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Reading Wednesday 2: Thursday Boogaloo

Since my last update in War and Peace (yesterday), I'm back to The Great Comet of 1812 territory with the scene that's the source for "No One Else"— interestingly, it's Natasha's song in the musical but Andrei's experience in the book, after seeing Natasha for the first time while visiting the Rostovs on business and feeling the first stirrings that life might be worth actually living again, post-Austerlitz and post-Lise: First time I heard your voice / Moonlight burst into the room vs.

As soon as he opened the shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and very still. . . .

His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also awake. He heard female voices overhead.

"Just once more," said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrei recognized at once.

(On the other hand, the lyric I feel like putting my arms around my knees / and squeezing tight as possible / And flying away is an almost verbatim quote from Natasha, and the differences might only be in translation.)

I also forgot to mention that I've turned back to China Miéville's Three Moments of an Explosion, a collection of short stories that mostly take either a frog-in-boiling-water approach—you'll start out reading about a couple on vacation, or a therapist who's kind of unhealthily overinvested in one of her patients but in a normal way, and then halfway through it slips into folk horror, or a world where therapists are also assassins ("Sometimes the externalized trauma-vectors in dysfunctional interpersonal codependent psychodynamics are powerful enough that more robust therapeutic intervention is necessary"); I very nearly laughed out loud on the metro at the latter twist— or a peeling-the-onion one, where it starts out in a world that is overtly not our own and the parameters reveal themselves, slowly, as you keep reading. ( ... ) I'm a little over halfway through, although I did end up skipping one story after very quickly realizing that it was not a flavor of horror I had the stomach to read ("After the Festival").

Current Mood: okay
Current Music: Canes vs Flyers on tv

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quick trigger deflected wide

Wednesday reading on a Thursday:

what I've just finished
Saint Death's Daughter and Saint Death's Herald by CSE Cooney, which I enjoyed. The first book is A Lot in terms of both worldbuilding and plot, but it's a fun ride and Lanie Stones is a fantastic character - a necromancer who has an allergy to violence. Her growth as a necromancer is really well done, especially when set against the various members of her family she tells you about over the course of the books. The second book is a lot more straightforward in terms of plot, which I found less enthralling, but the character work and worldbuilding remain fascinating. I couldn't find any info about whether there's going to be a third book, but I would read it if there were!

what I'm reading now
The Last Contract of Isako, the new book by Fonda Lee. I'm only 20 pages in so I can't say much about it one way or another yet, but Isako is a middle-aged lady contractor (possibly also an assassin?) in a far future world. I imagine this is going to be a "one last job" kind of thing? I don't remember the blurb, but I found Lee's Green Bone trilogy* excellent so I have high hopes for this.

*Second world East Asian-style mob story where the made men have what basically amount to Force powers. Very violent and most of the characters are morally gray at best, but I enjoyed it a lot.

what I'm reading next
Dungeon Crawler Carl book 8: Parade of Horribles. Tuesday! I AM EXCITE!

*

an excellent and busy day

Turns out that

trepkos lives nearby! We've been internet acquaintances since forever, and this morning we met in person at the same cafe where Geoff and I had dinner last night: a great time chatting, and she has kindly offered to show us around some favorite places on Sunday!

But today she went to run errands and we headed off to catch a bus to a three-hour guided walk across the seabed where huge swaths are exposed at low tide (the sea floor slopes quite gradually and some of the tides are quite huge). I don't have time or brain to write it up properly but it was wonderful: lots of information about shellfish (she showed us a live limpet! I've always heard "clung like a limpet" and so on, but she knocked one off a rock so we could see the actual animal. And then put it back, and we could see it shimmy about a little as it resettled itself), and about neanderthal and later early human inhabitants, and anecdotes of people trapped by the rapidly rising tides, and just incredible views across the exposed sand flats and rocks, and channels still running with the tide going out (and later in again), and some commercial oyster beds. There were nine other folks on the tour, and we enjoyed chatting with them too.

Bus back to the main depot in the center of town, where we located the place to catch another bus at 9 tomorrow morning for our kayaking tour with a parallel branch of the same company (probably led by today's guide's husband; she's originally from Germany and met him when she came here and went on a kayak trip he led!). Then we stopped for dinner at a likely looking restaurant in a square on the way home: also very tasty. I pulled out my phone and booked us a table at last night's cafe for Saturday night (day after tomorrow); Saturday is Liberation Day, the 61st anniversary of the island's liberation from Nazi occupation, and there will be big celebrations (the guy in the tourist info centre said ten thousand people would be in town!), and we don't want to have to worry about finding a place that evening.

And now it is late and I must go to bed. The time change and being brain-fried yesterday led me to break my 220-plus Wordle streak, darn it!

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Further Le Guin thoughts

A further trail of thought more or less kicked off by this comment by flemmings on yesterday's post about Ursula as an anthropologist's daughter and the way that inflected her fiction -

- and then I went, hey, wasn't he part of that whole Franz Boas group that I read that book about at the beginning of 2020 (Charles King, The Reinvention of Humanity) and would she not have been aware of Significant Lady Anthropologists and their work (not just her own ma) -

Like, Margaret Mead and Ruth Benedict?

(Maybe the forthcoming biography will shine some light there???)

Or was that going on in some entirely different compartment to the requirements of fictional narrative? (thinking of my 1920s gals and the gulf between what they were up to with their affairs and abortions and propagating birth control and what the protags in their novels were permitted to get up to.)

Or was there a whole generational thing going on there, which I sort of touched on in commenting about Mitchison on this post, though I think I could make a larger case about that generation that had had to fight for a lot of rights that were already accepted as given by UKleG's day even if there were still major constraints.

(Seem to recollect that I did not think Julie Phillips in that book on writers and motherhood quite brought out the extent to which she was writing of a very specific generation/time-period. With some exceptions.)

World Password Day: Keeping Your Account Secure

Posted by therealmorticia

https://www.transformativeworks.org/world-password-day-keeping-your-account-secure/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=284382

Today is World Password Day, and we’d like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of some best practices to keep your accounts secure.

Last year, AO3 saw a rise in users who lost access to their AO3 accounts due to reused or insecure passwords that were found in data breaches from other sites. In response, our Policy & Abuse committee alongside our Accessibility, Design, & Technology, and Systems committees took steps to recover, secure, and notify the owners of over 10,000 at-risk accounts.

Over the past year, we released many new features to proactively make AO3 accounts more secure, including:

Automatic confirmation emails notifying you when your username, password, or email has been changed
Adding a verification step to the process for changing the email associated with your account
Notifying you if your current or new password matches a password that was discovered in a data breach from another site
Preventing users from choosing new passwords that are extremely short
Increasing the maximum password length from 40 to 72 characters
Requiring you to provide the email address associated with your account in order to reset your password
Updating the layout and wording of how you change or reset your password

How To Protect Your AO3 Account

The best thing you can do to protect yourself on AO3 and other sites is ensure your passwords are strong, unique, and secure. In general, for both AO3 and elsewhere, we recommend that you:

Regularly check haveibeenpwned.com to see if your emails, passwords, or other information has been exposed in data breaches or whether your passwords have appeared in known data breaches.
Change your passwords for any breached websites and any accounts on other sites where you may have used the same password.
Set a unique, secure password for each and every one of your accounts on all platforms.
Use a password manager. This will help you to set unique, secure passwords for each of your accounts without worrying about forgetting them. Many browsers have a free, built-in password manager if you would prefer to avoid third-party software.
Make sure to check your email regularly. Don’t use a temporary, school, or work email for any personal accounts. (If you need to update the email associated with your AO3 account, go to your Preferences page and click on the “Change Email” button in the top right. Follow the instructions on that page to update your email address.)
Keep your antivirus software and operating system up to date, and set them to scan for malware regularly.
Log out when you’ve finished using devices that others have access to, and don’t share your personal devices with other people.
Never reuse passwords or share your passwords with anyone for any reason.

Future Changes

Keeping AO3 safe for all our users is one of our highest priorities. We continue to remain on the lookout for other ways we can help you protect your account.

We encourage you to follow us on our official platforms and sign up for OTW News by Email to keep track of important announcements and updates to AO3. If you’re specifically interested in learning about new features, security updates, and bug fixes, we recommend that you pay attention to our release notes.

https://www.transformativeworks.org/world-password-day-keeping-your-account-secure/

https://www.transformativeworks.org/?p=284382

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Heated Rivalry universe feature

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

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Friday Five: Outdoorsy Edition

From last week's

thefridayfive:

1. Do you like to spend time outdoors?
I am very much an I-would-live-outdoors-if-it-wouldn't-kill-me type of person. I love hiking and even just working around the yard, because there are so many interesting geological formations/plants/moss/grasses/trees/rocks/insects/birds/fungi/animals/etc. that make up our world, and I feel more at home/in awe when I'm among them. I genuinely love hiking any time of year (we just returned from a wonderful trip to Grandfather Mountain.). Unfortunately, I have a lot of outdoor allergies and other overactive immune conditions, so I have to manage my time outdoors carefully.

2. What is your favorite flower?
Hmm, this is tough. I really do adore sunflowers but also lilies, and orchids are a special kind of beautiful - especially the tiny wild ones that are often overlooked.

3. Any favorite warm weather activities?
Hiking, wading in streams, walking riverside, listening to thunderstorms. I do also appreciate occasional trips to the ocean to gaze at the beautiful blue-green Atlantic, feel the sand on my feet, and watch the ghost crabs and shore birds scurry about. I'm really fortunate to live in a place that gives me access to both ocean and mountains, within a few hours drive.

4. Have you ever kept a garden? If so, what did you grow?
We kept a small garden before moving to our current home which is on a heavily wooded lot which nearly full shade. We grew herbs (basil, fennel, dill, lavendar), tomatoes, peppers of all sorts, squash and zucchini. We tried a pumpkin on a whim. I do miss it from time to time and have been thinking about how/where to incorporate a small patch here. I currently have some herbs and small flowers in pots that I move about the yard as the seasons change.

5. Do you know how to swim?
Yes. Growing up my parents invested in one of those aboveground pools that are about 4-5 feet deep and built a deck to go around it. So in summers in middle school and high school I would spend many of my days out there. Not a huge amount of space but it gave me the means to swim and enjoy the water, and I spent a lot of time with my mom there. In college I took more formal swim lessons (was required for graduation, guess they didn't want their graduates to accidentally drown). I really enjoyed those as well as it taught me to better manage my breathing underwater.

Promoting Taiwanese language usage in Taiwan

Posted by Victor Mair

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73479&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=promoting-taiwanese-language-usage-in-taiwan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73479

Taipei City Council forms Taiwanese Language Revitalization Caucus

Civic groups call for wider everyday use of Taiwanese

Keoni Everington, Taiwan News (5/6/26)

(in Mandarin)

statistics show that in 2020, 66.4% of people primarily used Mandarin, while 31.7% used Taiwanese as their main language, CNA reported. However, 54.3% reported using Taiwanese as a secondary language, indicating that many people have some ability in the language but lack an environment in which to use it.

AntC observes:

The caucus is looking to the mechanisms of the Development of National Languages Act — whose purpose I understand to be to defend threatened/minority languages, especially the indigenous Austronesian ones.

I'd say you can hear Taiwanese being used for everyday purposes; but perhaps less so in Taipei City or amongst youngsters.

Selected readings

"Speaking Taiwanese as a Second Language in Taiwan" (9/28/21)
"Battle for Taiwanese" (1/24/23)

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73479&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=promoting-taiwanese-language-usage-in-taiwan

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73479

Current Mood: tired

Entry tags:

MerMay The Seventh

Title: Speedy
Artist: leecetheartist
Rating: G
Fandom: n/a
Characters/Pairings: n/a
Notes:
MerMay the 7th.

I've had a day not conducive to drawing but fired this off this evening.
It's drawn with a Lamy Demonstrator gleefully full of Van Diemen's ink of Azure Kingfisher,
one of my favourite with its sparkle and sheen.

Streamlined and pelagic evolved merperson

Jane Archibald and Liz Upchurch in recital

https://operaramblings.blog/2026/05/07/von-ewiger-liebe/

Current Mood: contemplative

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fanfiction

La Seduction

Title: La seduction
Author: Lemonlips43
Fandom: Pokemon-The original series
Rating: Teen
Characters/Pairings: Gary/Ash
Genres: Romance,Humor and angst
Word count: 745 (the first chapter)
Summary:Ash finds himself in love with Misty and decides to ask Gary for lessons on how to win over girls. Gary surprisingly accepts, but are Gary's intentions truly pure? And does Ash really love misty as much as he says?
Aditional tags-Jealousy,Compulsory Heterosexuality,Kantou-chihou | Kanto Region (Pokemon)

I wrote this fanfic i was thinking about writing it a long time now i finally got courage and will to write it!

READ ON AO3
READ ON MY JOURNAL

(no subject)

Happy birthday,

marshtide!

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Hugos Invitational Opinion Post

Hello! Do you have opinions on this year's Hugo nominees? I would enjoy hearing them -- not for any reason other than the sheer pleasure of thinking about books. Comment freely with your opinions, predictions, and recommendations.

The Backstory

sabotabby got me hooked on the Ancillary Review of Books' podcast A Meal of Thorns via her post on the MoT episode about Ready Player One, and I've been traipsing through the back catalogue.

Last year, host Jake Casella Brookins and frequent guest Roseanna Pendlebury hashed through the Hugo short lists book by book in great toothy detail. The episode was a sublime listening experience as I wandered through the wooded trails around Pkols / Mount Doug a few weeks ago, mostly because I agreed with almost everything they said. (At least about the books I'd read.)

(Last year I happened to do pretty well on Hugo reading. Without trying very hard, I read half the books -- 3/6 novels and 3/6 novellas. This year, not so much -- I've only read Amal El-Mohtar's novella The River Has Roots.)

(NB El-Mohtar's episode of MoT on The Traitor Baru Cormorant is also excellent.)

On precedent, I've been eagerly looking forward to the MoT Hugos episode this year, but so far they don't seem to have one planned.

Hence my rough approximation. Let me interview you about the Hugo noms you read and your takes thereon.

I guess I'll go first:

I liked The River Has Roots a lot. I'm shocked to discover it's El-Mohtar's first solo long-form fiction -- her voice has, to my ear, such assurance, both here and in This is How You Lose the Time War. She knows what she wants to do with this story and she does it, piece by piece. For such a small book, the story feels spacious. It's economical but doesn't feel rushed or compressed to me. I would have liked to know a little more about how she was imagining the phenomenon of grammar. I enjoyed the chicken.

Now you! (If you want.) -- Any Hugo short lister is fair game, whether I have read it or not.

§rf§

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dentist

dentist: crown

I went to the dentist this afternoon, and they did some uncomfortable things as part of creating a new/replacement crown for one of my teeth (which had cavities under the old crown). I currently have a temporary crown, and will be getting the permanent replacement in three weeks; it will be ready sooner, but that's the next available appointment.

I was pleased to see that my Lyft driver, the dentist, and the dental assistant were all masked when I first saw them. I told the driver it was nice to see other people masking, and I tipped extra because of it.

When I checked in, the receptionist told me there would be a $750 copay. I told her that I had been told that the crown was fully covered, and asked her to check. A few minutes later, she confirmed that I wouldn't have to pay anything. I do not understand dental insurance, including this dental insurance, which is an add-on to my Medicare Advantage plan; I would have paid the $750 if I had to, but I'm glad I don't.

I'd been planning to stop and visit some lilac bushes on the way home, but it was raining, which made that less appealing, so I didn't. I did stop at Lizzy's on the way home, and now have a total of five unlabeled pints of ice cream: three today, because a broken freezer meant I had to get the clerk to hand-scoop the ice cream, plus the two from Tosci's. However, I have blank sticky adhesive labels, which should make this easy.

Current Mood: grateful

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personal: birthday

happy birthday to meeee

I'm 48 today! I made a hummingbird cake but it looks boring so I won't post a pic. but it's gonna be delicious. the texture is just right so I KNOW this.

(no subject)

Day two of horrible migraine, now with the exciting new symptom of sensitivity to noise. Whee?

This comes with a side of anxiety, because I don’t trust HR or upper management anymore. My manager is great, but she’s not the one with ultimate power over things. If I’m okay tomorrow, I’m going to have to work late to hit some deadlines.

—-

In happier news, the Florence + the Machine concert is next week! Which means it’s time to figure out an outfit! Right now I have no idea, but it’s something to think about while I’m languishing on the couch.

Current Mood: shocked
Current Location: My home office
Crossposts: https://mrs-sweetpeach.insanejournal.com/809126.html

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project 52

Project 52

( Click here for Week #18 )

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Crusade - done!

I still like it! Woe! (Decided to add a tag for it, even.)

( All the rest of Crusade )

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cats,
pics

(no subject)

(Photo credit: Andrew.)

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Wednesday had a lot of trouble logging into Official Persona Email

What I read

Finished Tales From Earthsea, The Other Wind and the pendant short pieces in The Book of Earthsea 'The Rule of Names', 'The Word of Unbinding', 'The Daughter of Odren', and 'Earthsea Revisioned'. I don't know quite what it is, I can see how good her work is, but the feeling is more of distant admiration than what I feel for my beloved favourites? Might even cop to preferring her criticism and essays to her fiction? (not the only author to whom this pertains.)

Started a Dick Francis, Bolt (Kit Fielding, #2) (1986)

- and then, feeling all a-wamble and fretted because of the insomnia thing, fell back into Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution, old favourite.

- and then returned to the horsies and the posh owners and the psycho villains.

On the go

Martha Wells, Platform Decay (The Murderbot Diaries #8) which arrived yesterday.

Up next

No idea, apart from the recently arrived latest Literary Review