kaberett | Network

The m/m discord server/book club I am in is doing a side-read of... House of Leaves? Time to finally do something with my fancy full color edition that's been sitting around as shelf decoration

I did find a cheap physical copy of The Russian Five. Not a used one, sadly. So, I'm picking that back up.

The current read for my m/m book club is Gentleman's Gentleman, which I've read already so I can mostly skip it. I'll leaf through a copy at a bookstore as a reminder.

The next book for that bookclub will be A Spell for Heartsickness, which just barely beat out Like Real People Do by E L Massey. I really wanted Like Real People Do to win because I wanted a reason to give it a chance even though it's teenagers and a hockey/ice skater pairing. Because I needed a palate cleanser after Goaltender Interference, I picked up Like Real People Do anyway and am most of the way through. I am actually enjoying it, despite some of the YAness of it.

For my local bookshop's bookclub I've got Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which I've really wanted to read. I am probably skipping The Dead Take The A Train for horror book club. I think I'd really like the book, but not in the headspace for it right now.

For Trans Right's Read-a-thon I want to read is Notes From a Regicide. Dead Collections by the same author is one of my favorite books. I just have no idea how the heck to squeeze it in.

tielan

Every time I lay down for a nap or an early night, or stay in bed for a longer sleep-in, I get disrupted by someone.

I'm not sleeping well. Is it a stress thing? A perimenopause thing? A thing with the weather? A 'life the universe and the end of the world as we know it' thing? Who even knows!

Unfortunately, I don't get a break in evening events until Thursday. And while I could stay home for each of them, in the first instance I'm the president, in the second a young woman is coming along for the first time, and in the third it's a social event.

I think I may have to take the sleeping drugs tonight. Well, melatonin.

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260315.html

To see the feathered serpent

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260315.html

apod_feed

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260314.html

Want to visit a planet that has 3.14 days in a year?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260314.html

cahn

Last week: The Jews are basically in an abusive relationship with Rome and have no good options; they choose the particular bad option of picking a war with Rome that they can't win. The Romans are terrible. Also continuing discussion here about Britannicus, Messalina, and the Praetorians.

This week: Vespasian comes down like a ton of bricks. That whole !!!! part of Josephus happens, where he gets stuck in the cave with a bunch of others and invents and wins the Josephus problem (well, in the text it says they draw lots, so he doesn't actually really cite what developed into the problem) (*) and surrenders to the Romans once he and another guy are the only ones left, and prophesies to Vespasian that he will become emperor. (

selenak: Is it Feuchtwanger's invention to add the nomenclature of Messiah in there too? That definitely... upped the ante.)

(I'll comment more on this tomorrow -- I got done with the reading late and obviously barely got this written.)

Next week: first part of book 4? Where to?

(*) E. wanted to know what I was reading, so I told her about the Josephus problem, and she said, "Real-world applications of math!"

goss

The Virtual Memorial for

minoanmiss will be April 12, 1PM EDT (GMT -4)

Other info shared by

gingicat:

It's now okay to unlock and make public posts regarding

minoanmiss.

The funeral took place on the afternoon of March 13th. If any of you want to go visit her grave, it is in Mount Auburn Cemetery near the corner of Sycamore Ave and Gerardia Path.

Her organs were donated:
- heart to research
- liver to a woman in her 30s
- right kidney to a woman in her 40s
- left kidney to a woman in her 70s

Announcement sign-up:
https://groups.google.com/g/nyani-announce

---

I'm so glad to know MM's final resting place is at a peaceful, beautiful location, and that her friends were able to honour her wishes to donate her organs to those in need. ♥

embraidery posting in

fandomcalendar

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torachan

1. We made mac and cheese for lunch inspired by the ramen mac and cheese we had at DCA last night. Added dashi in the water while the macaroni was boiling, and topped with furikake (all we had was gomashio, which is a mix of black sesame seeds and chunky salt) and it was delicious but we decided adding toasted panko really would make it better, so we actually ended up making it again for dinner with the panko. It was so good. Carla bought a different type of furikake at the store today but I just used the gomashio again and that went so good with the panko. Will definitely be making mac and cheese this way again.

2. A couple weeks ago I got the annual Costco rewards gift certificate and we finally braved Costco today so we could use it. We weren't going directly home, so that saved us from being tempted by any perishable products and we pretty much stuck to our list of basics that we needed to stock up on.

3. The weekend is over and I'm not thrilled about that but it was a pretty nice weekend overall.

4. Molly loves being in this window, hidden behind the curtain.

nineweaving

... in a garden in Oxford.

The year was actually 1988, but finding it gave me the strangest sense of timeslip.

Nine

lucymonster

So, just about everyone I know irl has been talking about this new Louis Theroux documentary in which he interviews manosphere influencers and tries to figure out what makes them tick.

I found it a worthwhile but frustrating watch. Frustrating not because of anything Theroux does - he is courteous and perceptive throughout, and imo strikes a very good balance between his moral obligation to challenge toxic rhetoric and his pragmatic need to be non-threatening so his subjects will keep talking - but frustrating because the whole topic is just so wretched, and because, as with all far right movements, there really is no mutual good-faith conversation to be had. The men who are profiting off the manosphere aren't interested in good faith. As this documentary exposes, they're barely even interested in their own professed ideology. The only thing they care about is making money, and they've learnt through experience that saying vile shit gets them attention they can cash in on. So it doesn't matter how much blatant bullshit you catch them out on. Bullshit is controversy, and controversy is attention, and attention is profit. Heads they win, tails you lose.

What I will say is that their "victory" is one of the most hollow things I've ever witnessed in my life. These influencers are spending their whole lives pumping iron, prowling the streets for "content", and making the shallowest possible small talk with parasocially overinvested strangers. Young men whose lives supposedly revolve around all the hot sex they're getting (that YOU could get too, if only you stopped making excuses for yourself and invested all the savings from your after-school McDonalds job in this crypto scam they're flogging!) are hosting pool parties for crowds of OnlyFans models just to sit in a corner glued to their phones, too busy keeping up with the tepid memes being spammed by teenage boys in their livestream chats to notice all the near-naked women flaunting tits and ass right in their faces. They brag about the freedom of not having to attend a nine-to-five job, but instead of answering to a traditional boss, they're instead beholden to fickle social media algorithms and the whims of attention-span-challenged audiences who require ever more extreme behaviour to keep them engaged. Like, fuck. I'd take a regular human manager any day of the week.

I will also say that the contrast between all these puffed-up, roided-out, hypermasculine peacocks and the polite, scrawny, middle-aged British man interviewing them was really something to behold. It was fragile overcompensation vs authentic self-confidence blown up to an almost cartoonish degree. I particularly enjoyed the little tongue-in-cheek sting at the end where Theroux, having been good-naturedly "humiliated" on the boxing arcade machine earlier in the documentary, got in one last make-up swing on his own that earned a far more impressive score. It was a very sly way of saying "See, I could hold my own in you guys' macho dick-waving contests if I wanted to! I just don't want to, because why the fuck would I?" and I love him for it.

I also love him for the compassion he was able to maintain towards the men he talked to, even and especially when they wanted to make it all into some him-vs-them fight for survival. Manosphere influencers are some of social media's lowest-hanging fruit in terms of hateability. Looking at the bright-eyed little boys they used to be and reflecting, with an open heart, on what went wrong in their lives to make a life of vapid and viciously competitive materialism look like something to aspire to is much less emotionally satisfying than fuming over their outrageous behaviour. But at some point I guess we just have to reflect anyway, because a whole new generation of bright-eyed little boys are being drawn in by this content before they've developed the critical thinking skills to resist it. Seeing that part - seeing crowds of boys whose voices had barely dropped yet flock to these jerks on the street - was more upsetting by far than anything the jerks themselves have ever said. Theroux didn't offer a solution and I sure as shit don't have one either, but at least making the effort to step outside the cycle of outrage seems as good a place as any to start.

merriamwebster_feed

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/putative-2026-03-16

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for March 16, 2026 is:

putative • \PYOO-tuh-tiv\ • adjective

Putative is a formal word used to describe something that is generally believed, supposed, or assumed to be something specified. It is always used before a noun.

// The group's putative leader was conspicuously absent from the meeting.

See the entry >

Examples:

"... the painting is swept up in questions of identity, provenance, authenticity and putative value." — Manohla Dargis, The New York Times, 31 Oct. 2025

Did you know?

There's no need to make assumptions about the root behind putative—we know it comes from a form of the Latin verb putare, which means "to consider" or "to think." Putative is a rather formal word that has been part of English since the 15th century. Like apparent, presumed, and ostensible, it leaves room for a smidgen of doubt: a putative ally will very probably be there for you, and a putative successor is very likely to be the next one in charge, but life offers no guarantees in either case.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day/putative-2026-03-16

james_davis_nicoll

cmk418

Keeping it brief tonight as I listen to the wind howl. Enjoyed watching the Oscars this evening. I'm glad that "One Battle After Another" won and that Paul Thomas Anderson won Best Director and Adapted Screenplay- I've been a fan of his work for a long time. I would have been okay with "Sinners" winning as well. I did manage to squeeze in a second rewatch of it and think that it's a movie that I could watch over and over again. Was pleased that the show didn't shy away from politics, but it also didn't feel like it immersed itself in them either (ymmv).

That's all for now. See you all tomorrow!

settiai

It looks like the Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel that was in development isn't going to happen after all.

But apparently Firefly of all things might be getting an animated series set between S1 and the movie.

Current Mood: surprised

calimac

I didn't watch the Oscars, I just brought up the results afterwards on a news site. Having only seen two of the nominated films, I didn't have much stake in the outcome, but I was kind of curious.

As expected, it was a showdown between One Battle After Another and Sinners for the big prizes, and they split the two screenplay awards. Sinners is said to be a horror movie, so I'm not going to see it. No argument, no discussion, I'm just not.

I did, however, see One Battle After Another, and to my surprise I rather liked it. This is a surprise because I've seen three previous Paul Thomas Anderson movies, I didn't much like one and detested both of the others. But this one was good, and rewatchable.

The movie is in two parts, the first and shorter part taking place 16 years before the other. This part was a little hard to follow on first watching, as the characters are dumped on you before they're introduced, so it's hard to figure out what's going on and who's doing it. But on a rewatch, when you can recognize them, it's clear, especially with the help of subtitles.

Part 2, however, is crystal clear from the beginning. It is essentially one long chase scene, though as there are breaks in the storytelling and the identities of chased and chaser do sometimes change, it could be called one chase scene after another. But it felt to me like one long chase scene. But a very exciting and well-paced one as well as clearly told. It wraps up very well, too. That the father and daughter, who have been the object of most of the chasing, are finally at ease with one another by the end, so much so that they're comfortable going off and doing separate things, was particularly heart-warming.

This movie is not for everyone (I wouldn't recommend it to B.), but for what it is it's a good one.

ysabetwordsmith

This is the freebie for the March

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by the "tape" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America.

"Colorful Opportunities"

Tape is a material
that is always full of
colorful opportunities.

It can make borders and
frames on scrapbook pages.

It stripes the handles of
tools for easy identification.

It flags pages for future reading.

It makes cute cutouts for
decorating boxes and books.

Tape holds hobbies together.

Current Mood: busy

full_metal_ox posting in

fancake

.Fandom: Original Work
Pairings: Gen
Characters:: OCs
Rating: Gen
Length: 1 panel
Content Notes: Nudity, although no breasts or genitals are visible.

Creator Tags: I kind of love the reverse mermaid, mermaids, my art, mermay 2021, I am ridiculous

Creator Links: (AO3)

Rubynye; (Dreamwidth)

minoanmiss; (Tumblr)

rubynye

Theme: Siblings, Non-Fic Recs: Fanart, Mythical Creatures: Mermaids, Non-AO3 Work, Original Work, Tumblr Work, Worldbuilding, Xeno/Alien Biology

Summary: Three mermaids of vastly different conformations sunning themselves together on a rock.

Reccer's Notes: An example of

minoanmiss’s exuberant, joyous, and cartoony artwork, informed by Minoan artifacts and Afro-Caribbean art. The picture is a spur to speculation, raising the question of the exact nature of the three mermaids’ sisterhood (and, if they’re direct birth siblings, exactly how the razzlefrazz the biology played out): a worldbuilding prompt asking to happen.

Fanwork Links: Three Sisters. For Mermay., by

rubynye.

Current Mood: bittersweet

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: the Goblin Emperor
Pairings/Characters: Ursu Perenched, Holitho Sevraseched, Nadeian Vizhenka, Shaleän Sevraseched
Rating: Gen
Length: 9k
Creator Links:

Akallabeth
Theme: siblings, minor characters, book fandoms, small fandoms, family, gen, female characters

Summary: Short scenes from the lives of four (half-)sisters, the unacknowledged daughters of the Great Avar.

Canon-compliant, to the best of my knowledge and ability.

Reccer's Notes: We only get a sentence in canon about each of these four sisters, but the details we get are really interesting. This is one of the best fics exploring the scant details we get.

Fanwork Links: Four Sisters

voidbeetles posting in

little_details

Hi!

I have a character in a sci-fi universe who ends up "shipwrecked" alone on a completely uninhabited planet for two years. The planet, and the specific environment he lands in, are perfectly habitable by humans (we are in soft scifi territory here, very Star Trek inspired) and he's able to survive with some effort. (The details of how are not really important to the story - I know at least that he's the kind of guy who'd be able to salvage some tech and emergency supplies from his wrecked ship, and I'm comfortable with brushing past the details of what exactly he brought with him - but if anyone's really interested in coming at it from that logistical angle, I won't stop you!)

What is more relevant to the story is how this experience would continue to affect him by the time he's back home safely. I think there are a bunch of possible avenues here and I'd love to see people's takes on how they would approach this or approach researching it. For example, here are some of my cursory thoughts:

PTSD is certainly a likely long-term complication
It's implied that his shipwrecking was not an accident/was engineered maliciously - I imagine this is something he has dwelt on heavily throughout the two years and will affect his ability to trust people (and to visit other uninhabited planets in the future!). Seems like it would be easy to get caught in delusional spirals in a situation like that.
I know that prolonged isolation can cause hallucination/psychosis in some cases, especially in solitary confinement, sensory deprivation contexts, etc. Is that as much of a risk in this case? And if so, do you think he'd still be experiencing psychotic symptoms after the fact?
One of his personality traits is that he's fairly attention-seeking - I think it's likely this incident will exacerbate that and make him more desperate for connection
It'll probably alter how he approaches social situations in the future in general; that's something I'll definitely be thinking about
Perhaps he got into the habit of talking to himself on the planet, and this never went away

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: Batman
Pairings/Characters: Jason Todd, Damian Wayne
Rating: gen
Length: 7k
Creator Links: the magpie said (hollowmen)
Theme: siblings,

Summary: Being a cat for three weeks has repercussions, it turns out.

Jason snacks his way through one of them. Damian reads books. Both of them drink a lot of tea. It's nice, mostly, which Jason finds highly suspicious.

Reccer's Notes: This is sweet and deeply in character for both of them

Fanwork Links: proper rites

(Note: other fics by this author have been recced, but under a different pseud--they used to be magpiemountains (hollowmen))

james_davis_nicoll

Finally.

Interestingly, although he died a couple of days ago, I couldn't find a news article to which I felt comfortable linking.

Watch on YouTube

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: Persuasion
Pairings/Characters: Anne/Frederick
Rating: Gen
Length: 8k words
Creator Links:

rain_sleet_snow
Theme: siblings, book fandoms, old fandoms, minor characters, small fandoms, five things

Summary: Five people who were surprised by Anne and Wentworth's engagement, and one who wasn't.

Reccer's Notes: Anne's siblings (and siblings-in-law) are not the only ones reacting to news of the engagement in this story, but they are most of the people reacting. I love the way the news causes each of them to re-evaluate Anne, and what they thought they knew.

Fanwork Links: the natural sequel

dinogrrl

( Chapter 20: Unexpected Happenings (In which Wheeljack's body has a mind of its own, literally, and now it's Ratchet's turn to want to bust someone's ass. Also Grimlock makes new friends.) )

flemmings

Snowed again last night, an inch or so, as the winds of March kept my house chilly. Temps rose steadily during the day, disposing of the snow,nand will continue to rise overnight, to 'do we really need the heat on?' levels ie 10C/ 50F. But yes, yes we do, because the winds of March are still blowing. Rain tomorrow and then wind again as temps drop back to the minuses. Follow the bouncing ball.

Thus was indoors all day and accomplished nothing bar a half hour of exercise and a fast reread of The Moving Finger, one of the better Christies. Maybe tomorrow I will tackle those dishes, do a dark wash, and write those belated letters, but today is all sloth all the time.

adafrog

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luminousdaze posting in

iconthat

Challenge 202
The new theme is...
Celestial
🪐 🌌 🪐

For this challenge we can create icons that show inspiration from all things celestial and extraterrestrial.
Decorate any fandom icons with stars, moons and planets, use sci-fi fandom scenes or make icons of real astronomy images as seen from the sky or from space telescopes.

( Interesting Inspo Icons... )

( Texture Recs... )

( Challenge Guidelines, Directions & Rules... )

Current Mood: 🪫
Current Location: 🌎

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: nerdy

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5786

the second generation Moray units smelled like a Red Lobster dumpster

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5786

lovelyangel

I confess to having a number of fast food apps – mainly for the purpose of getting discounts (replacing the old chore of coupon clipping). Sure, the companies track my redemption habits, but I don’t really care. If they keep wanting to offer me discounts, I’m frugal enough to keep taking them.

I provide my birthday to these apps as they give me special offers for my birthday. I thought I should itemize what I got this year for future reference.

( 2026 Birthday Offers, Under the Cut )

erinptah

Down to 1034 fandoms wrangled. Almost exactly 100 dropped since last check-in.

I did a big “invitation to all wranglers, look through my list and grab any webcomics you want” post, and managed to hand off 80+ that way. The rest are from dropping more A’s and B’s.

Only 39 of these have any tags that need wrangling. Higher than usual. I didn’t wrangle as much last week…tbh, I was low-key hoping some of the lightly-active webcomics would get claimed in the big invitation post.

(By “lightly” I mean “there are 1-5 new tags.” It’s still not an overwhelming burden, here. Just a mild annoyance to check lots of individual tag bins.)

While I’m at it, AMT updates: My “please combine the redundant Frosty the Snowman fandoms” request was approved, so my count will go down by 1 when that gets processed. The Madoka Magica requests I mentioned last month…are still on the waiting-for-approvals list.

I haven’t actually made the request to restructure the Fake News tree. The wranglers of other fandoms involved have all signed off on it — but now I’m waiting on a response to a different question. Which I kinda suspect has been forgotten at this point. Maybe I’ll just go forward, on the premise of “since nobody has responded to say [thing] is a roadblock for the tree, that means [thing] is not a roadblock for the tree, and I won’t worry about it.”

aurumcalendula

I was fretting that I'd permanently broken my iPod (it disconnected without being ejected, which meant the music on it wasn't accessible and iTunes didn't see it), but this method worked for me!

modzilla posting in

fffx

The following pinch hits are due at 11:59pm EDT, Friday 20 March or your best offer. To claim, please reply with your AO3 name, and let me know which recipient/PH number you want. You're also welcome to claim by emailing mod.modzilla@gmail.com.

If you have a current pinch hit, I'm happy to discuss extensions. However, your deadline is not automatically extended. Please contact me if you'd like more time.

Minimum requirements: An art gift must be a completed comic at least 10 pages or 40 panels long; a fic gift must be a story at least 10,000 words long. You can also fulfil a pinch hit by giving two complete half-length works, if your recipient has opted into that for the fandom(s) you are creating in. Any work must be for a fandom your recipient has requested and one character/relationship/worldbuilding tag requested in that fandom, and must avoid their DNWs.

Pinch hits can be claimed in 5k or 20-panel increments if the recipient has opted into receiving half-length works. Please say in your claim if you're claiming a pinch hit for 5k (fic) or 20 panels (comic), and for what fandom.

( Pinch hit #32 - fic - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV), Murder She Wrote, Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon), G.I. Joe (Cartoon), Voltron: Lion Force (1984) )

This pinch hit can be part-claimed as one story of 5,000+ words

( PARTLY CLAIMED - Pinch hit #62 - art, fic - 少年歌行 | The Blood of Youth (Live Action TV), 莲花楼 | Mysterious Lotus Casebook (TV), 琅琊榜 | Nirvana in Fire (TV), 伪装者 | The Disguiser (TV), 少年白马醉春风 | Dashing Youth (Live Action TV), 杀破狼 | Sha Po Lang - priest, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) x2 )

This pinch hit can be fulfilled with one story of 5,000+ words or one comic of 20+ panels. Please also see newly-added requests!

( Pinch hit #56 - art, fic - 9-1-1 (TV), 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga), Ouran High School Host Club - All Media Types )

This pinch hit can be part-claimed as one story of 5,000+ words or one comic of 20+ panels.

See below cut for CLAIMED pinch hits!

hannah

The Life You Build (18285 words) by Hannah
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Top Gun (Movies)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Tom "Iceman" Kazansky/Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Characters: Ron "Slider" Kerner, Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Pete "Maverick" Mitchell
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Ron "Slider" Kerner is a Good Friend, Jewish Tom "Iceman" Kazansky, Catholic Pete "Maverick" Mitchell, Don't Ask Don't Tell, dishonorable discharge, Los Angeles, Gay Pride, Gay Wrath
Summary:

§ 925. Art. 125. Sodomy

(a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense.

(b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.

-

I officially have a new record for walking in late to a fandom with Starbucks. It's how I've come to describe joining an established fandom, looking around at what's been written, trying to find a story that seems like it ought to have arrived by now, struggling to believe I have to do it myself, and having to do it myself. The last times I've done this for specific fandoms, it was about 21 years since their debuts, both for Deep Space Nine - Julian Bashir never getting the genetic modifications, with DS9 coming out in 1993 and the fic getting published in 2014 - and for Buffy - an all-human AU where it's still Sunnydale, Buffy living on into retirement and enjoying her life, achieving status as public figure, her and Spike simply making a wish to have a baby, with Buffy coming out in 1997 and the first of several fics getting published in 2018.

There's been a handful of times it's been for tropes and general ideas that could go to just about any fandom, like that one I wrote for mpreg where the technology to get men pregnant was developed to achieve maternity leave reform in the United States and the character exploration simply happened to be for the show Scrubs when it could just as easily have been for any number of reasonably grounded fandoms that take place in what's more or less the real world. In fact, I'm certain there's a few fandoms where having that level of medical technology in the background would have the canon make somewhat more sense given what we see them do. And it wasn't a take on mpreg I'd ever seen before. I just happened to wander in after several decades of fandom and do it myself.

I've made a habit of doing this, and like I said, I have a new record for it.

Because in the forty years this fandom's been around, nobody's written anything where Iceman and Maverick are dishonorably discharged from the Navy. Nothing. There's been fics that tackle the culture of secrecy, or Don't Ask Don't Tell, or the legalization of gay marriage in the US. There's been fics that take place in a much kinder world where it's not an issue. There's been fics that skip past it because it doesn't work with the kind of story the author's trying to write. But there hasn't been anything about receiving a dishonorable discharge and living with what comes after.

Lawrence versus Texas happened when I was in high school. I saw Don't Ask Don't Tell come and go. I remember the pictures from the San Francisco courthouse and the wave of joy from Obergefell. I like to say that fandoms like Top Gun deliver a particular type of yearning you can't get anywhere else, especially not contemporary ones, and a lot of that's from the world those fandoms take place in. It's not a world most people want to visit, and it's the world I grew up in. I didn't mind going back there for a while.

Sometimes I feel like people forget how recent all of this is. Forty years is a long time for a movie to be around, and for people to be writing fic about that movie. For the idea to have taken this long to arrive speaks to what the fandom wants to write about. I can understand that people would rather avoid this kind of thing. Just as much, I can't grasp why nobody else thought to give it a try. I'll admit to being a little proud for being the first one to do it, and a little grateful that this is a reflection of the world that was, not the world that is.

Forty years is a good long time.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Kindergarten - Voxtrot

catherineldf

Where have I been? If you guessed down with another terrible cold, one that made the last one look like a walk in the park, you win! I starting getting sick on Friday and had to skip my panel, then lost my voice on Saturday during MarsCon so I skipped my morning panel and had to whiteboard it with the aid of Michael and Matt for the afternoon one. After that, I has just completely down so we packed up and I stayed home on Sunday. And I coughed and I coughed and I coughed and I did not sleep or talk very much at all for 4 days. Greg was kind enough to let me work from home on DreamHaven stuff so at least I'm not wildly behind on that. Everything else is another story. But in the middle of it all, a good friend died and hey, we put a spiffy new book up for preorder.

On the good side, we are planning on releasing Joyce Chng's mini-collection of queer pirate tales, Sailing the Golden Chersonese, on 4/9! It features beautiful artwork by Dhiyanah Hassan, gorgeous interior design by Terry Roy and lyrical prose by Joyce - who could ask for more! because 2026 is what it is, we have been beset by illness and delays so the print edition may come out a few days after the ebook one, but we are in progress. We will have review arcs for reviewers in the next couple of days so please let me know if you would like one. Preorders are love!

Also: so are award nominations. As I have mentioned a time or two, Queen of Swords Press released new editions of the Astreiant Series by Melissa Scott and Lisa A. Barnett and, because the latest new volume, Point of Hearts, came out in 2025, the series is eligible for the Best Series Hugo. It is not uncommon for books and people to make it on the ballot (and sometimes, win!) by only a handful of votes. Queen of Swords Press is my beloved little postage stamp-sized press - getting this series on the ballot would be HUGE for us! Plus, Melissa hasn't been on the ballot since she won the Campbell for her first novel, despite years of writing terrific sf and f. If you were a member of Seattle Worldcon or a voting member of LA Con, you can nominate! I know the series has a few votes already so please consider putting us over the top to make the ballot!

And I am out of steam and still need to work on a deadline piece. Friend's obit tomorrow. After I call the vet and get a rainbow Bridge appointment set up for Shu. 2026: the gift that keeps on giving.

queervanilla posting in

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gingicat

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stonepicnicking_okapi

It's the Ides of March and every year on this day I remember that I am in the Raffles fandom. I don't have the bandwidth to write something new so I will post something I wrote a couple of years ago for this day.

Raffles and Bunny celebrate their anniversary at the opera.

References to 'Va tacito e nascosto' - 'Go silently and stealthily' from Guilio Cesare by Handel. Shifting POV.

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muccamukk

The YouTube algorithm has seen my interest in figure skating and started offering me classical ballet (I think, always difficult to tell how one gets where one ends up).

So I've been watching bits and pieces of that, as well as all of The Royal Ballet's Cinderella. I therefore offer you some fully random observations, from someone who never got into any kind of dance as a kid, and therefore knows baaaaaasically nothing about the topic. (I have been to several ballets in person, The Nutcracker of course, and the Winnipeg Ballet's Svengali..)

I like classical ballet (I'm not really watching modern) because it's quite ridiculous, and unconnected to anything that has ever happened on the face of the Earth.

I have learned that there's dialogue! Classical ballet has a kind of sign language, done through gestures, so that the dancers can explain plot points such as "We make evil men dance until they die!" and "This lake is made of my mother's tears!"

There does not seem to be much point to the male principal dancers. They have thighs like birch trees, which allows them to leap impressively high in the air, but they don't spin around on nothing but their big toe, which makes them less interesting to watch. Their main purposes seems to be to move the plot along, and act as a "Ballerina holder upper."

Maybe it's just because I'm not good enough at reading the mime, but the romantic dances are... not very romantic. They mostly seem to be the ballerina holder upper holding up the ballerina while she spins around on her big toe.

I don't know if there's non-transphobic/misogynistic way to do the comedy roles where male dancers play female characters, but Cinderella sure didn't manage it.

The plot of Giselle is really interesting (boy meets girl, girl dies when she finds out that boy has a fiancée, girl joins chorus of vengeful ghosts, vengeful ghosts attempt to kill boy, girl saves boy), and I wonder if there have been modern retellings like there have of other old fairytales.

I'm pretty sure the human body is not designed to do any of that.

Which is all I have for now.

ranunculus

Thursday was dentist day. An absolutely routine cleaning.
Friday was go to Fort Bragg and see Richard day. He fixed both Donald and my backs. As usual I went in with pain and emerged an hour later pain free. Nice drive, easy and almost traffic free.
Garden. ( Cut for pics )

ceb posting in

qec

* house faff
* CV
* 3 job applications
* emailed S
* more printing block edits
* various job leaving cards & collections

only by balancing move

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