idficmod: black-and-white line art icon of a human brain (Default)
([personal profile] idficmod posting in [community profile] yuletide Jun. 15th, 2025 08:00 pm)
Event: Id Pro Quo
Event link: [community profile] idproquo
Pinch hit link: https://idproquo.dreamwidth.org/tag/pinch+hits
Due date: June 20th, 10pm EDT
Work Minimums: 2k fic or finished artwork

PH 16 - 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), NoPixel (Web Series), 鴨乃橋ロンの禁断推理 | Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri | Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective (Manga), Crossover Fandom

PH 21 - 阴阳师 | Yīn Yáng Shī | The Yin-yang Master (Movies - Guo Jingming), 陰陽師 | Onmyouji (Anime 2023), 밤에 피는 꽃 | Knight Flower (TV)

PH 22 - Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives - Jeffrey Dean, Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives - Jeffrey Dean, Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives - Jeffrey Dean, Vampire: The Masquerade — Parliament of Knives - Jeffrey Dean, Vampire: The Masquerade Port Saga (Podcast), Path of Night (Podcast), Path of Night (Podcast)

PH 40 - 今際の国のアリス | Imawa no Kuni no Alice | Alice in Borderland (TV), The Ancient One - Cat2000, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes - Suzanne Collins, Mortal Kombat (Video Games 1992-2020), Mortal Kombat (Video Games 2023-), Marvel Cinematic Universe

PH 47 - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon), Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon)

PH 49 - Clean Slate (TV), High Potential (TV), Crossover Fandom, Crossover Fandom, Crossover Fandom

Thank you for considering our pinch hits!

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([personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets Jun. 15th, 2025 04:07 pm)

⌈ Secret Post #6736 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 41 secrets from Secret Submission Post #964.
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.
longficmod: Photo of a woman tying a running shoe (Default)
([personal profile] longficmod posting in [community profile] fandom5k Jun. 15th, 2025 09:10 am)
Check-in is closed! These are the new pinch hits, due 13 July at 23:59 US Eastern Time.

If you can claim one of these, please comment with your AO3 name and the number of the pinch hit you want. All comments are screened.

If you aren't signed up but are only pinch hitting, please consider our treats for pinch hitters post!

If you are signed up, you may ask to exchange your assignment for an open pinch hit. If you are given that pinch hit and fulfill it, this won't count as a default. Please tell me in your comment requesting a pinch hit if you are asking to swap.

PH 1 - Blue Lock (Manga), 終わりのセラフ | Owari no Seraph | Seraph of the End (Anime & Manga), Fairy Tail )


CLAIMED - PH 2 - Riverdale (TV 2017), Yellowjackets (TV), Euphoria (TV 2019) )


CLAIMED - PH 3 - Saiyuki (Anime & Manga), Saiyuki Ibun, Saiyuki Gaiden, Weiß Kreuz, Crossover Fandom, Original Work )


PH 4 - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Sunrise On The Reaping - Suzanne Collins, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Agatha All Along (TV), Wicked (Movie 2024) )


PH 5 - Hannibal (TV), 逆転裁判 | Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney, 陈情令 | The Untamed (TV) )


CLAIMED - PH 6 - Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth (Video Games 2020-2024), The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, Compilation of Final Fantasy VII )


PH 7 - Path of Night (Podcast), Vampire: The Masquerade - Various Authors (Choice of Games), Vampire: The Masquerade Port Saga (Podcast) )


PH 8 - 終わりのセラフ | Owari no Seraph | Seraph of the End (Anime & Manga), Blue Lock (Manga), Fairy Tail )


PH 9 - 琅琊榜之风起长林 | Nirvana in Fire 2: The Wind Blows in Changlin (TV), Original Work, 永夜星河 | Love Game in Eastern Fantasy (TV) )


CLAIMED - PH 10 - Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Crossover Fandom, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù )


PH 11 - The Fugitive (Movies), Crossover Fandom, Father Brown (2013), Forever Knight (TV 1992) )


CLAIMED - PH 12 - Star Wars: The Acolyte (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Bad Batch (Cartoon) )


PH 13 - Code Vein (Video Game), 神さまのいない日曜日 | Kamisama no Inai Nichiyoubi | Sunday Without God (Anime & Manga), Octopath Traveler II (Video Game), 刀使ノ巫女 | Toji no Miko | Katana Maidens (Anime), よるのないくに | Yoru no Nai Kuni | Nights of Azure (Video Games), Xenoblade Chronicles (Video Game) )


PH 14 - Call of Duty (Video Games), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), Teen Wolf (TV), 9-1-1 (TV) )

caramarie: Jongwoo from Strangers from Hell. (jongwoo)
([personal profile] caramarie Jun. 15th, 2025 08:06 pm)
A couple of random fic recs while I remember them!

into fire and into ice by [archiveofourown.org profile] FroyoBoyo (Strangers from Hell, Jongwoo/Moonjo, 5.7K, E)
A sex pollen fic. It was hot, and it fit my mental characterisation for the characters, so a rec from me!

Swimming Upstream Into the Mouth of a Bear by [archiveofourown.org profile] pastelpom (Death Note, Misa, 2.3K)
An experimental fic reflecting on Misa’s in Death Note. I thought it was really neat!

The current state of me fannishly is ‘frantically trying to finish editing my Squid Game fic before season 3 comes out’ and by ‘frantically trying to finish’ I largely mean ‘procrastinating on’. I still have time! Barely!

Posted by John Scalzi

Hello from Venice. We’ll be here for the week.

Also, today is the 31st anniversary of me proposing to Krissy. Spoiler: she said yes. All manner of good things followed from there.

It’s mid-morning here but my body says it’s, like, 2am, and I’ve been traveling all day. I think I’ll take a nap.

— JS

musesfool: a loaf of bread (staff of life)
([personal profile] musesfool Jun. 14th, 2025 07:27 pm)
I knew it was coming, but I'm still sad about Chris Kreider getting traded to the Ducks. He's been my favorite since Lundqvist retired, not just because I liked his play but also because I thought it was unlikely he'd get traded. *hands* After this past season, I understand blowing it all up, but it's still sad. He definitely had some signature moments in a Rangers uni, and I will miss him.

In other news, this morning, I made this baked oatmeal and it's good, but probably needs a little more cinnamon? Or maybe some allspice? Hmm... It'll be nice for breakfast over the next few days. Next weekend I'll make banana bread since I now have a bunch of bananas, since i needed one for this recipe. (It was either applesauce or bananas, and I'm more likely to eat/use the bananas, so...)

And then this afternoon, I made this pizza dough, which turned out well, but took a full hour to double in size, despite what the recipe says, so dinner was later than planned. I topped it with some mozzarella and this white sauce. it was good! (Pictures here.)

Tomorrow, I'll be making teriyaki chicken meatballs for lunch for the week. Right now, every surface in my kitchen is covered in drying dishes, which is the real annoyance of the dishwasher not working.

*
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([personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets Jun. 14th, 2025 04:03 pm)

⌈ Secret Post #6735 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 50 secrets from Secret Submission Post #964.
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.
case: (Default)
([personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets Jun. 14th, 2025 03:56 pm)
[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #965 ]




The first secret from this batch will be posted on June 21st.



RULES:
1. One secret link per comment.
2. 750x750 px or smaller.
3. Link directly to the image.

More details on how to send a secret in!

Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.

Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.

Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

([syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed Jun. 14th, 2025 06:40 pm)

Posted by Athena Scalzi

Today was the day of nation-wide protests, the rally of the No Kings movement. It was also my first time going to a protest, like, at all. Though I’m disappointed I’ve never been to one before, I figured there was no better time to start than now. And I was joined by over a hundred people in front of the Troy courthouse to show that Miami County isn’t all red, and some of us actually do oppose fascism.

I was nervous to go to a protest, and that fear is what has been holding me back from going to any for literal years. But I convinced myself it would be fine since it was Troy and I doubted there’d be any flashbangs or rubber bullets happening. As expected, everything turned out completely fine. It was a totally peaceful protest, and only lasted an hour. It was organized well, concise, and full of a feeling of community.

It was so amazing to see older folks and younger people alike coming together, and I saw a friend there who gave me a sign, so I was thankful for that. It was such a great feeling to look around and see everyone coming together for the same cause, to speak up against the tyranny and tell the world (or at least Miami County) “this is not okay.”

Me and Charlie standing outside, with a sign that reads

I’m glad I went. Sometimes it can feel like it doesn’t make a difference if you’re there or not, or that nothing will change just because of some protests, but it’s better than doing nothing. Silence is complicity, and I don’t want to be compicit. Silence only helps the oppressor. So even if my voice is only one of a million, at least I know it’s in there somewhere.

Make sure you use yours, too. We’re in this together.

-AMS

tafadhali: ([btvs] every little thing she does)
([personal profile] tafadhali posting in [community profile] vidding Jun. 14th, 2025 02:22 pm)
[personal profile] periru3 and I have posted the first two vids in our ongoing vid album Jagged Little Slayer, a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alanis Morissette:


Title:
 All I Really Want
Character/Pairing: Buffy-centric, minor Buffy/Angel, Buffy/Faith, Buffy/Spike
Summary: Here, can you handle this?
Notes: Premiered at VidUKon 2025.

AO3DWTumblr


Title:
 Hand in My Pocket
Character/Pairing: Scoobies gen
Summary: Everything's gonna be quite alright.

AO3
DW | Tumblr

sophia_sol: photo of a 19th century ivory carving of a fat bird (Default)
([personal profile] sophia_sol Jun. 14th, 2025 02:03 pm)
I'm aphantasic - I do not and cannot create pictures in my mind's eye. My mind does not have an eye. But there have been just a few times very recently where in the first moments upon waking in the morning, there's an image in my mind and I feel like I can SEE it. Like, see it see it! As if I were looking at it with my eyes! It always vanishes within a few moments, but my god, is that a glimpse into what it's like to NOT be aphantasic??

Now, though, I'm wondering which of several things is true:

1. Am I weirdly suddenly able to access a tiny amount of picturing things, out of nowhere?

Or

2. Is the dreamy confusion of waking up making me *feel* like I'm picturing things but not *actually* picturing things? It lasts so briefly that I actually can't be sure!

Or

3. Have I always genuinely able to picture things in my sleep, but not awake, but because I only conscsiously experience dreams through the medium of remembering them, I've never been able to tell that - and a change in recent sleeping habits means I have been holding on to a snatch of a dream just long enough to get the sense of it with my waking mind?

Or something else????

Anyway these brief snatches of mind-pictures have been a baffling thing to experience, as something I've never previously been able to do in my life ever, and all of a sudden I'm a little more of a true believer that other people DO do this thing all the time!

It always seemed so fake to me before. So made up. How could a person PICTURE things?! That's just a metaphor, surely! We're using words about images to describe the experience of thinking about a thing, because the actual experience of thinking is so unlike anything in the physical world that there are no words to describe it! Right? Right????

I guess for lots of people, they literally are creating pictures in their head with their brains, all the time.

WILD.

Now I really wish I had a better way to explain what my experience of thinking is like, tbh. Because all I have is metaphor, to translate it into words! But those metaphors are apparently concrete factual experiences to other people, so I won't be successfully communicating!

This is similar to my experience with words, btw. I *can* think in words, more than I can with pictures, but that's me deliberately creating the words and sentences. I'm translating my thoughts into words with conscious effort.

My thoughts aren't words. My thoughts aren't pictures. My thoughts are thoughts!

How are so many people's thoughts NOT just thoughts!
longficmod: Photo of a woman tying a running shoe (Default)
([personal profile] longficmod posting in [community profile] fandom5k Jun. 14th, 2025 11:52 am)
11 hours left! Here's a countdown.

Thanks to everyone who's gotten in touch or has posted their assignment already! I'm still hoping to hear from 18 people, including some pinch hitters.

Even if you're defaulting, checking in (or clicking the default button in AO3) is helpful to me, because I know for certain you're dropping out and haven't just forgotten the check-in. That said, if you haven't let me know one way or another by 11:59 PM US Eastern time, I'll mark you as a default for this round.

Details of the check-in are on this post.
Tags:
One thing about updating the decorative arts and design history blog is that my kneejerk loathing of the term "inspo" has me struggling multiple times a week with the strong impulse to block everyone who reblogs my posts with that tag.

It's good for me somehow, probably.

I'm currently exhausted because the spring that pushes the latch bolt out of the kitchen-hall door broke last night after midnight and we spent several hours fixing it this afternoon. Wax took the equivalent spring out of the lockbox of the dining-livingroom door because unfortunately the lockbox is a pre-1940 model and the springs are not manufactured anymore, nor are the parts interchangeable with the later springs from the 40s- model that are still in production, nor can the whole lockbox be easily switched (because the spindle and hole for it are not the same circumference and the boxes themselves can be different sizes). However, the two lockboxes aren't identical. In fact, it looks like the one that broke is the oldest one in the house. She had to squish the spring a bit to get it in, and it wasn't exactly the same shape and size, so we are nervous that it may break soon. (She did all the hard bits with tools, not trusting me not to injure myself, and I cleaned the insides of the lockboxes with q-tips dipped in vinegar and then oiled them with q-tips dipped in mineral oil.) Wax hopes we can get the blacksmith to make a new spring for the spot when that happens, rather than having to replace the entire mechanism, but we don't know how plausible that is.

We can't do without this door and its latch, but the lockboxes on the other doors are all other sizes so they can't be swapped. We need it latched to keep the cats apart! They're making progress, and they've touched noses now, but Tristana still retreats any time Sipuli gets a little excited, and they are only meeting with Sipuli on the leash.
rmc28: Rachel in hockey gear on the frozen fen at Upware, near Cambridge (Default)
([personal profile] rmc28 Jun. 14th, 2025 08:18 am)

On an ice hockey camp in Slaný, near Prague. I flew out on Thursday afternoon with two friends from Kodiaks. We arrived at the rink hotel in time to check in, have a little walk down to the nearby supermarket and get food, and settle in for the night. For reasons the three of us were all sharing a dormitory room the first night, and we decided the perfect film to watch over our picnic dinner was Inside Out 2 - also set at a 3-day hockey camp. I hadn't seen it before, though the other two had, and I enjoyed it very much.

Friday morning was pretty relaxed; a fourth Kodiak joined us after leaving home at awful-o-clock in the morning, and we were moved into the nicer ensuite twin rooms in pairs for the rest of the camp. We met in the dressing room at 1pm, were on ice at 2pm and again at 6pm, with a stickhandling session in between. Then dinner at 8 and falling into bed not long after.

It's excellent coaching, I'm being pushed well out of my comfort zone and the balance of drill and rest in each session and between sessions is just right. I hit my "cannot actually skate any more" limit about 3 minutes before the end of the last ice session.

Today will be two ice sessions at either end of the day, with video review (argh), optional swim+spa (yes!), and stickhandling again in between. My muscles this morning are making themselves known but I'm not exhausted. All is good. Time to go get changed.

Ahoy there, adventure gamers! [community profile] monkeyisland is a community for the beloved classic game series Monkey Island, featuring the comedic swashbuckling adventures of the improbably-named Guybrush Threepwood, Mighty Pirate™. Anything about Monkey Island is fair game: your own fanworks (art, fic, videos, games, music, cosplay, memes/silliness, whatever), recs of others' fanworks, livestreams/let's-plays, discussions, news and articles, tips for messing about in the game resources or scripting, requests for hints, screenshots, all that good stuff. If Monkey Island is your jam rum rum and jam (it's an old pirate favorite, everybody knows that), then come on over and have a grog.

Monkey Island text logo
([syndicated profile] scalziwhatever_feed Jun. 14th, 2025 12:49 am)

Posted by John Scalzi

Hey, you know what happens next week? Krissy and I celebrate 30 years of being married. She and I are taking a little vacation to enjoy it together. You may not see me for, uhhhhhhh, a while. If I do show up, it will be pretty brief. Don’t worry, Athena will be around for you, and we have a lot of Big Ideas for you next week too. It’ll be fun. Just mostly without me.

Bye!

— JS

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([personal profile] svgurl posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo Jun. 13th, 2025 03:22 pm)
[community profile] comment_bingo is a bingo challenge that is focused on using the provided prompts to comment on other people's works rather than creating your own.

Click on the banner below to go to sign-ups or you can also go HERE.

Sign-ups will remain open until the round closes.

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This round will end up on October 31st, 2025.
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([personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets Jun. 13th, 2025 06:06 pm)

⌈ Secret Post #6734 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.


01.
[Warehouse 13]


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #963..
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.
marinarusalka: (Default)
([personal profile] marinarusalka Jun. 13th, 2025 11:11 am)
5 episodes in, I'm still greatly enjoying the show, with my one complaint being that the episodes are too short. I'm looking forward to doing a binge rewatch of the whole thing once all the episodes are out, I suspect it will work really well.

some spoilers thoughts on the latest episode )

I really really hope this show gets renewed long enough for us to meet ART. It'll be so awesome.
Tags:
marinarusalka: (Knitting: yarn)
([personal profile] marinarusalka Jun. 13th, 2025 10:23 am)
Photo of my 2nd place ribbon tag at the county fair
Tags:
cimorene: closeup of Jeremy Brett as Holmes raising his eyebrows from behind a cup of steaming tea (eyebrows)
([personal profile] cimorene Jun. 13th, 2025 02:25 pm)
The other day I saw a post about American politics on Tumblr that was just a screenshot of someone's tweet that said something like, "Fascism won't make America great. Universal healthcare, universal preschool, housing the homeless, and free higher education would make America great." By this standard, I'm living in utopia! (Or, well, living in Greatness-ia.) Finland has all that.

AND YET...

My efforts to get a driver's licence continue. Basically,

  1. Signed up for driving school for lessons in how to drive stick. My US license expired more than ten years ago and I've never driven in Finland.

  2. Online information indicates I should have to apply in person, but the customer service rep told me that I can disregard that and just apply for a first licence the normal way.

  3. The normal way: a brief online form that will instantly issue a printable and downloadable permit that allows you to take the theory test and to drive with an instructor in a car.

  4. But you can't do that if you have any of a list of health conditions which require a doctor's certificate. And the list includes ADHD.

  5. There's a new law which seems to say you can't get these certificates from the health center anymore, but I called to check. The booking nurse at the health center thought they didn't do them anymore, but she also agreed that it seemed unfair. But she checked with two people and no, the public health service really aren't issuing certificates for driving for ANYBODY anymore.

  6. I called the one private doctor center in town. According to their website, the minimum cost of one of these certificates is over 100€, just like [personal profile] waxjism predicted. Their receptionist didn't even know who to book me with (does ADHD require a specialist)? She'll call me back.

  7. If it does, it will be like at least 150€ instead, because that's the base price for specialists.


And even worse, the list of conditions that now require EVERY SINGLE PERSON who has ever been diagnosed with them to get a certificate from a private doctor - which means in most cases also a NEW doctor, not their own GP who has treated them before - is not just ADHD. Everybody with any of these conditions (this is not the entire list either) is now taxed, at minimum, an extra hundred bucks for the privilege of getting a driver's licence in Finland, as of two months ago:

  • diabetes

  • any cardio issues including hypertension or a heart murmur

  • sleep apnea or insomnia or any other sleep disorders

  • any past severe depressions or recurrent panic disorders, or personality disorders

  • dyslexia

  • autism spectrum

  • any neurological conditions or injuries including migraines or any past brain or spinal injury


Insane. It's not just the financial burden for all these people, either; a brand-new doctor, a stranger, is at a disadvantage for determining if most of the conditions meant here are a danger or not.

So I'm waiting for a call back and Sipuli really doesn't understand why I won't take her outside in the sunshine.
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)
([personal profile] aurumcalendula Jun. 12th, 2025 11:19 pm)
Current events continue to be a lot, to say the least (I left voicemails for my congresspeople about some of it).

On a happier note, I saw chickadees multiple times today (apparently they're smaller than sparrows) as well as hummingbirds (one a few minutes after I refilled the feeder)!
one

thinking about how as a kid I found zoos super boring - and I think my problem was that, at least at that time, the expected mode of engagement with zoos was to stare at animals and be amazed at how interesting/cute/different they look?

for me, learning context is what makes an animal compelling! eg: I did a project on temperate rainforests in grade 6, and learned about banana slugs as part of the ecosystem. and subsequently loved them, even though I hadn't cared about slugs previously! if I'd been shown a real live banana slug after having done that project, I would have been fascinated to just watch it, because I would understand what I was seeing, and know what to look for in its behaviour and appearance to connect with the things I knew about it!

if the zoos I visited in my youth had done more to contextualise my understanding of what I was seeing, I think I could have had a good time. but instead I was presented with a few fun facts and the opportunity to see the animals, the end. and so I found them the height of boredom.

fun facts are useless to me! WHY are they fun! what makes this fact relevant! what caused things to be this way!!

(I had a similar problem with most museums. except dinosaur museums, to which I came with my own contextual knowledge, and thus could appreciate and enjoy the things on display, even when the display didn't provide much information itself)


two

oh!!! there's a plugin for joplin that allows android app users to see wordcount! and also to see line numbers, to make it easier to orient yourself within a long note! I love this


three

several podcasts I follow do reviews of older SFF novels (either occasionally or as their whole thing), and it has me thinking again about a type of story I think used to be more common in western genre fiction, and it's one I rather miss.

The type I mean: a narrative which is checking in on a specific place or people-group at different points in its long-term history, where the overarching narrative project is on a scale of eras while telling smaller personal stories within that history.

Sometimes it's done within the context of a single book, like in A Canticle for Leibowitz. Sometimes it's between books over the length of a series, like in the Dragonriders of Pern series¹. Either way, you get to see the cycles of history, the way that things which seem urgent and current at one point become historicised and mythologised, and become the ancient context for the new urgent current events, whether the people involved realise it or not. I love this shit! I love context. I love seeing how things connect. I love how the very notion of history becomes one of the major characters in the narrative!

From what I see, the modern western sff genre has become more interested in more immediate stories. Which have their benefits too, and which are really wonderful in their own way! And there's plenty about these older stories that I do not miss at all.

Maybe there are authors out there writing era-spanning sff today, and I just haven't come across them because there are other aspects of what those authors focus on that are super not to my tastes, or because the book is a small indie publishing situation that doesn't have good word-of-mouth, or something else like that....these are definitely possible! But I do miss getting invested in this kind of story. It's fun!

¹I won't say that all the books I once loved that do this thing were GOOD books


four

the names people choose - for themselves, their kids, their pets - is soooo interesting to me! but especially kids' names, tbh.

modern western culture places so much emphasis on the importance of the choice you make about your baby's name (compared to, say, the late middle ages, when half of all people in england were named one of the same few names) and since there's so much cultural weight on the choice, and it is by its nature a very public choice, you can tell a lot from the decisions people make!

what were their priorities, their influences, their values? what kind of naming community are they in, and how much does it fall in line with the rest of their country? so many factors go into each choice!

every time someone I know has a new kid, I'm always SO eager to find out the name...and then, if possible, get the story behind why they chose it! It's always so interesting!


five

recently I was out birding with some folks who have never been birding before, and one of them commented that they were delighted to discover from me that an important part of birding is complimenting every bird you see

and it's TRUE. it is an important part of birding! telling the birds what a great job they're doing, how cute/handsome/gorgeous they are, etc is something I am ALWAYS doing. instinctively and automatically. and I am so pleased to be modelling this attitude to others! :D
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