neko_90 | Network

Thanks to the escalation in their heartbreakingly necessary work of bonding out people kidnapped and imprisoned by ICE and helping with their legal fees and families, the Boston Immigration Justice Accompaniment Network has depleted its bond fund in record time since the start of the year. There is no shortage of detainees in our profitably carceral system and no one in need should have more locks across their path. You got a sixpence you want, they are taking donations. It's actually Shavuos at the moment, but it is always a good time to open the door to the stranger.

Current Music: Lucy Dacus, "Planting Tomatoes"

quillpunk posting in

booknook

booknook's Paid Account expires on 2026-06-05. It will then revert to the default, free account type. I received the notification via email and thought some people might appreciate the warning. I'm not the one that upgraded

booknook. I also don't know who did (but am very grateful!). So this post is in case anybody is depending on

booknook's Paid Account features. I hope this isn't too disruptive to anybody's use of

booknook.

penaltywaltz posting in

wipbigbang

So I unfortunately have just been able to update the Dreamwidth blog today because (for those not on the WIPBB Discord) my laptop started dying around the end of April and then finally kicked the bucket about two weeks ago, so I took it into a repair shop and am still waiting to get it back due to it having to be fixed in part by a third party and said third party having a backlog. So while I can get on Discord and Tumblr because they're app-based on my phone, I'm having issues with certain sites on my mobile browser, including Dreamwidth. So my apologies for not informing you ahead of time that sign-ups for the 2026 rounds of both WIP Big Bang and WIP Reverse Bang have been extended to June 1st! So you've still got a few more days to sign up if you haven't already.

Check-In #1 is also now live! Please remember that all four check-ins are not mandatory so if you do not do it or you accidentally miss one of them, it's totally fine. This form is used for both WIPBB and WIPRB, so please fill it in once for each project you are completing for either Bang*. You should be using a different unique check-in ID for each project if you are completing multiple projects, so if that's not the case send an email to the mod email account (wipbigbang@gmail.com) with check-in ID substitutions you may need and then do the check-ins with the new IDs you want to use (I currently have not set up the spreadsheet because I still do not have my laptop fixed and back in my possession yet, but as soon as I get it I'll switch stuff over).

The form is up at https://forms.gle/9Ldn6qzH3TMs6BdM6.

* If you want to check in with one project (if you are doing multiple) and simply list the rest of your check-in IDs in the Notes to Mods section, we will accept that as well!

lb_lee

Rogan: we were on tumblr from roughly 2011 to whenever the first porn purge was, they weren’t good years, and I’ve been thinking about it.

( Read more... )

Crossposts: https://lb-lee.insanejournal.com/35705.html

abyss_valkyrie posting in

smallbatchicons

torachan

I decided to walk over to Disneyland rather than taking the monorail, since it's actually not that much further to the park than to the monorail stop, and the monorail only goes one direction, which is opposite to where the park is from our hotel. So you walk a little less to get to the monorail but then have to go three stops to get to the park entrance. Carla wanted to preserve her energy for in the park, so she planned to take the monorail over to meet me, but I just walked over and it was quite a nice walk.

( Tokyo Disneyland Part 1! )

selenak

For All Mankind: In which the scriptwriting duo Weddle & Thompson, who first made their name on the later seasons of DS9 and were subsequently recruited by Ron Moore for BSG now script For all Mankind: War Against Your Population Is Fucked Up, the episode.

( Spoilers also spend some time continuing the quest for life, of course )

The Testaments 1.09: Marat/Sade .

This was really the title of the episode, I kid you not. Being a theatre and a French Revolution nerd sometimes really pays off.

( Spoilers were raised in a society which loves their Old Testament Style vengeance )

Current Mood: pensive
Current Location: Bamberg

profiterole_reads

The graphic novel Just Between Us by Adeline Kon was fun. Lydia and Elaine compete for the gold in figure skating.

I like the fact that it's in black & white & golden. The story is well done, but there's never anything unexpected about it.

Lydia is Chinese American, with a few hanzi here and there. Elaine is Malaysian. There's major f/f, as well as a semi-major trans sapphic character.

muccamukk

I've been piling these up since early April? I think most of them are still topical.

Tech Issues:
Archive of Our Own: Spambot Comments on AO3.
News post with a good summary of all the kinds of spambot comments showing up lately, and what to do if you get one. Slightly depressing, but also helpful.

404 Media: A 'Self-Doxing' Rave Helps Trans People Stay Safe Online.
I got a laugh out of deciding to run this on Trans Day of Visibility. Good for them. (ETA: Some resources in the comments, for anyone who wants to look into/clean up their information online.)

ZD Net: Your Kindle's not obsolete, it just needs a jailbreak - and I'll show you how it's done.
I have not tried this, just saw it going around for older Kindles which Amazon is no longer supporting (to the point where they'll stop operating).

The Tyee: How Companies Hijack AI Chatbots.
The title is a bit click baity, but I was interested in this new and exciting way of polluting the information ecosystem! What if you fed deliberately bad information into LLMs so that chatbots would advertise for you?

Canadian Politics:
Trans Canada Tour.
We’re on a mission to rekindle hope, rebuild Canada’s queer movement, and change hearts and minds across the country.
This may be coming to a town near you? If it's not, and you're a queer organiser, maybe it could be. I've been low-key trying to see if anyone here is interested, but no luck so far.

The Tyee: RCMP Seeks to Quash Discrimination Ruling by Human Rights Tribunal.
The RCMP's constant insistence that they definitely plan to do better in the future, but they're not going to tell us how, or let anyone investigate them. I'm sure that will work better this time!

The Narwhal: Malfunctioning Canadian LNG terminal burned more gas than estimated 2024 global record.
Oh look. It's clean energy!

CBC: 'Monumental': B.C. attorney general, advocates hail Supreme Court ruling on intimate partner violence.
I'm really glad this went through, and sorry that lady had to fight for so long to get relief.

Video Essays:

tongue-in-cheek-books: Shrapnel: Ambient Homophobia and the F-Slur in MM Romance (39 minutes).
A very gentle explanation to people who didn't grow up with normative homophobia in male spaces, about how the damage done by anti-queer language isn't always done by one bad person directing slurs at our hero. I thought it was a really clear example of something I've been poking at for a while. He uses hockey romances in his examples, but makes it clear he's not trying to attack the authors or the fans.

ophie-dokie: Sabrina Carpenter's Gender Theater, The Male Gaze, and You (46 minutes).
The discourse continues. I really liked the section about "I Kissed a Girl" and assuming people's sexuality. I remember a lot more problems from people accusing women of being "performative" than I do "performative" people being an actual problem. But mileage may have varied.

Schmowd3r: PI Investigates the Neil Gaiman Substack Situation (3 hours and 46 minutes).
I appreciated this as a breakdown of what's in the substack, which is such a Gish gallop that it's difficult to get through. I had somehow missed the experimental "jazz" for example. I also appreciate how he didn't include a lot of the graphic details about the assaults, which made it a bit easier to listen to than a lot of recaps of the situation. (This video has unfortunately started drama with another YouTuber. *sighs*)

Cute Things:

sixbeforelunch: fandom hugs.
Icons from various Stargate, Star Trek and DC properties. Extremely cute.

OnIcePerspectives: Starr Andrews reprises "Whip My Hair" by Willow Smith (Video: 3 minutes).
It's really fun to see this again!

Emily Fairfax, Ph.D: Beavers and Wildfire.
Includes a stop-motion video and several diagrams explaining how beaver habitat protects vegetation from wildfires, and also charts!

CowlitzIndianTribe: Cowlitz Beaver Kit Cam Live.
Live stream of a mother beaver and her four kits. I think they're going to be rewilded in the next couple weeks, so worth checking out while it's still running. Scroll back a bit and find a time when she comes back into the lodge: the kits make the cutest noises. Also, she sometimes just grabs one of the kits, pins it down and licks it for a while.

princessofgeeks

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

Current Mood: busy

umadoshi

A current very-Canadian thing is that payments for the Loblaws (one of the national grocery giants) bread settlement (the Canadian Packaged Bread Class Actions Settlement) are trickling out to the tune of $49.01 per claimant. I've been seeing mention of it all week on Bluesky. The notification about mine arrived this morning. I doubt Loblaws even feels the settlement amount, and God knows the mainstream chains are wringing every cent out of people that they can, one way or another, but it's still nice to see them actually paying for a wrongdoing. I will take my not-quite-fifty-dollars, thank you.

I was happy to see this morning that The Vegetable Gardener's Container Bible is on sale in ebook, so I've snagged that to supplement the hard copy of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible.

On the weekend,

scruloose and I decided that we'll take a Friday off to visit the local non-profit's seedling sale, since it's Friday to Sunday for the duration of its run. We were having a few very warm days, so we briefly considered doing it today, but thankfully sense prevailed, given that there was a frost warning last night and there's another tonight. So. Maybe next Friday, but going in two weeks is probably a better idea. (The local standard for "we're FINALLY sure there won't be more frost" is "after the full moon in June", but this year's isn't until June 30th. [There are two this month--May 1st and May 31st.])

(I know lettuce and spinach are very fond of cool weather, so I'm as reasonably sure as possible before going out to look that our seedlings will be okay, but I can't help a bit of reflexive worry.)

Occasionally I remember that I can just upload images on Dreamwidth. Have a pic of some of our tiny lettuce seedlings on their second day poking up from the soil. (These are the Freckles variety, and yesterday it looked like we had some popping up from all the lettuce types except the Black Seeded Simpson.) The plant marker behind them, despite appearances, is not a popsicle stick; the markers we bought are noticeably larger than that.

A row of very tiny lettuce seedlings peeking up from the soil.

Current Mood: groggy

pauraque

Mahit Dzmare is the fresh-faced new ambassador from a remote space station struggling to maintain its independence from the massive interstellar Teixcalaan Empire. What the Teixcalaanli diplomats don't know is that Mahit's mind carries the memories and personality of the previous ambassador alongside her own—and what Mahit doesn't know is that the old ambassador got up to a lot of sketchy stuff since the last time his mind files were backed up. Arriving on the Teixcalaan capital planet, Mahit finds that her predecessor has died in a *cough* "accident," and the sight of his own dead body in the morgue causes his uploaded personality to glitch out and Mahit loses contact with his memories. Now lacking the secret advantage she was supposed to have, Mahit must navigate labyrinthine court politics, figure out what the old ambassador did that got him killed, and save her home from imperial conquest.

On paper, this book checks all the boxes to make me love it. It's a queer anti-imperialist space opera with detailed worldbuilding and a premise that raises questions about identity and individuality! I was invested in the characters and I appreciated the unique flavor of the Aztec-inspired Teixcalaan culture.

And yet... I didn't love the book, I only kinda liked it. I enjoyed it while I was reading, but I found it easy to put down and easy to forget about when I wasn't reading it, and in the end I was left feeling lukewarm. I think there are three main reasons for that.

1. It's too much like Imperial Radch. And I love Imperial Radch! But I found this book not as compelling, surprising, or psychologically complex, and it misses a few of my narrative kinks that Imperial Radch hits dead on. (This book is queer all right, but it's not genderqueer, and the man's-memories-in-woman's-head premise is a big missed opportunity where it could have been.) I might have responded to this book more strongly if I hadn't read Imperial Radch first or if they hadn't been so similar in so many ways.

2. The pacing is sluggish, especially in the first half. Some points are needlessly belabored every time they come up, without being developed or expanded upon. Yes, I understand that Mahit has confused feelings about being a nerd for a culture that will never accept her and threatens her own culture's autonomy. Yes, I understand that she is having a hard time because her predecessor's memories aren't accessible. What else do you want to say about those things, author? It feels like ages go by where nothing is really shifting for the protagonist. I realize the events of the book only happen over a few days, but in that case maybe it's not necessary to restate where she's at emotionally at such length and frequency?

3. Several aspects of the ending seemed contrived.

plot spoilers

I didn't buy that the insurrection would fizzle so easily as soon as Nineteen Adze became emperor. I also wasn't thrilled to see Twelve Azalea predictably killed off after I spent most of the book thinking "this guy only exists so you can kill off a character we like other than the main pair, doesn't he?" And look, I did want to see Mahit and Three Seagrass get together, but I don't think the intended slow burn was executed well. They're obviously into each other from the moment they meet, but the tension doesn't build or develop in any meaningful way until suddenly they kiss at the end, and then Mahit abruptly decides to leave the planet for no reason. I mean, yes, vague reasons are supplied, but I wasn't sure if I was supposed to take those reasons seriously, or if Mahit is just scared of intimacy. Should be good times for Three Seagrass now that her best friend's been murdered in front of her and the only other person she trusts is pulling this ridiculous "sorry but we can't be together because I need to ~find myself~" thing out of nowhere!

But hey, there's only one sequel, so I'll probably read it and at least see how it ends. (Given that Teixcalaan is Space Aztecs, the mysterious alien threat has to be Space Conquistadors, right?)

mulhollands posting in

icons

Movies:Wake Up Dead Man:A Knives Out Mystery, BeetleJuice
TV:Six Feet Under, Jim Moriarty (Sherlock), Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Disney/anime: The Black Cauldron, Sailor Moon here

mulhollands posting in

fandom_icons

Movies:Wake Up Dead Man:A Knives Out Mystery, BeetleJuice
TV:Six Feet Under, Jim Moriarty (Sherlock), Spike (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Disney/anime: The Black Cauldron, Sailor Moon here

Current Mood: blank

sabotabby

I kind of struggled deciding on an episode this week, but I'm going to go back to one from a couple weeks ago that I'm still thinking about a lot, A Bit Fruity's "Clavicular Is a Symptom, Not The Cause (with F.D. Signifier and Kat Tenbarge)." I love it when F.D. Signifier guests on podcasts; I would watch his YouTube but I don't really watch a lot of YouTube so it's nice when he does a thing I can listen to on the subway.

Anyway if you've been under a rock or don't have this shit forced on you, Clavicular is a 20-year-old influencer who promotes young incels hitting their face with a hammer (here is a quick explanation from mainstream media describing how most of us olds learned about him). It's kind of amazing just how completely far-right internet memes have made it into pop culture; like, I will say things like "[blank]maxxing" ironically despite being a normie old. This kid was one of the high school students who graduated under covid lockdown, if you want to know how recent all of this is.

Oh, he also has an eating disorder and is autistic. Things I didn't know. Apparently at least some of the appeal for viewers is watching this kid navigate social situations and failing miserably. Which is fucking gross and awful.

Looksmaxxing and Clavicular are things I learned about against my will, which is the case for everyone in this episode. The whole trend is weird and gross and misogynistic and racist and awful. Which is why the compassion and analysis that Matt, F.D., and Kat bring to the discussion is so important. They have compassion for Clavicular, who may be a terrible person but is also barely out of his teens and needed help and didn't get it. They have more compassion for the boys who follow this kind of content. This is a look into the nihilism of young men, and the degree to which it's an understandable reaction to a world that basically gaslights them.

Anyway, if you have kids in your life, it's definitely worth a listen.

snowynight

A setting premise inspired by books and blogs I have recently read:

In this world, people travel without the certainty that they'll arrive in their destination. It's easy to unknowingly go through the rifts between our reality and other worlds. Beware of fog, bridges and doors that appear suspiciously new. Rituals, customs and charms are developed to secure safe travel. People watch the sky to ensure that the sun, the moon and the stars are alight during their travel. Eclipse is a disaster as the supernatural roam freely in the land.

Some people dedicate themselves to navigate the unknown. The risk is great, but the potential reward is huge: magic items, creatures that thought to be mythical, knowledge beyond imagination.. Siilarly minded people group together to develop theory and practicalities to travel. The dreamers project themselves into the dreamland. The gmers play games that pass from the old to go to the the fey realm. The faithful throw themselves to saints and deities for blessings.

The astral sea is the realm of collective unconsciousness. Some powerful psychics's imprints re so strong that they trap unsuspecting travellers. They can only get free if they resolve their unfinished business. Powerful kingdoms compete to build ships to navigate the sea.

sovay

Hestia is sleeping against my knees. Earlier in the night she hopped onto the bed where I was reading, trampled my ankles, and curled herself into a gravitational field of black fur. At dinner she stretched forth her delicate paw and clobbered as her rightful prey a portion of

spatch's haddock. Out of this week's three doctors' appointments, one was objectively encouraging and I am acting toward its future which I cannot yet believe in. I have so many moving parts to keep track of. I feel like eighteen and a half plates in the air. In lieu of room in my life for real convalescence, I am reading a lot in the evenings, accompanied by cat, which is where she came in.

Current Music: Erase Errata, "How to Tell Yourself from a Television"

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

dine

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

cornerofmadness

It was an interesting ride to Enterprise. The guy I've been talking to picked me up and we were talking, got onto the topic of writing. He's doing a post apocalyptic thing where he wants to subvert the toxic masculinity you often see in dystopic fic and queer it as well (the character is a bi man) and he is a Huskerdust Hazbin fan. I'm surprised he was so comfortable to tell me about a queer story here in deep red southern Ohio. Maybe in the fall I'll try harder to get a SF/F/Horror writers group going at the library. Maybe there is more of us than I know.

The car is a Jetta. I haven't been in a Volkswagon since my mom's 1970s Bug. I had to dig out the owner's manual three times before I got home because shit wasn't where I'm used to it being in my Japanese cars. Also how to tell I haven't been in a car in almost a decade? Within an hour I bashed my knee into the steering column, knocked my skull into the top of the door, jabbed my elbow into that same door. I'm already over the Jetta and they gave it to me with no damn gas. Why is the gas tank on the wrong damn side?

I drove it to my coffee shop, went inside. Not one seat open and six people ahead of me in line. I leave, go to Kroger for road snacks (forgot my toothpaste) go back. It's still jammed but I get at seat. WTF? It's just a random Thursday morning. Are people taking off already for Memorial Day? I'm there trying to write and hoping my book will come at the library before I leave tomorrow. It didn't.

Come home, did laundry but didn't do much else. I don't have to leave until later tomorrow because Evil Little Dog has work and I don't want to be sitting in her driveway waiting. I have a list. I feel like I'm going to leave something.

At 4 pm I get an email. Book is at the library. Head desk. Well now I can get my toothpaste and the book tomorrow (I have to go to Jackson to get to where I'm going)

I took a swing at that not-likely shot at the demon anthology curated by V. Castro. It's worth a shot and I really like that story. I did edit the Appalachian one thanks to ELD's beta but I also shelved it for now since that open call seems hinky.

Current Mood: anxious
Current Music: Hudson & Rex

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Page Summary

sovay - You've got to live the life you're fighting for
quillpunk in booknook - Warning: Expiring Paid Account
penaltywaltz in wipbigbang - WIP Big Bang/WIP Reverse Bang 2026 - Sign-Ups Are Extended / Check-In # 1 Is Live
lb_lee - Remembering Tumblr
abyss_valkyrie in smallbatchicons - Fairy Tail
torachan - 2026 Disneyland Trip #16 (4/9/26) Tokyo Disneyland (Part 1)
selenak - The Testaments and For All Mankind: Bloody Tales both
profiterole_reads - Just Between Us by Adeline Kon
muccamukk - Links List (Tech Issues, CanPol, Video Essays, Cute Things)
princessofgeeks - Hmmm
umadoshi - $49.01 | A bit of garden talk
pauraque - A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (2019)
mulhollands in icons - Multi fandom icons
mulhollands in fandom_icons - Multi fandom icons
sabotabby - podcast friday
snowynight - Faraway Traveller: a worldbuilding idea
sovay - I spoke of crimes and of my friends in the same breath
nanila in awesomeers - Just One Thing (22 May 2026)
dine - life's a drama - the least it owes you is popcorn
cornerofmadness - It's a Jetta

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