Signal Boost: WIP Big Bang art claims

Jul. 21st, 2025 08:03 pm
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[personal profile] mekare posting in [community profile] drawesome
[community profile] wipbigbang is holding the first round of art claims until 24th July.

Post 1

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There are many different large and small fandoms represented (books, TV, film, videogames…). Final due date for the art is 7th September.

Readercon: Empire and Complicity

Jul. 21st, 2025 02:01 pm
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

Empire and Complicity
On an episode of the Coode Street Podcast, Emily Tesh discussed how recent authors (including herself, [Ann Leckie], Yoon Ha Lee, Arkady Martine, and Tamsyn Muir) have turned the space opera into an exploration not merely of classic themes of empire and rebellion, but of much more complex questions of complicity. We see characters who not only revolt against the evil empires they inhabit, but also contend with their own roles in building and maintaining empire, and the ways in which the evil empire has benefited them personally. What works have best threaded this needle, and what does this trend in storytelling tell us about our current literary moment?
Alexander Jablokov (moderator), Carl Engle-Laird, Constance Fay, Kate Nepveu, Tom Greene

I took a lot more notes on this one because I wasn't moderating.

panel notes

I noted in my introduction that Ann Leckie was very definitely mentioned on the podcast.

Carl: complicity one of two threads saw in SFF from 2010s until very recently; the other is empire perpetrated against people and fighting back from outside. very generally, these were split on racial lines. Neon Yang's Tensorate series is example of one that's both

me: thank you for not making me be the first person to mention race. I was willing to have that be my role, but. (edit: I see on looking at con bios, while looking for Bluesky handles, that Tom Greene is biracial)

Constance: offered two authors more on romance side, who I believe were Jessie Mihalik and Jennifer Estep.

Alexander: what is it about space opera as a background for stories of complicity?

Carl: equivalent to epic fantasy; scale makes it hard to avoid empire; larger organization leads to little cogs in machine struggling

Constance: the remove makes it easier to absorb the message

me: one of failure modes for me of general stories about systemic oppression: take a real-world problem, make a very clear magical/science fictional analogue for it, and then solve that problem by fictional means. feels trivializing and frustrating. space opera doesn't give me that problem because it's an extrapolation of our world, not a parallel to or set in ours.

spoilers for Naomi Novik's Scholomance series

(I can't remember if I said this on this panel or somewhere else, but I've read Novik's most recent trilogy multiple times because it's very entertaining but taking the Omelas child, literalizing that into a magical device, and then fixing it is so not the point)

Tom: All Quiet at the Western Front and Dune are really subversive of their structure

Carl: Dune is revolution not complicity

Alexander: is this about edge versus center?

Carl: fantasy examples: The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson: Baru tries to take down system by becoming expert in the master's tools (paraphrased). Robert Jackson Bennett, Divine Cities Trilogy, core-periphery recently swapped, journeying between. can do that swap faster in genre because of implausibilities.

me: Some Desperate Glory: tiny space station of the few humans who didn't surrender after Earth destroyed by aliens, fascist leadership dangling return to their birthright of being in command

someone: and Ancillary Justice definitely starts at core

someone: says something about "critical theory-ish space opera" and asks whether the same audience is there for it

me: gets irked, says reductive to call it that, all example works are bangers. not only that but Locked Tomb is somehow New York Times bestseller, Leckie and Tesh are Hugo winners, etc.

Carl: cynical business take is that really commercially successful works get most of their success from their non-core audience anyway through snowball effect. also thinks on downswing of (idea that? books that?) think can do something about empire by writing about it. trend now for cozy and escaping. still some: a little in very popular Fourth Wing, Rebecca Yarros

me: thread in Raven Scholar, Antonia Hodgson, which is new book getting a lot of buzz around my circles

Constance, Tom: discussing Andor and how it shows why people cooperate with empire, how it starts out, the tendency of technical people to find purported technological solutions to problems and "order" appealing

me: other failure mode of complicity stories is too much about appeal of empire and guilt/helplessness for being part of it; which I don't think applies to examples, which I all like very much, but others can disagree. I look for genuine change at end to reassure self that not "just dazzled by the glittering tinsel of neo-fascism" (tm Bujold)

Carl: historically empires don't tend to fall to individuals (increasing inefficiency, slow degradation), which is problem for our genre with individualistic focus

me: yes; Imperial Radch, changes around edges, but still matter (which got me drive-by calligraphy!); Machineries of Empire, last book shows a lot of group work being done

audience: can't have enough tension if don't deal with both sides of complicity equation?

(I did not understand this question, but Carl appeared to)

Carl: is that: emotional tension by investing in oppressors and oppressed? sure. can go a long way by mechanisms that are non-personified or notional. Empire exists inside your head.

audience: does space opera require an empire? cites more anarchic seen in Delany.

Tom: also Le Guin, but environment naturally selects for it

Constance: space opera is about (? I think) expansion, so if you don't see an empire, maybe it's you ...

Carl: maybe no-true-Scotsman here, because there's no Platonic ideal of space opera And Yet ... also, on epic scale, expect to see ideology clashes.

me: I haven't read any of the Star Wars novel set during the High Republic, so I don't know whether Republic is actually not empire, but they exist. also C.J. Cherryh.

Constance: Farscape.

And that was time.

I'm not entirely sure what I was hoping for from this panel, but (though entirely consistent with the description) I didn't feel like this was it, and at the time, I didn't know how to get it into something more satisfying to me. Now, I'm still not sure; maybe more about how specific characters/stories portray complicity, what brings characters out of it, what the journey is like? Talk to me, do.

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

All Stories Are Really About _____
Conflict, change, love, consumption, human nature, and so on: commentators throughout history and across the internet have argued that All Stories are Really About (this one thing they spend all their free time thinking about). Surely one of them must be right, and in this panel our panelists will sort out which one it is, once and for all.
John Clute, Karen Heuler, LJ Cohen, Stephanie Feldman (moderator), W.B.J. (Walter) Williams

panel notes

John: not going to come to conclusion unless decide that all stories are one story. thinks distinguishing characteristics of stories: "stories really really desperately want to get told." "next, they want to be twice told. no story wants to be a story that sits alone."

Karen: simple: conflict and resolution, but that's not very personal warm cozy explanation. sometimes think all stories are about death because ultimately progress to an end, what's at the end? horror, death; mysteries, death; a lot of things that can (be related to?) concept of death in stories

LJ: relationships. character's with other, place, idea, self, desire.

Walter: an exploration of mystery. mystery may be death, sex, relationship: but looks into great unknown and attempt to make sense of it.

Stephanie: also had idea that all stories are really mysteries in prior essay. answer for today: all stories about confrontation. not necessarily resolution, sometimes can end on unresolved note, just raises: confronting secret, truth. when do workshops, so often react that this story is about capitalism, which is another way of talking about power, hierarchy of relationships.

Stephanie: hearing: talking about story on craft/mechanical level, thematic level. is there any kind of craft thing necessary to make it a story instead of some other kind of work?

John: feel like a fox in coop here, find each of these interesting and appropriate in different contexts. each story is about something, seems to be second-order observation after what decide in heart what story is. story is grammar, which is amoral. until realize that raw undefinable circle in grass that is (something) about consciousness, not going to be able to come to answer (as probably comes across, I did not understand what John was saying here)

Karen: had been talking about tools. what story really requires is emotional investment from the reader.

LJ: what is purpose of story? why humans drawn to? impulse and absolute necessity of social communication and fact that we are meaning-makers, how we're wired. investment (I think, emotional investment), can have in a poem and don't think that is a story; other kinds of artistic expression, are they all story?

Walter: flip on head, recognize that all are questioning creatures, basis of how we learn. all true but ignores fundamental curiosity that brings reader to work, which is another form of exploration. allows works that don't have satisfying endings to bring you into deeper thinking.

Stephanie: do answers change depending on length of piece?

John: do seem to be talking about contemporary written or oral stories. but? almost every story that is told, is a retelling. deep itch that is being scratched may be that it's been retold. Kim Stanley Robinson talking about slingshot ending, which has two or three different endings and leads in multiple directions: that's a 20th century artifact. (then something, didn't quite get, about needing background to communicate against)

Walter: Jungian, ancient stories about historical figures turning into (I think) myth. all of us are too educated to create something truly original. (though Naked Lunch is)

Karen: fairy tales, very often retold: most are lessons on how to survive in society. is a story a lesson of some kind?

LJ: went through period of time where reading nonfiction books of the pattern, here is the story of world as told through salt, sand, dogs. could make argument that same with story, all of answers are correct, depends on lens viewing it

Stephanie: how do we choose lens at any given time, all said "well my answer today is". do you have a lens gravitated to at point in career, or chose for specific reasons?

Walter: need to have a deep theme

LJ: ideas are everywhere and cheap, but if story is only idea, doesn't go far, unless has character and relationship

John: in end what I see is rewriting, retelling, managed to get story partly told before. cannot think of successful story that close to that hasn't been birthed out of itself

Karen: but that's a good thing, been told before gives it more weight, recognizability, authority

LJ: like sourdough starter

Stephanie: fairy tales, relationships: are all stories really about our relationship with society? do answers shift depending on genre?

LJ: don't think stories differ based on, genre is window-dressing

Walter: ditto

John: as far as reading concerned, always looking for story in which final word is full recognition of what story is about. (self-described boast: contrived to do that in one novel that wrote)

Stephanie: any examples of stories that changed mind about what stories can do?

Walter: yes, if read a lot of Japanese stories discover not driven by conflict. Kafka on the Shore (by Haruki Murakami), very typical of 4-act kind.

John: anyone remember Seiun Awards, ceremony would present awards and then second half was rehearsal in reverse. works that have temporal movement spiraling to different place.

LJ: not sure exactly answer to question, book comes to mind was frustrating, Life of Pi (by Yann Martel): loved until last chapter which enraged because will go anywhere with author if they believe in story, "really all a dream". lack of trust in audience by author.

Karen: Steppenwolf (by Herman Hesse), during reading it, decided had to have sex for first time, and did.

Walter: ... another good answer to what stories are about, sex.

audience: sounded like answers from Western tradition, other than Walt's answer, any additional?

John: didn't have room to make cartoon of what story does for human beings

Walter: why useful to go back to very very early pieces like Gilgamesh because where Western stories began to develop from

John: Gilgamesh, may have been written by first woman writer, also really fragments of it, but our instinct to intuit story highly relevant

Stephanie: answer in a negative form, reading Craft in the Real World (by Matthew Salesses), one of big critiques of The Workshop is its focus on individual triumph and individual versus world, very Western way of looking at world

audience: since story is so malleable, any thoughts on what is story's antithesis or definitively not

other audience: "This Is Not A Story," Denis Diderot

John: very hard, like vampires, can't stop seeing stories everywhere

LJ: our minds are good at holographical process, seeing little piece and filling in whole

Walter: only way nonfiction can succeed is as story

audience: thinking of own answer, which would ideally be correct across all genres and medium: pursuit of wants versus needs. then: does that make it a good story? new thought is depends on reader, what want to get out of. so question: what is one thing you are looking for, needs to be there, to find satisfying?

LJ: emotional journey

John: kind of always, when reading first time, looking for point where beginning to read it for the second, where feel like starting to get it.

Karen: opposite, if story stops surprising me probably going to put it down

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Readercon: Coherency in Storytelling

Jul. 21st, 2025 12:45 pm
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

The first report from a panel I was on. I bring handwritten notes to my own panels and take notes likewise; but when I'm moderating, this unfortunately and inevitably means my notes are biased toward what I said, because I've got less opportunity for making notes on what others say. So while I always welcome corrections and expansions, I especially do for posts about my own panels—and especially this one, wow, my notes are almost nonexistent.

(Also, let's talk about it even, or especially, if you weren't there!)

Coherency in Storytelling
When Alison Bechdel sent her mother a copy of her frank memoir, Are You My Mother?, her mother's summary judgement was, "Well, it coheres." Most writing advice is based on the assumption that coherence of narrative is a paramount value in storytelling, but is that assumption borne out? Are there works of fiction that don't cohere, but in ways that still satisfy?
Kate Nepveu (moderator), Ken Schneyer, Richard Butner, W.B.J. (Walter) Williams

panel notes

I began the panel saying that I'd submitted the idea because I'd seen this Tumblr post and been enormously struck by it, but I didn't really have a strong feeling about the questions posed by the description as revised by the lovely program team ... until I got emails from the other participants that were—to exaggerate for effect—generally "coherence! who needs it!"

This led me to suspect that other people had a different definition of coherence, of something cohering, than I did. So I started by asking the panel their definitions.

Walter: people expect stories to have cause and effect. most recent work, Johnny Talon and the Goddess of Love and War, is deliberately Surrealist, exploration of subconscious as a way of detective work (compare Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective).

Richard: lacks coherence is different than, "this makes no sense." matter of writer and reader expectations. dream logic, e.g., David Lynch (my notes here are particularly unhelpful, sorry Richard)

Ken: all parts somehow fit together and are related. however, mind creates coherence because humans are pattern making animals, very hard to avoid it. impossible for work not to have coherence because coherence is something reader imposes.

me: like a ball of dough: may have different ingredients in it, but comes together into a single Thing. the Thing may be Surrealist or deliberately messy, but can point to various elements and say, I can see what this is contributing to the overall effect. however, I had a weirdly difficult time thinking of examples of a work whose problem was that it didn't cohere.

I believe at some point, possibly here, I asked for examples of works that didn't cohere

Walter: Calvino, If on a winter's night a traveler, in light of its nesting frame stories and frustration of the reader, based on definition that is narrower than mine

someone I can't make out from my notes, possibly in the audience: works that can't cohere because creator never really finished making them, like Orson Welles' movies

there were almost certainly more but I don't have them in my notes.

some ideas I had for ways a work might not cohere under my definition, which were basically structural:

  • unwarrantedly large shift in tone, topic, etc. (some readers have this reaction to the second half of The Fortunate Fall)
  • too many balls in the air, some get dropped
  • amount of attention paid to different elements is unbalanced (e.g., we get certain details about the world; their logical implications are much different than the story suggests, but the story doesn't focus there)
  • this X seems like it's from a completely different book and I can't figure out why
  • (suggested to me by someone pre-panel) structure collapses on itself

(as a result, I disagreed with Ken about his idea that lack of coherence is impossible because coherence is inevitably created by the reader. I believe we eventually agreed that any given reader might not find coherence in a work?)

at some point someone mentioned Naked Lunch, which Richard noted depended in part on the author's public persona.

we had audience questions about how this varies by genre; how you find readers; and if there's an genre that gets its energy from asking questions rather than answering them. Walter suggested Haruki Murakami for the last one.

It seemed like a lot of audience members walked out of this one in the first half, so I felt pretty unsure about how it was going; and by the end, I was worried that I'd browbeaten the rest of the panel more than a little. One or two people did say nice things to me about over the weekend, so ... I just don't know.

(I do genuinely want honest, though not intentionally mean, feedback, on any of my panels!)

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I scheduled two interviews today

Jul. 22nd, 2025 12:34 pm
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[personal profile] conuly
With a generous leave at one commute schedule and 2 hours between them


But then it turned out the first one had inexplicably been scheduled in GMT so I didn’t eat and barely made it out the door. And I’ll have to jog to get from one to the other, too!

Picture Book Monday: A Time to Keep

Jul. 21st, 2025 12:06 pm
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[personal profile] osprey_archer
I had the vague idea that A Time to Keep: The Tasha Tudor Book of Holidays was a book of holiday celebration suggestions, and I suppose you could use it that way, but what it is really is a picture book of memories of Tasha Tudor’s holidays with her children. (Like the earlier Kate Greenaway, Tudor cheerfully clothes her children in the garb of an earlier and more picturesque era.)

She recalls dancing round the bonfire for the New Year; sugaring off in March; an Easter egg tree the decorated eggs of “goose, duck, chicken, bantam, and pigeon,” with tiny canary eggs at the very tip top. (What I would give for a sight of this tree in real life!) May baskets and Maypoles in May, watching the fireworks in the nearby village from the top of the hill on the Fourth, and her daughter’s birthday in August, with a stunning two-page spread showing the cake all glowing with candles as it floats down the stream.

Even if I had a stream, I don’t believe I would ever come up with the idea of floating a cake down it, or have the guts to do it. What if the cake capsized! But this is the difference between me and Tasha Tudor: Tudor doesn’t imagine what could go wrong, but how ethereally beautiful it would be if the cake floats down the stream all right.

A Halloween party for Halloween, with bobbing for apples and “pumpkin moonshines,” as Tudor calls jack-o-lanterns; and then Christmas, Christmas, Christmas, starting with the Advent Calendar and St. Nicholas Day (with St. Nicholas cake, whose existence I have hitherto not suspected), and a walk through the woods on Christmas eve to see the Christ child in a full size creche. And then back to the house for the Christmas tree, all glimmering with candles…

All of this is quite a lot of work, of course. A full size creche does not construct itself, and a Christmas tree with candles has to be fresh cut from the woods and watched like a hawk. But so much of the joy of holidays is in the work, if you feel the work not as a task that needs to be disposed of but a part of the celebration.
kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

The Body (of Work) Keeps the Score: Writing as Therapy
"Kill your darlings" is a common bit of writing advice. But how about killing your demons? Writing effectively often requires channeling emotional responses and personal memories, so it can also liberate them and be a cathartic experience for the writer. This panel will discuss works where the author was definitely working through some stuff, as well as the experience of using writing to exorcise one's inner antagonists.
Barbara Krasnoff (moderator), Melissa Bobe, Noah Beit-Aharon, Scott Edelman, Sophia Babai

panel notes

Barbara: start by talking about story you wrote where you were working through stuff

Noah: in current WIP, working through feelings re: loved one in abusive relationship, what it's like to feel like seeing person love but hearing person they're with through their mouth, so writing dybbuk story

Sophia: very rarely know what working through at time of writing. apologies for geopolitics but am Iranian, half of family is in Iran; writing story with ghosts djinn etc. but in real world in 2026. what I am experiencing now, protagonist did a year ago; helps empathize with protagonist who is kind of terrible, but also having future perspective really helps self

Scott: wrote essay "7 Things My Mother Told Me She Later Denied Ever Having Said" after she died, then realized should be fiction instead. could better work out feelings that way because in reality too worried about accuracy, fiction focused on themes. resulting story is on submission, now titled (approximately) "Inheritance Nobody Wants But Everybody Gets." nonfiction did not bring closure or forgiveness, but fiction did, would have thought other way around

Melissa: like that talking about form, because as thinking about this question, two books applicable are both short story collections, written in 2016 and 2020: something about ability to move through different places, settings, characters in one collection, allowed to explore complicated feelings

Barbara: father had cancer, wrote funny story about cancer; after he died, wrote funny story about death. lot of stories working through changes & losses in family, some of most successful probably because felt them more than just wrote them. question: do you find it's different when writing to exorcise political versus personal demons?

Sophia: personally, no, because have a lot of abstract rage/despair/disapproval, not writing fiction about those, writing threads on internet/news articles/having conversations. writing fiction is deeply personal things. don't really think possible to write compelling long fiction that is big and impersonal, really is about characters. regardless so much of politics is personal, people dying having debt etc., that's what makes a story

Noah: would also say that can be very hard, if even try, to separate between personal and political. writing about abusive people in this, the year of abuse, isn't going to come out apolitical. writing fiction when working through traumas or other deeply felt things, as opposed to nonfiction, nobody can fact-check your fiction. kind of freedom, about your feelings. can say, I think sucks, but not I think you're lying

Sophia: (well they can try to fact check)

Scott: when I write about "relative has undiagnosed anxiety disorder and making my life hell" can give myself closure; but writing about bigger pictures, did not make feel better

Melissa: thinking about some writers who say, want to write in space that's void of politics, because I need a break. do you stop existing as a person when you're writing, such that you don't have a political identity?

Noah: lots of people who don't want to think about politics as such, doesn't mean that their work isn't political, just don't want to acknowledge politics of what doing.

Barbara: if writing about specific person, how much feel need to disguise?

Sophia: wrote recent-ish short story that agent really liked, nervous because when writing, thought was writing about vampires, turned out to very clearly be story about my ex (audience rueful laughter)—yeah, you just learned so much from that sentence. no amount of fictionalizing will disguise that I had been in an abusive relationship, or that people will assume that was autobiographical—almost more nervous about reverse, adding fictional details that people will think are true.

Scott: even if not relatives, think average reader assumes actually happened because don't understand where ideas come from

Sophia: I keep killing sisters, multiple critique partners assumed has one. no: have brother, nothing bad allowed to happen him ever, which is why only nonbinary siblings and sisters allowed to die in stories

Melissa: semi-flippant response: people care about are so humble that wouldn't assume it's about them, and people mad at, are too self-absorbed to notice. discusses readers without boundaries stalking romance authors and something I missed

Scott: my dad did not meet Donald Trump

Noah: my WIP, any loved ones will instantly know what it's about. if and when finish, think I do plan to publish if can, because it's that level of important to me to express, but even if don't, I am doing as description and writing as own therapy, essential to write as honestly as feeling. cross bridge when come to if feelings change in future and edit story as story

Barbara: wrote story once as revenge, did nasty things to character who was doctor mistreated father. had fun writing, looked at, lousy story. other examples?

Melissa: yes, not usually throwaways because doesn't do that, but set aside for long time to get distance, find thread where went off from catharsis to become narrative, pick up from there

Noah: more honest I am when writing, better it comes out for me

Sophia: journals a lot, also first drafts run long. but never had experience of wrote from deep emotion and therefore resulting story not very good; rather, story is too vulnerable for me. sometimes frustrating, don't always want feel like presented heart on platter

Scott: is this a story or just a primal scream that hasn't been transmuted yet? if reader can see that working issues out that clearly, not art yet, just 1:1 of what going through. pause, go to journal to work that out through circular nonfiction criticism of self

Barbara: asking Sophia, is cathartic angle more successful not just for you with editors and readers

Sophia: varies widely. sound like a brag but it's a thing: my prose comes out beautiful, never had to work at sentences; but structure is weaker. so then going to come down to how deeply do you feel the emotions of this. but sometimes anger etc. makes sentences sloppier. however don't go into thinking this is going to be cathartic, see it after

Noah: worthwhile to separate between different kinds of catharsis: saying what really mean and killing stand-in character are not the same. latter not necessarily going to yield something interesting. not same kind of emotional writing which think we mostly mean, writing from deep honesty

Scott: probably most cathartic writing session ever had, flying back from con, upset about bad actors in community, wrote almost whole thing in longhand. "Boiling Point," in anthology Long Division: Stories of Social Decay, Societal Collapse, and Bad Manners. read it out loud at conventions, people come up and say, "I don't act like that," feel like story is calling them specifically out instead of being a general warning. goes back to what Melissa said about people not recognizing themselves

Barbara: ever written more than one story about person/experience/personal demon/political thing, with each looking at it differently?

Noah: multiple Orpheus/Eurydice. as kid story bothered me, some itch have to scratch by retelling many different ways. more recent days, started to feel more like Orpheus, find once again going back to

Sophia: two answers, both answers are yes. am now writing third book in a row in which main character haunted by dead sister, again I don't have a dead sister. completely different every time, what she represents, relationship, but for some reason trope keep coming back to. second, swear do have traumas that aren't geopolitical, but family has survived three separate genocides, except for current book never set out to write about, but turned out to be. at certain point not that trying to process, but that only lens I've lived. personal, non-collective traumas, usually will write about one time and then I'm good, wrote what needed to write about that: not part of worldview, thing that had feelings about. suspect will figure out what dead sister thing about one day

Barbara: was thinking about stories wrote about her/partner's grandmothers experiences, successful stories but sometimes wonder if should not have written because can't possibly imagine what was really like to have lived through that. are there stories that should be told because others not around to tell them, but how qualified am I just by virtue of listening to them?

audience: ever written something in therapeutic mode and then realized something that completely surprised you?

Melissa: feeding into processing Barbara's previous. can't stop writing about witches, think because am the friend you call in middle night to tell worst thing, that has to go somewhere and not comfortable with writing literally about. don't think realized until this conversation

Scott: not him but others, author: "this is story that helped get over X." reader: "this? this is the most depressing thing ever read"

Barbara: funniest stories ever written are about tragedies. partly because both are about father who was very funny man.

Sophia: never done revenge catharsis story, realized that experiences have had with people who caused harm, always writing from their POV. healing from perspective of getting to walk in their shoes, sometimes compassion and understanding and sometimes how awful it must be to be them. sometimes surprised by depth of sympathy experienced.

audience: anyone have safety tips or strategies for navigating writing a story that is kicking you in ancestral memory

Sophia: yes! literally one of things I specialize in. really helps to have rituals before and after, to keep contained experience. closing ritual should help move emotions through body: if can, go outside and shake body. writing is just in your head, so didn't get to express in way that nervous system understands. when getting too much, as Scott said, pause and journal to self, you are feeling sad right now because (or from/to ancestor, like a letter)—in different way than fiction writing, handwriting if can.

Noah: blessed to have number of people can talk to about writing, being able to do that is own kind of talk therapy, and talking about writing is enough removed from trauma itself, not waiting until work is perfect

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kate_nepveu: sleeping cat carved in brown wood (Default)
[personal profile] kate_nepveu

I have, let's see, 16 panels to report on from Readercon this year. So let's get started.

(For those unfamiliar: if I'm in the audience, I bring my laptop and I type as I listen. I do not purport to transcribe, though anything in quotation marks is intended to be a direct quote. For posting, I spellcheck, expand abbreviations, lightly format, and add occasional links.)

Understanding Originals Through their Responses
An expected result of discovering books in conversation with each other is that reading the older book illuminates hidden aspects of the newer one. But what of the reverse case, when reading the response tells you something new about the original? Panelists will discuss the deeply satisfying experience of appreciating originals through the responses to them, including examples they've seen, what they learned from them, and how this shaped their experience of both books.
—Greer Gilman, Melissa Bobe (moderator), Michael Dirda, Rebecca Fraimow

panel notes

Melissa: any response or original that made panelists want to be on this panel?

Michael: uncertain about panel's focus, explain?

Melissa: immediately thought of The Dark Descent of Elizabeth Frankenstein (by Kiersten White), fabulous re-imagining of Frankenstein; Hester Prynne's appearance in I, Tituba: Black Witch of Salem (by Maryse Condé), which is brief but great

Michael: thought panel was about reading contemporary works and how affect precursors. essay by Borges, Kafka and His Precursors

If I am not mistaken, the heterogeneous pieces I have listed resemble Kafka; if I am not mistaken, not all of them resemble each other. The last fact is what is most significant. Kafka’s idiosyncrasy is present in each of these writings, to a greater or lesser degree, but if Kafka had not written, we would not perceive it; that is to say, it would not exist.

(quoted from a PDF article called "Re-reading 'Kafka and His Precursors'" hosted by the Borges Center)

Rebecca: how later memetic impressions affect. adaptation versus in conversation: get different things out of them. adaptation, what someone pulls out from original; go back and see, hadn't noticed that before. conversation, sometimes argument, His Dark Materials v. Narnia

Greer: film script for Little Women turned understanding of book, which has known for so long, on head. script branches Jo into one that's in the book and one who is writing the book Little Women. very odd way makes it science-fictional, branched off

Melissa: holds society in which Alcott was existing accountable in way. Mansfield Park film adaptation, fleeting but powerful moment that contextualizes it re: race & colonialism

Michael: is that unfair in a way? undermining book, making think that it is something that isn't

Rebecca: one of things that's really exciting about reading about books in conversations. reading a lot of Great Gatsby adaptations, now going back to original which hadn't read since high school: what people are pulling out that hadn't noticed when reading at 16. in Nghi Vo's The Chosen and the Beautiful, a character is actually paper: can see how that character in original isn't characterized. also see things that aren't being picked up by adaptations: there are three moments everyone does and some that no-one does, very interesting

Melissa: "fairness," such fraught word, how we dare read or write in these ways

Rebecca: we call it fair use

Melissa: Winnie the Pooh slasher film, definitely not what Milne intended, at same time, for those of us who thought kid in Giving Tree a horror show...

Rebecca: getting mad at responses can tell you something about original as well

Michael: matters what order encounter in. if read Tolkien first, then Old English literature: see where Tolkien got all ideas. other way: Tolkien seems like watered-down Old English Literature.

Greer: speaking of order, read Sir Thomas Browne before Moby-Dick. going back to Browne writing about sperm whale washed up on shore, he's trying to describe first contact. also realized that this is before they know how to use whales, sudden rush into world where weren't hunting

(me, to myself: also Moby-Dick was before Origin of Species, which makes the classification chapter read a lot differently!)

Rebecca: read Railsea before Moby-Dick, which contains riff where all captains talk about their obsessions and understand that white whale is a metaphor and an idea. then read Moby-Dick, yes, whale is a metaphor, I understand

(me, to myself, because I'm like that: yes, but also "for the last time the whale is real and it ate my husband")

Michael: are we saying that shouldn't read in context of time?

Rebecca: put multiple lenses on a thing, very rewarding

Melissa: we are of our own time, never going to be able to put self perfectly in reader of time

Michael: why do we want to do these things? "distort"

(me, to myself: I truly cannot tell if he is genuinely objecting or is exploring ideas)

Rebecca: not distortion to lay two interpretations against each other and see where they differ. new Green Knight movie: half people I know considered it very medieval, half not. thinks movie's thematic concerns points out the (different) ones of the original

Greer: "things just happening" was a medieval structure. very difficult effort to get head entirely Gawain-poet's mind: bits of you that don't fit, weren't educated to have those feelings. can reconstruct them, "that's the worst dishonor in the world," but difficult--wonderful thing to try

Melissa: have been talking very much about contemporary re-imaginings of older texts, but lot of older texts did same with even older

Michael: it's also criticism. T.S. Eliot said (I think) that each new work shifts our understanding of works in the past, that's not static. once Raphael was considered great artist, but sentimental works after him make look him like kitsch

Rebecca: one of reasons excited about revisiting: if only seen kitsch, the shock of looking at original and finding that still has power. reading The Iliad for first time, not at all what expected to be

Greer: always been interested in artistic and literary fakes, constantly true that it looks great--at the moment. Kenneth Clark looked at Botticelli and said, "that's a silent film star," and it was, but at time was the ideal of beauty. [I think these two comments were not connected, since Clark seems to have been a critic rather than a forger.] sometimes places where you're standing, can't see what book or work of art is, have to be in it or further away for it. "the 18th century had some damn weird Gothic," that is what they saw [clearly I missed something here, sorry]

Melissa: Gothic chapbooks, or bluebooks, were frequently rushed copies of original higher-production texts, which permitted accessibility to public which didn't have to original. anyone who went to see Beethoven symphony when he was alive, would never hear again, transience. is that affecting how responding?

Michael: Milton was Christian epic poet, until Blake came along and turned Paradise Lost into romantic outcast story. happens all the time. book about a devastated city [title of which I missed] which turns into climate fiction (to a present-day reader)

Rebecca: also exciting when see thematic affiliation that was always there. Iliad: scene where throw up wall in one night; WWI poets always referencing that in making trenches. then Some Desperate Glory (by Emily Tesh) now is looking at WWI poets.

Greer: sometime an artist will go back to younger self, say, no, that's no longer my world. LeGuin returning again and again to Earthsea, asking self, where is the feminism. TH White returning to The Sword and Stone, now this is about fascism.

Michael: complicated. example comes to mind, Henry James, rewrote story to make much more prolix, some readers think original better. artist can decide what version want to send down to history, but is artist best judge? was LeGuin betraying younger self?

Greer: first three Earthsea books are things of beauty. Shakespeare went back to Lear and made it grimmer [note: I am not sure if this is, Shakespeare revisited King Lear in a later play, or Shakespeare was revisiting an earlier play in Lear, or Shakespeare was making the story of Leir grimmer]

Michael: Tehanu, powerful but didn't belong to the first few books.

Melissa: tension between us as consumers of texts and the rights the artists have to their opinion. never fact-checked professor who said that on opening night of Mother Courage and Her Children, Brecht was appalled because audience gave Mother Courage a standing ovation: he ran through audience boo'ing trying to get them to boo

(me: was audience applauding the performer not the character??)

Michael: does that mean he failed as artist, by not achieving his intent

Melissa: but we still read and perform. important: when respond, saying, this exists and should be read. kind of resurrection of work if fallen out of favor/public mind

Rebecca: theater opposed to novel. play always continually reinterpreted, always possibility. don't think that that's as far away from novel as might think. engagement and conversation is always happening, having a text to point you to that conversation is generous and valuable, invitation to join

Michael: are there are certain books that are strong, archetypal, have so many possibilities. The Odyssey. Little Women, so attuned to questions of gender, we want to make these texts fit our views. Shakespeare, should we perform as in Elizabethian times, have we lost something otherwise? very uncertain when came to panel

Greer: (comment about tug of war between something and artist's soul that I could not get down)

Melissa: Michael had asked earlier (in comment I didn't transcribe) if this question was something new, maybe that's what: aspects of text that weren't celebrated at time

Greer: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, turns it inside-out

Rebecca: doesn't take anything away from Hamlet that R&G exists. dream is to watch back to back with same cast

Melissa: Wide Sargasso Sea

Michael: asks Elizabeth Hand (in audience) to talk about her Hill House book, A Haunting on the Hill. what did you think about when decided to do this?

Elizabeth: first thing I thought was, "oh no." told Estate going in that not going to do pastiche, backstory, explanation. wanted to write an Elizabeth Hand novel set in Hill House, is that okay? yeah, go for it. otherwise would not have been able to write, because those characters were Jackson's characters; so was Hill House, but it was also archetype in way that humans are not, because they don't have iconic stature that house did. own characters inhabit House and riff off of Jackson's.

Elizabeth cont'd: listening to panel and thinking, why do we do this? return to work of others we admire? really don't know. fiction in last 20-30 years become much more malleable (like plays) than used to be, artists and writers and fanfic writers. very exciting time, I too enjoy reading all riffs on Great Gatsby

Rebecca: one of foremost ways to keep a work alive, responses to it. le Carré's son just put out new novel about Smiley, father said to him on deathbed, please keep people reading Smiley, so guessed only way to do it is write new one

Michael: Pratchett took total opposite approach

Melissa: q to Greer: did you read Little Women as child?

Greer: oh yes, very picky about it

Melissa; my theory is based on small children. anyone experienced a 3 year old, whatever book they land on, need to have backup copies and will be so sick of by time they're 4. but most comforting thing in world to them.

audience: response to Michael: modern mindset cannot see The Merchant of Venice in way original audience did. that said, The Tamer Tamed, written by Shakespeare collaborator 10 years later: frequently seeing those two performed together

audience: thinking about "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and its many responses: works that people find challenging and want to respond to, moves people, makes them want to think, wants to have conversations. hoping to hear about those kind of stories

Rebecca: if come away from book wanting to argue with, feel like has internalized better. thinks why a lot of works are in conversation with Dorothy L. Sayers.

audience: fanfic is entirely in conversation.

Rebecca: some fans of TV show The Terror have become fans of historical polar explorers. fandom helped find bones because read original journals after being mad about way portrayed in show. (note: a quick look hasn't turned up a link on this, can anyone help?) fandom can drive changing responses to original.

Greer: found Richard III, did not change narrative of Richard III in some people's minds

audience: when read good book, look at what author read to write that, works well. (separately:) took 15 years after watching Howl's Moving Castle to know that Diana Wynne Jones existed. as authors, how can we convey importance of works that are adapting. (examples cite are all films)

Greer: talk to Marketing?

(me, to myself: surely this is what author's notes are for)

Rebecca: wish books came with annotated bibliographies. reading about Alan Garner who over course of life, got more and more resistant to mentioning that was responding to something, felt was failure of work. in Owl Service, mentions the Mabinogion, but in Red Shift, have to know it's Tam Lin

audience: thinking about being in engineering school and taking science fiction class, reading "The Cold Equations", other student wrote about how stupid the engineering design was. really think about how see engineering now as opposed to when written. other works like that?

sadly, no, because we were out of time.

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 17


+1 (thumbs-up, I see you, etc.)?

View Answers

+1
17 (100.0%)

Austen Exchange Letter

Jul. 21st, 2025 01:22 pm
vaznetti: (Default)
[personal profile] vaznetti
Hello Author! I'm so excited to finally be signing up for this exchange, and the tag set is full of really cool options. It has been really tough to narrow my choices down, and I am enthusuastic about all of my requests, so much so that I decided to write a letter to keep track of my prompts. I also want to say that all these prompts are only suggestions, and if you have a story in mind, go for it! I love receiving stories which are a total surprise (obviously provided they don't clash with my DNWs.)

General Likes and DNWs )

preferences about fanfic for Austen canons )

Right! On to the prompts and comments for each request! As I said above, these are just suggestions, so feel to take whatever we matched on in a new direction if you prefer.


Mansfield Park - Jane Austen: F!Edmund Bertram/Fanny Price; Mary Crawford/Fanny Price; Tom Bertram/Henry Crawford; Tom Bertram/Fanny Price )


Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen: Caroline Bingley/Colonel Fitzwilliam; Caroline Bingley/Fizwilliam Darcy; Lydia Bennet/Colonel Fitzwilliam; Lydia Bennet/George Wickham; Jane Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy )


Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen: Colonel Brandon/Elinor Dashwood; Elinor Dashwood/John Willoughby; Edward Ferrars/Lucy Steele; Elinor Dashwood/Lucy Steele; Marianne Dashwood & Eliza Williams )


Crossover Pairings, so many crossover pairings: Caroline Bingley (P&P - Austen)/Any Hero From Another Austen Book (Any Other Austen Book); Tom Bertram (MP - Austen)/Caroline Bingley (P&P - Austen); Caroline Bingley (P&P - Austen)/Mary Crawford (MP - Austen); James Benwick (Persuasion - Austen)/Fanny Price (MP - Austen; James Benwick (Persuasion - Austen)/Marianne Dashwood (S&S - Austen); Elinor Dashwood (S&S - Austen)/Any Hero From Another Austen Book (Any Other Austen Book); Any Antagonist (Any Austen Book) & Any Other Antagonist (Any Other Austen Book) )

Books 66 - 69 of 2025: More Cozies

Jul. 21st, 2025 09:10 am
spikedluv: (summer: sunflowers by candi)
[personal profile] spikedluv
Posting these separately (and out of order) so that my Wednesday post isn't super long.


Book 66 of 2025: S'more Murder (Camping Girl Mysteries) (Josephine Beintema)

I enjoyed this book. spoilers )

I liked this book enough to read more, but not urgently. I’m giving it four hearts.

♥♥♥♥



Book 67 of 2025: Raspberry Chocolate Murder (Dolphin Bay Cozy Mysteries) (Leena Clover)

I enjoyed this book. spoilers )

This book came in an box set of three, so I’ll probably read the rest of the set, then decide whether to continue. I’m giving this book four hearts.

♥♥♥♥



Book 68 of 2025: Mozzarella Murder (A Rolling Dough Pizza Truck Mystery) (R.M. Murphy)

This book was pretty good. spoilers )

I enjoyed this book well enough, but I don’t think I’ll be continuing the series. I’m giving this book four hearts.

♥♥♥♥



Book 69 of 2025: Riddle in the Review (The Inn at Holiday Bay) (Kathi Daley)

Good book. spoilers )

I enjoyed this book and am giving it five hearts.

♥♥♥♥♥


I DNF’d on cozy about 1/3 of the way through: Caramel Conspiracy (A Molly Sweetwater Mystery) (Sophie Love)

Clarke Award Finalists 2006

Jul. 21st, 2025 08:52 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
2006: J. Richard Gott III’s methodology suggests 80-year-old Queen Elizabeth will live until somewhere between 2032 and 2066, a European heatwave sets a record that will surely stand in perpetuity, and Profumo’s demise at an advanced age reminds Britons of the dire consequences for politicians of scandal… nil.

Poll #33385 Clarke Award Finalists 2006
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 54


Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

Air by Geoff Ryman
20 (37.0%)

Accelerando by Charles Stross
37 (68.5%)

Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
14 (25.9%)

Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
19 (35.2%)

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
10 (18.5%)

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
10 (18.5%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read,, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2006 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
Air by Geoff Ryman
Accelerando by Charles Stross
Banner of Souls by Liz Williams
Learning the World by Ken MacLeod
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds
spikedluv: (summer: sunflowers by candi)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I did a load of laundry (washed, dried AND hung up!), hand-washed dishes, and scooped kitty litter before heading to mom’s ~10am. I stayed until my usual time of ~3pm. I washed, dried and folded (I can’t emphasize enough how big a deal it is that I managed to get a load dried and folded!) another load of laundry, hand-washed more dishes, and showered after I got home.

Supper was *drum roll* BBQ chicken quarters!! When I stopped to get the pulled pork yesterday, I had asked about the chicken bbq they held pretty regularly and was told next Friday, so Pip and I decided that's what we'd have for supper next Friday. Somehow I must have jinxed us, because Pip's buddy showed up with more BBQ chicken quarters yesterday, lol! So we're having chicken this weekend. Not sure if that means it's off the table for next Friday. o_O

I watched the second ep of Strange New Worlds and an HGTV program, and finished the Rivers of London book.

Temps started out at 69.8(F) and reached 92 (according to Pip; it was already over 80 when I left the house mid-morning, so it’s very possible). We had some very short bursts of rain; not enough to do more than wet things pretty good.


Mom Update:

Mom was feeling better today. more back here )

Not too many sharks

Jul. 21st, 2025 10:49 am
liv: alternating calligraphed and modern letters (letters)
[personal profile] liv posting in [community profile] livredor
So what happened is that I semi-broke my Ubuntu install, and I tried to fix it without too much crying at my more technically competent partners. In process I expanded my knowledge and confidence, but ended up not being completely able to fix it on my own.

what happened and what I learned )

So I now understand what grub is, how to get to a terminal from a screen of death, and have some notion of the difference between dpkg and apt (though I am almost certainly not competent to actually drive them without help). And I now have a lovely well-behaved laptop running Ubuntu 24.04 with working sound and no sharks.

Word use question

Jul. 21st, 2025 07:03 pm
fred_mouse: screen cap of google translate with pun 'owl you need is love'. (owl)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

I have another 'who is this regionalised to' question. I use 'pike' as a verb to mean 'cancel on a social event'. Youngest has learned this from me, but tells me that none of their friends recognise it. Many of their friends are immigrants or children of immigrants, but not all, so you'd think at least the Skips would know it.

So: do you use it? Do you consider it to be a normal regional word?

(I am out of time, so no poll to find out the frequency of use)

Tall Ships

Jul. 21st, 2025 10:39 am
urbanoceanix: belt (Default)
[personal profile] urbanoceanix
Watching the tall ships aberdeen instagram stories is making me want to reread copperbadge's tall ships focused shivadh story Pirates of the Riviera - a kid on the story just said he’s volunteering aboard as part of his schooling and made me think of noah? Actually I might just settle in and reread the whole thing. Words: 561,081. Works: 19
petra: Superman looking downward with a pensive expression (Clark - Beautiful night)
[personal profile] petra
The sidekick with no fear (100 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: DCU (Comics), Welcome to Night Vale
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Clark Kent & James "Jimmy" Olsen
Characters: James "Jimmy" Olsen, Clark Kent
Additional Tags: Drabble, Crack
Summary:

Jimmy's not from around here either.

*

Inspired by this Tumblr post.

Write Every Day: Day 20

Jul. 20th, 2025 06:05 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: Dinking around with the pod-together stories. Some, uh, research for possible titles? Which did not pan out, but so it goes.

Day 20: [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 19: [personal profile] badly_knitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

more days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

A good grade

Jul. 20th, 2025 04:16 pm
azurelunatic: A glittery black pin badge with a blue holographic star in the middle. (blue star)
[personal profile] azurelunatic
One of the LED bulbs in the bathroom vanity developed a distracting (which is code for sensory nope) flicker. Since the porch fixture takes the same bulb, I proposed that the ailing bulb become a public nuisance rather than a private one.


One of my oncologists (I believe I have dubbed her Dr. Bitsblobs, the oncology gynecologist) is retiring soon. So she has been bidding her patients farewell. Apparently I am a "gold star" patient in terms of trying my best to comply with medical advice, and for self-advocacy. A good grade in cancer, something that is normal to want and possible to achieve.

former tripwires

Jul. 20th, 2025 12:03 pm
thistleingrey: (Default)
[personal profile] thistleingrey
Because my nearest aunt (in her lifetime quest for the status and domestic comforts reft from her at single-digit age) encouraged it, and because my father didn't want to spend money unnecessarily, my mother usually consulted my aunt for should-we-go-to-the-doctor medical questions. i'm fineish, no different from last month, but i have an idea )

ICONS: Fangs of Fortune

Jul. 20th, 2025 03:51 pm
tarlanx: Huaien and Xiabao walking together on orange background (Cdrama - Meet You at Blossom 2 - HX)
[personal profile] tarlanx posting in [community profile] c_ent
Title: Zhu Yan
Author: Tarlan ([personal profile] tarlanx)
Fandom: Fangs of Fortune (TV)
Pairing/Characters: Zhu Yan (and Zhuo Yichen)
Rating/Category: PG GEN
Size: ICONS

Fangs of Fortune - Zhu Yan 01 by Tarlan Fangs of Fortune - Zhu Yan 02 by Tarlan Fangs of Fortune - Zhu Yan 03 by Tarlan Fangs of Fortune - Zhu Yan 04 by Tarlan Fangs of Fortune - Zhu Yan 05 by Tarlan Fangs of Fortune - Zhuo Yichen and Zhu Yan 01 by Tarlan
 
umadoshi: (berries in bowls (roxicons))
[personal profile] umadoshi
Reading: Mostly non-fiction last week, oddly. Still slowly reading through An Everlasting Meal, as well as flipping through a couple of new cookbooks in hard copy*. I also started reading Maureen Ryan's Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood.

As for fiction, I started--brace yourself--listening to an audiobook. I don't really do audio formats at all! But [personal profile] scruloose has never read Murderbot, and the audiobooks seem to be WIDELY beloved, so I thought maybe we could follow Kas and Ginny's example and listen to one or more of those together. So I borrowed All Systems Red from Hoopla (another first for me), and yesterday we listened to the first three chapters or so. (I highly doubt I'm going to take up non-music audio media in any meaningful way, but who knows? Three chapters was definitely not enough to make it stop feeling weird, though.)

*A small order from Book Outlet contained What Goes with What: 100 Recipes, 20 Charts, Endless Possibilities (Julia Turshen); Half the Sugar, All the Love: 100 Easy, Low-Sugar Recipes for Every Meal of the Day (Jennifer Tyler Lee and Anisha Patel), which crossed my radar early on in the "must keep an eye on blood sugar" process and stuck because it doesn't use any artificial sweeteners (since I've never met one I didn't hate); Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End; and the first and third installments of the Murderbot Diaries consolidated editions, which means I now own books 1, 2, 6, and 7 in hard copy.

Not sure if I'll just keep an eye out for the second volume to turn up there too or if I'll cave and just buy it. I'm glad there's a release that combines novellas! But I'm also eyeing the hard copy option for Network Effect and wondering if there's going to be a release of it that matches this set. I like all the original covers, but I also like my physical books to match. (Does anyone know if there's any plan for a matching rerelease?)

(Am I still grumpy that--unless something's changed?--it seems like the first three of Wells' Raksura books got released in mass market paperbacks, which I pounced on because that's my preferred format, but the fourth and fifth didn't? YES.)

Cooking/Baking: Mid-week, [personal profile] scruloose picked up some strawberries that tasted and looked fine but had a slightly odd texture (kind of...mushy? But nothing was visibly wrong?), so we turned most of them into this Buttermilk Blueberry Strawberry Breakfast Cake. It was tasty enough, but not so tasty that I immediately understood why it's one of the two most popular recipes on the site; that said, in addition to swapping the berries, we didn't have fresh lemon zest on hand and used the granulated peel from Silk Road (and also, my impression is that while blueberry and lemon are an iconic flavor pairing, that's not true of strawberry and lemon) and did the vinegar-in-milk substitution for buttermilk. So who knows.

Yesterday [personal profile] scruloose had to go downtown to one of the large markets because that's the only place our usual meat guy vends and we'd placed a fairly large order (sadly, to replace one from a few weeks ago that met a tragic end by not getting put into the freezer soon enough). But en route, they stopped at the little corner market and got two containers each of raspberries, strawberries, and blueberries, plus some new potatoes. So now we are SWIMMING in berries, which is a wonderful state of affairs. I imagine there's no way we'll make it through all of them by just eating them straight, so we'll see what we wind up doing.

2529 / Fic - The Pitt

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:30 am
siria: (the pitt - robby swag)
[personal profile] siria
how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
The Pitt | Jack/Robby | ~2100 words | Thanks to [personal profile] sheafrotherdon for betaing. Contains canon-typical suicidal ideation.

(Also on AO3)

'How the fuck do you have wings?' Robby's back on the rooftop. )

The Yin-Yang Master:DoE Wallpapers

Jul. 20th, 2025 01:46 pm
tarlanx: 3/4 side profile Qingming and Boya standing back to back (Cdrama - Yin-Yang Master 2 - together)
[personal profile] tarlanx posting in [community profile] c_ent
Title: Teleportation
Author: Tarlan ([personal profile] tarlanx)
Fandom: The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity
Pairing/Characters: Qingming and Boya
Rating/Category: PG GEN
Size: Wallpapers (1920x1080)

Four wallpapers I created for [community profile] fandom_empire WEEK 10

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity - FOUR Wallpapers
The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity wallpaper

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity wallpaper

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity wallpaper

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity wallpaper

 

Scotswap 2025

Jul. 20th, 2025 01:39 pm
vaznetti: (wandering albatross)
[personal profile] vaznetti
I survived Scotswap 2025! Just kidding -- but it's been a long time since I have done a single fandom exchange and it is really nice to be able to read everything in the tagset. This exchange didn't have an anon period, so I can post about my gift and my story today!

I received this great AU in which Marthe does her best to extricate herself from the Dame de Doubtance's plans for her. It's beautifully written and there are some killer lines about how Marthe sees herself in relation to her brother:

Vagabond (3264 words) by morethanfantasy
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny & Marthe
Characters: Marthe (Lymond Chronicles), Jerott Blyth, Original Characters
Additional Tags: Character Study, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Summary: But it had always been about him the same way it had never been about Marthe, his shadow-self, his equal and opposite. exploring one way Marthe might have walked out on Francis Crawford and fate

And I wrote a story about Richard, reflecting on his relationship with Francis after the shipwreck in Ringed Castle:

the ancient customs of our ancestors (1965 words) by Vaznetti
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Lymond Chronicles - Dorothy Dunnett
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Francis Crawford of Lymond and Sevigny & Richard Crawford, Mariotta Crawford/Richard Crawford, Richard Crawford & Sybilla Crawford
Characters: Richard Crawford, Mariotta Crawford
Additional Tags: missing scene - Ringed Castle, Introspection, Gavin and Sybilla Crawford were not the greatest parents, Sibling Rivalry, letter-writing, Unsent letters
Summary: After meeting Francis at Philorth, Richard Crawford returns to Midculter, wondering whether the brother he thought he knew had ever existed at all.

Now I am off to sign up for [community profile] austenexchange -- I seem to write so much Austen fic for other exchanges, I don't know why I have never signed up for this one before.
spikedluv: (summer: sunflowers by candi)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I hit Price Chopper and the Bakery while I was downtown and got in a walk around the park.

Morning chores included mixing up egg salad, tossing a load of laundry into the washer, baking chicken for the dogs' meals, hand-washing some dishes, scooping kitty litter, and taking the dogs for a walk during which I also picked more berries.

I visited mom ~11:15am to ~2:30pm. After I got home I dried and folded the morning load of laundry, washed and dried another, and hand-washed more dishes. The reason I left earlier than usual was that I found out that there was a ‘pig roast’ happening, so I stopped there on the way home and got some pulled pork. I didn’t know what time they stopped serving as there were no times on the signs, so I wanted to play it safe. I also husked corn for supper because someone had given Pip a half dozen ears.

I watched last week’s ep of Resident Alien and an HGTV program, and read more in Rivers of London.

Temps started out at 50.0(F) (it was freaking cold!) and reached 87.4. It felt so cold I wore a scarf and light gloves with my hoodie when I left the house (and brought along a jacket just in case). By the time I went for a walk at 8:30am it was much warmer. And then it got surprisingly warm for a day that started out at 50.

(Today is my brother’s birthday! He’s seven years younger than me. I think I’ve mentioned, but I’m the oldest of the bunch.)


Mom Update:

Mom was feeling kind of meh today. more back here )

Write Every Day: Day 19

Jul. 19th, 2025 03:04 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: More work on the pod-together stories. Today was largely "what you need to know to enjoy this story" fandom summaries, but also a handful of titles and working out some of the posting details. ("A handful of titles," fml.)

Day 19: [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] ysilme

Day 18: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] ysilme

more days )

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!

Bad Cows

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:31 pm
ranunculus: (Default)
[personal profile] ranunculus
Yesterday evening I got a call from Marika and Rosemary.  "Do the neighbors have cows?"  No,  they don't.  Once again most of the herd was out. They had forced their way though the very same hole as they had before, breaking all the wire we installed.   I called Kerri, Cody's wife then jumped in the Gator and zipped down to the fence.  I got around a big bunch of cows that were still right near the boundary and pushed them out the gate and back onto our place. 
In the Gator I had a partial roll of barbed wire. While Kerri was coming up the steep driveway to Rudy's, I began rolling out barbed wire.  Three new strands of it across the broken area.  Once that was in place, and the rest of the cows were in, we began weaving more strands of barbed wire vertically. They won't break that stuff!  We worked long after full dark to reinforce the fence with all the cows right there watching us.  As I left Kerri suggested I move the herd up the hill away from that particular spot.  It was hard getting them going but eventually the whole bunch started up the hill.  Chena helped by barking enthusiastically. She clearly was watching me carefully, and after a few minutes she voluntarily trotted back around a slow group and got them moving. I called her off as soon as they moved and told her what a good girl she was.  After a few forays to move various cows, I felt confident enough to send her out to bark, and then call her back to the Gator.  She was SO proud of herself!  I'm delighted to have a dog who has figured out that her job is to help move cows, but ONLY when asked.  There were a couple of times this summer when she tried to move the cows away from the house and got yelled at. It was clear last night that she absolutely understood the difference between working for me, and not chasing stock when she wasn't "working".  I don't think she will ever be more than mildly helpful, but as is often the case I'm awed by what instinct combined with intelligence produces. 
Today I went back down to the fence and continued fixing it up. After a while Kerri showed up and together we got Rudy's whole line fixed up.  We added another strand of barbed wire all the way to the south corner, plus a lot of vertical stays.  The fence needs some more t-posts but it should do for now.

garden update

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:12 pm
thistleingrey: (Default)
[personal profile] thistleingrey
The plants that the landscaper placed too close to a fence and that I was too ignorant to gainsay have been deformed variously for neighborly relations, now that those plants are tall enough to peek over. Leaving the resulting twigs where foot traffic would otherwise result in winter mud has been effective, so far. Tiny housemate considers it her duty to pull them apart somewhat, to the extent that she complains if I don't toss the cut branches her way. She's learned not to linger over the ones whose bark oils are dog-unfriendly, and whenever I use my thumbnails to strip drying bark, she complains again: just toss the stick!

The persimmon tree grew so much in response to the unusually wet spring that several branches became long and heavy by midsummer, apt to break---more lopping.

Most plants my height or shorter have been drifting towards sere yellow-brown, except the peony, which almost chose dormancy this year and has put up a hand-height of leaves. Self-seeded dill shoots have appeared again, thanks to the ants. Self-seeded California poppy has dried out for the season. Half the hydrangeas are the smallest they've been so far, between drowning in oxalis over winter and being too shaded by other plants since spring; the other half look much as they did last year. A neighbor's semi-myrtle, which smells similar to eucalyptus whenever I trim the overhang from my side of our fence, has sent up shoots more than a meter into my yard, including beneath one hydrangea. The latter may not last, since I try not to water that corner as a result.

The wisteria stub nudged a handful of green vines upwards, which tiny housemate tried showing me, then eating. (The eating was thwarted.) Last year, with a drier preceding winter, the wisteria stub was quiet. My struggles to find and discard wisteria seed pods before tiny housemate could poison herself were the prior fall, when she was a puppy. I suspect she was only showing me a new thing in the yard, not remembering the seed pods, but even hey-look is pretty cool from a dog when it's not something the dog has caused.
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Four works new to me. three novels, one TTRPG supplement. Two appear to be fantasy, one SF, and one is a mystery (by an author famous for their fantasy). Two appear to be stand-alone and two are series.

Books Received, July 12 — July 19



Poll #33375 Books Received, July 12 — July 19
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 43


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (April 2026)
13 (30.2%)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sea Wardens of Cothique by Dave Allen, Dominic McDowall, Michael Duxbury, Jude Hornborg, Naomi Hunter, Steven Lewis, Simon Wileman, et al (4th Quarter, 2025)
1 (2.3%)

Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald (February 2026)
18 (41.9%)

Enola Holmes and the Clanging Coffin by Nancy Springer (February 2026)
12 (27.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
1 (2.3%)

Cats!
30 (69.8%)

Weekly Chat

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:57 pm
dancing_serpent: (Photos - tea cup & green leaves)
[personal profile] dancing_serpent posting in [community profile] c_ent
The weekly chat posts are intended for just that, chatting among each other. What are you currently watching? Reading? What actor/idol are you currently following? What are you looking forward to? Are you busy writing, creating art? Or did you have no time at all for anything, and are bemoaning that fact?

Whatever it is, talk to us about it here. Tell us what you liked or didn't like, and if you want to talk about spoilery things, please hide them under either of these codes:
or

Farewell: Tess Williams

Jul. 19th, 2025 07:38 pm
fred_mouse: line drawing of a ladybug with love-heart shaped balloons (ladybug)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

I have been informed that Tess Williams passed away earlier this week.

Tess was a family friend*, a valued member of the local fannish community, and a gifted writer. I thoroughly recommend their books Map of Power and Sea As Mirror if you can get hold of them.

They will be missed.

*in this case, part of my mother's extended social crowd in my teenage years.

spikedluv: (summer: sunflowers by candi)
[personal profile] spikedluv
I had a pedicure this morning; I went with a periwinkle again and she gave me a nice design. I got in a walk around the park and hit the farm stand on the way home. While I was downtown I remembered to stop by the bank to deposit money in Baby A’s account (I give her money for her birthday and Christmas, since she gets a ton of stuff from everyone else. And a book, naturally.).

I visited mom from 11am to 3pm. I also hand-washed dishes and scooped kitty litter. I grilled chicken legs for Pip’s supper, cut up chicken for the dogs, and hard-boiled eggs.

I read more in Rivers of London, started and finished another Kindle cozy, and watched the first new ep of Strange New Worlds.

Temps started out at 59.7(F) (I wore a sweatshirt and was still chilled during the walk from the house to the garage) and reached 77.7 with sun and a breeze. It was cool enough this morning that I wore a scarf and pair of light gloves on my walk around the park, but by afternoon the temps were perfect. That’s pretty much my ideal.


Mom Update:

Mom was doing well today. more back here )

University Library

Jul. 19th, 2025 03:21 pm
fred_mouse: black and white version of WA institute of technology logo (university)
[personal profile] fred_mouse
One of the weirdnesses about being on the current campus is that while I've never studied here, I have a long history of being here.

In either 1980 or 1982 (probably the latter, but it doesn't quite add up) my mother was doing a Post-Grad Dip to convert from being a math teacher to a school psych. For reasons I either didn't know or have forgotten, I would be collected from school one day a week by one of the other students, and taken to campus. There, in theory, I was in the care of P--a friend of my mother's--who was a/the computer tech in what was then the psych building. I certainly hung out in their workshop a lot, learning a stack about computer games, and a small amount about other computer based skills.

I also hung out in two other spots. The first of these is the courtyard of the psych building, which has a water feature and what are now some very well developed trees. I went and had lunch there a couple of weeks ago and got a bit teary, because I lost track of P (who was incredibly important later on) and I suspect at this point they have passed on and I'll never actually get to have some of the conversations I regret not having. (Also, that there is a significant chance that the next I hear about my mother will be their funeral; or worse, post that).

The second was the library. Seven floors, of which I think five were accessible to non-librarians at that time. I used to wander around and find things to read. And books for doing my (primary school) assignments. It was musty and dusty and full of books and absolutely heaven for a book minded child. It continued to be like that for future encounters, including during my undergraduate years, where sometimes the journals I needed were not available at any of the libraries of the university I was enrolled at (there were, if I remember correctly, four libraries I used regularly which were 'on campus' if one counts the Med library as campus) and so I trekked elsewhere.

In the last few years, it has been significantly upgraded, remodelled and modernised. To the point that there are almost no books on floors 3-7. There is a locked area full of compactus on floor 2, as well as a set of borrowable books in an accessible space. The ones in the compactus have to be requested; so far my experience is that it takes 2-3 hours for them to become available, so a quick look can't happen (unless one is lucky and the book one wants is available in ebook, which is, I gather, between 80 and 90% of the collection). I haven't had a good look at the readily available for borrow ones, but it is a smaller area than the smallest suburban library I've been in. So, no just wandering and finding a book.

Except! They have fiction books scattered in sections over most of the floors. And these are borrowable on an honour system. You don't have to do anything to borrow them except pick them up and walk out with them. They aren't catalogued. It is so neat an idea that I've borrowed two (because I ended up in the library for a couple of hours for nothing else to do, so I borrowed a second before I'd finished the first).

Saturday plans

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:55 pm
fred_mouse: top down view of hot cup of coffee with 'friday!' written over the top (coffee)
[personal profile] fred_mouse

Original plans for today: get brunch (with Youngest and Artisanat), and go past the place that does the good peanut butter on the way home. Achieved! We went to 'The Little Olive'* in, hmm, probably-Melville. They had GF spinach and ricotta rolls, so that was breakfast. They also have an interesting range of sweets, so we got two to share between us. Stopped at Kardinya to get peanut butter; also looked for the good muesli bars in Coles (assumption: they have been discontinued) and got some alternatives; went to the UK Lolly Shop and got rhubarb and custard hard lollies.

And then home. Where my goal for the afternoon is not to waste time on the internet. Being on the internet is fine, just not faffing around. So far I've watched about an hour and a half on Obsidian, note-taking, and related topics while progressing the hat I'm knitting; read some of Room With A View (which I continue to be underwhelmed by) and am now closing old DW tabs (skimming, but not replying) -- there are over 200, because I open what I don't have time to read in the morning, and plan to come back 'later'.

Plans for the evening are date night, which will involve finding something I want to cook. Other wishlist items are cooking stock paste, and making bikkies. Also tidying the bedroom enough that the dog has somewhere to lie down while visiting.

* given I'm now at uni on Fridays, Saturday is the new Friday, and Coffee Fridays happen when they happen. This is the first new to us cafe in some time (not counting Albany, because we didn't actually end up doing brunch).

all arms and legs

Jul. 18th, 2025 08:12 pm
musesfool: Wonder Woman against a backdrop of flames (walk through the fire)
[personal profile] musesfool
I mentioned I've been reading a bunch of DCU/PJO crossovers, and mostly I like it when nobody is related to the Waynes and no Waynes are secretly demigods and it's just Percy et al in Gotham and rolling with their weirdness (or vice versa, I guess, but I haven't seen any like that yet), though I have enjoyed those other types. For me, the big key to making the crossover work, aside from the fact that I want it to so I'm primed for it (i.e., buy the premise, buy the joke), is how Wonder Woman is handled (and to a much lesser extent, Wonder Girl), even more so than Aquaman and Atlantis.

Like, for me as a reader, you can't pretend that the Batfamily is totally ignorant of the Greek pantheon or demigods if you've got Diana around. And I realize that some folks are basing their Batfamily stuff on other people's fic (I'm not making that call - some of them state it outright in their notes), which may not contain any info on Wonder Woman or the Amazons etc. but Wonder Woman is not an obscure superhero! Even if you ignore the retcon that she's a daughter of Zeus (and you should! Even the comics have walked that back, though I can see why it might be interesting to work into this kind of crossover), she was made of clay and had life breathed into her by Greek goddesses.

I mean, it complicates things to some degree, because where was she during all of Percy's adventures, but 1. she was in space/another universe etc., or 2. she'd been stripped of her powers for trying to help, or 3. she was back on Themyscira, and unaware, or, or, or... And those are just off the top of my head. Mostly I've seen Percy and friends angry that she didn't participate and that's a fine way to go, but like, I feel like something has to be said, even if just in passing, unless it's set very very early in Batman's career and he hasn't met her/she isn't public yet. And the ones I've found so far are not set in that timeframe, because the fun of the crossover is having all the kids interacting with each other and with Bruce.

Anyway, I'm always interested in how other people make crossovers work, because for me, skipping over most of the nitty-gritty of trying to make incompatible worlds/magical systems etc. work together is the way to go - choose one or two details to set the vibe and handwave the inconsistencies.

***

Write Every Day: Day 18

Jul. 18th, 2025 04:29 pm
sanguinity: (writing - semicolon)
[personal profile] sanguinity
Intro/FAQ
Days 1-15

My check-in: Spent my writing time trying to figure out what the Thames Estuary looks like during the Vorkosigan Saga. At this point, I'm reasonably certain it's not an estuary at all...

Day 18: [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] sanguinity

Day 17: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] chinashop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman

Day 16: [profile] badlyknitted, [personal profile] brithistorian, [personal profile] callmesandyk, [personal profile] carenejeans, [personal profile] china_shop, [personal profile] cornerofmadness, [personal profile] glinda, [personal profile] goddess47, [personal profile] luzula, [personal profile] nafs, [personal profile] sanguinity, [personal profile] sylvanwitch, [personal profile] the_siobhan, [personal profile] trobadora, [personal profile] yasaman, [personal profile] ysilme

When you check in, please use the most recent post and say what day(s) you’re checking in for. Remember you can drop in or out at any time, and let me know if I missed anyone!
petra: A man in a fedora with text: Between the dames and the horses, sometimes I don't even know why I put my hat on. (Cabin Pressure - Dames and horses)
[personal profile] petra
Stephen Colbert is the only thing I have watched on CBS for a very, very long time, and even him, via clips.

Except for the time we were in NYC and went to a taping, which was good fun.

Paramount: How dare this man we hired to speak truth to power speak our truth to our power!

Trump: BWAH HA HA HA

Fans who grew up on the Colbert Report and are growing inured to canceled shows: ...okay, so who's going to hire the most popular guy in late night TV now?

I find it upsetting that one of the loudest voices pointing out that the emperor has no clothes is losing his position, not because Colbert is flawless but because what the fuck, censoring satire much? Being able to laugh at the assholes in charge is a survival mechanism.

Self-soothing with John Finnemore.
umadoshi: (Zhu Yilong 04)
[personal profile] umadoshi
On Bluesky, Wenella reports that "Dongjj Rescue, starring Zhu Yilong, Ni Ni, and Leo Wu, will be released in the US on Aug 22, 2025. The film will be released in mainland China on Aug 8." Time to start haunting the Cineplex site in hopes of Canadian showtimes!

I took today off in hopes of getting a bit more sleep (done, although not an impressive amount) and actually starting in on my next manga rewrite. I have just over a couple of hours before I need to venture out, so...we'll see how the latter goes in practice.

I can't remember if I've mentioned here that almost two months ago, I concluded that I'm going to sell my poor basically-unused etrike. In case I haven't, here's the gist )

Anyway, this comes to mind because for once I have a little venture that would, in fact, be perfect for taking the trike if I were at all in the habit of/comfortable with using it. Ah, well.

In related news, at least we're not under a heat warning anymore, unlike the last few days. (It's still currently 22°C and humid as hell, resulting in a 30°C humidex, and it's supposed to be a couple degrees warmer later this afternoon. But it's still an improvement.)

I don't like the modern internet

Jul. 18th, 2025 11:08 am
petra: A blonde woman with both hands over her face (Britta - Twohanded facepalm)
[personal profile] petra
No shit, there I was, updating my LinkedIn profile -- you know, the one under my wallet name -- for the first time in (mumbledy), for professional reasons that do not involve looking for a job.

LinkedIn: You want to connect with [personal profile] marcelo and [personal profile] mary!

Me: ... I really, deeply wish you did not know that. Also, and this is important, neither of those people lives on my continent, and I have never so much as spoken on the phone with them. How do you know I know them, since I met them via writing porn about DC Comics characters 20 years ago? How can I make you un-know it? What arcane nonsense lurks in the data-mining?

Don't worry -- if I only know you through fandom, I ain't connecting via Linkedfreakin'In unless you give me the okay, because WHAT.

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