sovay | Sovay's Friends

Daily updates for Rec-Cember are going about as well as anything daily usually does for me, so I think I'll switch to weekly posts - say Thurs or Fri. That sounds like a plan.

I think what I'm finding is that writing one rec is actually not much less work than a batch of them, and the batch style is more fun for me because I don't feel like I have to come up with as much to say about each individual fanwork. Even though I know I could just yeet the link on DW and flee. Why are brains.

I'm really enjoying the event, though!

(In other news, it is cooooooold, and I am struggling with motivation for Christmas. Maybe I need to write some Christmas/holiday/winter fic. I went to a holiday concert this weekend with

ellenmillion and it was lovely! I need more of that kind of thing.)

kaffy_r

Weird is as Weird Does

Life itself is rather weird, but I've had several days of weirdity beyond the usual. Here's at least one or two of them.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: the home office
Music: The Rose "Phase Me"

$radiantfracture: a gouache painting of a turkey vulture head on a blue background, painted by me (vulture)$

radiantfracture

What is best?

1. A patch with just the text "Tablet XII is Canon"
2. A patch with this text and the shape of the broken tablet above or below it
3. A patch that's in the shape of the broken tablet with the text written on the tablet?

Font would be vaguely cuneiform-y but legible.

For aesthetics, so far as I can tell with very sketchy research the best Tablet XII fragment is shaped kind of like this:

§rf§

labingi

I (finally) received the proof copy of my social sci-fi novel, A Soldier in the Borderlands, lovely cover art by Xavier Aguirre. Here's the blurb:

On a planet racked by drought, fourteen-year-old soldier Tánashen has done terrible things to serve the Citadel. Guilt is a price he’s willing to pay for the Citadel to protect his brother from the raiders who massacred their people. But when the so-called “raiders” capture Tánashen, he must face the fact that the Citadel lied; they are the true oppressor. Now, he’ll risk death to save his brother from the Citadel and liberate his homeland. There's just one complication: most lies contain some truth.

Arwen holding Borderlands

If anyone is interested in reviewing this book, I'm happy to send you a free epub or PDF. Just PM me.

dhampyresa

A novel I recently finished reading ¹ has a bibliography at the end. It's a couple pages long, divided into sections ~~and the first book on it is Marx's Kapital, lol~~.

¹ "Paresse pour tous" (Laziness for all) by Hadrien Klent

Have you ever read a novel with a bibliography? Do you read the bibliographies in general?

luzula

Aaand an alibi sentence, which I wrote late at night. But the sentence did open the door to how to continue tomorrow, I think. How about you?

Tally:
( Read more... )
Day 8:

china_shop,

badly_knitted,

sylvanwitch,

trobadora,

goddess47,

cornerofmadness,

garonne,

sanguinity,

chestnut_pod

Bonus farm news: Geeked out with my tomato spreadsheet, analyzing what categories of tomato we need to complement the ones we grew this year. Such as, we need an early paste bush tomato that tolerates cold conditions, we need more types of winter tomato, etc. No need for recs, really, I have the opposite problem of being spoiled for choice...there are TONS of tomato varieties.

elisem

So, just a few minutes ago in one place or another, I was reading what someone had to say about style. In the course of exploring a particular writer's habits and style, they said that they themselves weren't sure they knew what style was.

A long time ago, a sentence came into my possession that has been both comforting and humbling by degrees. It is this: "Style is what you can't help doing."

The comforting part is that if you can't help having style, or doing style, or whatever sort of verbing of style is accurate for you and your work, then you might as well stop any worrying about style and get on with the work. Saves a tremendous amount of time, really.

Thoughts?

lauradi7dw

The usual secondary title for Hamlet is Prince of Denmark. I am suggesting that the secondary title of Hamnet (the movie) should be catharsis, which I suppose might be a spoiler. If you want to be more spoiled, watch the trailer

Watch on YouTube

When I went to a movie theater in 1991 to see Robin Hood, Prince of thieves (there it is again, that thing after the comma) I watched for a bit and then sighed, wistfully, and said "England." True again watching Hamnet. Even as I heard myself thinking it, though, what came to mind about going to England now was flaming transphobia, xenophobia, and the destruction of sensible healthcare. I can get that stuff without traveling. Then near the end, watching a play (filmed on a specifically made theater, using French oak), I wished briefly to be leaning against the stage at the Globe again. https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/523600.html
I have extremely vague plans to go in 2030 for a ringing anniversary event (if it happens).

There were about a dozen people (all but one appearing to be women) at the 11 AM show nearby. At least some of them had read the novel from which it was taken, because they were discussing it on the way out. The story itself was told in a very literary way (foreshadowing and the fulfillment thereof) but I am not going to read the book. I don't see how it could be as good as the movie, which included some very strategic bits of Hamlet on the aforementioned stage. It is tempting to say that (based on a couple of scenes), Noah Jupe may be the best Hamlet I've ever seen. Maybe it's because he was barely 20 when it was filmed, or because I had just been prepped by almost two hours of backstory, or (insert spoilerish casting choice here). As an aside, I think he was wearing trousers with a zipper, but I could be wrong. The only face I recognized was that of Emily Watson, although I had heard some of the other names. A name I had not heard before was Bodhi Rae Breathnach, in her first movie role.

I watched the entire credits. At the end was a statement saying that it was not to be used to train an AI. Good.

shewhomust

On Thursday we set off for our pre-Christmas visit to London. As ever, Christmas seems to have arrived before we are ready for it; and as ever, this is partly true. Certainly the calendar has reached the point where the Bears must decide whether, in order to hold the Carol Evening on a Sunday, it must fall either closer to Christmas than is reasonable, or earlier, and have opted for the latter. I think that's a good choice, but yes, definitely not ready.

We did Christmas shopping at the weekend. Not only did we go to the monthly Farmers' Market, we also attended the Christmas Fair on Palace Green. At the former we may have over-shopped for vegetables, because the vegetables are so good there; at the latter we picked up a few small gifts, but were disappointed in the hunt for cards. The local hospice had cards, and we bought the only remaining pack of the design we liked, and there were artists selling single cards, but that's ridiculous... On the way home from the Farmers' Market, we made an inspired detour to the Garden Centre, where we again cleaned them out of the design we liked (three more packs). This enabled us to send off all the overseas cards. Today

durham_rambler went to the Oxfam shop alone, and brought home a selection of cards, none of which I hate but none of which I love - and we have spent more of today that I anticipated writing cards.

Yesterday evening we zoomed in to Jim Causley and Miranda Sykes' Midwinter concert, which was pleasantly seasonal. My favourite thing was their 'medieval mashup', but there was also an intriguing combination of Sydney Carter's Song of Truth with fragments of Down in Yon Forest (which is always one of my highlights at the Carol Evening).

Meanwhile,

durham_rambler is out being festive - at an annual Parish event, to which I declined to accompany him. I have plenty to do here, thanks: including writing this, and making pizza for a late supper (you could regard it as gratuitous cooking, or you could call it appeasing the sourdough starter, which I will now freeze to await our return). More of a problem is that tonight's event has caused another meeting to be rescheduled to tomorrow, which really is inconvenient.

Oh, well. Onward!

sasha_feather

I realized today that a lot of my friends don't know about what I've gone through this year.

Last year in June I moved back to Minnesota to look after my dad. My mom was in the hospital for a month and then moved to a nursing home with sudden-onset dementia (B1 deficiency) secondary to cancer.

I intended to support them temporarily but decided to make it a more permanent move to support them and their many animals. I struggled and kept expecting other family members to step up, but they did not.

I was hospitalized in May 2025 after a seizure. (Two seizures in 3 years means a new diagnosis of epilepsy.) I am missing about a week or 2 of memories from directly after that experience, so I don't know for sure what happened. I was busy looking after my dad and the animals, and then coordinating a move for my parents into assisted living, which I mostly did myself, While recovering from a seizure, with a broken rib.

I don't know why-- again, I don't remember (likely from medication side effects), but no one from the family came to help me directly after the seizure. My dad (who has dementia) and I did it alone. I'm angry about it and need people to know.

I supported my family for a year and half and did not receive any funds, no salary, very little emotional or logistical help from my brother, his wife, or his 4 healthy teenage kids. There is a wider extended family and they didn't show up either. We got some occasional visits but it wasn't enough.

Since moving my parents into assisted living, I have continued to support them in many ways, including looking after their farm and animals, again with no funds.

This week I asked my brother to help me advocate with my dad, to get me some money. He said no. He believes we should sell the farm (where I am now living). He made no mention of any provisions for me.

I'm obviously very upset, but the anger is at least helping me communicate about what is happening. I am reaching out to friends and various family members and trying to raise the alarm to protect myself.

I am safe for the time being but it is not the best idea for me to be living alone. I had intended to find roommates to come live here with me, but there are some barriers, including me not being the property owner, and the house being a bit of a mess. My next step is to directly talk to my parents about this situation. They both have dementia but I think they are capable of understanding my position.

I am currently unsure what the best course of action is moving forward. But I at least want folks to know what is going on. It's been very helpful to talk on the phone with friends who are affirming to me that this is a fucked up way to be treated. It's been a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that my family is exploiting me.

Warm thoughts, mail, messages are all helpful.

jesse_the_k

...here's an excellent use-case: feed your strong passphrase text as a prompt to an image generator

from the passphrase string "fabulous tattoo Harvey", Reddit user u/waydomatic and ChatGPT made ( this cheerful example )

The LLM thinks Harvey is a muscular white guy wearing a skimpy purple Speedo; arms, shoulder and upper chest covered in rose tattoos. He flexes his right arm and flashes a big white smile under his handlebar mustache. Of course he's wearing a rose crown.

Saving the generated image would certainly be more secure than writing down the password.

oracne

My Xmas Playlist on YouTube.

lauradi7dw

One of my elementary school teachers promoted the concept of stick-to-itiveness
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/stick-to-itiveness
60 years later, I still haven't really managed it.
I bought a tree a week ago> It's chilling (literally) on the porch. I haven't cleared out the spot in the kitchen I used for last year's tree
https://lauradi7dw.dreamwidth.org/902193.html

I have started an additional pungmul instrument
https://worldofmusicality.com/jing-musical-instrument-facts/
It can be played seated, from a stand, or hand-held while standing/walking/dancing around. It weighs about 20 pounds. I can do that, right?
The group leader seems to assume that I've learned a bunch of the rhythm patterns. In truth, I only know the names of about two, although I can follow along with some of the others. But the jing isn't doing the same thing as the janggu, so on Saturday I was mostly faking it. The leader started stomping her foot on the beat that I was supposed to strike. I should be studying. Haven't.

In terms of "should be studying" I am still the slacker of the world about Korean studying. Catching little bits gives me joy. If I were to learn more, wouldn't that add to my ambient happiness level? Why can't I make myself do it?
But some degree of ignorance isn't my fault. Classroom instruction in the US, anyway, starts with the basic formal level, not dealing with the casual level. Years in, I still hardly know any of the casual forms, although lots of people in dramas speak that way to each other and I can recognize it. I also recognized in an interview video that BTS Jimin referred to Jungkook in a way that was polite and had a topic particle at the end. In class, we've been given what I hope are the very highest levels. I might be able to manage appropriateness when meeting someone's grandmother but would mess up grandchildren. And a reminder of what we haven't been taught has been made apparent in popular culture lately. Japanese (but they live in South Korea) group XG member Cocona has come out as trans-masc non-binary (I hope I have all those words in the right order).
Here is a British article
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/transmasculine-non-binary-identity-explained-xgs-cocona-comes-out-1760873
The group is planning to change part of its (longer) name to align with not being a "girl" group exclusively anymore. People posting to twitter in English are insisting that everyone needs to use they for Cocona. Other people are peevishly pointing out that pronouns aren't the same in all languages.
I only know a handful of words in Japanese and no grammar, but I've been messing with Korean for five years and I have no idea what the word for they is. Duolingo has very occasionally dropped in you/he/she but none of my books/classes ever has. I know two forms for I (formal and casual), one form for we/our, nope for any others. A presumably bad analogy is that it seems like Spanish, where the verb and context are good enough, making pronouns optional. My guess is that Korean pronoun forms are too complicated and they don't want to freak out the learners. Kinship words are extremely gendered, though. I wouldn't know what to do about non-binary relatives, word-wise.
Cocona is the one with the buzz cut in this video. I would guess this was filmed after the top surgery (?)

Watch on YouTube

I'm keeping up with my daily rowing goal.
I have done some but not all of the year-end charity donations.
For most of my card list, I sent out Halloween cards because I didn't want to wait any longer to inflict cute baby pictures on people, so I'm not busy addressing cards right now.

minoanmiss

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minoanmiss

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osprey_archer

Naturally I’ve decided that this is the year to rewatch some best-beloved Christmas movies, so I kicked off the season with The Man Who Invented Christmas, starring Dan Stevens as a charming but moody Charles Dickens as he scrambles to write A Christmas Carol in time for the Christmas rush in order to save his tottering finances.

This is such a fun movie. I always love a period piece, and I love Dan Stevens, and I love movies about creating art of any kind (if it’s well done, which it isn’t always…), and this one has such a good balance of seriousness and humor.

On the serious side, we have the demons of Dickens’ childhood coming back to haunt him, especially in his difficult relationship with his father, to whom he is far too similar for comfort. He inherited his father’s charm, his taste for the high life, his gift for performance - and he’s afraid he’ll follow his father’s example by running his family into debtor’s prison with his extravagant spending. A new house! All remodeled! A crystal chandelier and a mantelpiece of Carrera marble!

Unlike his perpetually sunny father, Dickens also has darker moods, where the charm gives way to abrupt outbursts of rage. He stalks around his study in the middle of the night making a racket when composition isn’t going well, apparently unaware that he’s keeping the whole house up. He snaps at his wife, sends away a long-time friend, fires a servant girl - then in the morning demands to know why the servant girl is gone. “You have no idea,” Mrs. Dickens tells him, on the verge of tears but displaying all the self-control Charles lacks, “how hard it is to live with you.”

(I’m happy to report the servant girl shows up again, and is of course rehired. I sort of suspect that the housekeeper keeps these impetuously fired servants in an out of the way corner for a day or two just in case Dickens didn’t really mean it.)

But this is not a grim study of a historical figure’s dark side. There are so many wonderful funny bits, too. In his good moods, Dickens is incredibly charming and funny - you can see why all these people put up with his darker side, just because the lighter side is such a delight.

I love Trollope as the guy in the club who always comes over to commiserate (gloat) when someone receives a bad review. Those cruel reviewers, claiming that Martin Chuzzlewit was “dull, vapid, and vulgar” (which Trollope quotes from memory). “I didn’t think it was vulgar,” Trollope assures Dickens, who is looking for an exit, but fortunately Trollope sees someone else who just got a bad review and scuttles off to crow. I mean sympathize.

And I loved how the Christmas Carol characters start appearing to Dickens. As he gets deeper into composition of the book, they start following him around. There’s an especially funny bit where Dickens looks out a window - he’s trying to avoid the book because he’s struggling with the ending - and the characters are all standing in the street below. Mrs. Fezziwig waves a handkerchief at him.

Also, I covet Dickens’ book-lined study, with a little half-staircase up to a mezzanine level with more books. Why is the study built like that? Who can say? Possibly on purpose to be charming, and charming it absolutely is.

minoanmiss

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Current Mood: worried

conuly

You'd think we'd get snow, but no. Tomorrow's forecast thus far calls for a "wintery mix". The only wintery mix I want is cocoa and marshmallows, not whatever the hell happens to fall from the sky like soggy doom confetti.

19F, jesus. At least it'll be warmer tomorrow. Warm enough to get a fucking wintery mix instead of snow, which is what we really want.

********************

( Read more... )

lokifan

I went to a bi speed-friending thing on Sunday (it was great) and one of the conversations I had there reminded me of this weird, hilarious moment of fandom-meets-normal-people I had a while ago.

So there were six of us sitting at a round table in a restaurant, having just done a fun activity for

sodsta’s birthday. Me,

sodsta,

januarium, Januarium’s husband A, and our friends L and F. Importantly, L is a uni friend of A’s, and F is her partner. We’re definitely all big nerds together but I’m not sure even L knew that Januarium, Sodsta and I all met through Harry Potter fandom.

We did, though. And we’re part of a group of 11 friends who all have a lightning bolt tattoo - mostly about two inches long, on the inside of our wrists. They were drawn for us originally by

lizardspots, because she wasn’t gonna get a tattoo herself but she was part of the group. None of us, I think - including the 4 or so of the group who are trans - regret the tattoos, because they’re a symbol of friendship rather than Potter in itself.

Sooooo like two years ago, we’re sitting around having dinner and F starts excitedly talking about how she’s reading HP for the first time, and really enjoying them. She’s very offline and you can tell from how she’s talking that she has no idea about JKR’s fall off the deep end - and her girlfriend L, who 100% knows, is trans. So she’s happily talking, and L is looking at us in desperation, clearly hoping we’re not about to burst F’s bubble with any information about JKR’s transphobic activism. And I think we all silently decide that if L doesn’t wanna have that conversation, we won’t inflict it. But we’re all kinda like ‘hmm, interesting’ lol, not really engaging about HP, more drawing the conversation towards like reading in general. You’d have no idea any of us had even read those books.

And then F goes something like ‘and the red dragon, the - I can’t remember, the - ’

Januarium: the Norwegian Ridgeback?

F: ???

Sodsta: the Chinese Fireball, wasn’t it?

Me, joining in for the fun of it: or the Welsh Green?

F: …wait…

Januarium, sodsta and I: :look at each other, then slowly slide our wrists onto the table and pull back our sleeves to reveal our tattoos as one:

So we basically did a big reveal that we’d secretly been in a cult the whole time, lmao.

conuly

So much awful stuff happens to the protagonists in the last third of the show that I often don't make it all the way through. It's worth it, though - my favorite character suddenly gets enough growth to become my favorite character, and the villain dies in a very satisfying way, allowing me to say ( Read more... )

******************************

( Read more... )

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Myth Happens

Sovay's Friends

(no subject)

Dept. of Officially Weird Days

Vital question re: Tablet XII is Canon patch

Got Proof Copy of My Novel!

Bibliographies for fiction

Write every day: Day 9

reading about writing, thinking about art

Hamnet, or Catharsis

It's beginning to feel a lot like ...

Update on my life

If you're required to deploy AI

If You're Into It....

lack of stick-to-itiveness

Of course today's most important post:

I hosted a discussion on this a few months back

The Man Who Invented Christmas

Well this is horrifying

Brr, it's cold out.

Revealing our dark pasts

Finished a relisten to Wolf 359

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December 2025

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