Talking Meme Month - day 8
Feb. 8th, 2026 09:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hafnia(Continuing to harp about this, but if you want to ask a question, you can do so here!)
Worldbuilding I'm most proud of?
That's...a good question. I have built a lot of worlds!
I think the short list has got to be:
1). Hexas (because it's genuinely really fun and I had a great time thinking through e.g. how the fuck it is that certain stuff would work — like, "okay, the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, because slavery as a concept doesn't really exist in this world — magic changes a hell of a lot of things", eventually settling on "it was fought over acceptable uses of magic, what would or wouldn't be acceptable magic in this setting".
Really interesting to think through how e.g. settlement of the US etc would have worked if not for colonialism. I still think about it sometimes.
shadaras lovingly dubbed "Regency lakefuck world", which is very much a collaborative effort. I think I've written 90% of the text that exists for it (probably more like 95% at this point, good lord), but the worldbuilding and story development were definitely a team effort. It's...weird? And fun? Had to think about the class system, how a world where physical sex is mutable (not fixed) would affect — well, everything. Like, does it make sense for transphobia to exist in a world where changing your physical sex through magic is commonplace and widely accepted? Probably not. So what does exist, then, to drive conflict, and what are players rebelling against?
We ended up talking through a lot vis a vis: social mores and magic, and how it is that these two things tie together in specific ways. It's led to a fair amount of plot, but there's also just lots and lots of weird little bits about how stuff works. Like — if sex is mutable, okay, what does that mean for gender and gender roles? There's also bits about like, "if people live forever and divorce is uncommon, does that mean that non-monogamy is not an issue so long as inheritance isn't complicated by questions of paternity?" &etc.
All of this and it doesn't touch on how magic works in this world, who has access to it, or how other people who are not as long-lived view it. It's fun! And yeah, I'm very proud of it.
The series is here, though if you want a feeling for the world without having to read something E-rated, I will say cheerfully to watch this space, because as soon as stuff reveals for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
seasonalremix, I will link what it was I wrote that takes place in the same world (though with different characters, it's a little comedy of manners, sort of).
3). The Night Market.
It's...
Imagine if Faery was real, that it still abutted our world in some ways, and the Fey had to change/adapt to keep up with the times.
The Night Market is how I envisioned that working. It's gone through several iterations; I keep meaning to get back to it and finish the book, but I haven't, yet. Eventually, probably.
Worldbuilding I'm most proud of?
That's...a good question. I have built a lot of worlds!
I think the short list has got to be:
1). Hexas (because it's genuinely really fun and I had a great time thinking through e.g. how the fuck it is that certain stuff would work — like, "okay, the Civil War wasn't fought over slavery, because slavery as a concept doesn't really exist in this world — magic changes a hell of a lot of things", eventually settling on "it was fought over acceptable uses of magic, what would or wouldn't be acceptable magic in this setting".
Really interesting to think through how e.g. settlement of the US etc would have worked if not for colonialism. I still think about it sometimes.
2). I'm putting this behind a little spoiler tag because, well, it's kind of...weird; it's about the big project on AO3 so of course if you're like, "I don't want to read about it", good news, you don't have to!
There's also whatshadaras lovingly dubbed "Regency lakefuck world", which is very much a collaborative effort. I think I've written 90% of the text that exists for it (probably more like 95% at this point, good lord), but the worldbuilding and story development were definitely a team effort. It's...weird? And fun? Had to think about the class system, how a world where physical sex is mutable (not fixed) would affect — well, everything. Like, does it make sense for transphobia to exist in a world where changing your physical sex through magic is commonplace and widely accepted? Probably not. So what does exist, then, to drive conflict, and what are players rebelling against? We ended up talking through a lot vis a vis: social mores and magic, and how it is that these two things tie together in specific ways. It's led to a fair amount of plot, but there's also just lots and lots of weird little bits about how stuff works. Like — if sex is mutable, okay, what does that mean for gender and gender roles? There's also bits about like, "if people live forever and divorce is uncommon, does that mean that non-monogamy is not an issue so long as inheritance isn't complicated by questions of paternity?" &etc.
All of this and it doesn't touch on how magic works in this world, who has access to it, or how other people who are not as long-lived view it. It's fun! And yeah, I'm very proud of it.
The series is here, though if you want a feeling for the world without having to read something E-rated, I will say cheerfully to watch this space, because as soon as stuff reveals for
seasonalremix, I will link what it was I wrote that takes place in the same world (though with different characters, it's a little comedy of manners, sort of).3). The Night Market.
It's...
Imagine if Faery was real, that it still abutted our world in some ways, and the Fey had to change/adapt to keep up with the times.
The Night Market is how I envisioned that working. It's gone through several iterations; I keep meaning to get back to it and finish the book, but I haven't, yet. Eventually, probably.
Birds of Bangkok
Feb. 9th, 2026 12:19 pmhalfcactusJust got back from a short solo trip to Bangkok where apparently all I did was look at birds... It was my first time in Thailand ever, and between my relaxation-focused itinerary and the semi-spontaneous meet-up plans on my first two nights (I stayed three), I got to at least familiarize myself with the basics of both train systems and the area around my hotel. I logged 20k–30k steps a day (with an average of 26k steps) but a lot of it was unnecessary walking from having no sense of direction and always being lost haha! Now my camera roll is full of photos/videos of birds (and reptiles—which deserve their own separate post).
I'm still very new to travel so this is only my second solo trip ever and the first in a country I've never visited before. I feel some measure of regret for not eating, shopping, or exploring more, but I'm also pretty happy with the way I traveled—a way that is only possible when I'm by myself. And although I barely slept since I woke up at 3:30AM on Thursday to make my 7:30AM flight, I felt so light and free and open to organic interactions with strangers. (Well, as light and free as one can be when tethered to their phone and fully dependent on Google Maps and power banks. XD)
Maybe one day I'll post about the whole trip but for now—birds!!!
I hope I didn't misidentify any of them:
I'm so pleased to be able to recognize the Asian koel call from Wingspan (the only call I internalized because it's so distinctive and familiar), so every time I heard it I felt like I was in Wingspan hahaha. I didn't see any though, I guess they stayed on the trees. ;___;
Did most of my bird-watching in Benchakitti Park and Lumpini Park where my main goal was to see monitor lizards (I only got to see them in Lumpini Park, but I'm not sure if time of day was a factor), but saw common mynas, pigeons/doves, and sparrows (no picture because they're that common) all over the city. :) I hope to see one of the temples if I get to visit again! I had to adapt my itinerary so I wasn't overextending myself to make it to meet-ups, and one of the activities I cut off my list was Wat Pho (reclining Buddha). A reason to go back, I suppose. :) (I should make a list of the places I got recommended during the meet-ups too...)
I'm still very new to travel so this is only my second solo trip ever and the first in a country I've never visited before. I feel some measure of regret for not eating, shopping, or exploring more, but I'm also pretty happy with the way I traveled—a way that is only possible when I'm by myself. And although I barely slept since I woke up at 3:30AM on Thursday to make my 7:30AM flight, I felt so light and free and open to organic interactions with strangers. (Well, as light and free as one can be when tethered to their phone and fully dependent on Google Maps and power banks. XD)
Maybe one day I'll post about the whole trip but for now—birds!!!
Pictures
I hope I didn't misidentify any of them:
I'm so pleased to be able to recognize the Asian koel call from Wingspan (the only call I internalized because it's so distinctive and familiar), so every time I heard it I felt like I was in Wingspan hahaha. I didn't see any though, I guess they stayed on the trees. ;___;
Did most of my bird-watching in Benchakitti Park and Lumpini Park where my main goal was to see monitor lizards (I only got to see them in Lumpini Park, but I'm not sure if time of day was a factor), but saw common mynas, pigeons/doves, and sparrows (no picture because they're that common) all over the city. :) I hope to see one of the temples if I get to visit again! I had to adapt my itinerary so I wasn't overextending myself to make it to meet-ups, and one of the activities I cut off my list was Wat Pho (reclining Buddha). A reason to go back, I suppose. :) (I should make a list of the places I got recommended during the meet-ups too...)
Writerly Ways
Feb. 8th, 2026 11:00 pmcornerofmadnessI was listening to this the other day about endings
And had several thoughts: 1. I suck at ending things. I never want to say goodbye to the characters. If I don't finish it I have to say goodbye. But that's not the problem mentioned above. That's for people who finish things
2. Have I been guilty of any of them?
3. I might be guilty. My 1980s monster hunter toes the line for the unearned happy ending. Maybe. Sort of.
It's hard to talk about it without spoiling the ending and it probably IS something that would be better if a beta reader looked at I could discuss it with them.
So why am I worried? there are multiple monster in this (maybe too many, that's a problem for another time). One monster is there at the end but it also did the work for the heroes and I'm wondering is that a good pay off? Dan and Howell (the two characters with issues that need to be resolved) get to their ending so there's that. It's probably not as bad an ending as I worry it is.
How about you? Have you worried about your endings?
Open Calls
Trollbreath Magazine Speculative fiction, poetry, and non-fiction of all kinds with a particular fondness for slipstream and fabulism in all their delightful forms
What Elegant Stars: Queer Tales of Impossible Style Space opera stories involving style, fashion, and society with a queer theme.
Astrolabe Stories about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection in all genres with a particular fondness for anything that moves beyond realism in form or content or spirit
Hearth Stories Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world.
Tea or Coffee, Stars, and Gravity Stories must include the 3 title elements: 1. Tea or Coffee, 2. Stars, 3. Gravity.
Nine Manuscript Publishers Open to Submissions in February 2026
40 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for February 2026
From Around the Web
Does Your Novel Just…Stop? What Makes a Good Ending (I swear I didn't plan this but the article is here...)
How to Write a Book Pitch That Gets Replies (With Examples).
Metaphor Fatigue: When Imagery Stops Working
From Betty
Words pull us through to the future
Five Ways Gods and the Afterlife Change a Fantasy Setting
How to Craft a Satisfying Reveal
Should You Cut Your Novel Into a Series?
Six Ways to Keep Characters in the Danger Zone
The Dos and Don’ts of Blogging for Writers
Think Music As You Write Words
Seven Decisions That Can Crash Your Story Onto The Rocks.
Five Things I’d Go Back and Tell New Writer Me
Is Single or Multiple Viewpoints Best for Your Story?
Bookshop.org Teams with Draft2Digital
When Should You Stop Querying a Book?
How Writers Should Take Advice: Knowing When to Play It Safe and When to Take Risks.
Finding Inspiration to Write: How Body, Mind, and Soul Work Together
Publishing Paths for Writers: Understanding Vanity Presses Before You Sign
Why Writers Should Take a Daily Walk to Boost Creativity and Writing Output
Story as Cosmology: Understanding Story as a Framework for Meaning
The Greengrocer Writes a Fantasy Novel
So Random
And had several thoughts: 1. I suck at ending things. I never want to say goodbye to the characters. If I don't finish it I have to say goodbye. But that's not the problem mentioned above. That's for people who finish things
2. Have I been guilty of any of them?
3. I might be guilty. My 1980s monster hunter toes the line for the unearned happy ending. Maybe. Sort of.
It's hard to talk about it without spoiling the ending and it probably IS something that would be better if a beta reader looked at I could discuss it with them.
So why am I worried? there are multiple monster in this (maybe too many, that's a problem for another time). One monster is there at the end but it also did the work for the heroes and I'm wondering is that a good pay off? Dan and Howell (the two characters with issues that need to be resolved) get to their ending so there's that. It's probably not as bad an ending as I worry it is.
How about you? Have you worried about your endings?
Open Calls
Trollbreath Magazine Speculative fiction, poetry, and non-fiction of all kinds with a particular fondness for slipstream and fabulism in all their delightful forms
What Elegant Stars: Queer Tales of Impossible Style Space opera stories involving style, fashion, and society with a queer theme.
Astrolabe Stories about how we seek out, discover, and grasp onto connection in all genres with a particular fondness for anything that moves beyond realism in form or content or spirit
Hearth Stories Speculative fiction that explores connection, family, relationships, comfort, and the natural world.
Tea or Coffee, Stars, and Gravity Stories must include the 3 title elements: 1. Tea or Coffee, 2. Stars, 3. Gravity.
Nine Manuscript Publishers Open to Submissions in February 2026
40 Themed Submission Calls and Contests for February 2026
From Around the Web
Does Your Novel Just…Stop? What Makes a Good Ending (I swear I didn't plan this but the article is here...)
How to Write a Book Pitch That Gets Replies (With Examples).
Metaphor Fatigue: When Imagery Stops Working
From Betty
Words pull us through to the future
Five Ways Gods and the Afterlife Change a Fantasy Setting
How to Craft a Satisfying Reveal
Should You Cut Your Novel Into a Series?
Six Ways to Keep Characters in the Danger Zone
The Dos and Don’ts of Blogging for Writers
Think Music As You Write Words
Seven Decisions That Can Crash Your Story Onto The Rocks.
Five Things I’d Go Back and Tell New Writer Me
Is Single or Multiple Viewpoints Best for Your Story?
Bookshop.org Teams with Draft2Digital
When Should You Stop Querying a Book?
How Writers Should Take Advice: Knowing When to Play It Safe and When to Take Risks.
Finding Inspiration to Write: How Body, Mind, and Soul Work Together
Publishing Paths for Writers: Understanding Vanity Presses Before You Sign
Why Writers Should Take a Daily Walk to Boost Creativity and Writing Output
Story as Cosmology: Understanding Story as a Framework for Meaning
The Greengrocer Writes a Fantasy Novel
So Random
Obstacle Practice, Firefly
Feb. 8th, 2026 08:16 pmranunculusAnother weekend obstacle practice successfully completed.
This horse is having a good look at that stuff hanging on the fence. I tried for a vaguely Valentine's Day theme, plus the nice shiny, silver insulation from a box that M brought back Alaska Salmon in.
This Arab gelding was showing off as he trotted over the Tic-Tack-Toe.
Lots of people found that the jousting was harder than it looked.
On Saturday we only had four riders (Sunday there were 10). I got Firefly out. She was both very interactive and calm. Sunday I wanted to turn her loose in the arena while I cleaned up. When I went to get her I wanted to ride through the corrals. I started to climb on a fence panel to mount (my knees just won't bounce enough to vault on anymore). Several months ago she had fussed and moved away from the mounting block. At that point I picked up a whip and simply showed it to her. That was enough for her to be very polite when I mount - from her left side. Today's effort was on her right. Horses don't transfer skills from side to side very well. Firefly thought she would just step away. The third time she stepped away I gave her a single, open palm slap on the side she was moving toward. The head went up and she offered to run away from my cruel beating. Then stood nice and quiet and calm while I got on. Today, for the first time, I opened the latch on the two gates from horseback. It wasn't elegant, but it did teach her that the noise was ok, and that the gate would open if she stood in the right place. While I cleaned up the arena, she got to run around in the nice soft sand, and roll. At least sand doesn't stick like the mud in the corral does! When I was done she walked up to me and we went off to a nice patch of green grass for her to graze as a treat. What a greedy thing she is. She stuffed grass in her mouth as fast as she could bite it off for at least 10 minutes, chewing extremely hastily, before slowing down.
Tomorrow is another walk up to the Dogbane patches, this time with some of the local basket weavers. I'm excited about this.
This horse is having a good look at that stuff hanging on the fence. I tried for a vaguely Valentine's Day theme, plus the nice shiny, silver insulation from a box that M brought back Alaska Salmon in.
This Arab gelding was showing off as he trotted over the Tic-Tack-Toe.
Lots of people found that the jousting was harder than it looked.
On Saturday we only had four riders (Sunday there were 10). I got Firefly out. She was both very interactive and calm. Sunday I wanted to turn her loose in the arena while I cleaned up. When I went to get her I wanted to ride through the corrals. I started to climb on a fence panel to mount (my knees just won't bounce enough to vault on anymore). Several months ago she had fussed and moved away from the mounting block. At that point I picked up a whip and simply showed it to her. That was enough for her to be very polite when I mount - from her left side. Today's effort was on her right. Horses don't transfer skills from side to side very well. Firefly thought she would just step away. The third time she stepped away I gave her a single, open palm slap on the side she was moving toward. The head went up and she offered to run away from my cruel beating. Then stood nice and quiet and calm while I got on. Today, for the first time, I opened the latch on the two gates from horseback. It wasn't elegant, but it did teach her that the noise was ok, and that the gate would open if she stood in the right place. While I cleaned up the arena, she got to run around in the nice soft sand, and roll. At least sand doesn't stick like the mud in the corral does! When I was done she walked up to me and we went off to a nice patch of green grass for her to graze as a treat. What a greedy thing she is. She stuffed grass in her mouth as fast as she could bite it off for at least 10 minutes, chewing extremely hastily, before slowing down.
Tomorrow is another walk up to the Dogbane patches, this time with some of the local basket weavers. I'm excited about this.
A Superb Owl
Feb. 8th, 2026 08:45 pmrimrunner
Not the greatest photo–it was taken with a cell phone and is super zoomed in, but I was so excited when I saw this screech owl right outside my house a year and a half ago.
I hadn't planned on watching the game, but we caught dinner at a place in West Seattle that had it on so we got to see the Seahawks win again. My neighborhood's actually quieter in the aftermath than I expected; guess people have to work tomorrow.
.09 inch nails are less likely to stab you in the face when you have to blow your nose
Feb. 8th, 2026 08:56 pm
(no subject)
Feb. 8th, 2026 09:10 pmskygiantsBy sheer coincidence, I ended up reading Alix Harrow's The Everlasting almost immediately after The Isle in the Silver Sea. Both books are ringing changes on the same big themes -- the narratives of nationalism, fate and tragedy, Spenser and Malory, depressed lady knights and evil girlbosses -- and from what I had previously read of both Harrow and Suri's work I was tbh quite surprised to find myself liking The Everlasting a bit better.
The premise of The Everlasting: it's more or less the second-world equivalent of the 1920s and we have just had a Big War. Our protagonist Owen has a radical pacifist alcoholic father that he doesn't respect, a war medal that he didn't really earn, a academic career that doesn't seem to be going places, and a face that makes it pretty obvious that at least one parent came from The Other Side. However, his messy relationship with the war has not in any way altered his ardent passion for the greatest figure of his country's nationalist mythology, the knight Una Everlasting, who fought at the side of the nation's founding queen a thousand years ago and died tragically to bring the country stability.
Then he finds a book that purports to be the True History of Una Everlasting, and gets summoned to a secret meeting with the country's minister of war, an evil girlboss who immediately sends him back in time to experience and document Una Everlasting's Last Quest first hand. He gets to write the nationalist myth himself! What fun!
Alas, it turns out that the great knight Una Everlasting is violent, brutal, and extremely burned out about all the people she's killed as part of the bloody process of nation-forging: at this point the citizens think of her as a butcher and she's inclined to agree. Nonetheless, fanboy Owen convinces her to take on this one last quest for the sake of her honor & kingdom & legacy &cetera, with the promise of peace at the end of it, knowing full well that the end of the quest will in fact mean her death.
This is the first section of the book and tbh I enjoyed it enormously. Owen is writing the narrative in first person and his voice is used to great effect: he's a twisted-up and self-contradictory character who shows the problems of nationalism much better as a guy who's genuinely trying to convince himself that he believes in it than he would if he started out already enlightened. I love his embarrassing radical pacifist dad and his judgmental thesis advisor, and, as heterosexualities go, I am absolutely not immune to the allure of large violent depressed woman/weaselly little worm man whom she could easily break in two who is obsessed with her but also fundamentally betraying her. If the book had ended at the end of its first section, I think it would have been a phenomenal standalone novella.
However, the book does keep going. I continued to have a good time, more or less, but the more it went on the more I felt that it had sort of overplayed its hand. Alix Harrow is extremely a Power of Fiction author in ways that didn't fully work for me in the other book of hers I read; I do appreciate that this book is the Power of Fiction [derogatory] but I still think that perhaps she is giving fiction a little too much power ... For the length of ninety pages I was willing to role with the importance of The Great Nationalist Myth, but the longer it went on and the deeper and more recursive it got with its timeloops the more I was like 'wait .... we only have one founding myth? changing the myth really directly and immediately impacts the future in predictable and manipulable ways and is in fact the only thing that does so? Hmm. Well."
Also I enjoyed the evil girlboss right up until it was revealed that every evil girlboss in the country's whole thousand-year-old history had been the very self-same evil girlboss and no other woman had ever done anything. You are telling me you have built up a whole thing about this country's founding myth of the Queen And Her Lady Knight from scratch and that didn't change the country's relationship to gender at all? NO other woman was ever inspired to do anything with that? I am not sure that's as feminist as you think it is ...
Anyway, I do think this book and The Island In the Silver Sea form a sort of spiritual duology and I'm glad to have read them back to back: for such similar books they have really interestingly different flaws and virtues.
The premise of The Everlasting: it's more or less the second-world equivalent of the 1920s and we have just had a Big War. Our protagonist Owen has a radical pacifist alcoholic father that he doesn't respect, a war medal that he didn't really earn, a academic career that doesn't seem to be going places, and a face that makes it pretty obvious that at least one parent came from The Other Side. However, his messy relationship with the war has not in any way altered his ardent passion for the greatest figure of his country's nationalist mythology, the knight Una Everlasting, who fought at the side of the nation's founding queen a thousand years ago and died tragically to bring the country stability.
Then he finds a book that purports to be the True History of Una Everlasting, and gets summoned to a secret meeting with the country's minister of war, an evil girlboss who immediately sends him back in time to experience and document Una Everlasting's Last Quest first hand. He gets to write the nationalist myth himself! What fun!
Alas, it turns out that the great knight Una Everlasting is violent, brutal, and extremely burned out about all the people she's killed as part of the bloody process of nation-forging: at this point the citizens think of her as a butcher and she's inclined to agree. Nonetheless, fanboy Owen convinces her to take on this one last quest for the sake of her honor & kingdom & legacy &cetera, with the promise of peace at the end of it, knowing full well that the end of the quest will in fact mean her death.
This is the first section of the book and tbh I enjoyed it enormously. Owen is writing the narrative in first person and his voice is used to great effect: he's a twisted-up and self-contradictory character who shows the problems of nationalism much better as a guy who's genuinely trying to convince himself that he believes in it than he would if he started out already enlightened. I love his embarrassing radical pacifist dad and his judgmental thesis advisor, and, as heterosexualities go, I am absolutely not immune to the allure of large violent depressed woman/weaselly little worm man whom she could easily break in two who is obsessed with her but also fundamentally betraying her. If the book had ended at the end of its first section, I think it would have been a phenomenal standalone novella.
However, the book does keep going. I continued to have a good time, more or less, but the more it went on the more I felt that it had sort of overplayed its hand. Alix Harrow is extremely a Power of Fiction author in ways that didn't fully work for me in the other book of hers I read; I do appreciate that this book is the Power of Fiction [derogatory] but I still think that perhaps she is giving fiction a little too much power ... For the length of ninety pages I was willing to role with the importance of The Great Nationalist Myth, but the longer it went on and the deeper and more recursive it got with its timeloops the more I was like 'wait .... we only have one founding myth? changing the myth really directly and immediately impacts the future in predictable and manipulable ways and is in fact the only thing that does so? Hmm. Well."
Also I enjoyed the evil girlboss right up until it was revealed that every evil girlboss in the country's whole thousand-year-old history had been the very self-same evil girlboss and no other woman had ever done anything. You are telling me you have built up a whole thing about this country's founding myth of the Queen And Her Lady Knight from scratch and that didn't change the country's relationship to gender at all? NO other woman was ever inspired to do anything with that? I am not sure that's as feminist as you think it is ...
Anyway, I do think this book and The Island In the Silver Sea form a sort of spiritual duology and I'm glad to have read them back to back: for such similar books they have really interestingly different flaws and virtues.
no. no, thank you.
Feb. 8th, 2026 09:50 pmwaterswordAnother 4 inches of snow? And high winds? And "arctic chill"? I cannot.
I am trying the applesauce loaf again, this time with some chunks of "Gold Rush" apples in the batter and making sure not to use lumpy brown sugar. Fingers crossed.
Amtrak's 2FA system is garbage and I may have to contend with Julie, my nemesis (Amtrak's phone customer "service" bot) to get to New York to see Dessa in March (and sneak out of a conference early); my splurge on Restaurant Week was kind of a waste of money (pasta oversalted, rosé weirdly bland); I am sick of all my clothes, no doubt because I have been wearing all of them at the same time for the past month, and the idea of acquiring different clothes is the epitome of exchanging money for bads and disservices.
THIS IS THE BAD PLACE.
Monsters of Ohio: Done!
Feb. 9th, 2026 01:20 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
scalziwhatever_feed
And what is Monsters of Ohio? Why, it’s my 20th(!) novel.
What’s it about? Well, if the title is to be trusted, it’s about monsters! In Ohio!
How would I describe it? Two words: “Cozy Cronenberg.”
When can you have it? November this year.
I like it. I hope you’ll like it too.
More to come about this. Stay tuned.
— JS
Treatless Spreadsheet
Feb. 8th, 2026 08:35 pmcandyheartsexThe treatless spreadsheet is now available! This includes all non-defaulting participants who have fewer than two gifts.
The spreadsheet will be updated at least once a day, including during the anon period, to keep it current and remove names as we all work on our treating!
Any pinch hitters who are not signed up for the exchange can also add requests to the pinch hitter prompt post, and I will add them to the treatless spreadsheet as well.
The spreadsheet will be updated at least once a day, including during the anon period, to keep it current and remove names as we all work on our treating!
Any pinch hitters who are not signed up for the exchange can also add requests to the pinch hitter prompt post, and I will add them to the treatless spreadsheet as well.
Buffalo Seed Company Order
Feb. 8th, 2026 07:25 pmysabetwordsmith... arrived today! :D They always send a surprise extra packet of something, this time 'Evening Sun' sunflower, which looks to be a cultivar that produces medium-size flowers in shades of red. That ought to be fun.
Friday five
Feb. 8th, 2026 04:08 pmrimrunnerPoachers turned rangers, complicity in tyranny, the colors of marble, bears > Bigfoot, For All Mankind
Francis Annagu’s “How Former Poachers are Protecting Nigeria’s Vanishing Rainforest” explores the lines of tension, conflict, and resolution in taking a conservation approach to a multiuse ecosystem. Buried deep in the heart of this article is one way—probably the most effective way—to turn hunters into rangers: make the latter a more attractive option, especially in terms of pay. That hasn’t answered every challenge, as agriculture and deforestation continue to press on the forest reserve. But that problem isn’t unique to Nigeria, either. Make sure you scroll far enough to see the forest elephants.
Andrea Pitzer—always worth reading—writes in “Love that is Complicit” that whatever our opinions on immigration in the U.S. (my own is that the government has been kicking the can down the road with regard to just, humane, and consistent policy for most of my lifetime), the current situation requires either looking past an awful lot of cruelty to find acceptable, or very carefully not even knowing that there’s something to look at.
In “These Marbles were Never White,” Danai Christopoulou joins a growing number of Greek commentators on the Anglophone world’s ongoing love affair with Greek mythology, in ways that often obscure that mythology’s vibrancy and cultural context. I’m no exception here, as someone who’s called myself a Hellenic polytheist for almost 15 years, and made my own contribution to the body of stories based on Greek myths and legends. Those were my entry points into a deeper appreciation for both modern and ancient Greek culture and language, but Christopoulou’s piece highlights the cost of receiving these stories stripped of their cultural, historical, and linguistic context—which is the way that those of us in the Anglophone sphere tend to receive them. When I visited Greece in 2008, the museum she describes was still under construction. Some years later I visited the British Museum, where the Elgin marbles are still on display—complete with rather defensively worded signage. Hmm.
Jeff VanderMeer’s “Double Take” is the kind of nature writing I’d love to do. Early in his piece on Bigfoot and bears, he says:
I’m zealous about the fact that we don’t need Bigfoot populating the wilderness to find the natural world mysterious and marvelous. The bears often mistaken for cryptids, for example, already exist and capture our imagination for very good reasons.
This right here is why I became a tracker. VanderMeer goes on to discuss what he’s learned about animals from the trail cameras in his yard—contrasting this with purported Bigfoot images on trail cameras in the woods and how none of them seem to reliably be the real deal. One of his interviewees for the article says that if Bigfoot enthusiasts didn’t have Bigfoot, they’d just get into some other conspiracy theory, not into actual nature. Which I think is true, and also sad.
I recently joked that I watch most movies and TV shows months to years after everyone else has already seen them, which is why I only got to the first season of “For All Mankind” in the last few weeks. It’s out on BluRay, and if you have a player, this really is an excellent way to watch it—the gorgeous visuals are shown off to their best effect. The first season takes place beginning in 1969, and they get the tech and attitudes of the period so right, I’d forget I wasn’t watching a documentary (or maybe Apollo 13) until something obviously ahistorical happened. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the subsequent seasons will get physical disc releases anytime soon, so I may have to pony up for Apple TV if I want more stuff like this.
Francis Annagu’s “How Former Poachers are Protecting Nigeria’s Vanishing Rainforest” explores the lines of tension, conflict, and resolution in taking a conservation approach to a multiuse ecosystem. Buried deep in the heart of this article is one way—probably the most effective way—to turn hunters into rangers: make the latter a more attractive option, especially in terms of pay. That hasn’t answered every challenge, as agriculture and deforestation continue to press on the forest reserve. But that problem isn’t unique to Nigeria, either. Make sure you scroll far enough to see the forest elephants.
Andrea Pitzer—always worth reading—writes in “Love that is Complicit” that whatever our opinions on immigration in the U.S. (my own is that the government has been kicking the can down the road with regard to just, humane, and consistent policy for most of my lifetime), the current situation requires either looking past an awful lot of cruelty to find acceptable, or very carefully not even knowing that there’s something to look at.
In “These Marbles were Never White,” Danai Christopoulou joins a growing number of Greek commentators on the Anglophone world’s ongoing love affair with Greek mythology, in ways that often obscure that mythology’s vibrancy and cultural context. I’m no exception here, as someone who’s called myself a Hellenic polytheist for almost 15 years, and made my own contribution to the body of stories based on Greek myths and legends. Those were my entry points into a deeper appreciation for both modern and ancient Greek culture and language, but Christopoulou’s piece highlights the cost of receiving these stories stripped of their cultural, historical, and linguistic context—which is the way that those of us in the Anglophone sphere tend to receive them. When I visited Greece in 2008, the museum she describes was still under construction. Some years later I visited the British Museum, where the Elgin marbles are still on display—complete with rather defensively worded signage. Hmm.
Jeff VanderMeer’s “Double Take” is the kind of nature writing I’d love to do. Early in his piece on Bigfoot and bears, he says:
I’m zealous about the fact that we don’t need Bigfoot populating the wilderness to find the natural world mysterious and marvelous. The bears often mistaken for cryptids, for example, already exist and capture our imagination for very good reasons.
This right here is why I became a tracker. VanderMeer goes on to discuss what he’s learned about animals from the trail cameras in his yard—contrasting this with purported Bigfoot images on trail cameras in the woods and how none of them seem to reliably be the real deal. One of his interviewees for the article says that if Bigfoot enthusiasts didn’t have Bigfoot, they’d just get into some other conspiracy theory, not into actual nature. Which I think is true, and also sad.
I recently joked that I watch most movies and TV shows months to years after everyone else has already seen them, which is why I only got to the first season of “For All Mankind” in the last few weeks. It’s out on BluRay, and if you have a player, this really is an excellent way to watch it—the gorgeous visuals are shown off to their best effect. The first season takes place beginning in 1969, and they get the tech and attitudes of the period so right, I’d forget I wasn’t watching a documentary (or maybe Apollo 13) until something obviously ahistorical happened. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like the subsequent seasons will get physical disc releases anytime soon, so I may have to pony up for Apple TV if I want more stuff like this.
In gratitude: Fobazi Ettarh
Feb. 8th, 2026 04:05 pmrimrunnerI haven’t worked in libraries since 2023, but I still follow that world closely enough to learn this week that Fobazi Ettarh had passed away.
Though I never met her, seeing the outpouring of support and good memories across library social media is a testament to both her influence and the library community at its best. Before and after DEI became a political target, and then a political hot potato, she was doing the hard work: addressing longstanding inequities and biases present in a profession that likes to pride itself on inclusiveness.
She’s probably best known for her article “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves,” which appeared in the journal In the Library with the Lead Pipe (best journal title ever btw) in 2018. Librarianship isn’t the only field subject to vocational awe, of course, and friends and acquaintances who work in other such fields have always understood exactly what the term means without having to be told. But here’s Ettarh’s definition:
Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.
Correlative to this is that the people working in such fields are supposed to feel so lucky to be doing such important work that they won’t complain about things like low pay, mission creep, unrealistic expectations, or outright abuse.
I left librarianship in 2023. I can’t say that I’ll never return, and vocational awe was only one part of why I left. But Ettarh’s work, both that article and subsequent, helped me to understand something important about vocation, a piece that had been missing in my thinking up until then. Most of my career in librarianship was spent at an ELCA-affiliated liberal arts university, where I learned a great deal about Lutheran Protestantism beyond the fact that it existed. (I grew up Catholic.) Among other things, this idea of vocation: of finding and pursuing your life’s fulfillment.
It’s an attractive idea, one by no means limited to Lutherans. But part of vocational discernment has to be understanding vocational context. Vocational awe obscures that discernment, making it possible to walk past or tolerate all sorts of issues that ought to be confronted.
Ettarh’s work was about libraries and librarianship, specifically, but it’s applicable to so much more. As someone who’s drawn to what one might call “do-gooder” work—since retiring from librarianship I’ve focused my volunteer work on conservation, a field that literally could not exist without countless hours of volunteer labor—Ettarh’s scholarship reminds me to be intentional about what sacrifices I make and where I need to draw the line, and not only for myself.
Though I never met her, seeing the outpouring of support and good memories across library social media is a testament to both her influence and the library community at its best. Before and after DEI became a political target, and then a political hot potato, she was doing the hard work: addressing longstanding inequities and biases present in a profession that likes to pride itself on inclusiveness.
She’s probably best known for her article “Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves,” which appeared in the journal In the Library with the Lead Pipe (best journal title ever btw) in 2018. Librarianship isn’t the only field subject to vocational awe, of course, and friends and acquaintances who work in other such fields have always understood exactly what the term means without having to be told. But here’s Ettarh’s definition:
Vocational awe describes the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique. I argue that the concept of vocational awe directly correlates to problems within librarianship like burnout and low salary. This article aims to describe the phenomenon and its effects on library philosophies and practices so that they may be recognized and deconstructed.
Correlative to this is that the people working in such fields are supposed to feel so lucky to be doing such important work that they won’t complain about things like low pay, mission creep, unrealistic expectations, or outright abuse.
I left librarianship in 2023. I can’t say that I’ll never return, and vocational awe was only one part of why I left. But Ettarh’s work, both that article and subsequent, helped me to understand something important about vocation, a piece that had been missing in my thinking up until then. Most of my career in librarianship was spent at an ELCA-affiliated liberal arts university, where I learned a great deal about Lutheran Protestantism beyond the fact that it existed. (I grew up Catholic.) Among other things, this idea of vocation: of finding and pursuing your life’s fulfillment.
It’s an attractive idea, one by no means limited to Lutherans. But part of vocational discernment has to be understanding vocational context. Vocational awe obscures that discernment, making it possible to walk past or tolerate all sorts of issues that ought to be confronted.
Ettarh’s work was about libraries and librarianship, specifically, but it’s applicable to so much more. As someone who’s drawn to what one might call “do-gooder” work—since retiring from librarianship I’ve focused my volunteer work on conservation, a field that literally could not exist without countless hours of volunteer labor—Ettarh’s scholarship reminds me to be intentional about what sacrifices I make and where I need to draw the line, and not only for myself.
GenPrompt Bingo: Wild Card (Telepathy)
Feb. 8th, 2026 04:38 pmsenmutAO3 Link | Long Distance Force Calls (842 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: Rebels
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darth Vader & Ahsoka Tano
Characters: Darth Vader, Ahsoka Tano
Additional Tags: Telepathy, Force Bond
Summary:
The first time her meditations took her deep enough that the lock slipped from the training bond, Ahsoka almost metaphorically ran away and slammed the gate shut. She was still on the run, still trying to figure out where she could belong that would make a difference, and there was this swirling storm of rage and pain.
Before she could, he took notice of her, and for a moment, she felt him push the anger away to hold on to her as something of his own.
~You left me.~ The accusation burned blue-white in her mind, as the anger rose higher than the possessive love.
~I would be dead if I hadn't and you know it,~ she shot back, but there was a piece of her that did feel the guilt of the galaxy burning down because of her choice.
~I could have protected you!~
~Really, Skyguy?~ She deliberately let him see as she stood looking over the markers made for the 332nd.
It was him that closed her out … after she tasted his own sense of failure to those that had trusted them both.
She had not been meditating that deeply when she knew that he was touching her mind. The whirls of anger were almost steadying, given how enraged she'd been by the Alliance ignoring her advice. They would not do so again — but too many had paid the price.
She locked that, all of her other activities, deep inside, protecting them behind shields he could not penetrate. That the anger was tied so deeply to pain, unending pain, was a moment's curiosity before she acknowledged him in her mind.
~Snooping on me, Skyguy?~
~Your irreverence only grows,~ and the voice was far more resonant, deeper, carrying a darker flare than ever, but she thought there was something desperate in how it sounded.
~Did they all die?~
She hissed in a breath, needing to protect those few men she knew to be free of the Empire, the ones safe from the nightmare… and grieving for all those she had not been able to save.
~If, Apprentice, you should find others, they still age.~
Her hesitation to tell him made those words come across as cold as space, and yet, even as he left her alone in her mind, she noted he had told her the important part. Somewhere, deep inside the man that had become her worst nightmare, he still cared about the men. And she would see what she could do to fix it, another testament of who they had been, when they had been together, protecting the men.
She was injured, almost to the point of needing trance to hold it at bay until her operatives made the pick up.
She didn't want to risk being that vulnerable, even as she reached for the fury-laced-with-pain that smoldered in the corner of her psyche.
~You are hurt.~
The surprise, followed by almost overwhelming anger directed at whatever had harmed her was almost touching, but Ahsoka had to keep that away from her heart. She brought her irreverence to her own defense.
~You are always in pain, Skyguy. Surprised your handler didn't get that fixed.~
That was better, a sharp spike in the anger, the deeper presence of darkness — it helped her maintain the illusion that they could never be anything but enemies now, even as neither of them severed their bond.
~There was not much of me to heal,~ being the next honest thought set Ahsoka back on her proverbial heels.
~Ultimate power, with access to a master cloning world, and he couldn't get you body parts cloned? Organs? Whatever it is that you need to not be… like this? Skyguy, your contract with this guy is worse than mucking eopi stalls.~
She didn't expect him to hold onto the link after that.
~Perhaps. But there is no alternative.~
Those words, contemplative, almost calm, sent a chill down Ahsoka's spine, but before she could think her way to a witty comeback, he locked her out again.
~There have been a number of times I thought you were a figment of my imagination.~
That calm entry into her mind, backdropped against the abyss of ever-present pain, set Ahsoka on edge. They'd been entirely too close in physical space this day.
~I wish I had words to convince you that we could make a better reality than what we have.~
She kept it to a surface emotion of wishfulness, holding back every other emotion that had surged in her soul during the near encounter.
~Wishes have never been a good plan of attack, Apprentice.~
She closed her eyes, gave him her regrets for the past, and locked him out of her mind, shoring up her shields against the man she missed, that still existed in a monster that had destroyed everything resembling peace.
Here they were, face to face…
…and even all the moments of the years apart that had led to words and emotions shared, they both knew.
Today, what they had been would either be destroyed forever —
— or reforged.
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: Rebels
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Darth Vader & Ahsoka Tano
Characters: Darth Vader, Ahsoka Tano
Additional Tags: Telepathy, Force Bond
Summary:
They never severed the bond...
Long Distance Force Calls
The first time her meditations took her deep enough that the lock slipped from the training bond, Ahsoka almost metaphorically ran away and slammed the gate shut. She was still on the run, still trying to figure out where she could belong that would make a difference, and there was this swirling storm of rage and pain.
Before she could, he took notice of her, and for a moment, she felt him push the anger away to hold on to her as something of his own.
~You left me.~ The accusation burned blue-white in her mind, as the anger rose higher than the possessive love.
~I would be dead if I hadn't and you know it,~ she shot back, but there was a piece of her that did feel the guilt of the galaxy burning down because of her choice.
~I could have protected you!~
~Really, Skyguy?~ She deliberately let him see as she stood looking over the markers made for the 332nd.
It was him that closed her out … after she tasted his own sense of failure to those that had trusted them both.
She had not been meditating that deeply when she knew that he was touching her mind. The whirls of anger were almost steadying, given how enraged she'd been by the Alliance ignoring her advice. They would not do so again — but too many had paid the price.
She locked that, all of her other activities, deep inside, protecting them behind shields he could not penetrate. That the anger was tied so deeply to pain, unending pain, was a moment's curiosity before she acknowledged him in her mind.
~Snooping on me, Skyguy?~
~Your irreverence only grows,~ and the voice was far more resonant, deeper, carrying a darker flare than ever, but she thought there was something desperate in how it sounded.
~Did they all die?~
She hissed in a breath, needing to protect those few men she knew to be free of the Empire, the ones safe from the nightmare… and grieving for all those she had not been able to save.
~If, Apprentice, you should find others, they still age.~
Her hesitation to tell him made those words come across as cold as space, and yet, even as he left her alone in her mind, she noted he had told her the important part. Somewhere, deep inside the man that had become her worst nightmare, he still cared about the men. And she would see what she could do to fix it, another testament of who they had been, when they had been together, protecting the men.
She was injured, almost to the point of needing trance to hold it at bay until her operatives made the pick up.
She didn't want to risk being that vulnerable, even as she reached for the fury-laced-with-pain that smoldered in the corner of her psyche.
~You are hurt.~
The surprise, followed by almost overwhelming anger directed at whatever had harmed her was almost touching, but Ahsoka had to keep that away from her heart. She brought her irreverence to her own defense.
~You are always in pain, Skyguy. Surprised your handler didn't get that fixed.~
That was better, a sharp spike in the anger, the deeper presence of darkness — it helped her maintain the illusion that they could never be anything but enemies now, even as neither of them severed their bond.
~There was not much of me to heal,~ being the next honest thought set Ahsoka back on her proverbial heels.
~Ultimate power, with access to a master cloning world, and he couldn't get you body parts cloned? Organs? Whatever it is that you need to not be… like this? Skyguy, your contract with this guy is worse than mucking eopi stalls.~
She didn't expect him to hold onto the link after that.
~Perhaps. But there is no alternative.~
Those words, contemplative, almost calm, sent a chill down Ahsoka's spine, but before she could think her way to a witty comeback, he locked her out again.
~There have been a number of times I thought you were a figment of my imagination.~
That calm entry into her mind, backdropped against the abyss of ever-present pain, set Ahsoka on edge. They'd been entirely too close in physical space this day.
~I wish I had words to convince you that we could make a better reality than what we have.~
She kept it to a surface emotion of wishfulness, holding back every other emotion that had surged in her soul during the near encounter.
~Wishes have never been a good plan of attack, Apprentice.~
She closed her eyes, gave him her regrets for the past, and locked him out of her mind, shoring up her shields against the man she missed, that still existed in a monster that had destroyed everything resembling peace.
Here they were, face to face…
…and even all the moments of the years apart that had led to words and emotions shared, they both knew.
Today, what they had been would either be destroyed forever —
— or reforged.
petraVirtually ethical (500 words) by Petra
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Tragedy, Quintuple Drabble, Hurt No Comfort
Summary:
*
Blastin' and laughin' so long (750 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Lando Calrissian/Han Solo, Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Chewbacca & Han Solo
Characters: Han Solo, Chewbacca (Star Wars), Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Lando Calrissian
Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Han Solo Shoots First, Humor, In-Universe Meme
Summary:
Chapters: 2/2
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Tragedy, Quintuple Drabble, Hurt No Comfort
Summary:
Obi-Wan is usually pretty good about listening to what Anakin is saying, but not always.
*
Blastin' and laughin' so long (750 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Leia Organa/Han Solo, Lando Calrissian/Han Solo, Leia Organa/Luke Skywalker/Han Solo, Chewbacca & Han Solo
Characters: Han Solo, Chewbacca (Star Wars), Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa, Lando Calrissian
Additional Tags: Crack Treated Seriously, Han Solo Shoots First, Humor, In-Universe Meme
Summary:
How "Han Shot First" came to be a meme in the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Tags:
- character: anakin skywalker,
- character: chewbacca,
- character: han solo,
- character: lando calrissian,
- character: leia organa,
- character: luke skywalker,
- character: obi-wan kenobi,
- drabble,
- pair/group: bitextual (het & slash),
- pair/group: slash: m/m,
- story: star wars,
- story: star wars original trilogy