(no subject)
Apr. 17th, 2026 08:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aurumcalendulaDoes anyone know if there's plans for a Wiscon Vidparty this year (and what the submission deadline would be, if so)?
aurumcalendula
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Apr. 17th, 2026 08:27 amosprey_archerI watched the Alec Guinness Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy with skygiants and genarti when I visited Massachusetts (a month ago now; where does the time go?), and I’ve been procrastinating writing about it, because how does one review perfection?
It’s so good. Quite possibly the perfect adaptation. Alec Guinness makes an amazing Smiley. Possibly not as plain and tubby as Smiley ought to be, but he’s projecting that as hard as he can nonetheless. And he’s just so good at Smiley’s style of sympathetic understatement where he might not actually be sympathetic to whatever line of bull his horrible loser interlocutor is trying to feed him, but it would take an awfully attentive listener to realize that, and most of the people around him never seem to listen at all.
Much is made in the books of Smiley’s amazing spy skills, and I have accepted this without ever exactly being able to put my finger on what those skills are, except maybe the patience to deep-dive in the files. But the miniseries suggests that Smiley’s other secret weapon is the ability to listen, and not only listen but radiate the aura of attentive, thoughtful, sympathetic listening that makes people want to keep talking.
His not-at-all secret weakness is his adored wife Anne, who is sleeping with a Who’s Who of all the important men in London. Just about everyone Smiley meets taunts him with this in not-very-veiled terms. (“Give my love to Anne,” says an obnoxious acquaintance in the first episode. “Give everybody’s love to Anne!”) Amazing example of a character who is hugely present despite not actually showing up till the final episode, during one of the rare sunny moments of a show that takes place mostly in clouds and rain and darkness. Anne actually is one of the bright spots of Smiley’s life despite also being the bane of his existence.
But it would be a mistake to focus too closely on Smiley, because the whole ensemble cast is excellent, and the production really gives the characterization room to breathe. The first scene simply consists of four men assembling one by one around a table, smoking cigarettes, sipping coffee, flipping through folders of papers, clearing their throats… until at last the final man arrives and the meeting gets started and you see, “Ah, that’s the one in charge.”
That’s Bill Haydon. You don’t learn his name yet, and you also don’t learn for a while that he’s not technically the boss, but also you already know most of what you need to know about him.
The adaptation hews quite close to the book, but not slavishly so; clearly the product of people who love and admire Le Carre’s work but also recognize that the challenges of adapting a written work to a visual medium can require some tweaks.
They did make one change I absolutely loved, which was ( spoilers )
Just gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. I want to watch the sequel Smiley’s People, which has a reprise cast, but I’m also not sure that I’m strong enough to watch two Smiley adaptations in one year, especially since this is the one adapting the book with the most Karla (played by Patrick Stewart) (did not write about the scene in this series where Smiley and Karla face off and Karla just sits there, absolutely silent, and dominating the room in that silence) and I feel they may add a Karla bit that will bring me to my knees like the part under the spoiler cut above.
Clearly I’ll simply have to wait until I visit Boston again to watch Smiley’s People.
skygiants and genarti when I visited Massachusetts (a month ago now; where does the time go?), and I’ve been procrastinating writing about it, because how does one review perfection? It’s so good. Quite possibly the perfect adaptation. Alec Guinness makes an amazing Smiley. Possibly not as plain and tubby as Smiley ought to be, but he’s projecting that as hard as he can nonetheless. And he’s just so good at Smiley’s style of sympathetic understatement where he might not actually be sympathetic to whatever line of bull his horrible loser interlocutor is trying to feed him, but it would take an awfully attentive listener to realize that, and most of the people around him never seem to listen at all.
Much is made in the books of Smiley’s amazing spy skills, and I have accepted this without ever exactly being able to put my finger on what those skills are, except maybe the patience to deep-dive in the files. But the miniseries suggests that Smiley’s other secret weapon is the ability to listen, and not only listen but radiate the aura of attentive, thoughtful, sympathetic listening that makes people want to keep talking.
His not-at-all secret weakness is his adored wife Anne, who is sleeping with a Who’s Who of all the important men in London. Just about everyone Smiley meets taunts him with this in not-very-veiled terms. (“Give my love to Anne,” says an obnoxious acquaintance in the first episode. “Give everybody’s love to Anne!”) Amazing example of a character who is hugely present despite not actually showing up till the final episode, during one of the rare sunny moments of a show that takes place mostly in clouds and rain and darkness. Anne actually is one of the bright spots of Smiley’s life despite also being the bane of his existence.
But it would be a mistake to focus too closely on Smiley, because the whole ensemble cast is excellent, and the production really gives the characterization room to breathe. The first scene simply consists of four men assembling one by one around a table, smoking cigarettes, sipping coffee, flipping through folders of papers, clearing their throats… until at last the final man arrives and the meeting gets started and you see, “Ah, that’s the one in charge.”
That’s Bill Haydon. You don’t learn his name yet, and you also don’t learn for a while that he’s not technically the boss, but also you already know most of what you need to know about him.
The adaptation hews quite close to the book, but not slavishly so; clearly the product of people who love and admire Le Carre’s work but also recognize that the challenges of adapting a written work to a visual medium can require some tweaks.
They did make one change I absolutely loved, which was ( spoilers )
Just gorgeous. Absolutely amazing. I want to watch the sequel Smiley’s People, which has a reprise cast, but I’m also not sure that I’m strong enough to watch two Smiley adaptations in one year, especially since this is the one adapting the book with the most Karla (played by Patrick Stewart) (did not write about the scene in this series where Smiley and Karla face off and Karla just sits there, absolutely silent, and dominating the room in that silence) and I feel they may add a Karla bit that will bring me to my knees like the part under the spoiler cut above.
Clearly I’ll simply have to wait until I visit Boston again to watch Smiley’s People.
After Action Report #25
Apr. 17th, 2026 11:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
savagelove_feedMeet Michael who with the help of “Gary” goes through the looking glass into the twilight world of the bisexual male. It all starts out with your typical, wholesome 100-guy jack-off session. And then things take a bit of a turn… Whoever invented Zoom, most likely didn’t predict *this* sort of thing would happen. If … Read More »
The post After Action Report #25 appeared first on Dan Savage.
Hara Asao (1888-1969)
Apr. 17th, 2026 08:09 pmnnozomi posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
senzenwomenHara Asao was born in 1888 in Miyagi. Her family was well-to-do, and although her father (a Westernized, Christian salt merchant with high-collar tastes) died when she was twelve, he directed her mother to spend all the family’s assets on Asao’s needs, and she was able to go on to high school. Illness forced her to drop out after two years, and she spent her recovery reading all the classics, Japanese and foreign, that she could get her hands on.
In 1904 she and her mother moved to Tokyo, where she entered the Japan Women’s School of Art. There she studied poetry as well as becoming close to her English literature teacher, Ohara Yoitsu. When the married Ohara got her pregnant, possibly through rape, she switched schools due to the scandal. Asao refused to listen to his demands that she abort the child; their son Chiaki was born in 1907 and they were perfunctorily married the following year, but the marriage dissolved very quickly and Asao threw herself into writing poetry while teaching at a girls’ school near her hometown. In 1909 her poems caught the eye of Yosano Akiko, and from there on she was published in various leading literary journals of the time, including Subaru and Hiratsuka Raicho’s Bluestocking. Her first volume of poetry, Tearstains, appeared in 1913.
She married the aspiring painter Shoji Isami (an old classmate’s brother who had helped her start school in Tokyo) in 1914 and divorced him in 1919, when the stress of his playboy tendencies and disregard for her and her children had begun to affect her health; in the interim their son Yasumi had been born in 1915, and her second volume of poetry published in 1916.
In 1920 she moved to Sendai in her home region and met the poet Ishiwara Jun, who was also a physics professor at Tohoku University who had introduced the theory of relativity to Japan. Ishiwara, who had a wife and five children, fell hard for the beautiful Asao; she fled to Tokyo to stay with her close friend Mikajima Yoshiko, pleading with Ishiwara’s wife “Don’t let him come after me!” He did, though, and she eventually gave in. Reports of their love affair in the newspapers cost Ishiwara his job; Asao and Yoshiko were both expelled from the influential Araragi poets’ group, although Ishiwara was permitted to remain a member (blame the woman). He and Asao moved together to rural Chiba where they lived quietly, Asao writing poetry—her third volume was published in 1921—and painting while Ishiwara worked as a science journalist. They also started their own poetry journal in 1924, along with various non-Araragi poet friends including Kitahara Hakushu (Eguchi Ayako’s ex-husband).
By 1928 Asao’s relationship with the controlling and occasionally unfaithful Ishiwara had deteriorated, especially due to her shock at Yoshiko's sudden death and his failure to support her; although he wrote a foreword to her fourth volume of poetry, published in 1928, vowing to do better as a husband, she left him later that year. Later in life she continued to write while supporting herself as a bar madam and occasionally an actress. She returned to her hometown in her late forties, assisted by friends and her two sons, and died in 1969 at the age of eighty-two. (She spent her later years with her younger son’s family; her daughter-in-law Momoko reported that Asao enjoyed housework but was unusually bad at it, knitting exquisite but unwearable socks.) Her sons Chiaki and Yasumi became a movie director and an actor respectively, both using her maiden name of Hara (to judge by the Wikipedia photograph, they both inherited their mother’s beauty and then some). Her poems are now the subject of widespread research, and the yearly Hara Asao Award is given for poetry.
Sources
Nakae
Mori 1996
http://www.haraasao.jp/museum/index.html (Japanese) Site of a museum honoring Asao’s life. Click on any of the list of exhibitions in the left margin for various photographs and reproductions.
In 1904 she and her mother moved to Tokyo, where she entered the Japan Women’s School of Art. There she studied poetry as well as becoming close to her English literature teacher, Ohara Yoitsu. When the married Ohara got her pregnant, possibly through rape, she switched schools due to the scandal. Asao refused to listen to his demands that she abort the child; their son Chiaki was born in 1907 and they were perfunctorily married the following year, but the marriage dissolved very quickly and Asao threw herself into writing poetry while teaching at a girls’ school near her hometown. In 1909 her poems caught the eye of Yosano Akiko, and from there on she was published in various leading literary journals of the time, including Subaru and Hiratsuka Raicho’s Bluestocking. Her first volume of poetry, Tearstains, appeared in 1913.
She married the aspiring painter Shoji Isami (an old classmate’s brother who had helped her start school in Tokyo) in 1914 and divorced him in 1919, when the stress of his playboy tendencies and disregard for her and her children had begun to affect her health; in the interim their son Yasumi had been born in 1915, and her second volume of poetry published in 1916.
In 1920 she moved to Sendai in her home region and met the poet Ishiwara Jun, who was also a physics professor at Tohoku University who had introduced the theory of relativity to Japan. Ishiwara, who had a wife and five children, fell hard for the beautiful Asao; she fled to Tokyo to stay with her close friend Mikajima Yoshiko, pleading with Ishiwara’s wife “Don’t let him come after me!” He did, though, and she eventually gave in. Reports of their love affair in the newspapers cost Ishiwara his job; Asao and Yoshiko were both expelled from the influential Araragi poets’ group, although Ishiwara was permitted to remain a member (blame the woman). He and Asao moved together to rural Chiba where they lived quietly, Asao writing poetry—her third volume was published in 1921—and painting while Ishiwara worked as a science journalist. They also started their own poetry journal in 1924, along with various non-Araragi poet friends including Kitahara Hakushu (Eguchi Ayako’s ex-husband).
By 1928 Asao’s relationship with the controlling and occasionally unfaithful Ishiwara had deteriorated, especially due to her shock at Yoshiko's sudden death and his failure to support her; although he wrote a foreword to her fourth volume of poetry, published in 1928, vowing to do better as a husband, she left him later that year. Later in life she continued to write while supporting herself as a bar madam and occasionally an actress. She returned to her hometown in her late forties, assisted by friends and her two sons, and died in 1969 at the age of eighty-two. (She spent her later years with her younger son’s family; her daughter-in-law Momoko reported that Asao enjoyed housework but was unusually bad at it, knitting exquisite but unwearable socks.) Her sons Chiaki and Yasumi became a movie director and an actor respectively, both using her maiden name of Hara (to judge by the Wikipedia photograph, they both inherited their mother’s beauty and then some). Her poems are now the subject of widespread research, and the yearly Hara Asao Award is given for poetry.
Sources
Nakae
Mori 1996
http://www.haraasao.jp/museum/index.html (Japanese) Site of a museum honoring Asao’s life. Click on any of the list of exhibitions in the left margin for various photographs and reproductions.
A kidnapper wouldn't jump into a cold sea
Apr. 16th, 2026 10:18 pmsovayUnder very few circumstances while watching Ishirō Honda's Atragon (海底軍艦, 1963) does one have to hand it to Agent No. 23 of the Empire of Mu, the shoregoing operative of a barbarically advanced civilization gathering itself from the bed of the Pacific to reclaim its former colonies which in the millennia since its Atlantean sinking had the temerity to strike out on their own as the nations of Earth, but he is played by Akihiko Hirata in a gold-glint of dark glasses and an out-of-season scarf tucked against the chill of the surface world and when he is held at gunpoint with his back to the tide-line, he only smiles in the slightest of farewells before leaping into the day-for-night-blue surf without even taking off his shoes. "He escaped into the sea?" His introductory getaway was more technically audacious when he drove a stolen taxi straight off a quay, but if he were human he would look like a suicide and once he's in the water instead he rejoins his phosphorescently submerged comrades without so much as catching a bullet. In a high-concept blend of lost-world pulp and post-war politics, he's a wonderfully uncanny touch without special effects, which is not to deprecate the film's ingenious panoply of images from hydronauts in a looseleaf of silver scales to a dragon coiling like a moray from the side of an oceanic trench to the crimson-clouded detonation of a geothermal sun. The people of Mu run hotter than seals: the sea smokes like a geyser around them, a wrench turns red-hot in the agent's contemptuous grasp; one of his colleagues appears capable of generating an eellike stunning charge. "We have special energy. It's useless." Elsewhere their civilization resembles a sort of Egypto-Minoan fusion by way of Verne and Haggard, its laser cannons sheathed in the coils of bronze ceti and the blinkenlights of its enormous computer banks carved around in cyclopean bas-relief. The empress of Mu looks like a nascent anime design with her hood of clementine-colored hair and new wave eyes, a casual ransom of pearls collared over her brilliant draperies and finely ringed mail. Humanity's last, best hope if it can be repurposed from a dream of militaristic nationalism to the defense of global ideals, the Atragon-class submarine of the title suggests a garfish down to its countershading, a sleek leviathan of spy-fi industry artfully equipped with a few indistinguishably magical tricks of its own. When Mu calls in its marker on the land, the inevitable destruction of Tokyo is a one-two doozy of practical and animated effects—business districts jolted to flinders by a precisely triggered earthquake, container ships set ablaze by an enemy sub's lancing ray—but the eye candy doesn't crowd out the food for thought when the sunken empire makes such a successfully fantastical double for the imperial past that Japan must explicitly repudiate in order to inhabit its international future. I wouldn't kick any of it out of bed for eating seaweed crackers, especially not the first glimpse of the sea-dragon Manda, a thick shield-wall of scales, seemingly endless, breathing. I just remain enchanted with the liminal simplicity of Agent No. 23 in his anonymous dark suit, a Magritte figure whose very ordinariness makes him surreal. His voice will narrate a history of his empire from a spool of 8 mm and deliver its modern ultimatum on reel-to-reel. "Admiral, this earthquake isn't a coincidence. Remember me?" He'd be namelessly memorable even if I hadn't loved his actor since Dr. Serizawa. This sea brought to you by my special backers at Patreon.
Write Every Day: Day 16
Apr. 16th, 2026 05:36 pmsanguinityIntro/FAQ
My check-in: Haven't had much writing time yet today, but I did a little more review and checked a very important detail about classical violin vs. Irish fiddle with a friend who plays. (<- "very important detail" = throwaway detail that would distract a niche subset of readers if I got it wrong.)
Day 16:china_shop, sanguinity, sylvanwitch
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!
My check-in: Haven't had much writing time yet today, but I did a little more review and checked a very important detail about classical violin vs. Irish fiddle with a friend who plays. (<- "very important detail" = throwaway detail that would distract a niche subset of readers if I got it wrong.)
Day 16:
china_shop, sanguinity, sylvanwitchWhen 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!
(no subject)
Apr. 16th, 2026 07:59 pmskygiantsAs I mentioned on my last Pern post, Dragonsdawn was always the most memorable Pern book for me -- for my sins, and sins indeed they are. That said, having reread it, I can understand exactly why I found this so compelling. This was the book that sold me on the fantasy of planetary exploration and colonization as a delightful and desirable experience! You could go to a beautiful new world and discover baby dragons and have random islands named after you! You could build a new Utopian society! Is Anne McCaffrey's vision of a Utopian society uncomfortably libertarian? Sure, but I was ten, I didn't know what libertarians were, I just understood that Sorka was having a very cool time as a happily free-range child exploring the Pernese landscape. I don't think it was until I read Mary Roach's Packing for Mars as an adult that I fully came to terms with the fact that going to space actually sounded like a deeply unpleasant time, logistically speaking, and let the faint wisps of the Dragonsdawn dream of First Feet Down on a beautiful new planet that's functionally just like Earth with bonus charming telepathic fauna dissipate into the ether.
I mean, it is sort of an open question though: early Pernese culture, potential paradise or libertarian cult? I do think McCaffrey knows that the colonist's blissful vision of If Everyone Has Enough Land For Themselves We Can All Just Be Chill And Not Actually Bother Society-Building is doomed to some degree of failure on account of bad actors, even before it's interrupted by Thread. She could have just made it a book about dealing with Thread and developing dragons about it, and it would probably be a better book if she did, but she's so grimly determined to put some bad actors in just to demonstrate she knows they exist. This at least is my theory of how we got Evil Sexy Avril Bitra, perpetrator of history's most inexplicable heist. "If I go on this fifty-year mission, I can steal some diamonds, steal an escape pod, launch myself back out into space, and get picked up back in a society that's moved on a hundred years from the one I left! Probably they'll still want diamonds and I'll re-adapt just fine!"
So, I can understand, I guess, why Avril Bitra. I don't understand and don't think I will ever understand why Avril Bitra's narrative foil is a would-be tradwife who nonconsensually aphrodisiaced her way into marriage with a man who has never shown any romantic interest in anything except cave systems and then spent the next eight years making a shocked Pikachu face about the fact that he continued to not be all that into her. Why is Sallah Telgar's plot in this book? What is it doing here? Why is Avril Bitra evilly torturing Sallah on the spaceship given so much page space and weird psychosexual intensity when literally nothing about this plot actually impacts the colony's situation IN ANY ACTUAL WAY? I thought a reread would leave me less confused about all this than I was when I was ten and in fact I think it did the opposite. Anne, please ... you must have had some thoughts about this, thematically, structurally ... I'm coming to you, hat in hand, asking for answers.
I do think it's very funny that in the years between 1968 and 1989 Anne McCaffrey decided that it was a bit embarrassing that she'd built biological differences into her dragons such that the queens don't breathe fire, and decided to blame it on the fact that the dragons were genetically designed by an Extremely Traditional Chinese Grandma instead. Is it also racist? Yes, extremely. But if we start talking about all the unfortunate well-meaning racism in Dragonsdawn we'll be here all day and I don't have that much day left. Racism aside I did find myself unexpectedly somewhat moved by the subplot I did not remember at all in which Kenjo Fusaiyuki, a guy who has made a Profound Mistake in moving to an isolated colony planet that's dedicated itself to being low-tech and abandoning spaceflight, desperately hoards fuel for as long as possible to put off the time when he will have to at last give up for good and all the thing he loves most and is best at in all the world.
And you know who could've saved Kenjo Fusaiyuki's life, if she had stopped to help the two guys Avril Bitra clonked on the head instead of uselessly pursuing her into space? YES, IT'S ANOTHER SALLAH TELGAR CRIME. Sallah Telgar, you have so much to answer for.
I mean, it is sort of an open question though: early Pernese culture, potential paradise or libertarian cult? I do think McCaffrey knows that the colonist's blissful vision of If Everyone Has Enough Land For Themselves We Can All Just Be Chill And Not Actually Bother Society-Building is doomed to some degree of failure on account of bad actors, even before it's interrupted by Thread. She could have just made it a book about dealing with Thread and developing dragons about it, and it would probably be a better book if she did, but she's so grimly determined to put some bad actors in just to demonstrate she knows they exist. This at least is my theory of how we got Evil Sexy Avril Bitra, perpetrator of history's most inexplicable heist. "If I go on this fifty-year mission, I can steal some diamonds, steal an escape pod, launch myself back out into space, and get picked up back in a society that's moved on a hundred years from the one I left! Probably they'll still want diamonds and I'll re-adapt just fine!"
So, I can understand, I guess, why Avril Bitra. I don't understand and don't think I will ever understand why Avril Bitra's narrative foil is a would-be tradwife who nonconsensually aphrodisiaced her way into marriage with a man who has never shown any romantic interest in anything except cave systems and then spent the next eight years making a shocked Pikachu face about the fact that he continued to not be all that into her. Why is Sallah Telgar's plot in this book? What is it doing here? Why is Avril Bitra evilly torturing Sallah on the spaceship given so much page space and weird psychosexual intensity when literally nothing about this plot actually impacts the colony's situation IN ANY ACTUAL WAY? I thought a reread would leave me less confused about all this than I was when I was ten and in fact I think it did the opposite. Anne, please ... you must have had some thoughts about this, thematically, structurally ... I'm coming to you, hat in hand, asking for answers.
I do think it's very funny that in the years between 1968 and 1989 Anne McCaffrey decided that it was a bit embarrassing that she'd built biological differences into her dragons such that the queens don't breathe fire, and decided to blame it on the fact that the dragons were genetically designed by an Extremely Traditional Chinese Grandma instead. Is it also racist? Yes, extremely. But if we start talking about all the unfortunate well-meaning racism in Dragonsdawn we'll be here all day and I don't have that much day left. Racism aside I did find myself unexpectedly somewhat moved by the subplot I did not remember at all in which Kenjo Fusaiyuki, a guy who has made a Profound Mistake in moving to an isolated colony planet that's dedicated itself to being low-tech and abandoning spaceflight, desperately hoards fuel for as long as possible to put off the time when he will have to at last give up for good and all the thing he loves most and is best at in all the world.
And you know who could've saved Kenjo Fusaiyuki's life, if she had stopped to help the two guys Avril Bitra clonked on the head instead of uselessly pursuing her into space? YES, IT'S ANOTHER SALLAH TELGAR CRIME. Sallah Telgar, you have so much to answer for.
My first fanfiction in many, many fandoms + thoughts
Apr. 16th, 2026 06:45 pmpetrateland tagged me in a Tumblr meme, which I completed here for legibility/copy-paste-ability.Here are my present thoughts about the first story I wrote in each of 30 fandoms, selected because those are the ones in which I have written more than 3 works longer than a drabble, with the occasional guest star of "All right, I mostly wrote drabbles in this fandom, but I really want to list it."
If that sounds like a meme you want to do, consider yourself tagged! The original meme was just "First story you wrote in each fandom" but I'd be here for a month if I did all of them.
The list of fandoms where stories appear is: Ashes to Ashes, Aubrey-Maturin - O'Brian, Battlestar Galactica (2003), Dark is Rising - Cooper, DCU (Comics), DCU Animated - Timmverse, Discworld - Pratchett, Doctrine of Labyrinths, due South, Falsettos - Finn & Lapine, Generation Kill (TV), Good Omens - Gaiman & Pratchett, Jeeves & Wooster, Les Misérables - Hugo, Life on Mars (UK), The Magicians (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, then known as Avengers (2012), Men's Ice Hockey RPF, Promethean Age - Bear, Singin' in the Rain (1952), Slings & Arrows:, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars RPF, Supreme Power, Tales of the City - Maupin, Twitch City, Vorkosigan Saga - Bujold, and White Collar.
( I am not monofannish )
Me-and-media update
Apr. 17th, 2026 10:05 amchina_shopPrevious poll review
In the Stoic hurt/comfort poll, 44.2% of respondents prefer the stoic character stoically/reluctantly/awkwardly providing comfort, vs 41.9% who prefer them receiving comfort (pretty sure that's within the margin of error, though); and 27.9% said it depends. Three people (including me) checked "I'm not into hurt/comfort." <3
In ticky-boxes, appreciating being able to breathe through your nose came second to hugs, 62.8% to 79.1%. Thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
I finished The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, read by Sid Sagar, a m/m clockpunk fantasy novel set in ancient Thebes. I especially enjoyed the Theban POV, and I grew increasingly more engaged as it progressed. Might read it again sometime in text.
Still making my way through Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell. I'm up to the advice for third drafts.
Andrew and I finished Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner, while polishing off a jigsaw, and have started The Vor Game, in which Miles is instructed to learn to respect authority, and immediately sets out to manipulate everyone around him.
Kdramas
The same four as last week: Phantom Lawyer, You're Beautiful (ahhhh!), Love Scout, and Lovely Runner. The latter involves the female lead time-travelling 15 years into her past self, and she seems weirdly unaware of the age gap between her and the school-age male lead. Maybe this isn't a romance? (Writing this made me consider an alternate version where her contemporary self just sends her diary or something to the past instead, so her teen self would be armed with all the knowledge but still age-appropriate.)
Other TV
Finished Paper Girls (argh, permanent cliffhanger ending!) and Connections (BBC). Still watching The Pitt, Rooster, and Scrubs. Zoomed through all of Big Mistakes, a Netflix romp starring Dan Levy, which ended with a set-up for season 2.
Fringe (which is losing the plot, wow) and Bluey with my sister.
And we saw Hoppers at the cinema, and had a great time with it. Aww! Such an optimistic view of the world.
Audio entertainment
Dreaming Against the Machine (new podcast by Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever), episode 1: "Futurists, with Reo Eveleth". The podcast is about "envisioning a realistic and hopeful future", and this episode was really great. I found it via the Better Offline episode "More, Everything, Forever with Adam Becker".
(Aside: something about DAtM made me think that podcasts are the blogs of today: thoughtful people making their ideas and conversations public, very voicey and intimate in a way. And presumably just as hard to break into (in the English-language sphere) if you're not a confident user of the English language...)
Writing/making things
Getting back into the swing of writers' hour now it's moved to 8am for the winter -- which is timely, because I have a 520 Day assignment fic to write. (I was aiming for short, but it's already over1500w 2300w, with at least two scenes to go. Which is what happens when you mostly read novels, I guess.)
Life/health/mental state things
We've had a few days of gorgeous weather (and next week is looking dire), which has meant a lot of biking. Plus I have builders working on reputtying some of my windows, which is disruptive and dusty, so I've been out a lot; yesterday I worked on my 520 fic at our newly re-opened central public library. All of which is to say that my arms are pretty mad at me. Bluetooth keyboards are great, but so is my home ergonomic setup. And I can only handle so much biking atm.
The window work is in a race against the weather, and weather forecasting has got less accurate since some @#$#*ing incompetent shitheads @#(*ed up the US Weather Service. So who knows if my house will be weatherproof next week? No one!
I'm not as cranky as this sounds. Just a bit stressed, and my house is covered in a fine layer of dust. Guess I'm looking at a thoroughspring autumn clean once this is all done.
Had a flu jab on Wednesday.
Link dump
Get your Letter to the Editor published. Every. Time. | AO3 admin post about Spambot Comments on AO3 (different types, and what to do about them) | Remarkable survival after hawk trapped in car grille | Mom cat shows her kittens the German shepherd is safe (Youtube, viastarandrea).
Good things
Lovely weather. Mobile technology and ebikes. Writing!! Friendly builders. Andrew and Halle and friends and Dreamwidth.
In the Stoic hurt/comfort poll, 44.2% of respondents prefer the stoic character stoically/reluctantly/awkwardly providing comfort, vs 41.9% who prefer them receiving comfort (pretty sure that's within the margin of error, though); and 27.9% said it depends. Three people (including me) checked "I'm not into hurt/comfort." <3
In ticky-boxes, appreciating being able to breathe through your nose came second to hugs, 62.8% to 79.1%. Thank you for your votes! ♥
Reading
I finished The Hymn to Dionysus by Natasha Pulley, read by Sid Sagar, a m/m clockpunk fantasy novel set in ancient Thebes. I especially enjoyed the Theban POV, and I grew increasingly more engaged as it progressed. Might read it again sometime in text.
Still making my way through Refuse to Be Done by Matt Bell. I'm up to the advice for third drafts.
Andrew and I finished Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold, read by Grover Gardner, while polishing off a jigsaw, and have started The Vor Game, in which Miles is instructed to learn to respect authority, and immediately sets out to manipulate everyone around him.
Kdramas
The same four as last week: Phantom Lawyer, You're Beautiful (ahhhh!), Love Scout, and Lovely Runner. The latter involves the female lead time-travelling 15 years into her past self, and she seems weirdly unaware of the age gap between her and the school-age male lead. Maybe this isn't a romance? (Writing this made me consider an alternate version where her contemporary self just sends her diary or something to the past instead, so her teen self would be armed with all the knowledge but still age-appropriate.)
Other TV
Finished Paper Girls (argh, permanent cliffhanger ending!) and Connections (BBC). Still watching The Pitt, Rooster, and Scrubs. Zoomed through all of Big Mistakes, a Netflix romp starring Dan Levy, which ended with a set-up for season 2.
Fringe (which is losing the plot, wow) and Bluey with my sister.
And we saw Hoppers at the cinema, and had a great time with it. Aww! Such an optimistic view of the world.
Audio entertainment
Dreaming Against the Machine (new podcast by Adam Becker, author of More Everything Forever), episode 1: "Futurists, with Reo Eveleth". The podcast is about "envisioning a realistic and hopeful future", and this episode was really great. I found it via the Better Offline episode "More, Everything, Forever with Adam Becker".
(Aside: something about DAtM made me think that podcasts are the blogs of today: thoughtful people making their ideas and conversations public, very voicey and intimate in a way. And presumably just as hard to break into (in the English-language sphere) if you're not a confident user of the English language...)
Writing/making things
Getting back into the swing of writers' hour now it's moved to 8am for the winter -- which is timely, because I have a 520 Day assignment fic to write. (I was aiming for short, but it's already over
Life/health/mental state things
We've had a few days of gorgeous weather (and next week is looking dire), which has meant a lot of biking. Plus I have builders working on reputtying some of my windows, which is disruptive and dusty, so I've been out a lot; yesterday I worked on my 520 fic at our newly re-opened central public library. All of which is to say that my arms are pretty mad at me. Bluetooth keyboards are great, but so is my home ergonomic setup. And I can only handle so much biking atm.
The window work is in a race against the weather, and weather forecasting has got less accurate since some @#$#*ing incompetent shitheads @#(*ed up the US Weather Service. So who knows if my house will be weatherproof next week? No one!
I'm not as cranky as this sounds. Just a bit stressed, and my house is covered in a fine layer of dust. Guess I'm looking at a thorough
Had a flu jab on Wednesday.
Link dump
Get your Letter to the Editor published. Every. Time. | AO3 admin post about Spambot Comments on AO3 (different types, and what to do about them) | Remarkable survival after hawk trapped in car grille | Mom cat shows her kittens the German shepherd is safe (Youtube, via
starandrea).Good things
Lovely weather. Mobile technology and ebikes. Writing!! Friendly builders. Andrew and Halle and friends and Dreamwidth.
Poll #34482 Fanfic vs Profic
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 33
Do you have different prose standards for reading profic vs fanfic?
View Answers
no, I'm pretty relaxed about prose quality if other aspects of the story capture me
6 (18.2%)
yes, I'm more picky about fanfic
0 (0.0%)
yes, I'm more picky about profic...
14 (42.4%)
... with the exception of certain genres
3 (9.1%)
no, I'm picky across the board
12 (36.4%)
other
5 (15.2%)
ticky-box of to read makes our speaking English good
17 (51.5%)
ticky-box full of podcasts
4 (12.1%)
ticky-box of how many rivers must an otter swim down before you can call it an otter
20 (60.6%)
ticky-box full of 42
15 (45.5%)
ticky-box full of hugs
23 (69.7%)
Nekropolis, by Maureen McHugh
Apr. 16th, 2026 10:38 amrachelmanija
In a future Morocco, a young woman named Hariba with no prospects has herself jessed, a process which renders her loyal to whoever buys her, and sells herself as an indentured servant to a wealthy household. There she meets Akhmim, a harni - a genetically engineered human designed to be a perfect lover or companion. Hariba falls in love with him and runs away with him, but because she's jessed, she becomes extremely sick due to defying her loyalty implant.
Up until this point, the book had a compelling atmosphere a bit reminiscent of The Handmaid's Tale in that it explored the daily life of people living with very little agency in the home of someone who owns them. But once Hariba gets sick, she becomes completely sidelined from the story and basically lies in bed suffering for the entire middle part of the book, while the POV switches from Hariba and Akhmim to first her mother, then her friend - neither of whom are very interesting.
( Read more... )
This is a well-written book with interesting issues that sags a lot in the middle portion when Hariba basically drops out of the story, and ends in a note of depression and gloom.
Though I didn't love this book, I'm sorry that McHugh doesn't seem to be writing novels anymore as I did quite like China Mountain Zhang and Mission Child.
US Politics: Biggest triumphal arch in world proposed commemorating MAGA
Apr. 16th, 2026 01:12 pmpetraFeed the hungry? Heal the sick? Stop the war? Naaaaaah. Let's BUILD BIG ART.
Is it to celebrate Trump getting the FIFA Peace Prize? JD pwning the Pope?
Trump Admin triumphs: footage not found.
The mere concept of building a big monument to fuckall while we are activelyat war illegally bombing another country without the consent of Congress, with no victory conditions and less motivation than the average divorce, offends me to the core. Triumphing over common sense is not a triumph.
Is it to celebrate Trump getting the FIFA Peace Prize? JD pwning the Pope?
Trump Admin triumphs: footage not found.
The mere concept of building a big monument to fuckall while we are actively
I used to do this sort of thing first thing in the morning and go about my day
Apr. 16th, 2026 04:42 pmoursinOn the other hand, I am thinking of the times when I was dealing with a fairly professional set of meedja people either coming with their gear to interview me in my Former Workplace, or else having me in a studio nicely set up for the purpose.
Not recording a podcast from my own front room on my own computer and having to set up my own headphones and mike and feeling that the instructions about Settings could pertain a little closer to what I find there....
And adjust the curtains so that there was not a glare off the portrait photo of Dame Rebecca and all that sort of thing.
- the fact that the connection to Headphones was no longer saying Headphones might have been a clue that all was not entirely as it should be -
So anyway, when I got connected there was total silence and had to do a certain amount of jiggling around and changing the settings and anyway, did finally get to the stage where I was both audible and able to hear everyone else.
Though when I spoke the effect was, roughly speaking, of a 45 rpm single being played at 33 rpm, no, I have no idea why, they were fairly hopeful this could be sorted in editing.
The actual discussion went okay I think - other person who was there to be Nexpert is old(ish) mate who has just writ a book of relevance which cites me quite a bit.
But lo and behold, had a subsequent email from them expressing concern over the slurring issue in case it was Health Thing and should I see my GP, which was thoughtful, but really, it was TECHNOLOGICAL ISSUE. (I did not respond, hey, your image was looking really blurry and faint, are you feeling well? because I assumed that was their camera.)
Am feeling mildly knackered now, unlike the days when I would jaunt down to Broadcasting House, do my chat on Woman's Hour, and then go and do my normal day's work.
Of course, I was Younger then.
The Thursday Letter: Panty Thief Outed By Aggrieved Ex
Apr. 16th, 2026 01:40 pmsavagelove_feedI’m curious to see where Savage Lovers come down on this one… I am a 25-year-old male going through a disruptive transition period after a secret of mine got out. Here goes: I developed a panty fetish in middle school thanks to the ease with which I could search for pictures of panties and thongs … Read More »
The post The Thursday Letter: Panty Thief Outed By Aggrieved Ex appeared first on Dan Savage.
The Fantastic Journey: Fanfic: Another Challenge
Apr. 16th, 2026 02:15 pmbadly_knitted posting in fan_flashworksTitle: Another Challenge
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Scott, Fred, Willaway, Varian, Liana.
Rating: PG
Setting: After the series.
Summary: Entering a new zone, the travellers find there’s now a huge mountain in their path. What are they going to do?
Word Count: 1604
Content Notes: Nada.
Written For: Challenge 512: Obstacle.
Disclaimer: I don’t own The Fantastic Journey, or the characters. They belong to their creators.
Book Review: Hooked
Apr. 16th, 2026 08:13 amosprey_archer“Self,” I told myself, as I circled the bookstore display of Asako Yuzuki’s Hooked, “self, you must de-hype yourself. Yes, this is the new book by the author of your beloved Butter, and yes, Yuzuki has teamed up once again with all time favorite translator Polly Barton, but you must not expect to love it as much as Butter! That is too much weight to place on a book!”
And indeed I did not love Hooked as much as Butter, but it’s still a fascinating book and just as propulsively readable, even as it went off the rails a bit at the end.
Hooked begins with our heroine Eriko arriving at work early. She is a successful employee but otherwise struggling in life. She’s thirty years old, still single, keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends, and doesn’t have a single female friend.
This last fact is the one that torments her. She believes (despite the solid counter-evidence of all those dumpings) that she’s good with men, but she’s terrible at female relationships and she knows it. In fact, sometimes she laments that she’s never had a female friend, although once again - solid counter evidence - she keeps running into her old friend Keiko in the apartment halls. But Eriko destroyed that friendship when she was 15, and hasn’t had a friend since.
However, Eriko has achieved a pleasurable parasocial relationship with her favorite blogger, Hallie B, who bills herself as The World’s Worst Wife. She has neither a job nor children, just stays home all day neither cleaning the house nor cooking, just loafing about and occasionally updating her blog.
Oh, and Hallie B seems to have no female friends either. This makes Eriko feel extremely seen.
Then one day, Eriko catches sight of Hallie B having lunch at a local neighborhood spot. She introduces herself as a big fan of the blog, Hallie B introduces herself by her real name Shoko, and they make plans to have dinner at a nearby Denny’s.
Dinner is a blast! They super hit it off! Eriko rides home on the back of Shoko’s bike, like they’re in a high school anime, amazing. Eriko concludes that her friendship problems are OVER because she has now found a BEST FRIEND FOREVER and they are now going to hang out, like, ALL THE TIME.
Shoko thinks they had a nice evening and hopes they can continue to hang out occasionally.
You can see where this is going. Soon Eriko is sending Shoko lengthy strings of texts promising that she is NOT a stalker, and also stalking the Denny’s where they hung out that one time in case Shoko comes back so Eriko can tell Shoko to her face that she is not! not! NOT! stalking her!
Eriko has some of the same energy as Izzy in The Appeal, except somehow simultaneously more deranged and more self-aware. It seems like these two qualities should be contradictory, and indeed there are times when Yuzuki doesn’t get the balance quite right, and instead of seeming fascinatingly, complexly batshit, Eriko just seems incoherent.
( spoilers )
And indeed I did not love Hooked as much as Butter, but it’s still a fascinating book and just as propulsively readable, even as it went off the rails a bit at the end.
Hooked begins with our heroine Eriko arriving at work early. She is a successful employee but otherwise struggling in life. She’s thirty years old, still single, keeps getting dumped by her boyfriends, and doesn’t have a single female friend.
This last fact is the one that torments her. She believes (despite the solid counter-evidence of all those dumpings) that she’s good with men, but she’s terrible at female relationships and she knows it. In fact, sometimes she laments that she’s never had a female friend, although once again - solid counter evidence - she keeps running into her old friend Keiko in the apartment halls. But Eriko destroyed that friendship when she was 15, and hasn’t had a friend since.
However, Eriko has achieved a pleasurable parasocial relationship with her favorite blogger, Hallie B, who bills herself as The World’s Worst Wife. She has neither a job nor children, just stays home all day neither cleaning the house nor cooking, just loafing about and occasionally updating her blog.
Oh, and Hallie B seems to have no female friends either. This makes Eriko feel extremely seen.
Then one day, Eriko catches sight of Hallie B having lunch at a local neighborhood spot. She introduces herself as a big fan of the blog, Hallie B introduces herself by her real name Shoko, and they make plans to have dinner at a nearby Denny’s.
Dinner is a blast! They super hit it off! Eriko rides home on the back of Shoko’s bike, like they’re in a high school anime, amazing. Eriko concludes that her friendship problems are OVER because she has now found a BEST FRIEND FOREVER and they are now going to hang out, like, ALL THE TIME.
Shoko thinks they had a nice evening and hopes they can continue to hang out occasionally.
You can see where this is going. Soon Eriko is sending Shoko lengthy strings of texts promising that she is NOT a stalker, and also stalking the Denny’s where they hung out that one time in case Shoko comes back so Eriko can tell Shoko to her face that she is not! not! NOT! stalking her!
Eriko has some of the same energy as Izzy in The Appeal, except somehow simultaneously more deranged and more self-aware. It seems like these two qualities should be contradictory, and indeed there are times when Yuzuki doesn’t get the balance quite right, and instead of seeming fascinatingly, complexly batshit, Eriko just seems incoherent.
( spoilers )
Planter and seeds acquired!
Apr. 16th, 2026 09:14 amumadoshiOur planter is here! Getting it wasn't actually a saga, but it felt a bit like one. ( TL;DR: delivery service annoyance )
We also both took yesterday off (and I'm off the rest of the week, but got up at my usual workday time today in hopes of getting a fair amount of manga work done), and ventured out to buy veg seeds for the planter. (We also still need to get soil/fertilizer/etc., but want to read up on it more first. I think I might order a hard copy of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, which I got on sale in ebook recently and like so far.)
Yesterday's important lesson: when noting down which seed varieties we like the looks of, include the source, because our local store, at least, has separate displays for each originating company, and knowing that would make it much easier to check for the various varieties. Anyway, here's what we wound up with (descriptions are in my last post):
Basil: Devotion.
Cabbage: Early Golden Acre (green) and Serpentine F1 (savoy).
Spinach: Bloomsdale and Renegade.
Lettuce: Brighton (Butterhead), Black Seeded Simpson (green leaf), Red Salad Bowl (red leaf), Grand Rapids (green leaf), Freckles (romaine), and Drunken Woman.
We also both took yesterday off (and I'm off the rest of the week, but got up at my usual workday time today in hopes of getting a fair amount of manga work done), and ventured out to buy veg seeds for the planter. (We also still need to get soil/fertilizer/etc., but want to read up on it more first. I think I might order a hard copy of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, which I got on sale in ebook recently and like so far.)
Yesterday's important lesson: when noting down which seed varieties we like the looks of, include the source, because our local store, at least, has separate displays for each originating company, and knowing that would make it much easier to check for the various varieties. Anyway, here's what we wound up with (descriptions are in my last post):
Basil: Devotion.
Cabbage: Early Golden Acre (green) and Serpentine F1 (savoy).
Spinach: Bloomsdale and Renegade.
Lettuce: Brighton (Butterhead), Black Seeded Simpson (green leaf), Red Salad Bowl (red leaf), Grand Rapids (green leaf), Freckles (romaine), and Drunken Woman.
