Network

Entry tags:

news,
politics

Vive la Résistance

I always seem to be living outside the US at times when being present could perhaps allow me to do the most good as a white English-speaking not-MAGA US citizen. It has been tremendously encouraging to learn what good people are doing there and disappointing how little coverage it gets in the news here. The history generator's settings keep tending alarmingly toward interesting times as the administration finds new ways to harm people.

Here's hoping that the Democrats retain something of a spine over reforming ICE. It was interesting to read some suggestion that, even before all this, the Federal law enforcement community had often seen ICE more as cosplayers than competent.

Entry tags:

Drabblethon: Stability (The Distortion Detective)

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

PXWLF Day 1

I started with the main/downtown section of the festival and boy do I have regrets. There is a reason I usually mind the outskirts of the festival for interesting photos and experiences.

The Portland Winter Lights Festival is a 2 week thing with over 200 art installations and events. Last year they ranged from giant metal fire breathing dragon at the waterfront to 'store that happens to sell a few glow in the dark items is open late'. Also, last year I saw a drag king performance based on I Saw The TV Glow. It is a highly varied experience, and the website is deeply unhelpful. I can tell you already that some of the images this year are concept art and not actually was what done. There is cool stuff, but to find it you just need to keep hopping around hundreds of sites and hoping.

I've had a good time at the festival in the past. One year it happened during that extended snowstorm/power outage Portland had and I remember trudging through deep snow to see the fire powered light events, a truly surreal experience.

Anyway, the main downtown space can get crowded and people can get pushy. I don't have a sense of balance so people pushing me side to make a hole for their group is A Problem for me. Some lady wanted to push through a line I was in, rather than go around. I asked her to cut behind me instead of in front for a specific reason, and she had a expletive filled crash out at me.

I hopefully got at least 2 good pictures, but yeah, there is a reason I usually skip the main area. I am *hopefully* hitting the Electric Blocks and some east side stuff tonight, then I'll start sorting through lists to see what else I want to hit. The only exhibit up on St John's is... an art exhibit that's been there year round for years.

Also, damn, just like I need a dedicated Mike Bennett folder I need to start a PDXWLF folder.

Entry tags:

books,
reading

Semiosis (Sue Burke)

I can't really tell if I liked this book or not. Parts of the world-building felt underdeveloped or under-explored, and I never really felt like Stevland was as alien of an intellect as the premise suggested he was supposed to be. I think I might have preferred a narrower slice of time, with more depth, where a lot of the other details are conveyed because they are part of the collective history of the people in the story, but that would be a very very different structure for the book.

I think this book is about and raises a lot of interesting questions, but I'm not super satisfied with the way those questions were explored (it is not an enraging miss on its premise, the way Mysterium was, though).

Current Music: Snow Crush Killing Song — The Mountain Goats

Entry tags:

This Year 365 songs: February 7th

Today we have Snow Crush Killing Song

Watch on YouTube

We are in a stretch where the annotations are sort of short, and I often don't have a lot to say. Today's annotations are about the approach to narrative structure for this album, but I feel like I'd mostly be repeating myself to include my thoughts on this.

This is a nice sombre song, though. And I am shocked still by how much Mountain Goats I haven't heard before.

Entry tags:

Blockout (1989)

The splash screen of this game credits California Dreams, a familiar publishing label used by Logical Design Works for many of their home computer releases in the '80s and early '90s. As a kid I assumed these games were made in my home state of California, but nope. Almost all of them were developed in Poland by P.Z. Karen Co., a studio that primarily produced games for the Western market. (Another interesting title they developed was 1991's Solidarność ["Solidarity"], "a political simulation of the Polish underground freedom movement that culminated in the Solidarity trade union in 1980", which I have never played, though I am a little tempted.)

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

rectangular well with a wireframe grid has begun to fill with colorful tetris pieces as a wireframe piece waits to be dropped from the top

But today we're talking about Blockout. It's 3D Tetris. Instead of a side view, you're looking down into a well into which you must drop the wireframe pieces. In addition to using the arrow keys to move the pieces, you also get six rotation keys (clockwise and counterclockwise around three different axes of rotation). The rest of the gameplay is just as you'd expect; if you manage to fill a layer of the well, that layer disappears like a Tetris row, etc.

( I did have the DOS version of this game as a kid, but what I mainly remember is watching my mom play it. )

Blockout is free to download or play in your browser if you want to find out if your spatial reasoning abilities are more like mine or more like my mom's.

Entry tags:

Deep blankness is the real thing strange

That was a week that felt a bit odd, which may have been quite a bit down to my not sleeping as well as have latterly been doing.

Also not getting out for accustomed daily walk as often as usual because RAIN.

Somewhat stunned by phonecall from friend with whom I am collaborating on various projects who has recently had some rather devastating health news.

Resumption of contact with two other friends: one of whom I had contacted after receiving what turned out to be, as I had suspected, spam email from her hacked account.

Having the February blahs, pretty much.

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi

Blue Lock the Movie: Episode Nagi was a lot of fun!

Of course I was excited that they dedicated a whole movie to my OTP, Reo/Nagi! <3 There were also some nice Isagi/Bachira scenes.

It's available on Crunchyroll (new to me, but it's been available to the high-tier subscribers for a long time).

Entry tags:

Day 7: Fic Self-Rec - Quantum Leap - Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks

Title/Link: Cold Feet
Fandom: Quantum leap
Character(s): Donna Elesee, Verbena (Bena) Beeks (and appearances by Sam Beckett and Al Calavicci)
Rating: Teen and Up
Prompt: The Lover
Summary: Donna gets cold feet.

Current Mood: hung over

Entry tags:

Heated Rivalry meta

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

DAY 6 - FIC - DANGANRONPA - SHIROGANE TSUMUGI

Day 6 - Her Own Personal Code

Title: Out of all candidates, why you?
Fandom: Danganronpa v3
Characters: Shirogane Tsumugi centered + featuring the rest of the cast
Rating: T
Summary: There are some really awful dehumanizing shows out there. Thank God Danganronpa™ isn’t one of them. It’s the best of the best and therefore they need the best cast as well. Or Tsumugi's long audition day.

This was an already written piece that really fit with the theme. This story is set in an AU that assumes certain end game revelations are true, so very spoiler-ish.

Story in ao3

(no subject)

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Worldbuilding Exchange will not be running in 2026

Hi friends - after taking a hard look at our schedules and our commitments, the Worldbuilding Exchange v.2 moderators have decided that we don't have the capacity to run this exchange again this year.

While we won't rule out running another round in the future, at the moment we are not planning to do so. Anybody interested in running a Worldbuilding Exchange v.3 is welcome to pick up the baton! (And if you do so this year, please let us know, and we'll spread the word.)

Apologies, especially to those we had told we were going to run again this year.

Entry tags:

Stuff I Love: Ten Standalones

A weekly February challenge via

dreamersdare, who was inspired by

corvidology! Here’s an explanation of the overall challenge.

Week 1: Make a Top Ten list for your favourite standalone media and tell people exactly why you love it. This can be in any format - movies, one shot dramas, novels, short stories, plays, something else not mentioned here. Whatever you like!

I picked: Ten Favorite Neo-Noir Films.

Neo-noir is a rather amorphous term, but I'm not sweating it. My research consisted of googling that my picks are generally considered neo-noir. I removed one (Akira Kurosawa’s Stray Dogs, with a baby-faced Toshiro Mifune) as it was made in 1949, putting it firmly in the noir camp.

Also! There are so many fantastic neo-noir films on my to-watch list, including Ash is Purest White, Deep Crimson, Pigs and Battleships, Dog Day Afternoon and Mulholland Drive. (Hangs head in shame. I also can’t believe I haven’t watched those last two. In my defense, I only returned to movie fandom a few years ago, after decades away. I've got a lot of catching up to do.)

Anyway, as

dreamersdare notes in their original post, these are not meant to be rec lists. This and the following lists, fingers crossed, are celebrations of things I love.

( In Chronological Order, Earliest to Latest, the Winners Are... )

Now it's your turn. Tell me about your favorite neo-noir!

Entry tags:

romancing mcshep 2026

Chocolate Box - Day 7

Animal Trope

1. Keep Your Claws to Yourself
2. Forever On My Mind
3. Only One Bed
4. Sheppard's Award by

melagan
5. Postcards from Pegasus: Atlantis Under the Siege by

escriveine
6. A Bath for Two by

cassiope25
7. Postcards from Pegasus: Olesia (Home of the Faustian Bargain by

escriveine

Entry tags:

[#29 Red, Arcane, Maddiebessa] velvet dagger, honey trap

Title: velvet dagger, honey trap
Rating: Teen
Category: F/F
Fandom: Arcane: League of Legends
Author: shroomy(y)star
Ship/Characters: Ambessa Medarda/Maddie Nolen
Warnings/Notes: smoking, implied sexual content
Word Count: 300
Summary: A perfect honey trap, indeed, if Ambessa may say so herself.

ao3 | dreamwidth

Entry tags:

Drabblethon: Making A (Haunted) House A Home, 2.7

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

Quiet place

This morning I have cleared up & picked up & put away. I have changed beds & hoovered & done the laundry. I have washed up & planned food for the week & done the food shopping. I have taken father-in-law out for an indulgent lunch.

And now I'm being quiet. Father-in-law is having a little nap, himself is away for the day (rugby at Twickenham), cat is off doing cat things and I have the living room to myself. I'm reading, and ignoring the to-do list.

The luxury of not doing, of being quiet in the middle of the day.

Entry tags:

GenPrompt Bingo: A Moment of Clarity/Understanding

AO3 Link | Hunting Gone Wrong (1144 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars [2008] - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Suicide/Suicidal Ideation
Characters: CC-1119 | Appo, Original Female Character(s)
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Suicidal Thoughts, Child Murder
Summary:

Appo is on a death world, hunting, but maybe he was the prey... and the wrong one at that.

Hunting Gone Wrong

They were being hunted, picked off one by one on this death world. Appo wasn't certain what he'd done to anger his Lord, but being sent to hunt a Force User had seemed easy enough on the data pad.

The reality was proving brutally different, and he was down to just two members of the original six that had followed him here to capture the rogue Force User for Lord Vader. Nor could he just comm for back up; the Exactor was pursuing the rag tag Rebels that had been in the system when they dropped.

Appo pulled up a map of the world, narrowing in on the fissure-laden landscape of this island. The Force User had taken out the other drop ship while they were in atmo before ditching from the ship and letting it crash. A small part of him decided it was rather fitting that they were all marooned, and Appo's chances of a pick up were a lot better than the Force User's.

TK-1138 let the world kill him, spooking at a noise and falling into one of the hissing fissures. Appo looked at the last surviving man of his squadron and ground his teeth inside his helmet. They might only be fleshborn, but he'd spent time fine-tuning the training that CC-2224 sent them out with.

They had to be the best to be 501st, after all. That had never stopped being true, from the before-times to now.

"Stay here, get the communication unit pieced together. Fleet should be back any time now."

"Yes sir."

Was the trooper relieved? Hoping Appo was the next victim? It didn't matter. Appo had to catch this karking —

The pain in his head came back, as that slip into his first language usually sparked it.

It was bad enough he held tight to his name.

He'd forgotten what it was like to hunt by himself. Even in his plastoid, it was easier to move and hide and track than when he was half-focused on keeping a squad alive.

He thought he was closing in on the Force User. He was fairly certain they were even injured. All he had to do was clear this climb, and he'd be close enough to be sure. Just a little more to climb —

— and a noise drew his eyes up, to see a face with white marks on bronze skin, blue and white marks on the horns and headtails alike, but eyes like his own staring holes into his soul.

The Jedi were traitors, manipulating the whole war, killing his brothers to cling to their power. The Chancellor said so, and he was their Supreme Commander. The General believed it. Appo followed orders, led the men up the stairs, and they started quartering the Temple, clearing out the traitors of all shapes and sizes.

It didn't matter that this one looked like the Commander. She'd been a traitor too. He brought his blaster up for a clean shot, waiting until she deflected two others to take his own.

He ignored the voice screaming in the back of his head that she had been just a kid.

Appo blinked at the bright light all around him, his concealing helmet (bucket, a piece of him remembered) gone, and him trussed him up as firmly as he'd meant to do to her once he caught the Force User.

She was tossing an EMP grenade in a hand, pacing in front of him.

Just as suddenly as she'd overcome him on the climb, she was there, kneeling in front of him.

"It would be more merciful to kill you," she said. "To you and to my father."

Clone dark eyes staring out of a face like hers.

"I don't feel like being merciful today." She clicked the detonator, and Appo's world disappeared for the second time in less than an hour, this time consumed by searing pain in his skull, the kind that came when he remembered the before times.

Vader's Fist.

Torrent Company.

Memories, like those of two different men, warred within him.

Torrent won.

He found himself retching up the nutripaste he'd been rationing himself since landfall. She at least tilted him with the Force so he didn't get it on himself.

Appo looked at her again, recognizing the hard jawline and set of the eyes as The Captain's trademark resolve. The lines of her marks might scream of the Commander, but he didn't think this one was going to try and make it all better like Commander Vod'ika had tried time and again, after the bad campaigns.

"So, when I take your binders off, I'm not going to stop you if you choose the easy way out," she said in a hard voice. "Didn't even know that kriffing monster still had any of you. Was supposed to be him I was facing down here."

"You… tried… to bait VADER?!" he asked, but of course a child of those two would be that brazen.

She didn't answer, just staring at him with unblinking anger at him for not being the right prey.

The easy way — he knew just what she meant, and as her features blurred with the earlier, rounder face of that child in the Temple, he thought he just might.

"You said your father," he managed to get out instead. "The Captain lives?"

"Somewhere out there. It's not like he and I could work together once I was old enough to go out on my own."

The binders fell away from him, and his gear was right there. A tiny piece of him suggested he go for his blaster, not to take the easy road, but to try and take her down, like he'd been told to.

Just like he'd been told to murder children. And atrocities that made that pale in comparison, ever since the day he followed his General into haran.

"What's the hard way?" he asked, and that got a blink, then a flex of the too-small lekku.

"I take you to a rehab specialist, away from the fighting, and you figure out if you can make peace with the man that chip made of you."

"Will he come there? Or her — kriff." The face and lekku had gone hard all over again on the pronoun. "She's gone?"

"It's why I joined up. He lived, when she didn't come back to us. And I'm not going to stop until he goes down."

"Small part of getting off this rock?"

"Got that covered." She turned to start walking down the easy side of the rise.

A few minutes later, he was following, with just the weapons and rations, hard as it was to leave the armor's protection behind.

She didn't say a word, and he kept following. Maybe, in her, in what she offered as the hard way, he'd find a way to his honor again.

Entry tags:

publisher: seven seas

February Seven Seas Reader Survey

It's that time again: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe_bV0MlChe4iguw1cVPwXknNJZW7DO8Gx8VQUf3C773Jzhew/viewform