I just realized that I haven't looked at Dreamwidth in I have no idea how long. At least a week, probably. I wasn't especially busy; I did take a few days with my family for Memorial Day weekend mini-vacation (which we have done every year since before I was born), but judging by how far I've gone back in my reading list and haven't started seeing posts I recognize, I had stopped well before that.
Normally, checking DW is part of my daily routine. My flist isn't hugely active, so there's no need to check more than once a day, but it's the only place that I can reliably check in with several long-term friends, and of course a lot of exchanges are mostly run through DW and it makes it easier to keep up with what's planned and what's in progress. I missed the signups for Fandom 5k, and none of the pinch hits are things I'd want to write, which is a shame, because I prefer the longer exchanges. Ah, well, I guess that means I will have more time for shorter-minimum thematic exchanges instead.
If you posted something important and I missed it ... sorry! Feel free to let me know in the comments!
I cooked! Literally. (It took a surprising amount of effort not to address a non-existent "chat" here xD) There's a completely arbitrary (and very silly) distinction in my brain about what counts as "proper" cooking, and most of what I prepare for myself doesn't or barely counts. But today I made a pasta-tomato-ham casserole, which undoubtedly is proper cooking, and it was very good. I really wanted to properly cook something because I'm currently house-sitting and the house has a very well stocked kitchen - I'm envious of their spice selection - but it turns out that not having my own tools, like working scales, and knowing where everything is is a disadvantage and it about evens out. (Most of these spices I don't even know what to do with tbh.)
I've also played quite a bit of Beat Saber already. Got a some expert level completions, but only managed normal for other songs. It's nice to play outside, too.
I've barely seen the skunk I'm house-sitting for, he's still in his winter phase apparently and eats little and mostly sleeps all day, and the one time he saw me he ran away. Nothing to worry about, according to his owners; he's getting old for a skunk, too. Beforehand I was mildly apprehensive about him demanding lots of attention, now I'm more worried that I wouldn't even notice if something was wrong.
Last weekend I played Islets, an indie metroidvania by the same solo dev who made Crypt Custodian. I only meant to try it out on Saturday and ended up playing for six hours, and then I finished the next day with 95% completion. It was a lot of fun! Importantly, movement feels good, and the exploration is fun. I played on easy because there were some bullet hell bosses and I don't like those, but on easy it was fine.
Almost 20 years ago, at the end of my freshman year of college, I wrote to you from some long-lost email address as “Bad Judge of Character.”
I just wanted to say thank you for your rightfully blunt advice, which I followed. “These people could not care less about your feelings if they were dead and in the ground” was a wakeup call I needed to hear. The next year, I transferred to one of the Seven Sisters and indeed never thought again of the chuckleheads I wrote about with such passion in my letter.
For what it’s worth, I definitely did not love him and I’m incredibly grateful that our lives never became entangled long-term. I can’t even give you an update about how he and “Jane” are doing because I have no idea. : )
Thanks again, Also Learned To Be Slightly More Concise
Dear Concise,
Thanks so much for this update! Should have followed my own advice a little more closely in this regard, history has shown, but we can only live forwards, as they say.
…Hey, this is also SDB, just in bold so you can tell it’s an Ask The Readers.
I’m looking for a short story I read probably 40 years ago. I thought SURE it was in an Alfred Hitchcock anthology I recall reading around the same time, Boys and Ghouls Together, but I finally got a copy of that off eBay and it doesn’t look like the story I have in mind is in there…so I’m hoping you genii can help me track it down.
Here’s what (little) I remember:
the genre is horror
it was in a midcentury anthology; the paperback seemed old even at the time — mid-1980s — so we’re probably talking about a ’60s book
almost positive it was the very first story in the book
also pretty sure it was British
broadly speaking, the plot has to do with the heroine — Harriet, I feel like her name was? — getting stuck in a recursive purgatorial/hell loop where she dies and keeps coming back to her fat, sweaty, grabby husband; the overall effect is extremely claustrophobic
IIRC, the ending is the protag realizing the fact of the loop, and that it’s not remediable
I THINK the basic gist is that Harriet (if that’s her name) is something of a high-strung bitch, she keeps dying over and over again and coming back into the same airless situation with this husband…again, it tracked with this Hitch anthology, but Boys and Ghouls seems to be largely detective stories and if it’s in here, I haven’t gotten to it yet.
Add to that that there are apparently a dozen Hitchologies and I was like, fuggit, let’s get the Nation to help me. ANYONE know what this story might be?
Once, in the cool blue middle of a lake, up to my neck in that most precious element of all,
I found a pale-gray, curled-upwards pigeon feather floating on the tension of the water
at the very instant when a dragonfly, like a blue-green iridescent bobby pin,
hovered over it, then lit, and rested. That’s all.
I mention this in the same way that I fold the corner of a page
in certain library books, so that the next reader will know
where to look for the good parts.
-------
My prompt was 'insects' and technically worms aren't insects, but they are in a section of Hamlet with maggots and that's how I came by them. I tried to do a poem in the manner of the one above. The title and references are from that section of Hamlet (Act 4, Scene 3).
we fat all creatures else to fat us by okapi
worms, those that feast on beggar and on king, Hamlet’s only emperor for diet, his certain convocation
of politic, the ones who supped on Polonius, the ones that baited hooks so that kings might progress through the guts of beggars,
twice coated, by slime and by scale, these worms did not note the variable service of fat and lean,
and never once did they shove a fist of too many plastic wrappers
My attention was recently drawn, as we say, to an early C20th composer, and I thought, that name sounds familiar, so I pottered off to look at my database of notes, and yes, they were hanging out in sex reform circles, interesting, no, especially as they seem generally to be described as 'reclusive' -
So anyway, I went to look up their entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and it is all about The Music (they were also apparently a top-level performer as well as prolific composer) and nothing about this other aspect.
And some while ago I perchanced to look up the ODNB entry for an early C20th lawyer whom I had come across in those same circles, and he was all about anti-censorship, and reforming the divorce laws (and we suspect also handling these sensitive matters for his mates in his professional capacity, no doubt) -
Very worthy.
He was also, I have come across indications in correspondence and biographies, rather a Not Safe In Taxis kinda guy, or at least, the handsy menace of the 1917 Club.
I don't actually know if there's a procedure for saying to editors of ODNB 'Hi, I have Further Info', let alone 'by the way, it's dishing the dirt'.
AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs — and spike unemployment to 10-20% in the next one to five years, Amodei told us in an interview from his San Francisco office.
The web isn't dying. It's becoming infrastructure.
Just like newspapers didn't disappear when the telegraph arrived—they just became less central to how information moved through society. The human-facing web will persist, but the economic and structural center of gravity is shifting toward systems designed for machine consumption.
This new infrastructure web won't be as colorful or engaging as the human web. It will be more like plumbing—essential, efficient, and largely invisible. Success will depend on reliability, speed, and interoperability rather than creativity, engagement, and virality.
We're moving from an internet designed to capture human attention to an internet designed to feed machine intelligence. The companies that recognize this shift early and position themselves accordingly will build the foundational infrastructure of the AI economy.
What’s at stake now is the kind of infrastructure web we build—one that supports human flourishing or one that prioritizes machine efficiency above all else. The telegraph era of journalism wasn't necessarily better or worse than the penny press era, but it was fundamentally different.
The same will be true of the infrastructure web. It won't be better or worse than the human web that preceded it. But it will be optimized for entirely different purposes, serving entirely different users, operating according to entirely different economic principles.
And most of it will be invisible to the humans whose world it increasingly shapes.
There's another angle where you could instead move to write for Pinterest search (which is just another kind of AI), or you could pivot to video (Youtube = Google), but for me...I think I'm just take a step back. My little for-profit blog makes about $100/month and hasn't moved beyond that despite a year plus of work, so I don't feel like it's worth the anxiety to worry about what Google's doing or try to change my writing to give AI more access. I do still enjoy writing for that blog, though, so I'm gonna keep going, but I'm just gonna do my own thing.
Anyway, if you're interested in an internet that isn't written for robots, check out the IndieWeb instead!
Last year I wrote an essay about cozy SFF. I started out writing a passionate defense of cozy SFF, then I wasn't quite happy with it and put it on the shelf for a while. When I got back to it, I realized there were some things about the current moment of cozy SFF that I don't really like. So I had to edit my piece. But even then I felt the conversation was getting away from me.
I've only become more frustrated with what's being marketed as cozy SFF and the discourse around it. I find the stuff being published isn't digging into the themes that I want to see. Meanwhile the discourse is both dismissive and full of moral panic. I think both that domestic labor and community building are important and worth telling stories about and shouldn’t be dismissed, and that it's ok to read soft comforting stories. I wish people would calm down a bit.
As part of Creature Feature Month, we’re highlighting Wing Kink, a trope in fanworks where a character’s wings are an erogenous zone that produces pleasurable feelings when caressed by another. This trope may include canonical characters with wings such as Angels, or characters who are given wings.
A common scenario in Wing Kink fanworks is wing grooming, where a winged character invites their love interest to take care of their wings, sometimes by applying wing oil to lubricate their feathers. A winged character allowing someone else to touch their wings also carry intimate and erotic implications.
Are you into wing kinks ;) ? Consider adding to the page on Fanlore!
This series of entries is commentary on my lifelong quest to read all of Agatha Christie's works in UK publication order. It was begun in January 2021.
Endless Night (1967) was a slog. None of the characters are likeable and because I have been consistently reading so much Christie, I recognized the plot points and guessed what was happening very early on. It's very much like Death on the Nile in some respects but without the Nile to make it interesting and intriguing and the other amusing characters to make it fun and Poirot and Race. Much of it was just tedious from a reader point of view but not, perhaps, from a ficcer point of view working out how the misdirection and manipulation is being done. The narrator's name is Michael Rogers and the poor rich girl is Ellie and the secretary/companion is Greta. And I'm not sorry I'm done with it. Here's a summary:
A newlywed couple faces a series of mysterious events and threats after building their dream house on a cursed land.
Next up: I've discovered to my great consternation that I skipped over a couple of books in the winter. So I will go back and do The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side and The Clocks, both of which I remember very well and have enjoyed.
Title: Dutiful Daughter Fandom: Lost Girl Author:badly_knitted Characters: Bo, Rainer, Rosette, others. Rating: PG Word Count: 775 Spoilers: End of Season 4, specifically the last two episodes, ‘Origin’ and ‘Dark Horse’. Summary: Bo thought everything she’d done was her own idea; now it looks like she’s been her father’s pawn all along. Written For: Prompt 020 – Hindsight at fandomweekly. Disclaimer: I don’t own Lost Girl, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
Title: Someone Who Cares Author:badly_knitted Characters: Ianto, Team, Tosh. Rating: PG Word Count: 624 Spoilers: Set a few weeks after End of Days. Summary: With Jack gone, Ianto has even more work to do than he had before. Not that the rest of the team seem to notice. Written For: elisem’s prompt ‘any, any, I saved this for you’, at threesentenceficathon. Disclaimer: I don’t own Torchwood, or the characters.
Becoming the bishop of medieval Florence wasn’t for the faint of heart. In 1384, for instance, the new bishop, Angelo Acciaiuoli, found himself at the center of a literal tug-of-war between the local clergy and a group of nobles from the Visdomini family. Both factions wanted to claim the honor of helping him dismount his horse and escorting him into the basilica—and they were willing to fight for it.
Visdomini managed to maintain possession of the bishop from the dismount into the church, [but] at the foot of the stairs leading to the choir, “a superior force” of the clergy of San Pier Maggiore seized Angelo and dragged him to the altar.
Imagine arriving in Florence ready to guide and instruct the populace and instead being tussled over like a toy between two toddlers!
That was just the start of the culture shock. When a new bishop was installed in the see of Florence, he was also expected to “marry” the local abbess of San Pier Maggiore. It was a symbolic ceremony, Miller explains, but it mirrored the rites of a traditional Florentine wedding: there was a feast and a ring, and it even culminated with the abbess showing the bishop to a “beautiful bed” she had prepared for him.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the death of a pope led to all sorts of chaos, from the destruction of art to armed violence in the streets.
Just like the entrance ceremony, this rite didn’t always go smoothly. In at least one instance, the bishop tried to skip the symbolic marriage, but the abbess lodged a stern complaint, demanding that he, “according to custom, deign to place the gold ring on her [the abbess’s] ring finger,” Miller writes. The bishop relented and gave her the ring. This complaint, which dates to 1302, is in fact the first record we have of the ritual marriage of bishop and abbess, but, from the abbess’s reference to custom, it’s clear that the tradition was already well established. The custom survived for almost another 300 years, finally perishing in 1584.
Why all this ceremony, and why was it such a source of contention? Miller argues that understanding it requires a deep look at the local context. The world of the church was thoroughly intertwined with the world of elite Florentine society and, as a result, entangled in their petty power struggles as well. The nuns of the abbey, for instance, were drawn from the richest and most powerful families in the city. The registers are dotted with famous surnames: the Albizzis, Tedaldis, Falconieris, Medicis, and Strozzis were all represented. As Miller puts it, “When the bishop ritually married the abbess of San Pier Maggiore, therefore, he made a very good marriage.”
Among medieval Florence’s elite, marriage was a political tool, a way of forging alliances or even ending bloody feuds. In this context, “marrying” the bishop to the abbess was a way of binding him into Florentine society. To the Florentines, Miller argues, the bishop was essentially just another head of household—prominent and respected, yes, but only one power among many.
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Similarly, the tug-of-war over Bishop Acciaiuoli opens a window to elite power struggles. The Visdomini were ancestral nobles, the descendants of the first lay assistant to a Florentine bishop. Because of this, the family was entitled to all kinds of privileges. For one thing, every Easter and every Christmas, its members were supposed to receive a “platter of four pounds of fresh or salted pork… another platter of three pounds of roasted pork and six meat pies” (or, if it was a Friday, “half a baked Pisan cheese of two pounds and one quarter of a cheese-and-egg pie made with at least fifty eggs”). An even sweeter perk, possibly, was getting to live in the bishop’s palace while the see was unoccupied.
The Visdomini jealously guarded these privileges. And, as Miller points out, it wasn’t just about the meat pies. Florentine society had changed a good deal since the days of their illustrious ancestor; noble blood had in fact become something of a liability. A set of laws put into place in the late 1200s prevented members of noble families from holding most public offices, a reaction against their constant blood feuds and vendettas. On the face of it, this might seem like a populist act. But it’s no coincidence that it also served as the coup de grâce for ascendant nouveau-riche families like the Medicis and Strozzis (who weren’t exactly known for being down-to-earth). In this context, their role in the public ceremony of the bishop’s ascension was one of the few sources of authority and prestige the Visdomini retained. No wonder they were ready to brawl over it.
One of the worst — of many — crimes committed by Russia during its fullscale invasion of Ukraine is the systematic abduction of Ukrainian children from occupied territories, endorsed and abetted at the highest levels of the Russian state. These children, most of whom have parents or guardians, are kidnapped and taken into Russia, where they are often renamed, adopted out to Russian families, and otherwise deliberately made as difficult as possible to identify and retrieve. There are tens of thousands of such children identified by the Ukrainian government as abducted, but the true figure is likely higher. Only a fraction of these have been safely returned home.
This Sunday, there is going to be a rally in London, organised by Ukraine Solidarity Campaign (a movement in which UK trade unions and other progressive organisations affiliate with equivalent Ukrainian organisations and groups; I'm a member through my own union), to highlight this particular issue, and advocate for more to be done to return these children home, and hold Russia accountable for this crime.
Forgot to post my media update yesterday! Unrelatedly, saw this chipmunk today :D
A lucky catch!
TV/movies:
Miss Night and Day we are 2 eps from the end and this one has stuck the landing, imo. I have quibbles, the whole murder plot is kinda - well, we kinda thought it would make more sense, lol. But this is, at its core, the cat magic shenanigans show.
Amphibia L really likes this show & we are doing a cultural exchange (he is watching Owl House). And I usually am so annoyed by all the "but it's so ugly" complaints that people have about cartoons when they just don't appreciate style & especially don't appreciate animation, but god, it's so ugly. And screamy. Perhaps it will grow on me. The nagging to get more episodes in is not growing on me, lol. I've only seen the first episode so far.
Games:Stardew Valley brought my wilderness farm to year 3, been needing a no brain media option lately.
Books/Comics: I think I'm quitting all of my books, ngl. Because Internet will come back around bc I had to return it but renewed the hold. Hammajang Luck seemed like it would be fun if I could look past one of my most loathed tropes (falling for the ice queen/king who betrayed you in the past) and might even go beyond that and give her A Real Good Reason She Had To. No thanks :D
Writing and other wips: I actually wrote a bit!! Brainstorming on a new wip, LOLOL. ;_; but you know what, I'll take it! Going to host next week at writethisfanfic, don't expect good convo prompts!! *cough* or possibly any, lol
I'm not enjoying my time at the Ranch anymore. It's not the dogs (of course), it is the management and it is not so much their fault but more mine. I don't like not having an input but being told to do it this way now or do it that way now when both changes make my job less enjoyable and contribute neither to safety nor efficiency. If I were getting paid I'd either fix it or live with it but I'm creating my own conflict and I don't need to do that and I've been unsuccessful stopping. I end up leaving every time I go there in a state of annoyance. At myself as much as anything, I guess.
So I've written an email to the woman who owns the place (there is not, far as I can tell, a volunteer coordinator, which says something) saying that for personal reasons I need to step back for a couple of months hoping to return later. Very vague. And I don't have to explain personal reasons. And I don't want to fix the place or own the place. It would be nice to have someone ask my opinion but that has not happened once in two and a half years so no reason to think it might now.
I wrote the email and saved it in draft.
But I think I'm going to send it. Back away.
I hate being away from the dogs but dealing with the people is just not working right now and it is screwing with my internal calm, exactly the opposite of what I want from going there.
Like I say, it is mostly my fault. My personality.
Maybe after a couple of months I'll feel differently.
Well, said I to myself, if I can't see Kidnapped live again I can at least go and see another play by Isobel McArthur...
Pride and Prejudice* (*sort of), McArthur's first big success, made its debut in Glasgow in 2018 and has since enjoyed three tours and a run in the West End; the current tour is nearing its close, but judging by the trajectory so far there may well be future ones. At the end of the play there was a big sign on the stage saying 'IF YOU LIKED IT, TELL SOMEONE', and I am dutifully telling all of you; if you don't want to read the long spoilery review, please read this bit here where I tell you it's very good and you should go and see it if you get a chance. :)
21. Is there ever a time when giving up makes sense? Yes, sometimes, when you can see that whatever you're trying to do is futile and it will be wasted time and effort to go on.
22. What makes you proud? My daughters and my grandchildren.
23. How do you find the strength to do what you know in your heart is right? Sometimes it's just a matter of gritting your teeth and getting on with it. Sheer willpower I guess.
24. Where do you find peace? Usually by walking somewhere. It doesn't really matter where; what matters is the act of walking.
25. When have you worked hard and loved every minute of it? I remember getting a lot of satisfaction from one of the jobs I had in my twenties; I was kept busy but I felt appreciated and knew I was doing a good job.
26. How short would your life have to be before you would start living differently today? I don't know how to answer this question.
27. Is it better to have loved and lost or to have never loved at all? It's very painful to love and then lose your love, but having gone through this experience, I don't think I would like to have never loved at all.
28. What would you do if you made a mistake and somebody died? I can not imagine going through this. It would be unbelievably horrific.
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