter" by LucySummerlove (WIP, ~42K words) (R, m/f) (German)
• "Forever Natalie" by LucySummerlove (WIP, ~17K words) (R, m/f) (German)
• "Vaterfreuden" by LucySummerlove (WIP, ~10K words) (G, m/f) (German)

News & conversation:

• Upcoming new movie
• 7/16: nicholas_lucien analyzed how these characters look when vamped.
• 7/08: nicholas_lucien shared the announcement of an original character, a werewolf named Jason, and observed that this Nick smokes.
• Cast & crew
• 7/23: skieswideopen shared that Geraint Wyn Davies narrates the audio version of the "Regions of Canada" chapter of the Canadian citizenship test study-guide.
• 7/10: nicholas_lucien recognized the 8^th annual Lindsay Thomas Memorial Hockey Game, and that Geraint Wyn Davies is coaching again this year.
• 7/03: nicholas_lucien wished Deborah Duchene a happy birthday.
• 7/01: pj1228 linked to reviews for this year's Stratford productions, in which Geraint Wyn Davies, Nigel Bennett, Lucy Peacock, and Joseph Ziegler are performing.
• Miscellaneous
• 7/10: abby82 celebrated the recovery of her lost FK DVDs. (Her brother had them.)
• 7/06: hearts_blood offered "DVD commentary" on any of her short stories (or chapters from long stories).

I went to see Tom of Finland yesterday afternoon, at ICA. I wanted to see it because it was about a fascinating Finnish person rather than because I find the Tom of Finland aesthetic appealing. And seeing the film definitely confirmed that Touko Laaksonen was a fascinating person: struggling with his experiences during the war, eventually working in an advertising agency, drawing for himself and trying to find a way to share those drawings with others. The film jumped between various periods of his life, backwards and forwards and it was sometimes a struggle to keep my head straight, especially as there wasn't much flagging of when these events were taking place and how much time had passed in between.

I read somewhere that the producers weren't too happy that it got an 18 rating from BBFC (for "sexualised images, sex references, nudity")—they thought it was unnecessarily high. Coming out of the cinema, I thought that it was probably the images of the art that pushed it that high, and reading the more detailed summary seemed to agree. Even in terms of nudity, I'd say that's also because of the drawings, not anything that involved the characters (although it isn't clear from the BBFC summary), but perhaps I missed it, or it's the scenes in leather clubs or men in trousers that leave their buttocks bare. If it's the art, I don't really understand: while explicit, it's still obviously a fantasy, and even if you find it distasteful, it's not scary or threatening. There was a scene in the film where another character suggested, having seen one of the drawings, that having one was about as safe as having an atomic bomb, and the film-Touko vehemently disagreed: it's just a drawing, lines on paper, and it can't hurt anybody. And at best, like some of the other characters said later in the film, it can make somebody feel less alone.

The general acceptance of the art has certainly changed over time, from not having any avenues to display or publish anything in Finland to becoming well-known gay artist in the US in his lifetime to having a major exhibition of his work in a serious art gallery in Helsinki after his death to having Finlayson, one of the best-known Finnish household textiles companies, producing a line of duvet covers, aprons, oven mitts, shopping bags and the like that takes a pride of place in their shops.

So there has been a few new things happening with the new FK movie. 

First, they have begun shooting various scenes that will show off some of their concepts, characters, and an action sequence (the fight scene at Vachon's Deadman's VooDoo Bar).  An image from the bar scene is below.  Sean Reynolds has said that these are for showing clips to get people interested in the project, and will be used when they start crowdfunding later.  Once the movie is funded, these scenes would be re-shot.  Interestingly, the bar they are using for this scene is The Buzz Inn, in Shadyside, Ohio, USA, which is only about 2 hours from me, so not that far. 

Second, Sean has starting having live videos on Facebook, where he talks about the characters, the scenes they are filming, and answers anyone's questions.  One item he did address in this morning's broadcast was why the movie is so different from the TV show - it was very difficult to get distribution rights so they could use the names, but everything had to be completely different than the show.  In addition to interviews with him, one feed was from when they were all on break during filming.  He intends to make more of these live Q&A and behind-the-scenes videos, so something to look forward to.  Right now there is no set time for the live stream, you either get there when this is occurring or not, but hopefully he will have set times in the future so people can be there to interact with him and the others.

Third, we got some more information about the supernatural world they have created.  Their universe includes not only vampires, but werewolves, ghouls, hellhounds, other demons, angels, and more.  So there are light and dark forces at work.  The character of Nick is hunting down the darker creatures so as to redeem his soul and not go to Hell.  He is not really pursuing becoming mortal, so I guess that might reduce down what Natalie will be doing.  Possibly.  It was also reinforced that the Vachon character is very different from the show's character, and is in part, a substitute for Janette, in that he is running a bar and is interacting with Nick as Nick's mentor.  He is also a very powerful vampire, able to enforce his neutral stance in his bar because, even though a vampire, can work with the lighter supernatural forces (I guess; probably need more info about the various supernatural forces going on in their universe to figure out exactly what Vachon is tapping into for that).

So that is the updates for now, Sean giving some tidbits and some info and intends to have another live stream this evening (time: ?). 

See new photos and watch the live stream on the FK Movie Facebook Page.

Recently finished
Seitsemän kummaa veljestä, which was very interesting all the way through.

Currently reading
Still reading The Daughter of Time, also reading The Oxford History of Greece and the Hellenistic World edited by John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray, League of Dragons by Naomi Novik.

Reading next
Not sure