Steering the craft by Ursula K LeGuin is "A revised and updated guide to the essentials of a writer’s craft", and includes writing exercises in each chapter. ( Read more... )
Title: A Difficult Decision Author: paranoidangel Fandom: Star Trek: The Next Generation Pairing/Characters: Beverly Crusher/Will Riker, Deanna Troi/Worf, Will Riker/Deanna Troi Rating: General Length: 1751 words Summary: Doctor Beverly Crusher has always treasured her friendship with first officer Will Riker. Until an unexpected night of passion leaves her expecting his baby! Now she must acknowledge what she’s long denied: Beverly wants Will to be more than her best friend. But Beverly’s previous trauma still haunts her, and Will’s scared of losing what they already have. Can they find the courage to forge a life – as a family? Notes: Set after Generations, and at the beginning and end of Triangle: Imdazi 2 by Peter David
- Bee log: 2 June, rescued a de-powered female worker Red-tailed Bumblebee, Bombus lapidarius, from inside a library by holding it in my bare hands while it vibrated vigorous warning buzzing. Then, when I put my hand next to lavender flowers outside, the bee grabbed a flower to drink the nectar but wouldn't let go of my hand (probably because my body temperature was warmer than the air temperature). Re-powered bee eventually transferred to the plant before flying away, but not before a librarian had appeared to ascertain why I'd set off the alarms by carrying a tagged book through the detector gates. Librarian was very sympathetic to the bee and wanted to know which book it was "reading".
- Birb log: 27 May, 11+ jackdaws and very low-bowing courting male Wood Pigeon (a few days previously I suspected a Wood pigeon had been taken by a bird of prey but there are 5+ today). 3-5 June, latest I've seen a Goldfinch stripping last year's Teasel heads for seed. 8 June, by behaviour I'd say I've seen at least one juvenile Dunnock and one Blackbird this last week but neither was in pre-adult plummage.
I’ve been noodling around with Pride flags for the Intersection of Disability & Queer identities.
I came up with two variations. First, colors of the Disability Pride Flag mapped onto the Queer Pride Chevron (i.e.: the Militant Queer flag):
ALT
(Tip of the Hat to @intervex, who preferred this form of chevron to my earlier design, that had it steeper, and anchored in the top corners)
And second, the six colors of the 1978 Gilbert Baker flag, in the diagonal orientation, and across the dark grey/black field of the Disability Pride Flag:
ALT
(If you didn’t know, the diagonal orientation of the stripes in the Disability Pride Flag is also symbolic: it represents the breaking down and crossing the vertical walls and horizontal ceilings of the systems that keep us isolated from each other and “mainstream” society).
These are pretty neat! It might be worth considering, though, that the original disability pride flag had bright colors and zigzags in the diagonal, but was changed because of the issues it caused for certain disabilities. The latter flag, especially, would be prone to migraine triggers.
(I’m the one who designed the original disability pride flag, btw, and worked with others on the redesign)
I thought about changing the second flag to more pastel colors, but I was hoping that, because they’re arranged in more “rainbow” order, it would be less of a problem. Also, The Gilbert Baker flag is so well known, I was wary of changing the hues too much.
But: more pastel it is. I’ve now swapped out the second flag in my OP for a lighter version.
Yes. I know these are rife with 19th Century heteronormative ideas of Morality and Meekness, and Beauty and Duty, and what even counts as a “Happy Ending.” But you can’t subvert a story, and queer its telling, if you don’t know it exists. And also, problematic elements aside, they’re just good romps.
And Spoopy Season is also Storytelling Season.
1) The White Snake (a king’s servant is able to understand the languages of animals, thanks to eating the flesh of a roasted white snake, helps animals in distress, and is helped in return)
2) Frau Holle(an abused stepdaughter is taken in by an Otherworldly Witch)
3) Thumbthick(A “Tom Thumb” story that’s also a fantastic allegory for growing up disabled, with supportive parents)
5) The Two Brothers(The Rompiest of Romps: Twin brothers who are heroes. Funny talking animal sidekicks. Slaying a giant seven-headed dragon. A plucky, intelligent, princess. Bringing the dead back to life. Why hasn’t this been adapted into a summer blockbuster movie, yet?)
This has popped up in my notifications again, so here are
Three (3) 🕒 More Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales I wish everyone knew better
6. The Singing Springing Lark (“Beauty and the Beast”-type story where the two negotiate through their marriage before the spell is broken)
7. Bearskin (A soldier is left destitute and homeless after Peace breaks out, and so makes a pact with the Devil)
8. The Water of Life (Three princes search for The Water of Life to save their ill father. The two elder brothers frame the youngest for attempted murder. Another one that could make a great movie, imnsho)
Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships
Rating: M Length: 22442 words Creator Links: Rosie_Rues Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.
Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...
Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.
The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.
This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.
There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)
This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors. Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169
I came up with two variations. First, colors of the Disability Pride Flag mapped onto the Queer Pride Chevron (i.e.: the Militant Queer flag):
ALT
(Tip of the Hat to @intervex, who preferred this form of chevron to my earlier design, that had it steeper, and anchored in the top corners)
And second, the six colors of the 1978 Gilbert Baker flag, in the diagonal orientation, and across the dark grey/black field of the Disability Pride Flag:
ALT
(If you didn’t know, the diagonal orientation of the stripes in the Disability Pride Flag is also symbolic: it represents the breaking down and crossing the vertical walls and horizontal ceilings of the systems that keep us isolated from each other and “mainstream” society).
Fandom: Taskmaster (series 16) Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma Rating: Gen Length: 00:02:06 Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings. Creator Links:thingswithwings on AO3 Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor
Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.
Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.
A while back, lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy.
Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history that lirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.
Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
Introducing seasons_of_fandom, an interactive fandom challenge community/landcomm that allows you to create work for any fandom you can think of! We were previously lands_of_magic, a name we ran under for over 10 years, but we figured we needed a facelift and a name change since it has been a long time since we had only focused on fantasy fandoms. We welcome TV, movies, books, games, music, anime, celebrities... almost anything goes! We have all kinds of challenges- writing, graphics, games, and some challenges that are miscellaneous fanworks! This round we'll also be trying out monthly drabble and icon contests.
We have four wonderful teams- The Spring Court, The Summer Court, The Autumn Court, and The Winter Court.
Sign-ups for new members start today, and though our first round under our new name doesn't start until August, we will have two challenges open before the round officially starts. To sign up, all you have to do is read the rules and fill out the survey here.
- Current reading quote: "My phrenologist has advised me to get more excitement in life, for the sake of my health".
- Friday Five with questions to warm the cockles of USian market researchers....
1. Have you ever been to summer camp? No, we didn't have US style summer camps. Going camping (in tents or less often huts) for a weekend or even a whole week (!) with the Scouts / Guides &c used to be a relatively common childhood experience in the UK, and some schools went Youth Hostelling or to outdoor centres (usually owned by local councils before they were mostly privatised) for loosely geography/biology themed field study trips, but I never did. Specialised summer schools for formal study were uncommon, although older posher kids might attend a week or two for music or languages or whatever posh kids do when their parents want rid of them and boarding schools are on hols. Brits also used to have a lot of language student exchange trips with Europe usually organised by secondary schools.
2. Have you ever made a s'more? I've seen them in USian movies and they appeared to be rubbery pink sugar melted over dry crumbly "cookie" sugar, thus removing the only joy of campfire toasting which is crunchiness. Why would anyone want to do that? I can only assume the level of advertising to children that would be seen as brainwashing anywhere else.
3. Have you ever slept under the stars (no tent/tarp)? Yes, and so did all the rural kids I grew up with and my entire early adult friend group, and all the women's group members I knew, and all the greens and neopagans I knew (and probably most of the leftists at some point). Why wouldn't anyone living in a temperate climate, with predictable meteor showers &c, want to sleep out? I dislike camping though because it's too much faff for no reward: minimalist bivi bag or middle-aged mo-ho for me, ta.
4. Have you ever had a member of the opposite sex sleep over at your house? Ah, yes, the two sexes, and the owning of houses. Definitely another question aimed at my demographic, lmao.
5. What type of bed do you have (queen, twin, bunk, etc.)? A comfy one, obv. Primarily cotton sheets / pillow cases (pillow case can be refrigerated in summer) and duvet with blanket over in winter. And when I was very ill a few years ago I swapped my hot water bottle for an electric heat pad at the foot end of my bed. [insert emoticon of comfy smugness here]
6. Have you had your bumps "read" by a phrenologist? /jk, that's not a FF question. Have you though? I bet you have! You look like the type!! I can tell from the shape of your head!!1!! (I was persuaded to have a Kirlian photo of myself taken once. I refused to pay extra for a "reading" but the "psychic" insisted on persuing me to the door while earnestly explaining that I had a strong secondary female presence in my "aura" that was watching over me, lmao.)
Falling for His Rival (21,217 words) by ArtemisDart Chapters: 4/4 Fandom: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Poe Dameron/Armitage Hux Characters: Poe Dameron, Armitage Hux Additional Tags: Unconventional Courtship 2025, Modern Era, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Reality TV, Alternate Universe - Reality Show, Food, Recipes, POV Alternating, Armitage Hux Has Issues, Armitage Hux Has No Chill, Armitage Hux Has a Bad Childhood, Armitage Hux Needs A Hug, Gay Poe Dameron, Poe Dameron is a Menace, Flirty Poe Dameron, Rivals With Benefits, Enemies to Lovers Summary: Blurb taken from Falling for Her Rival, by Jackie Braun
For chef Poe Dameron, it's time to turn up the heat. Three years ago he hit rock bottom. Now he's ready for a comeback, starting with winning a TV competition to secure a spot running New York's trendiest kitchen! He just didn't count on his attraction to rival Armitage Hux burning a hole in his plans…
Hux has worked his apron off for this opportunity, and total focus on the competition was the plan — which is difficult when all he can think about is wanting his opponent out of the kitchen and in his bed! But there can only be one winner, and sometimes, to win, a guy has to play dirty!
[image description: screengrab of a series of tweets from @ rootsworks: “When I was in college, part of our university’s graduation requirements had a community service component that they called service learning.
One of my service learning classes involved work at a local homeless community center, helping people write resumes and cleaning bathrooms.
Our instructor told us to expect to see the bathrooms trashed a lot–like you will clean the bathroom and
immediately
someone will wreck it.
And it’s not because they disrespect your work or don’t value having access to clean bathrooms or whatever, but because of control.
When you feel like you have no control over your life or your environment, your brain is going to want to assert control however it can.
Which results in trashed bathrooms. It’s control exercised over the one small part of your environment that you still have the power to affect.
I see kids on tumblr using the language of social justice as cudgels on people who actually do care about and listen to them
or holding the creators within their communities to an impossibly high standard that they never apply to mainstream media properties.
I just see trashed bathrooms. ‘These are the people my voice will reach,’ they rationalize, ‘so these are the people I’ll hurt.’
But the guiding principles of social justice are aimed at correcting and dismantling systems. Stop using them to dismantle people.”]
Thank you for the transcription.
Since this is the situation, I think one of the things us older folk can do is to demonstrate how to create change (assert control) without tearing other people down.
June 6th, 2025: Hume didn't use a chicken who is also a detective in his published examples that WE have records of, but in Dinosaur Land, Dinosaur Hume was a little more ambitious. THIS I CLAIM.
TCAF is this weekend! Hopefully I will see you there?? I'm doing a signing at the Penguin Random House booth at 3pm on Saturday June 7th! That's at tables 165-168, located on Home Ice, in the Ice Rink! Yes, this IS the most Canadian place for a comics festival ever in time.
Power's out at my house, so I'm going extra minimal today 😅
Do you have a rec for this week? Just reply to this post with something queer or queer-adjacent (such as, soap made by a queer person that isn't necessarily queer themed) that you'd, well, recommend. Self-recs are welcome, as are recs for fandom-related content!
Or have you tried something that's been recced here? Do you have your own report to share about it? I'd love to hear about it!
Lotta confusion as to “why are the granola save the whales hippies right wing conspiracy theorists now?” And I think the answer is twofold:
Any social movement in the anglosphere is gonna have a certain amount of reactionaries who happen to be temporarily aimed at a good cause. A lot of them were always low-key right wing.
When you have no ability for class analysis, it is a very short idealogical step from “distrust of pharmaceutical companies” to “distrust of modern medicine as a whole” to “judeo-bolsheviks are poisoning white babies for profit”
This trend will continue until people have access to non-predatory healthcare. Conspiracism thrives when people are failed by the systems they rely on.
I will also say, I reject the framing of conspiracy theorists as if they were pure innocent souls corrupted by some nebulous demons of austerity.
We live within a system that wants white supremacy to be the normal and unquestioned state of things. It is very good at this. A lot of people unthinkingly consider white supremacy the default state of the world. Your Uncle was not tricked by Qanon. He got into Qanon because it rhymed with things he already believed.
As someone who has maintained her pinko, environmentalist political stance for the last 49 years, only to be defenestrated as the Overton Window kept moving to the Right during her lifetime, the current political vibe in this country makes me want to cry.
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