and god, I love her so much. She truly is a sweet and gentle kitty.
*******************
( Read more... )
( Read more... )
What dark motive leads a successful teen comedian who has vowed never to date anyone less funny than her to help an unfunny but otherwise personable young man work on his comedic skills?
Someone Hertz, volume 1 by Ei Yamano (Translated by David Evely)
Do you know how hard it even is to get people to protest in this sort of crappy weather? It's cold out!
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( Read more... )
( Read more... )
I use the same name everywhere so I am ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.
I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
( General Likes and Dislikes )
( Notorious (1946) )
( Enola Holmes movies )
( Elementary )
( Terminator: tSCC )
( Goblin Emperor )
( Peter Wimsey )
( Crossovers )
( Rivers of London )
( DS9 )
beatrice_otter on AO3. Treats are awesome.I would rather get a story you were happy with than "well, she said she liked x, so I guess I have to do x even though I don't like x and/or am not inspired that way." This letter is long with lots of suggestions and preferences if you find it helpful, but feel free to ignore it if it is not helpful. I'm fairly easy to please; I've been doing ficathons for a long time and am usually very happy with my gifts.
The most important thing for me in a fic is that the characters are well-written and recognizably themselves. Even when I don't like a character, I don't go in for character-bashing. If nothing else, if the rest of this letter is too much or my kinks don't fit yours, just concentrate on writing a story with everyone in character and good spelling and grammar and I will almost certainly love what you come up with.
I have an embarrassment squick, which makes humor kind of hit-or-miss sometimes. The kind of humor where someone does something embarrassing and the audience is laughing at them makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the kind of humor where the audience is laughing with the characters I really enjoy.
( General Likes and Dislikes )
( Notorious (1946) )
( Enola Holmes movies )
( Elementary )
( Terminator: tSCC )
( Goblin Emperor )
( Peter Wimsey )
( Crossovers )
( Rivers of London )
( DS9 )
I think the schtick is the crew gets sent out to investigate potentially revolutionary tech and it's always legitimately amazing but also not what they're expecting. Case in point, they were looking into a supposed teleporter and now everyone is ant-sized.
Among my other ideas
( Read more... )
Among my other ideas
( Read more... )
Image: a Minnesota state bird crushing ICE in its beak. Art by Annie Shao.
You have likely all heard the news, we have turned away at least one of the goons from our streets. Greg Bovino has been sent packing. Horray! Now there are 2,999 more to go!!
There are some conflicting reports that all of ICE is leaving, but I don't find that terribly plausible. I hate to say it, but I suspect they realize that they FUBARed their PR by executing a white man who was not only an ICU nurse for Veterans, ffs, but also a stridant 2nd Amendment guy. They are hoping, I think, that Minnesotans only really care about white people and that once they reduce their numbers in our streets we'll turn our backs on their atrocities against our immigrant neighbors.
Think again, A$$holes.
Already today, I fielded a request for someone in one of my little resistance cells who wanted to get involved in packing groceries for folks over with the Food Communists. People are not stopping. We are continuting to show up for each other. In fact, yesterday, when I was at the Food Communists, they asked for a show of hands for how many people were showing up for the first time and a half a dozen hands shot into the air. It is very heartwarming.
So, yeah, the resistance continues apace.
Besides packing food, I also went out to join my singing group, which decided to stand outside of a lesbian sports bar on University Avenue? It was a weird locale (if only because it's hard to know what we're doing, since lots of people stand outside of bars to smoke.) We had only four people, but one of them was someone in my Thirsty Sword Lesbians group, Laurel, so that was cool! We sang songs for about a half hour and that was about as much as my toes could take, so it worked out. Plus, I had signed up to get a little bit of a refresher course on Legal Observing from the ACLU, which was a Zoom event, at 7 pm.
The ACLU Zoom was okay but not focused on what to do locally, so I'm also attending one for Ward 4 (my congressional ward) tonight, in person, at a local church, because I have completely forgotten everything important. That starts at 6pm tonight, and I am telling you to reminnd myself because my brain on fascism is very soupy. (My brain was already a seive as the joke goes? Now all the information going in also turns to soup... so very, very little is being retained.)
But, we had a win! Go TEAM!!
Oh, and I should note? The ACLU Zoom had 60,000 people signed up for it across the nation. That's still a tiny fraction of America, but still impresssive.
Having successfully fled her home city with the proceeds of a spectacular heist, Aiah must now build a new life on that foundation.
City on Fire (Metropolitan, volume 2) by Walter Jon Williams
We got a lot of snow in the Boston area, but people seem to be coping fairly well. The building management company have sent people over here to shovel the walks, several times, so I was able to take out the trash and recycling. The forecast for the next several days is for cold, very cold once you count the wind chill. It turns out that I can wear Adrian's old snow pants, which will do a lot to protect my legs from cold and wind. The remaining problem is boots: even with the 3/4 insoles Adrian lent me, they're too loose, including at the front, so I may try putting in a pair of full-length insoles and see if that helps. The other possibility is to go out looking for a pair of snow sneakers, or at least waterproof hiking shoes/boots (though the forecast is for the kind of weather where waiting for two trolleys, and walking from home to trolley to store, is daunting.
I've been looking at Bluesky again, in large part for news and commentary about what ICE is doing in Minnesota and elsewhere. When I've had enough for a while, I click on the "astronomy" feed I subscribed to months ago, so the first things I see are an astronomical pictures.
I did a lot of PT yesterday, and a few exercises today. It feels like I haven't gotten a lot done today, which I think is because I'd been hoping to make some phone calls (not all of them political), and assumed I wouldn't be able to take the trash out today. (The alternative to that walk along the side of the building is a spiral staircase, indoors, but spiral staircases aren't good for me, and this one is tight enough that my joints really don't like it. Cattitude can deal with it when necessary, but he's already going up and down that stair regularly to do the laundry.)
I've been looking at Bluesky again, in large part for news and commentary about what ICE is doing in Minnesota and elsewhere. When I've had enough for a while, I click on the "astronomy" feed I subscribed to months ago, so the first things I see are an astronomical pictures.
I did a lot of PT yesterday, and a few exercises today. It feels like I haven't gotten a lot done today, which I think is because I'd been hoping to make some phone calls (not all of them political), and assumed I wouldn't be able to take the trash out today. (The alternative to that walk along the side of the building is a spiral staircase, indoors, but spiral staircases aren't good for me, and this one is tight enough that my joints really don't like it. Cattitude can deal with it when necessary, but he's already going up and down that stair regularly to do the laundry.)
Third-party tabletop fantasy roleplaying sourcebooks and adventures for The Arcane Library's old-school FRPG, Shadowdark.
Bundle of Holding: Shadowdark Compatible
Yep, I'm following up right on the heels of yesterday's first story of the year with today's first poem of the year! "Dulle Griet Stages a New Assault" is out now in Strange Horizons -- and because they decided to make it part of their "Criticism" issue, and my poem is ekphrastic commentary on a painting, it comes with a brief essay from yours truly!
(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/iwWcto)
(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/iwWcto)
Title: What They Say
Author: Michelle
Email: michelle [at] waking-vision.com
Summary: Two times Aragorn takes a bath.
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings
Genre: Gen
Rating: General Audiences
Disclaimer: I hope Tolkien doesn’t mind that I took his playthings. And I hope fandom won’t mind that I’m cleaning up Aragorn. It’s only temporary, I promise. I know we all like him better unkempt and grimy!
Author’s Note: Written for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomweekly, Prompt #287 “Hot Water”, the story won first place.
( What They Say )
Author: Michelle
Email: michelle [at] waking-vision.com
Summary: Two times Aragorn takes a bath.
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings
Genre: Gen
Rating: General Audiences
Disclaimer: I hope Tolkien doesn’t mind that I took his playthings. And I hope fandom won’t mind that I’m cleaning up Aragorn. It’s only temporary, I promise. I know we all like him better unkempt and grimy!
Author’s Note: Written for
fandomweekly, Prompt #287 “Hot Water”, the story won first place. ( What They Say )
Everything seems too much lately.
My own life is quietly busy. Last weekend was Mystery Hunt. Definitely was a good time this year. Felt like I was able to contribute less than usual, felt like there were more difficult "insight needed" bits and fewer puzzles with lengthy mining through clues, but there were at least a few puzzles where I helped move things a bit towards a solution or even found some key bit of insight. My team came far from first this year, but we did finish hunt in the wee hours of Monday morning, and I was glad to stay up for what was really a very fun and charming end-game.
This past weekend Erica had her in-town birthday party on Saturday, and I was a bit stressed about the details leading up, but it all went well. Today, some real winter weather rolled in. The last time Boston got a real blizzard was in 2022, we've had several winters in a row that have been quite light on snow. Erica and I walked through the snow to Time Out Market for lunch after her art lesson, and though heavy snowfall had commenced and there were already a few inches on the ground, we passed more than one jogger and one couple holding their (I assume) usual iced Dunks coffee in their bare hands. Never can get Boston down. We boarded a train direct to Union Square, had to change trains when our train went out of service three times, and then were delayed getting into Union due to a frozen switch. I made hot chocolate when we got home, and frittata for dinner.
I've been playing a lot of Hades II, and got in my first victories on both routes.
The national news is so dismaying. It seems like the administration has decided that interfering with or just annoying their goons is worthy of summary execution. And Republicans are still largely behind this. The story I'm alluding to is even more egregious than the ICE murder that I was talking about in my immediately last post. Again, sending masked agents door-to-door to ferret out crime somewhere is not how America does law enforcement. It's not a way of doing law enforcement that's compatible with the substantive personal freedoms that America values and protects. If that's allegedly the only way to enforce a set of laws, it certainly calls into question whether those laws are at all just or reasonable, and also calls into question the motives who insist that this particular approach must be pursued, that all its deficiencies must be remedied by sheer overwhelming scale.
My own life is quietly busy. Last weekend was Mystery Hunt. Definitely was a good time this year. Felt like I was able to contribute less than usual, felt like there were more difficult "insight needed" bits and fewer puzzles with lengthy mining through clues, but there were at least a few puzzles where I helped move things a bit towards a solution or even found some key bit of insight. My team came far from first this year, but we did finish hunt in the wee hours of Monday morning, and I was glad to stay up for what was really a very fun and charming end-game.
This past weekend Erica had her in-town birthday party on Saturday, and I was a bit stressed about the details leading up, but it all went well. Today, some real winter weather rolled in. The last time Boston got a real blizzard was in 2022, we've had several winters in a row that have been quite light on snow. Erica and I walked through the snow to Time Out Market for lunch after her art lesson, and though heavy snowfall had commenced and there were already a few inches on the ground, we passed more than one jogger and one couple holding their (I assume) usual iced Dunks coffee in their bare hands. Never can get Boston down. We boarded a train direct to Union Square, had to change trains when our train went out of service three times, and then were delayed getting into Union due to a frozen switch. I made hot chocolate when we got home, and frittata for dinner.
I've been playing a lot of Hades II, and got in my first victories on both routes.
The national news is so dismaying. It seems like the administration has decided that interfering with or just annoying their goons is worthy of summary execution. And Republicans are still largely behind this. The story I'm alluding to is even more egregious than the ICE murder that I was talking about in my immediately last post. Again, sending masked agents door-to-door to ferret out crime somewhere is not how America does law enforcement. It's not a way of doing law enforcement that's compatible with the substantive personal freedoms that America values and protects. If that's allegedly the only way to enforce a set of laws, it certainly calls into question whether those laws are at all just or reasonable, and also calls into question the motives who insist that this particular approach must be pursued, that all its deficiencies must be remedied by sheer overwhelming scale.
Made dinner - left it home.
And there’s no delivery because of all this snow. Also, they’re nearly out of food.
Good thing I waited for the bus at the corner store - I have cheezits, coke, and a cupcake, a c food diet. (And in the morning I’ll eat some of their Cheerios!)
I nearly didn’t make it in. Couldn’t get a car, and my bus kept getting canceled, but finally one made it out of the terminal.
And there’s no delivery because of all this snow. Also, they’re nearly out of food.
Good thing I waited for the bus at the corner store - I have cheezits, coke, and a cupcake, a c food diet. (And in the morning I’ll eat some of their Cheerios!)
I nearly didn’t make it in. Couldn’t get a car, and my bus kept getting canceled, but finally one made it out of the terminal.
Sunday Morning Transport is making all of its January stories free to read, and that includes my latest piece: "The Final Voyage of the Ouranos"!
If you're getting Mary Celeste vibes off it, you're not wrong; the genesis of this story was entirely me going "oooh, I want to do something kinda like that." (It is not, however, a retelling of that specific incident.) The setting of my previous SMT story, "The Poison Gardener", struck me as the ideal place for such a narrative, and the editor, Fran Wilde, snapped it right up!
If you're getting Mary Celeste vibes off it, you're not wrong; the genesis of this story was entirely me going "oooh, I want to do something kinda like that." (It is not, however, a retelling of that specific incident.) The setting of my previous SMT story, "The Poison Gardener", struck me as the ideal place for such a narrative, and the editor, Fran Wilde, snapped it right up!
Alex Pretti, who was an RN, a helper, and a legal observer, was executed by the state yesterday afternoon.
I fully believe this death was in retaliation for the successful Twin Cities wide general strike, the clergy sit-in at the airport, and the of thousands who flooded the streets on Friday. Yes, Alex owned a gun and was carrying it, but that is his right as guarunteed by the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (usually my least favorite given how often it is perverted by the opposition.) But, he was not threatening anyone as the video evidence clearly shows. Believe your eyes, not the lies. This is actually why they hate us so much. Everyone comes with their phones charged and video on. Our very own Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books and Comics was on the scene: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/minnesota-man-curses-out-ice-agents-at-scene-of-fatal-shooting-tktktk-fuck-you-tktkt_n_697506d2e4b0dcc40307a358 and has a few choice words for the ICE agents.
I got the news of Alex's murder on Saturday during a bio-break in my D&D game. Ironically, we were just starting to try to get back to a kind of normal. We were able to play a bit, but the second half turned into leveling up characters and planning next sessions. Everyone's ability to play pretend was just sort of unwound.
The neighborhood that Alex Pretti was murdered in is called Whittier and is named after Quaker poet and abolishonist, John Greenleaf Whittier. The local Friends groups sent out a call to ask people to not gather en masse (there was concern, of course, that this second murder was an attempt to incite a riot so that the Trump Administration could invoke the Sedition Act,) but to instead stand in small neighborhood groups, light a candle and sing. For those who could not get out, they asked that people put candles outside or in a window.
I had already seen on a Signal group that a bunch of my singers were planning to gather at Snelling & Minnehaha, near Ginko's Coffeeshop. So Mason and I headed over there to sing with people and hold up a light in the darkness. We had a big group. We sang a lot of excellent songs that helped soothe the soul. A couple of assholes (possibly ICE) revved their engines threateningly at us and flipped us off as they drove by, but we just raised our voices to drown them out.
It was an awful day, but our gathering was peaceful and beautiful. Collin from the Food Communists was there with his wife, and two of my D&D players, Shawn and Carillon, came as well.
I missed telling you all about Friday. I did tell you what I was planning to do, and that was pretty much how it went. We have a guest (Mason's partner) and my toes were frost-nipped several years ago while waiting for a tow-truck after an accident on one of these horribly cold days. I was in my super butch phase and had cool looking footwear that wasn't actually very climate resistant. I know, I know. I have since learned my lesson! But, because my toes will start feeling like they are on fire after a couple of hours in this kind of weather, so I decided to just focus on protecting the mosque during Friday prayers since that is something that is very drop in/drop out.
I needed to go anyway to the mosque because I have a couple of neighbors who needed introductions into the rebellion, so we drove over together (it was -11 F/-24 C). I found someone who was part of the Rapid Response team and so my neighbors got connected to the right groups. It was cold enough that we had planned on just having Constitutional Observers at the doors. We were introduced to the imam, imam Hussein, who was so incredibly generous. The folks there always thank us, which... as a Minnesotan I want to demur, but I've been learning to just accept. Someone in the community put down $60 at the little deli in the food mall that's attached to the mosque so that folks could have free tea and sambusa. My friends who had come for introductions were on street detail (in my car) watching for ICE and so I brought them out a couple of sambusa. They couldn't believe the generosity and I jokingly said to them, "I bet you didn't know that the revolution has perks."
There's been a lot of Star Wars imagery going around and I kind now want someone to make some art about how we all used to say "Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies," and we could now say, "Join the Rebellion, we have sambusa!" (This is not localized. There are a lot of Somali folks who have been handing out sambusa to protectors and protesters.)
The usual mosque group were told to stay away or go to downtown because of the cold, but by 2:00 pm a decent-sized crowd joined and so I went home, honking and waving at all the people taking the lightrail to the big rally.
While we were still quite small someone snapped a picture for us to post on Facebook. (Only people who agreed to be photographed are in this picture!)
Our small group outside of the mosque. I am in the back row second from the left (before the bright yellow hat.)
Not as impressive as the downtown rally, but everyone is doing their part.
Including the drag queens (see below):
Image: a fabulous laser-eyed loon advertising for a drag show and dance party for the revolution.
I just love the community that is happening around these things, too. I met several neighbors and discovered one of them was a longtime roommate with my college friend, Nick. Several others were part of the Twin Cities Geek group. We talked about the resistance and D&D and crafting while sipping tea and waving at passing cars (only a couple of which flipped us off and one, likely an ICE agent filmed our faces.)
There was another lovely moment when the imam was reminding us to go eat sambusa when one of his congregation really, really wanted to explain halal to us and the imam gently put out his hand and said, "Brother, these people understand us. They know halal." And.... I could have cried honestly? It's so nice to see the love going in both directions.
Okay, y'all go be Pretti Good.
I fully believe this death was in retaliation for the successful Twin Cities wide general strike, the clergy sit-in at the airport, and the of thousands who flooded the streets on Friday. Yes, Alex owned a gun and was carrying it, but that is his right as guarunteed by the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States (usually my least favorite given how often it is perverted by the opposition.) But, he was not threatening anyone as the video evidence clearly shows. Believe your eyes, not the lies. This is actually why they hate us so much. Everyone comes with their phones charged and video on. Our very own Greg Ketter of Dreamhaven Books and Comics was on the scene: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/minnesota-man-curses-out-ice-agents-at-scene-of-fatal-shooting-tktktk-fuck-you-tktkt_n_697506d2e4b0dcc40307a358 and has a few choice words for the ICE agents.
I got the news of Alex's murder on Saturday during a bio-break in my D&D game. Ironically, we were just starting to try to get back to a kind of normal. We were able to play a bit, but the second half turned into leveling up characters and planning next sessions. Everyone's ability to play pretend was just sort of unwound.
The neighborhood that Alex Pretti was murdered in is called Whittier and is named after Quaker poet and abolishonist, John Greenleaf Whittier. The local Friends groups sent out a call to ask people to not gather en masse (there was concern, of course, that this second murder was an attempt to incite a riot so that the Trump Administration could invoke the Sedition Act,) but to instead stand in small neighborhood groups, light a candle and sing. For those who could not get out, they asked that people put candles outside or in a window.
I had already seen on a Signal group that a bunch of my singers were planning to gather at Snelling & Minnehaha, near Ginko's Coffeeshop. So Mason and I headed over there to sing with people and hold up a light in the darkness. We had a big group. We sang a lot of excellent songs that helped soothe the soul. A couple of assholes (possibly ICE) revved their engines threateningly at us and flipped us off as they drove by, but we just raised our voices to drown them out.
It was an awful day, but our gathering was peaceful and beautiful. Collin from the Food Communists was there with his wife, and two of my D&D players, Shawn and Carillon, came as well.
I missed telling you all about Friday. I did tell you what I was planning to do, and that was pretty much how it went. We have a guest (Mason's partner) and my toes were frost-nipped several years ago while waiting for a tow-truck after an accident on one of these horribly cold days. I was in my super butch phase and had cool looking footwear that wasn't actually very climate resistant. I know, I know. I have since learned my lesson! But, because my toes will start feeling like they are on fire after a couple of hours in this kind of weather, so I decided to just focus on protecting the mosque during Friday prayers since that is something that is very drop in/drop out.
I needed to go anyway to the mosque because I have a couple of neighbors who needed introductions into the rebellion, so we drove over together (it was -11 F/-24 C). I found someone who was part of the Rapid Response team and so my neighbors got connected to the right groups. It was cold enough that we had planned on just having Constitutional Observers at the doors. We were introduced to the imam, imam Hussein, who was so incredibly generous. The folks there always thank us, which... as a Minnesotan I want to demur, but I've been learning to just accept. Someone in the community put down $60 at the little deli in the food mall that's attached to the mosque so that folks could have free tea and sambusa. My friends who had come for introductions were on street detail (in my car) watching for ICE and so I brought them out a couple of sambusa. They couldn't believe the generosity and I jokingly said to them, "I bet you didn't know that the revolution has perks."
There's been a lot of Star Wars imagery going around and I kind now want someone to make some art about how we all used to say "Come to the Dark Side, we have cookies," and we could now say, "Join the Rebellion, we have sambusa!" (This is not localized. There are a lot of Somali folks who have been handing out sambusa to protectors and protesters.)
The usual mosque group were told to stay away or go to downtown because of the cold, but by 2:00 pm a decent-sized crowd joined and so I went home, honking and waving at all the people taking the lightrail to the big rally.
While we were still quite small someone snapped a picture for us to post on Facebook. (Only people who agreed to be photographed are in this picture!)
Our small group outside of the mosque. I am in the back row second from the left (before the bright yellow hat.)
Not as impressive as the downtown rally, but everyone is doing their part.
Including the drag queens (see below):
Image: a fabulous laser-eyed loon advertising for a drag show and dance party for the revolution.
I just love the community that is happening around these things, too. I met several neighbors and discovered one of them was a longtime roommate with my college friend, Nick. Several others were part of the Twin Cities Geek group. We talked about the resistance and D&D and crafting while sipping tea and waving at passing cars (only a couple of which flipped us off and one, likely an ICE agent filmed our faces.)
There was another lovely moment when the imam was reminding us to go eat sambusa when one of his congregation really, really wanted to explain halal to us and the imam gently put out his hand and said, "Brother, these people understand us. They know halal." And.... I could have cried honestly? It's so nice to see the love going in both directions.
Okay, y'all go be Pretti Good.
