Unfit to Print, KJ Charles, romance novella. I often find novella-length romance a little funny - like, what, that's it, they sorted out their differences that easily? - but this one was pretty good, a childhood friends/sweethearts second chance romance between a lawyer and a porn seller, both men of color in Victorian England. A nice little read.
Tags:
⌈ Secret Post #6797 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #972.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 15th, 2025 05:40 pm)
scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 15th, 2025 05:40 pm)Earlier this month I wrote about someone using an AI-generated quote and attributing it to me (along with an AI-generated picture of me which looked nothing like me), and I was more than a little annoyed by it. Now my experience and the experience of others who have had this happen, is the subject of an article in The Atlantic, titled “Don’t Believe What AI Told You I Said,” by Yair Rosenberg. I can attest that, indeed, it me being directly quoted in the piece, so you have that much assurance. And yes, this is a problem that will not go away, and is indeed likely to grow over time. Be vigilant about who and what you quote, folks.
— JS
⌈ Secret Post #6796 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 07 secrets from Secret Submission Post #972.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
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everysecondtuesday posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
jump_scare_exchange Aug. 14th, 2025 05:26 pm)
everysecondtuesday posting in jump_scare_exchange Aug. 14th, 2025 05:26 pm)Sign Ups are open until August 22nd 9PM EDT. (Yes, they're open a little early from what's listed on the schedule.)
If you sign up, you are committing to create a work of at least the quality of an unlined sketch or a fic of 300 words by August 30th 9 PM EDT, depending on what you match on. Gifts are not guaranteed, though pinch hits will be sent out and, we hope, filled.
Matching is by Fandom, Medium, and Archive Warning. Everything else is optional.
Matching is OR. This means you only need to create one of the fandoms requested, one of the mediums requested, and one of the Archive Warnings in that fandom's request.
You must offer and request at least three unique fandoms. They can all fall under the same umbrella fandom.
Do Not Wants are allowed in the optional details box. These are not meant to allow someone to box their creator in, but rather to give guidance. (Please see the FAQ if you're confused about DNWs should look like.)
In the optional details box, you can also talk a little bit about what you like besides the horror freeforms, link to your five minute fandoms, and do whatever else you'd like within the confines of an AO3 optional details box.
You must choose at least one medium per offer and request. You can choose either fic or art.
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Request what you are willing to receive.
Offer what you are willing to create.
If you do not want to create or receive any material with Archive Warnings, tick No Archive Warnings Apply.
Nominations will remain open through the close of sign ups. If you want something that is not in the tag set, you can still nominate it.
All links and schedule.
If you sign up, you are committing to create a work of at least the quality of an unlined sketch or a fic of 300 words by August 30th 9 PM EDT, depending on what you match on. Gifts are not guaranteed, though pinch hits will be sent out and, we hope, filled.
Matching is by Fandom, Medium, and Archive Warning. Everything else is optional.
Matching is OR. This means you only need to create one of the fandoms requested, one of the mediums requested, and one of the Archive Warnings in that fandom's request.
You must offer and request at least three unique fandoms. They can all fall under the same umbrella fandom.
Do Not Wants are allowed in the optional details box. These are not meant to allow someone to box their creator in, but rather to give guidance. (Please see the FAQ if you're confused about DNWs should look like.)
In the optional details box, you can also talk a little bit about what you like besides the horror freeforms, link to your five minute fandoms, and do whatever else you'd like within the confines of an AO3 optional details box.
You must choose at least one medium per offer and request. You can choose either fic or art.
You must choose at least one Archive Warning per offer and request. The Archive Warnings you can choose are Graphic Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-con, Underage, and No Archive Warnings Apply.
Request what you are willing to receive.
Offer what you are willing to create.
If you do not want to create or receive any material with Archive Warnings, tick No Archive Warnings Apply.
Nominations will remain open through the close of sign ups. If you want something that is not in the tag set, you can still nominate it.
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(tentaclemod posting in raremaleslashex Aug. 14th, 2025 09:21 pm)
tentaclemod posting in raremaleslashex Aug. 14th, 2025 09:21 pm)The Pinch Hits are due on Saturday 23 August at 20:00 UTC. You can view a countdown here.
To claim: please reply to this post with your AO3 username and the name and number of the pinch hit you want to claim. Comments are screened. You can also email tentaclemod@gmail.com.
Anon commenting is fine but bear in mind that I cannot reply if you comment anon!
You don't have to be signed up to the exchange to claim a pinch hit, but you do need an AO3 account.
All pinch hits must comply with the rules here. The minimum is a completed work of fanfiction of at least 1000 words or a completed piece of fanart or 500 words of podfic (depending on what the recipient has requested).
( PH 6 - [Fanfic + Fanart] NoPixel (Web Series), 鴨乃橋ロンの禁断推理 | Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri | Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective (Manga), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs, 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Anime), Runescape (Video Games) )
( PH 8 - [All Fanfic] Bandom, Cool Runnings, due South, Good Omens, Zootopia, Real Genius- )
( PH 9 - [All Fanfic] Dishonored (Video Games), BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games), Revenge (1990) )
( PH 11 - [All Fanfic] X-Men: The Animated Series (Cartoon 1992), World of Warcraft, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV 2000), Hellboy (Comics) )
( PH 17 - Crossover Fandom, Naruto (Anime & Manga), 新世界狂歡｜NU: carnival (Video Game) )
( PH 18 - Biggles Series - W. E. Johns, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Labyrinth (1986), Sime~Gen - Jacqueline Lichtenberg & Jean Lorrah, Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band (Song), Original Work )
( PH 20 - Our Flag Means Death (TV) RPF, Secret Six (DC Comics), Arthurian Mythology, Batman (Comics), Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman, Our Flag Means Death (TV) )
( PH 21 - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, The Mandalorian (TV), Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Crossover Fandom )
( PH 22 - 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù )
To claim: please reply to this post with your AO3 username and the name and number of the pinch hit you want to claim. Comments are screened. You can also email tentaclemod@gmail.com.
Anon commenting is fine but bear in mind that I cannot reply if you comment anon!
You don't have to be signed up to the exchange to claim a pinch hit, but you do need an AO3 account.
All pinch hits must comply with the rules here. The minimum is a completed work of fanfiction of at least 1000 words or a completed piece of fanart or 500 words of podfic (depending on what the recipient has requested).
( PH 6 - [Fanfic + Fanart] NoPixel (Web Series), 鴨乃橋ロンの禁断推理 | Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri | Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective (Manga), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs, 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Anime), Runescape (Video Games) )
( PH 8 - [All Fanfic] Bandom, Cool Runnings, due South, Good Omens, Zootopia, Real Genius- )
( PH 9 - [All Fanfic] Dishonored (Video Games), BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games), Revenge (1990) )
( PH 11 - [All Fanfic] X-Men: The Animated Series (Cartoon 1992), World of Warcraft, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV 2000), Hellboy (Comics) )
( PH 17 - Crossover Fandom, Naruto (Anime & Manga), 新世界狂歡｜NU: carnival (Video Game) )
( PH 18 - Biggles Series - W. E. Johns, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Labyrinth (1986), Sime~Gen - Jacqueline Lichtenberg & Jean Lorrah, Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band (Song), Original Work )
( PH 20 - Our Flag Means Death (TV) RPF, Secret Six (DC Comics), Arthurian Mythology, Batman (Comics), Macdonald Hall - Gordon Korman, Our Flag Means Death (TV) )
( PH 21 - Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Star Wars Legends: X-Wing Series - Aaron Allston & Michael Stackpole, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn, The Mandalorian (TV), Les Misérables - Victor Hugo, Crossover Fandom )
( PH 22 - 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù )
Last week I was on vacation at Beth's family cottage, which normally would mean that I'd be reading a battered paperback. HOWEVER instead I was racing to finish Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets due to the unfortunate fact of it being triply overdue at the library.
A useful and worthwhile book; a compelling and depressing book; not, perhaps, an ideal vacation book, but so it goes. The book is composed of oral histories conducted by Alexievich in the years between 1991 and 2012 with various inhabitants of the Former Soviet Union. Alexievich is particularly interested in suicides, and several of the interviews/chapters circulate around people who knew or were close to people who took their own lives after the fall of communism; several others focus on people who were living in areas of the former Soviet Union where the end of the USSR led immediately to ethnic or nationalistic violence.
Many of the oral histories follow a pattern that goes
a. [recounting of an absolutely horrific personal-infrastructural tragedy or example of human cruelty that happened under Stalin]
b. but at least we had ideals
c. And Now We Have This Fucking Capitalism Instead And It's Not A Good Trade
and many others go
a. under socialism in [location] they said we were all brothers and I believed it
b. and suddenly overnight that changed and I will be forever haunted by the things I've seen since
Alexievich recounts the oral histories more or less as if they're dramatic/poetic monologues -- usually monologues of despair -- removing herself and the circumstances under which they were conducted almost entirely, except for a very occasional and startling interjection to make a point. (One oral history, of the horrific-things-happened-but-we-believed variety, is intermittently interrupted by anekdoty from the interviewee's son; Alexievich comments that no matter what she asked him, he only ever responded with a joke.) Some sections are compendiums of conversation gathered in a location, at a party or in a marketplace, sliding past each other montage-style. As a literary conceit, it's very effective, but I found myself wishing sometimes that it was a little less literary. It's rare that I read a nonfiction book and want the author to be putting more of themself into the narrative, rather than less, but I wanted to know what questions she was asking. That said, for various reasons, I'm considering buying a copy.
A useful and worthwhile book; a compelling and depressing book; not, perhaps, an ideal vacation book, but so it goes. The book is composed of oral histories conducted by Alexievich in the years between 1991 and 2012 with various inhabitants of the Former Soviet Union. Alexievich is particularly interested in suicides, and several of the interviews/chapters circulate around people who knew or were close to people who took their own lives after the fall of communism; several others focus on people who were living in areas of the former Soviet Union where the end of the USSR led immediately to ethnic or nationalistic violence.
Many of the oral histories follow a pattern that goes
a. [recounting of an absolutely horrific personal-infrastructural tragedy or example of human cruelty that happened under Stalin]
b. but at least we had ideals
c. And Now We Have This Fucking Capitalism Instead And It's Not A Good Trade
and many others go
a. under socialism in [location] they said we were all brothers and I believed it
b. and suddenly overnight that changed and I will be forever haunted by the things I've seen since
Alexievich recounts the oral histories more or less as if they're dramatic/poetic monologues -- usually monologues of despair -- removing herself and the circumstances under which they were conducted almost entirely, except for a very occasional and startling interjection to make a point. (One oral history, of the horrific-things-happened-but-we-believed variety, is intermittently interrupted by anekdoty from the interviewee's son; Alexievich comments that no matter what she asked him, he only ever responded with a joke.) Some sections are compendiums of conversation gathered in a location, at a party or in a marketplace, sliding past each other montage-style. As a literary conceit, it's very effective, but I found myself wishing sometimes that it was a little less literary. It's rare that I read a nonfiction book and want the author to be putting more of themself into the narrative, rather than less, but I wanted to know what questions she was asking. That said, for various reasons, I'm considering buying a copy.
(scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 14th, 2025 04:29 pm)
scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 14th, 2025 04:29 pm)
How different would the world look if humans stopped downplaying our problems, such as climate change? Author Thomas R. Weaver imagines a near-future where we hand over control to someone, or something, who won’t ignore said problems. Follow along in the Big Idea for his debut novel, Artificial Wisdom, and see if we can face our problems head on.
THOMAS R. WEAVER:
Humans love burying our heads in the sand. I adore this idiom because it stems from a wonderful misbelief about ostriches that dates back to the Romans and Greeks. Ostriches don’t bury their heads in the sand to confuse predators at all, but we’ve talked about humans doing it to avoid our problems since the 1600s. Yet if ostriches did try it, we’d all see the obvious flaw: the predator simply gets a head start.
In our daily lives, we do this all the time. We do it when we leave writing an essay to the last minute (ahem). We do it when we ignore potential warning signs about our health. We do it when we really don’t want to see how much money is left in our bank account, or the size of our credit card bill. We’ll happily trade extended pain tomorrow over a sharp jab today, like how we might tolerate a toxic relationship because we don’t want to handle the breakup. And it first dawned on me how dangerous this was for our species, and our world, during COVID.
In those early months of 2020, some countries acted swiftly on things like border controls, lockdowns, containment measures and vaccines, and others acted slowly, hoping the problem would go away without having to make hard decisions that might imperil economies. What was fascinating and terrifying was how quickly it seemed to polarize us all into one camp or another, and still does today.
I can vividly remember taking a solo walk in the local woods during lockdown, as we’d eventually been allowed to do. Walking makes my brain fire up, and on this particular stroll, despite the fresh air in my lungs and birdsong in my ears, I started to worry about the future.
If it was that easy for governments and society to bury their heads in the sand over something that challenged our daily lives, like a pandemic, wouldn’t it be the same with the upcoming societal shifts we’d almost certainly see from the rise of Artificial Intelligence? Wouldn’t it be even more so with the climate crisis, at an even bigger scale? We’d already sat on that problem too long, in denial and unwilling to make moderate changes today that would inconvenience us, but nothing like the kind of inconvenience we’ll face down the line if we don’t get a grip on it. It’s always the same old story: when we’re finally forced to pull our heads out the sand and look around, the problem is a lot closer and we have to run a lot harder to get away from it than we would have done if we’d run at the start.
And so I decided to take both of these things and write a near-future technothriller. I wanted to see what the world could look like only twenty-five years into the future, and what daily life might be like if we’ve made no interventions on, in particular, the climate, but also where we finally had superintelligence.
In the world of Artificial Wisdom, it’s taken a wet-bulb heatwave disaster that killed millions to catalyze the nations into agreeing that something needs to be done, and because it is now too late to make ‘local’ changes and the climate knows no borders, a proposal has been made to do as the Romans once did in times of crisis: give a mandate to a single leader to marshal all resources required to solve the crisis, then hand power back.
At the time, I’d been listening to some of Dan Carlin’s excellent Hardcore History podcasts, particularly his two early series on the Romans. I was fascinated with how they occasionally appointed what they called a dictator to deal with civilizational-risk events, like Hannibal crossing the Alps. What if we were left with no option but to give power to a global leader with the authority to make hard choices the nations couldn’t make for themselves? How would we even choose that?
In Artificial Wisdom, the world has opted for the more Cromwellian title of protector for a global leader. The final two candidates emerging from global primaries are both unexpected and regarded as poor choices. One is a former US President our main character believes is responsible for geoengineering that caused the heatwave disaster. The other is the world’s first political artificial intellect, Solomon, and questions hang over the hard choices an AI would make to save humanity, and whether we’d be trading freedom for salvation.
I wasn’t sure, at the start, that the typical fiction reader would want to actually crack open a novel about any of this. Many of us are terrified about the climate and don’t want to know more. We might go out of our way to avoid scary news reports or scientific papers about it. It makes us feel helpless. Similarly, there is a swelling of justifiable concern about the progress of AI right now, and the potential impact on many different categories of jobs. We’ve somehow instantly polarized ourselves yet again, some loving the technology and becoming dependent on it, others hating it and avoiding it. Would people really read fiction about two things they maybe wanted to bury their heads in the sand about?
I decided that if sci-fi had one real superpower, it was in telling stories about tomorrow that help make sense of today. Stories and fiction help us process things in a safe way, seeing worst case scenarios through the eyes of characters who are going through the most challenging days of their own lives. Books about the future can become a safe space to deal with those things. Our brains are primed to worry, to simulate threats before they happen, allowing us to prepare for them and avoid danger.
As a debut writer, this was still a huge challenge. I wanted to avoid preaching, and certainly wanted to avoid pretending I have the right answers. Instead, I wanted to make it clear that when we bury our heads in the sand, there are no right answers anymore. I had to ensure that was a story people want to read with characters they enjoyed spending time with, and that’s the real craft of writing a novel.
So Artificial Wisdom became my attempt at that: a conspiracy thriller and murder mystery woven into a future we may still be able to dodge. If we pull our heads out of the sand in time, that is.
Artificial Wisdom: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
(scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 14th, 2025 02:42 pm)
scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 14th, 2025 02:42 pm)
We actually arrived here in Seattle a couple of days ago, but we’ve been busy doing things and stuff here at Worldcon so: look! Seattle! From my window this morning! The heat wave here in the Pacific Northwest has snapped and now cooler weather and rain is coming in. Seattle is Seattle-ing, in other words. I won’t complain.
If you’re at Worldcon today, I have a panel today, and tomorrow I have a panel, a signing, and I’m DJing a dance. Please come say hello.
— JS
I'm at the tedious gathering sources stage of things. I think I'm not going to use upscales of DS9 and Voyager (imho they look a bit too uncanny valley for my taste, even at 720p).
Any recs for covers of Getting Bi with a female singer? (I'm not sure if there's a Jadzia Dax vid to it already, but I kinda want to make one).
Also, I'm wondering if I might need songs about being parted and reunited. I was throwing some stuff on a timeline and noticed there's a lot of breakup and partings w/r/t queer characters (even with mirror!Ezri and mirror!Kira) and it might be neat to contrast that with the post-Berman era stuff (even though those still include some breakups).
Any recs for covers of Getting Bi with a female singer? (I'm not sure if there's a Jadzia Dax vid to it already, but I kinda want to make one).
Also, I'm wondering if I might need songs about being parted and reunited. I was throwing some stuff on a timeline and noticed there's a lot of breakup and partings w/r/t queer characters (even with mirror!Ezri and mirror!Kira) and it might be neat to contrast that with the post-Berman era stuff (even though those still include some breakups).
Just Finished:. Gifts by Ursula LeGuin, the first of the Annals of the Western Shore. A re-read, but it had been probably 15 years since I first read it, so it was good to visit again. Such creativity, such a wonderful voice, such marvelous characters, even if so much of the content is grim (as it involves using supernatural gifts for power and violence). Good stuff.
Now reading: Voices, the 2nd of the Annals. And The Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer, on audio. This one is remarkably charming and I am definitely enjoying it.
Up next: The Scarlet Pimpernel, for book club (on audio from Librivox), and Powers, the finale of the Annals of the Western Shore.
****
Today I was in a meeting with many people from around the organization, strategizing on how to spend $100M, and there were 10 people on the call and I was the only woman. Joy.
I had takeout Thai on Sunday when I hosted two friends, and ended up with a small container of leftover peanut sauce. So tonight I mixed it with extra olive oil, garlic, rice vinegar, and peanut butter, and stretched it enough to make it into salad dressing. Very tasty! I recommend.
In a few minutes I have to get up and make a tray of dessert for the division summer BBQ on Friday. I think I shall probably make these.
Work is entirely out of control. Apparently I could ask for OT for some of this work but I just cannot bring myself to do any more than I have the time to do in a 40-hour week. And if not enough gets done, well, that's just not my problem.
Now reading: Voices, the 2nd of the Annals. And The Black Sheep by Georgette Heyer, on audio. This one is remarkably charming and I am definitely enjoying it.
Up next: The Scarlet Pimpernel, for book club (on audio from Librivox), and Powers, the finale of the Annals of the Western Shore.
****
Today I was in a meeting with many people from around the organization, strategizing on how to spend $100M, and there were 10 people on the call and I was the only woman. Joy.
I had takeout Thai on Sunday when I hosted two friends, and ended up with a small container of leftover peanut sauce. So tonight I mixed it with extra olive oil, garlic, rice vinegar, and peanut butter, and stretched it enough to make it into salad dressing. Very tasty! I recommend.
In a few minutes I have to get up and make a tray of dessert for the division summer BBQ on Friday. I think I shall probably make these.
Work is entirely out of control. Apparently I could ask for OT for some of this work but I just cannot bring myself to do any more than I have the time to do in a 40-hour week. And if not enough gets done, well, that's just not my problem.
Nominations are open every year through the close of sign ups.
There is one eternal freeform tag set and one yearly fandoms and relationships tag set.
If you use all your nomination slots, nominating via sock is welcome.
A reminder that matching is on Fandom, Medium(s), and Archive Warnings. All extra information is optional and your artist/author does not have to use it. All participants are encouraged to try to make something their recip will like, but you're only guaranteed Fandom, Medium(s), and Archive Warnings.
Things that can be nominated include fandom, characters in the form of "Solo: Character Name" and ships in the relationships field, and freeforms. / denotes a romantic or sexual relationship. & denotes a platonic relationship.
Fandoms with umbrellas can be nominated as the nominators please, with both individual franchises and umbrella categories eligible. For instance:
Crossover ships should be nominated under Crossover Fandom or under [Canon name 1]/[Canon name 2]. As matching is only on fandom, you are most likely to get what you want by nominating the canon names. Example: Fandom: Iron Man (movies)/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Relationship: Tony Stark & Spike.
Recursive fanfiction (aka fic or art of fic) is allowed if the creator has given public permission for their work to be included as a fandom in an exchange. Looking at you here, Dreaming of Sunshine fandom. Because Dreaming of Sunshine was synned to Naruto and its previous disambiguated for exchanges version was, too, to prevent Naruto eating DoS tags, please nominate under the new "Dreaming of Sunshine (Fanfic Disambiguation)" fandom tag. If you have a different recursive fandom you wish to be included, please point me in the direction of where the creator has given public permission.
The following nominations for fandoms will not be accepted:
Other RPF is eligible. Fictional canons are eligible. Original Works are eligible. If someone nominates it, Creator's Choice of Fandom to give your creator complete freedom is eligible. The mod reserves the right to use their best judgment (or the fandom equivalent of phone a friend) for if something is or isn't allowed.
Because we're not matching on characters, ships, or freeforms, they do not have to be unique. Tags may wander. Unless the mod messes something up, this shouldn't cause any problems.
Freeforms should in some way be related to the theme, either to give an idea of the level of spookiness you're up for or to serve as some form of on theme prompt. Fic and art are expected to run the gamut from gentle spooks to screaming scares. Dark fic and art, horror, and the spoopy are all allowed and encouraged. If you have a preference, you should indicate it via freeform.
Because this is a flash exchange, we will not be doing clarification posts for freeforms. We'll still try to use a very open approach to what's on theme. Because we're only human, something may be rejected by mistake or misclick. If so, please let us know if your spooky/spoopy/horror freeform was accidentally rejected.
Examples of freeforms that would not be approved:
Examples of freeforms that would be approved:
Eternal Freeforms Tag Set
2025 Fandoms and Relationships Tag Set
This post allows anon comments. Comments are not screened. If you wish to communicate with the mod privately, please either use the mod contact post or e-mail the mod at jumpscaremodding@gmx.com
I will be using this post as the new eternal nominations post, so rather than linking directly to the all links and schedules post, I will say to please check the sticky post at the top of the comm for all links and the current schedule.
There is one eternal freeform tag set and one yearly fandoms and relationships tag set.
If you use all your nomination slots, nominating via sock is welcome.
A reminder that matching is on Fandom, Medium(s), and Archive Warnings. All extra information is optional and your artist/author does not have to use it. All participants are encouraged to try to make something their recip will like, but you're only guaranteed Fandom, Medium(s), and Archive Warnings.
Things that can be nominated include fandom, characters in the form of "Solo: Character Name" and ships in the relationships field, and freeforms. / denotes a romantic or sexual relationship. & denotes a platonic relationship.
Fandoms with umbrellas can be nominated as the nominators please, with both individual franchises and umbrella categories eligible. For instance:
- Star Wars could have Star Wars (All Media Types), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic, and Star Wars Thrawn novels nominated.
- Marvel could have Marvel (All Media Types), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Iron Man (movies), Thor (movies), and individual game and comic titles nominated.
- If you want to increase your odds of getting something with characters you both know, you may wish to narrow in on a more specific version of your nomination like Star Wars Legends: Knights of the Old Republic or Iron Man (movie).
Crossover ships should be nominated under Crossover Fandom or under [Canon name 1]/[Canon name 2]. As matching is only on fandom, you are most likely to get what you want by nominating the canon names. Example: Fandom: Iron Man (movies)/My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Relationship: Tony Stark & Spike.
Recursive fanfiction (aka fic or art of fic) is allowed if the creator has given public permission for their work to be included as a fandom in an exchange. Looking at you here, Dreaming of Sunshine fandom. Because Dreaming of Sunshine was synned to Naruto and its previous disambiguated for exchanges version was, too, to prevent Naruto eating DoS tags, please nominate under the new "Dreaming of Sunshine (Fanfic Disambiguation)" fandom tag. If you have a different recursive fandom you wish to be included, please point me in the direction of where the creator has given public permission.
The following nominations for fandoms will not be accepted:
- Nazi RPF
- RPF involving modern serial killers, mass shooters, or other modern tragedies
- Other similar public figures who have living victims
- Modern RPF for persons under the age of 18
- Modern RPF for persons not famous in their own right
Other RPF is eligible. Fictional canons are eligible. Original Works are eligible. If someone nominates it, Creator's Choice of Fandom to give your creator complete freedom is eligible. The mod reserves the right to use their best judgment (or the fandom equivalent of phone a friend) for if something is or isn't allowed.
Because we're not matching on characters, ships, or freeforms, they do not have to be unique. Tags may wander. Unless the mod messes something up, this shouldn't cause any problems.
Freeforms should in some way be related to the theme, either to give an idea of the level of spookiness you're up for or to serve as some form of on theme prompt. Fic and art are expected to run the gamut from gentle spooks to screaming scares. Dark fic and art, horror, and the spoopy are all allowed and encouraged. If you have a preference, you should indicate it via freeform.
Because this is a flash exchange, we will not be doing clarification posts for freeforms. We'll still try to use a very open approach to what's on theme. Because we're only human, something may be rejected by mistake or misclick. If so, please let us know if your spooky/spoopy/horror freeform was accidentally rejected.
Examples of freeforms that would not be approved:
- Trans Character
- Fluff
- Pining
Examples of freeforms that would be approved:
- Trans Character Trying to Survive the Zombie Apocalypse
- Human Makes Friends with the Monster in Their Closet
- Ghost Pines for Their Living Lover Who Can't See Them
Eternal Freeforms Tag Set
2025 Fandoms and Relationships Tag Set
This post allows anon comments. Comments are not screened. If you wish to communicate with the mod privately, please either use the mod contact post or e-mail the mod at jumpscaremodding@gmx.com
I will be using this post as the new eternal nominations post, so rather than linking directly to the all links and schedules post, I will say to please check the sticky post at the top of the comm for all links and the current schedule.
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(everysecondtuesday posting in jump_scare_exchange Aug. 13th, 2025 09:52 pm)
everysecondtuesday posting in jump_scare_exchange Aug. 13th, 2025 09:52 pm)Jump Scare is a themed flash exchange dedicated to the spooky, spoopy (think Casper the Friendly Ghost or that Spooky Scary Skeletons vid), and horror. Nominated freeforms and the works themselves should adhere to the theme.
Eternal Freeforms Tag Set: Nominate freeforms here!
2025 Fandoms and Relationships Tag Set: Nominate relationships here!
2021 Tag Set (for reference; not taking nominations)
2025 Collection
Parent Collection
Canon Promo Post
Rules and FAQ
Nominations Post
2025 Schedule:
August 16-21 nominations and sign ups (closed 8:59 PM EDT)
August 22 matching
August 23-30 creating
August 30 8:59 PM EDT works due; 11:59 PM EDT works reveals
September 1 8:59 PM EDT creator reveals
To contact a mod, please comment on the Mod Contact Post, DM tuesday on Discord, or e-mail the mods at jumpscaremodding@gmx.com
Eternal Freeforms Tag Set: Nominate freeforms here!
2025 Fandoms and Relationships Tag Set: Nominate relationships here!
2021 Tag Set (for reference; not taking nominations)
2025 Collection
Parent Collection
Canon Promo Post
Rules and FAQ
Nominations Post
2025 Schedule:
August 16-21 nominations and sign ups (closed 8:59 PM EDT)
August 22 matching
August 23-30 creating
August 30 8:59 PM EDT works due; 11:59 PM EDT works reveals
September 1 8:59 PM EDT creator reveals
To contact a mod, please comment on the Mod Contact Post, DM tuesday on Discord, or e-mail the mods at jumpscaremodding@gmx.com
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I'm off work tomorrow and Friday - I have my annual eye exam tomorrow (they have sent me about 17 requests to confirm and I have each time but wtf) and I decided to just take Friday off for a long weekend - so I logged off work at 4:30 and ended up taking a long nap. I woke up to an intense thunderstorm with a truly shocking (pun intended) amount of lightning.
My brother had hip replacement surgery this morning and it went well - he is home already!
Baby Miss L loved the books - especially the Pete the Kitty goes to preschool one and I got adorable videos of her "reading" it.
Speaking of books, I did indeed finish the last 3 books of Dungeon Crawler Carl over the weekend and I was incensed that book 7 was not the end - there are supposedly 3 more books coming to wrap things up and ugh, I hate having to wait. This write-up on tumblr (vague spoilers for the whole series, as an enticement to read the books) is a great summary of why you should read it and then come talk to me about it. I am not even a cat person and I love Princess Donut! There is a wide array of female characters! There is a lot of gory violence and an unfortunate amount of fatphobia (i.e., any), but the anti-capitalist rage is real. I just hope Dinniman can stick the landing.
*
My brother had hip replacement surgery this morning and it went well - he is home already!
Baby Miss L loved the books - especially the Pete the Kitty goes to preschool one and I got adorable videos of her "reading" it.
Speaking of books, I did indeed finish the last 3 books of Dungeon Crawler Carl over the weekend and I was incensed that book 7 was not the end - there are supposedly 3 more books coming to wrap things up and ugh, I hate having to wait. This write-up on tumblr (vague spoilers for the whole series, as an enticement to read the books) is a great summary of why you should read it and then come talk to me about it. I am not even a cat person and I love Princess Donut! There is a wide array of female characters! There is a lot of gory violence and an unfortunate amount of fatphobia (i.e., any), but the anti-capitalist rage is real. I just hope Dinniman can stick the landing.
*
⌈ Secret Post #6795 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
01.
( More! )
Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 14 secrets from Secret Submission Post #972.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
What I've recently finished reading:
1984 by George Orwell (reread, but first read nearly 40 years ago, so.) This book requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief; it's more of an allegory of fascism, an exaggerated cartoon version, than it is actual fascism. But that's the point, I think. It's the authoritarian nightmare writ very very large, and I hope that enough people are reading it now to be scared into fighting the authoritarian nightmare which is slowly establishing its tentacles across the US. (And that they don't get so chilled by the downer ending that they believe that it's impossible to fight...)
A few things stood out to me about this book written in 1949. First, it's interesting that ideology isn't actually important here; the object is to amass and retain power, and I think that's true of our current regime. Second is the importance of stamping out every bit of creativity and independent thought, even getting rid of words describing creativity and independence, such that even the books and songs produced by the government are created by computers (cough AI cough) and lightly edited by humans. Very prescient and chilling! And of course the thing that brings this book to mind and has put it on so many contemporary reading lists is the idea of editing information about the past to bring it in line with what the government wants people to believe - which is what the regime is attempting now.
I mostly enjoyed it (if "enjoyed" is the correct word) though the protagonist's view of women was a bit madonna/whoreish, kind of weird, and I wondered how much it reflected the author's feelings. (However, it's obvious to me that the in-universe view of Jews is very clearly intended to be part of the throughline connecting to Nazism, so I am not sure why I feel more uncomfortable about the portrayal of women.) Also there's a whole section in the middle which is a lengthy quote from a purported book by Goldstein, the leader of the Resistance, and that's just ugh boring clunky exposition in the middle of what is for the most part powerful prose. But otherwise, I'm glad I read it again, in these times, where we are led by small men who want to amass power for power's sake, and be cruel for cruelty's sake, and put their boots on everybody's faces.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on the third Emily Wilde book by Heather Fawcett came in at the library, so I'm reading Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. The beginning was terribly confusing but I'm starting to get into it.
What I recently finished watching:
We finished Arcane, which - I have mixed feelings about. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Andor - no, not the downtrodden rising up against the elite (though okay, there are some elements of that) but the plot veering off sideways and jumping around and things that seem like they're important getting dropped and things coming suddenly out of nowhere. (So maybe it was supposed to be a longer series that got canceled so they had to cram everything into the second season?) I am still not sure what Viktor's whole deal was, or what exactly the "arcane" is, or the invasion at the end, or...and then I looked up the game it's based on and it's a battle arena game, so I am not sure where this plot came from! Anyway, I loved the art, liked a lot of the characters and their relationships, didn't really care for the way the story evolved in S2.
What I'm watching now:
Untamed, which is the Netflix murder mystery miniseries set in Yosemite, not the Chinese drama - that one has a The in front of it. Eric Bana and Sam Neill are in it but we're really watching for the lavish scenery porn, which is definitely amazing. (Also some of it takes place in Mariposa, so it makes me think ofrachelmanija, though I don't know if it's actually filmed there or if it even makes sense to be taking place there.)
1984 by George Orwell (reread, but first read nearly 40 years ago, so.) This book requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief; it's more of an allegory of fascism, an exaggerated cartoon version, than it is actual fascism. But that's the point, I think. It's the authoritarian nightmare writ very very large, and I hope that enough people are reading it now to be scared into fighting the authoritarian nightmare which is slowly establishing its tentacles across the US. (And that they don't get so chilled by the downer ending that they believe that it's impossible to fight...)
A few things stood out to me about this book written in 1949. First, it's interesting that ideology isn't actually important here; the object is to amass and retain power, and I think that's true of our current regime. Second is the importance of stamping out every bit of creativity and independent thought, even getting rid of words describing creativity and independence, such that even the books and songs produced by the government are created by computers (cough AI cough) and lightly edited by humans. Very prescient and chilling! And of course the thing that brings this book to mind and has put it on so many contemporary reading lists is the idea of editing information about the past to bring it in line with what the government wants people to believe - which is what the regime is attempting now.
I mostly enjoyed it (if "enjoyed" is the correct word) though the protagonist's view of women was a bit madonna/whoreish, kind of weird, and I wondered how much it reflected the author's feelings. (However, it's obvious to me that the in-universe view of Jews is very clearly intended to be part of the throughline connecting to Nazism, so I am not sure why I feel more uncomfortable about the portrayal of women.) Also there's a whole section in the middle which is a lengthy quote from a purported book by Goldstein, the leader of the Resistance, and that's just ugh boring clunky exposition in the middle of what is for the most part powerful prose. But otherwise, I'm glad I read it again, in these times, where we are led by small men who want to amass power for power's sake, and be cruel for cruelty's sake, and put their boots on everybody's faces.
What I'm reading now:
My hold on the third Emily Wilde book by Heather Fawcett came in at the library, so I'm reading Emily Wilde's Compendium of Lost Tales. The beginning was terribly confusing but I'm starting to get into it.
What I recently finished watching:
We finished Arcane, which - I have mixed feelings about. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Andor - no, not the downtrodden rising up against the elite (though okay, there are some elements of that) but the plot veering off sideways and jumping around and things that seem like they're important getting dropped and things coming suddenly out of nowhere. (So maybe it was supposed to be a longer series that got canceled so they had to cram everything into the second season?) I am still not sure what Viktor's whole deal was, or what exactly the "arcane" is, or the invasion at the end, or...and then I looked up the game it's based on and it's a battle arena game, so I am not sure where this plot came from! Anyway, I loved the art, liked a lot of the characters and their relationships, didn't really care for the way the story evolved in S2.
What I'm watching now:
Untamed, which is the Netflix murder mystery miniseries set in Yosemite, not the Chinese drama - that one has a The in front of it. Eric Bana and Sam Neill are in it but we're really watching for the lavish scenery porn, which is definitely amazing. (Also some of it takes place in Mariposa, so it makes me think of
rachelmanija, though I don't know if it's actually filmed there or if it even makes sense to be taking place there.)I'm 2 episodes into s2 and I think I'm going to have to stop. She's not funny, she's not punching up, she's just selfish and mean. I think this might be the showrunners having no theory of how the Addamses fit into a larger supernatural universe. Sigh. On to Alien: Earth!
Gretchen Heefner, The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland: In South Dakota, people largely welcomed missiles but landowners often didn’t like giving up their land for them (NIMBYism for weapons of mass destruction). Heefner also tracks the persistence of antinuclear protest once it got started, and she makes the point that one reason the lack of success didn’t stop the hardcore protestors was religious faith—protest was an act of sacrifice and witness even if it didn’t have worldly effects.
Nathan Bomey, Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back: Newsy-ish account of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Bomey really doesn’t like unions; he’s more neutral about the interests of lender-creditors.
Grant Faulkner, The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story: Paean to the affordances of flash fiction, including drabbles and six-word stories, with exercises. Interesting read.
Tiya Miles, Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits: Another attempt to reconstruct a history of people who were mostly spoken about in the records we have. I didn’t think the speculation about what they felt and thought was very helpful, but it was a useful reminder that there was an active slave trade in Indians in the area for a long time, as well as African/African-American slavery. Michigan was supposedly free territory after the Northwest Ordinance, but that didn’t mean that slavery disappeared (despite opportunities that many took to cross borders to change status).
Andy Horowitz, Katrina: A History, 1915-2015: The premise here is that the disaster didn’t start in 2005. Most of the book is pre-hurricane explanations of why the city was so vulnerable. Greed and racism play their roles.
Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution: Schama focuses on loyalist African-Americans who were forced out to Canada and then to Sierra Leone. While most whites were indifferent to their fate and willing to violate the promises that the Crown had made during the Revolutionary War, a few took their duties seriously, which is how the transitions were made. The first elected black government, and the first women voting for that government, was in Sierra Leone (though a subsequent white guy sent to replace the good one removed women’s ability to vote). It’s beautifully written as well as interesting.
Gretchen Heefner, The Missile Next Door: The Minuteman in the American Heartland: In South Dakota, people largely welcomed missiles but landowners often didn’t like giving up their land for them (NIMBYism for weapons of mass destruction). Heefner also tracks the persistence of antinuclear protest once it got started, and she makes the point that one reason the lack of success didn’t stop the hardcore protestors was religious faith—protest was an act of sacrifice and witness even if it didn’t have worldly effects.
Nathan Bomey, Detroit Resurrected: To Bankruptcy and Back: Newsy-ish account of Detroit’s bankruptcy. Bomey really doesn’t like unions; he’s more neutral about the interests of lender-creditors.
Grant Faulkner, The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story: Paean to the affordances of flash fiction, including drabbles and six-word stories, with exercises. Interesting read.
Tiya Miles, Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Bondage and Freedom in the City of the Straits: Another attempt to reconstruct a history of people who were mostly spoken about in the records we have. I didn’t think the speculation about what they felt and thought was very helpful, but it was a useful reminder that there was an active slave trade in Indians in the area for a long time, as well as African/African-American slavery. Michigan was supposedly free territory after the Northwest Ordinance, but that didn’t mean that slavery disappeared (despite opportunities that many took to cross borders to change status).
Andy Horowitz, Katrina: A History, 1915-2015: The premise here is that the disaster didn’t start in 2005. Most of the book is pre-hurricane explanations of why the city was so vulnerable. Greed and racism play their roles.
Simon Schama, Rough Crossings: The Slaves, the British, and the American Revolution: Schama focuses on loyalist African-Americans who were forced out to Canada and then to Sierra Leone. While most whites were indifferent to their fate and willing to violate the promises that the Crown had made during the Revolutionary War, a few took their duties seriously, which is how the transitions were made. The first elected black government, and the first women voting for that government, was in Sierra Leone (though a subsequent white guy sent to replace the good one removed women’s ability to vote). It’s beautifully written as well as interesting.
I've mentioned before that our van is a 1999 Citroën Berlingo. We named him Bernie because he's an old white guy. Bernie was a white van man's van: he belonged to a company for twenty years and sat in their warehouse being taken care of, but mostly not used, so he was in practically mint condition when we bought him in 2019, but he only cost 2000€. Now contemporary Finnish driving education is teaching me about safety features that are common or required in modern-day cars that he doesn't have: traction and skid control, smart cruise control, side door airbags that you can disable in the back, front and rear fog lights, a screen that recommends which gear to use, warning messages when you exceed the detected speed limit.
Obviously a 1999 van doesn't have any of those. Butwaxjism has also been scaring me for weeks saying he's too old to have anti-lock brakes, but today I finally read the manual and he is not. He has anti-lock brakes! That one was the only one that was seriously upsetting (the car I learned to drive in didn't have any of the others: it was a 1993 Buick Skylark).
I have to get up early to go to Turku to take the driver's license theory test tomorrow, and today I took the practice theory test again as soon as I got back from my last driving simulator lesson, and failed with the worst score I've gotten on the practice tests yet (42/50 "situation" questions). Then I took it again immediately and passed with a perfect score for the first time.
I've taken the practice test 7 times in all, but I've also gone through all the practice question sets, which amounts to 60 tests' worth of situation questions and 40 tests' worth of verbal questions (with repetition!), and I have consequently pretty much been at saturation for a while. I can't predict whether I will miss situation questions when I do a set, but that's not because I haven't learned the material, it's because the questions are not at all like a situation you actually encounter while driving; they're more like a sort of Where's Waldo-esque detailed visual search game plus logic puzzle. About half the time I miss them because of something like not noticing that the car is on a priority road (when the sole clue that it's a priority road is the tiny triangular edge of the sign with 80% of the sign cropped off on the extreme edge of the image blending into the windows of an apartment building in the background) or not noticing that it's on a one-way street (when the sole clue that it's a one-way street is some painting on the road facing the wrong way that you can only see if you look in the left side mirror image but it's very small). So I just have to take methylphenidate and count breaths and try to make sure I take my time. And try not to get distracted.
(After the theory test I still have driving lessons in a real car, and then the driving test.)
Obviously a 1999 van doesn't have any of those. But
waxjism has also been scaring me for weeks saying he's too old to have anti-lock brakes, but today I finally read the manual and he is not. He has anti-lock brakes! That one was the only one that was seriously upsetting (the car I learned to drive in didn't have any of the others: it was a 1993 Buick Skylark). I have to get up early to go to Turku to take the driver's license theory test tomorrow, and today I took the practice theory test again as soon as I got back from my last driving simulator lesson, and failed with the worst score I've gotten on the practice tests yet (42/50 "situation" questions). Then I took it again immediately and passed with a perfect score for the first time.
I've taken the practice test 7 times in all, but I've also gone through all the practice question sets, which amounts to 60 tests' worth of situation questions and 40 tests' worth of verbal questions (with repetition!), and I have consequently pretty much been at saturation for a while. I can't predict whether I will miss situation questions when I do a set, but that's not because I haven't learned the material, it's because the questions are not at all like a situation you actually encounter while driving; they're more like a sort of Where's Waldo-esque detailed visual search game plus logic puzzle. About half the time I miss them because of something like not noticing that the car is on a priority road (when the sole clue that it's a priority road is the tiny triangular edge of the sign with 80% of the sign cropped off on the extreme edge of the image blending into the windows of an apartment building in the background) or not noticing that it's on a one-way street (when the sole clue that it's a one-way street is some painting on the road facing the wrong way that you can only see if you look in the left side mirror image but it's very small). So I just have to take methylphenidate and count breaths and try to make sure I take my time. And try not to get distracted.
(After the theory test I still have driving lessons in a real car, and then the driving test.)
Tags:
(scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 13th, 2025 03:57 pm)
scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 13th, 2025 03:57 pm)
What is a story? Is it a form of time travel, where the author can speak to those in the future from the past? Is it a conversation between the reader and the author? Fran Wilde explores this idea in the Big Idea for her newest collection of short stories, A Catalog of Storms. Follow along and see how transformative of an experience a story can be.
FRAN WILDE:
A Catalog of Ideas, Transformed
The stories in A Catalog of Storms span a decade of my writing career — from my first Asimov’s stories that merge ghosts, tech, and nature, to several very recent ones that blend science, mythology, and weather.
A collection of short stories is, by its very nature, a catalog of ideas passed from author to reader. It contains work that bridges years and forms a kind of conversation across time, both between each story, and with the readers of those stories.
This is a very difficult thing to sort into a single big idea. So, naurally, I started a conversation in my head with my very kind blog host about the problem.
Me, while trying to write this post: “How does one write a single big idea essay about a collection of short stories, John Scalzi. They’re all different!”
Scalzi: Smiles beatifically and devours a churro.
Me, continuing to think: “Each story exists as a moment in time —or moments: the writing moment, the reading moment — And all of them together exist as ideas across time… AND then the collection gathers all of those moments and ideas together and wraps a cover (in the case of A Catalog of Storms, a gorgeous cover) around them… presenting them as bound. But the big idea that holds them together? What is that? The author? The genre? When the author’s genre is multitudinous, (and I definitely contain multitudes), there’s got to be a more specific gravity to things than just me. What is it?”
Scalzi: Picks up his guitar and plays the smallest, saddest note.
Me, forging ahead: This collection contains ideas that blend and merge, shift and transmutate. The title story, “A Catalog of Storms,” began as part of a set of Ovidian-inflected science fictions that started with “Only their Shining Beauty Was Left,” (which is partly about people turning into trees, and partly my attempt to sneak a zombie story into Clarkesworld (I failed; don’t try it kids, Neil doesn’t play)), …. and turned into something much more about a relationship to family, world, and weather, and weather’s relationship with us… and beyond that even, to our interconnectedness.
A baker’s dozen more of the stories within the collection follow a similar path — they started out as simple stories, then gained layers and wings and changes: becoming ambulatory apartment buildings, sentient storms, very angry museum exhibits, people turning into trees, birds becoming human (and otherwise), and everything everywhere being connected to and impacting everything else…
The conversational thread between the stories, and the Big Idea, I realize, is…
Scalzi: nods and smiles, as one does when one knows someone has the answer in their heart the whole time.
… transformation/transmutation. That’s the big idea that weaves through the stories in A Catalog of Storms, (and if I’m honest, Scalzi, much of my short fiction.) Where transformation is large-scale structural or philosophical change, and transmutation is change or alteration in nature or essence — on a molecular level.
For me, transformation and transmutation are what I’m often aiming for as a writer. Not just in a story, or a collection, but each time I sit down to write. An alchemy of words and plot that changes not just the objects and characters in the story, but also the writer, and – hopefully – the reader.
And while it’s also true that several of these stories were inspired by Ovidian transformations, others observe and embody change through who is doing the telling.
Scalzi raises one eyebrow as if he wonders whether I’m going to make him do the heavy lifting for this entire essay.
And most of all, the big idea of storytelling (see how I transmuted the topic from one collection to all of storytelling?) …
Scalzi raises the other eyebrow and looks at my thesis sideways.
… is that the person experiencing the story — any story, but especially a good story — is (hopefully in a good way) transformed by the experience.
By moving from the beginning of a story to the end, we are changed.
Each of the fourteen stories in A Catalog of Storms changed me: I learned more about language and the world each time I sat down to write, each time I engaged in the conversation. I hope you find many stories that change you too.
A Catalog of Storms: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
(scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 13th, 2025 02:59 pm)
scalziwhatever_feed Aug. 13th, 2025 02:59 pm)
As much as I frequent Salar, I almost never visit their sister restaurant, Manna Uptown. It opened about three years ago, which I had been really excited for, but it’s actually like twenty minutes further from me than Salar, which is already forty-five minutes. So, I don’t get out there often, but it’s a beautiful space that I would like to try to visit more often.
In the spirit of that desire, I decided to attend their “Chef Talks” event last week. A fifty dollar ticket got you a three-course meal with an accompanying glass of your choice of red, white, or bubbly wine. The theme of the evening was Greece, as Chef Margot had just returned from a trip overseas to Greece, and wanted to serve us some authentic Greek food.
If you haven’t been to Manna before, it’s located smack-dab in the middle of Centerville’s historic downtown area, and is in a beautifully restored multi-level house. With velvet seats, marble throughout, and chandeliers to spare, its sleek, sophisticated atmosphere is the perfect accompaniment to their modern European menu and excellent cocktails.
For this event, it was located on the second floor of the restaurant, and everyone was sat at one of two large tables. I went alone, and sitting at a big table with people I’ve never met always proves to be more interesting than if I’d sat alone. I know it’d make a lot of people anxious, but I find it fun.
The tables were set with our silverware and the menu:
I had to do a double take at the menu, because the first course and third course share a name. Just a typo, but I found it amusing.
The table also had some fresh flowers in vases, and some rolls in baskets with oil to dip it in.
I was one of the very few people who chose bubbles over the red or white wine, and I was served a lovely rosé:
Soon enough, the first course came out:
I really liked the presentation of this dish, I thought it was rather striking. I must admit I’m not the biggest fan of octopus, I usually find it to be really rubbery and tough, and I generally don’t like the spectacle of the suction cups and whatnot (I have the same issue with calamari when it’s not just like, a round circle piece).
Anyways, apparently they’re a very popular choice of protein in Greece. I will say this octopus was certainly the most tender I’d ever had, and it was a pretty generous portion. I’m not sure if it’s pita or naan on the side, but it was really soft. I loved the texture of the puree, and the lemon and olive oil really added some brightness. I do feel like the octopus was like, largely unseasoned, but overall I was pretty happy with this course.
The second course came with a Greek side salad which they brought out first:
This was just a super classic Greek salad, nice and acidic from the olives and vinaigrette, plenty of feta, solid side salad.
And the real star of the show, the beef and orzo stew:
Y’all. I have been dreaming of this stew everyday for the past week. This was the most warm, comforting, delicious bowl of stew I’ve ever had. The orzo and roasted carrots were so soft, the meat was incredibly tender, it was pleasantly cinnamon-y and just tasted like a hug. I was immediately transported to a winter’s evening, sitting in front of the fireplace with a big bowl of this delectable stew. Lord have mercy, I love this stew.
Last, but certainly not least, this citrus cake:
Are you kidding me?! That’s so pretty. Classy, even. I absolutely adored this cake. It was dense and perfectly soaked with the citrus syrup, and the vanilla ice cream couldn’t have been a better accompaniment. The fresh orange flavor with the creamy vanilla was truly a treat. I left this meal totally satisfied.
I think for fifty dollars this event was worth it. Three courses plus a glass of wine and gratuity included? Pretty decent price! I’m glad I got to try some Greek food, as it’s not something I eat often (or ever, actually), and I was happy to finally revisit Manna. The people I sat next to ended up being pretty cool and a lot of fun to talk to, so that was nice, too.
Do you like Greek food? Which dish looks the best to you? Let me know in the comments, be sure to check out Manna on Instagram, and have a great day!
-AMS
I've finally reached the point where I've posted more Bleach fic than I have Smallville fic, which feels right because I posted all that Smallville fic two plus decades ago. There should be a 'show only my top most written fandoms in the last five years' button 😂 I filtered by date updated for five year periods to see what fandoms I was most deranged about writing in in any given period, and first of all it's not even accurate because I have three fics tagged LOTR and it says I have only two. And secondly I think I've realised I'm just as unhinged in the 2021-2025 time period as I was 2001-05. I may have written 21 Buffy stories in the 01-05 period (well, I wrote more than that, but plenty of my early extra bad fic was not posted backdated to AO3, and in fact has been lost from the internet), but I also wrote ...uh... 23 Mysterious Lotus Casebook stories in a year and a half in the 2021-2025 period, so... there's that...
Whereas 06 to 10 and 11 to 15 is just [gandalf I have no memory of this place meme]. I wrote Merlin fic?? I wrote Teen Wolf fic?? I wrote Young Avengers fic?? I have absolutely no memory of ever writing getbackers fic, but I was obsessed with it, so at least that makes sense.
Whereas 06 to 10 and 11 to 15 is just [gandalf I have no memory of this place meme]. I wrote Merlin fic?? I wrote Teen Wolf fic?? I wrote Young Avengers fic?? I have absolutely no memory of ever writing getbackers fic, but I was obsessed with it, so at least that makes sense.
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