Did You Make a Thing?
Dec. 24th, 2025 04:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancing_serpent posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
c_entSo, the month is almost over. How did it go with your fannish creativity? Did you manage to make a thing?
Did you create fanart or made vids? Wrote fic or meta? How about picspams, link collections, character mood boards, themed playlists, promo posts?
Here's the place to share it with us! Leave a link in the comments, or elaborate on it as much as you want.
Did you create fanart or made vids? Wrote fic or meta? How about picspams, link collections, character mood boards, themed playlists, promo posts?
Here's the place to share it with us! Leave a link in the comments, or elaborate on it as much as you want.
Two Purrcies; The Buffalo Hunter Hunter
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:56 ammecurtinPurrcy had stretched up to look out the window & chitter his teeth at a bird that had been teasing him, *personally*, by flitting around the porch looking for spider eggs & frozen insects. But then! It flew to another window!
Purrcy has a very pink NOSE and set of TOEBEANS. For your edification and comfort.
I avoided reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones for a long time because I don't really read or watch horror, it's usually too scary for me.* As we got into the yearly-roundup, what-did-I-miss, pre-Hugo nominations part of my reading cycle, it was showing up on too many lists for me to ignore it any longer, so I buckled up and took the plunge.
All the lists are right. It IS that good, great even. It's structured as a mostly-epistolary story, with an outer 1st-person narration by Etsy Beaucarne, a present-day white woman Communications Prof who's transcribing letters and diary entries written by her ancestor Arthur Beaucarne in 1912. Many of the diary entries transcribe a set of interviews with a Piegan Blackfoot Indian vampire, Good Stab. (Yes, I saw what Jones did there, with interviewing a vampire. I'm sure he meant to do it.) Some of the horror is vampire-related horror, but a fair bit is historical horror, especially related to the Marias Massacre.
For me, a wimp about horror, the epistolary form & the interview within it gave me enough insulation that I could read without being overwhelmed. (The lack of insulation is why visual horror is pretty much always a no-go for me, it gets too far into my brain & won't get out.) I think Jones used this structure to ease the (presumptive) white reader, though tougher than me, into the Indian POV. First we have the present-day white POV, then a blatantly racist, foolish past white POV we can easily treat as an unreliable narrator**, which makes the reader work to figure out what really happened with Good Stab, as we get his story filtered through Arthur. And because we the readers have to do so much work to piece the story together, it acts as an enthymeme: a story or argument that's more persuasive because the audience has connected some of the dots themselves.
I started to write more, but deleted it because so much of the pleasure of a book like this comes from connecting the dots yourself, from following the author's clues to get a picture of their world- (& monster-) building.
I haven't seen "Sinners" (Too Scary For Me), but the parallels are interesting. Was there something in the air? Is there something about vampires, that makes them the ideal metaphor?
*e.g. reviews of Jones' previous book, The Only Good Indians, make me pretty sure it's Too Scary For Timid Me.
** this is a *really hard sell*, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I consider Lolita to be fundamentally a failure as a work of literary communication, because Nabokov didn't realize how many readers would never stop identifying with Humbert.
Purrcy has a very pink NOSE and set of TOEBEANS. For your edification and comfort.
I avoided reading The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones for a long time because I don't really read or watch horror, it's usually too scary for me.* As we got into the yearly-roundup, what-did-I-miss, pre-Hugo nominations part of my reading cycle, it was showing up on too many lists for me to ignore it any longer, so I buckled up and took the plunge.
All the lists are right. It IS that good, great even. It's structured as a mostly-epistolary story, with an outer 1st-person narration by Etsy Beaucarne, a present-day white woman Communications Prof who's transcribing letters and diary entries written by her ancestor Arthur Beaucarne in 1912. Many of the diary entries transcribe a set of interviews with a Piegan Blackfoot Indian vampire, Good Stab. (Yes, I saw what Jones did there, with interviewing a vampire. I'm sure he meant to do it.) Some of the horror is vampire-related horror, but a fair bit is historical horror, especially related to the Marias Massacre.
For me, a wimp about horror, the epistolary form & the interview within it gave me enough insulation that I could read without being overwhelmed. (The lack of insulation is why visual horror is pretty much always a no-go for me, it gets too far into my brain & won't get out.) I think Jones used this structure to ease the (presumptive) white reader, though tougher than me, into the Indian POV. First we have the present-day white POV, then a blatantly racist, foolish past white POV we can easily treat as an unreliable narrator**, which makes the reader work to figure out what really happened with Good Stab, as we get his story filtered through Arthur. And because we the readers have to do so much work to piece the story together, it acts as an enthymeme: a story or argument that's more persuasive because the audience has connected some of the dots themselves.
I started to write more, but deleted it because so much of the pleasure of a book like this comes from connecting the dots yourself, from following the author's clues to get a picture of their world- (& monster-) building.
I haven't seen "Sinners" (Too Scary For Me), but the parallels are interesting. Was there something in the air? Is there something about vampires, that makes them the ideal metaphor?
*e.g. reviews of Jones' previous book, The Only Good Indians, make me pretty sure it's Too Scary For Timid Me.
** this is a *really hard sell*, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I consider Lolita to be fundamentally a failure as a work of literary communication, because Nabokov didn't realize how many readers would never stop identifying with Humbert.
This is not concerning at all
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:53 amjames_davis_nicollSFWA is running a LLM poll for which there seems to little point if they were not planning on legitimizing the use of LLMs.
Who on the board is responsible, I wonder?
Who on the board is responsible, I wonder?
the end of disadventure
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:13 ampsocopteraAs generally happens the disadvent season petered out or was overtaken by the holiday season, the arrival of my parents, etc. I did finally get J to try on some old clothes of mine, many of which she thought she would keep, which doesn't get them out of my house but did get them out of my closet. Maybe we'll even manage another batch for disepiphany!
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:58 amjames_davis_nicoll
What would you do if you could meet a dead loved one one last time? Ayumi Shibuya can make that happen.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura
covid revisionism
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:48 pmmindstalkSo today I've learned of some books of "covid revisionism", attacking the 'lockdowns' and other restrictions of 2020, saying they did more harm than good. Especially In Covid's Wake, by two political scientists who avoided talking to subject matter experts like epidemiologists. I've also read 3 good responses to the movement; I'll leave you to decide whether the book authors are merely incompetent or actively dishonest.
This Atlantic article is the best; read that if you read just one.
( Read more... )
seasonality
Dec. 24th, 2025 03:06 pmlea_hazel8 more hours before Yuletide reveals, but since it comes out late at night, for me it's "one more sleep til Yuletide". I'm gonna have to make it an extra sleepy one, because last night I was up until 3 AM for no clear reason. Which means that I barely scratched out 6 hours of sleep. After a morning errand that was kind of draining, that means that even with an extra dose of caffeine in me, I doubt I'll be doing any writing today.
It's okay. Yesterday was a good writing day (finally working on chapter 2 of Project Ghoul, after extensive edits on chapter 1). I'm also quite pleased with my Yuletide fic, which I will link to in January, after reveals. I'd hoped to maybe write treats or at least drabbles, but realized eventually that it wasn't in the cards for this years.
Of course, as soon as Yuletide is done and dusted, it's time to switch seamlessly into Purimgifts mode. But I'm pretty busy with unrelated stuff, so I probably won't get into nomming or finalizing my sign-up for a bit. Even though I have approximately a billion new fandoms, due to reading quite prolifically this year (compared to previous years).
All in all, other than the sleep deprivation, I'm doing quite well on a personal level.
It's okay. Yesterday was a good writing day (finally working on chapter 2 of Project Ghoul, after extensive edits on chapter 1). I'm also quite pleased with my Yuletide fic, which I will link to in January, after reveals. I'd hoped to maybe write treats or at least drabbles, but realized eventually that it wasn't in the cards for this years.
Of course, as soon as Yuletide is done and dusted, it's time to switch seamlessly into Purimgifts mode. But I'm pretty busy with unrelated stuff, so I probably won't get into nomming or finalizing my sign-up for a bit. Even though I have approximately a billion new fandoms, due to reading quite prolifically this year (compared to previous years).
All in all, other than the sleep deprivation, I'm doing quite well on a personal level.
Christmas Eve in Fujisawa, books, covid article
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:43 pmmindstalkThanks to the pandemic, this isn't my first Christmas alone. Or even the first in another country. First in a country that doesn't care much about it, though. Japan does care a bit, so I thought I'd at least take a peek, after two days in for leg recovery and rain-avoidance.
( Read more... )
In non-Japanese news, I've been reading the Books of the Raksura. I think the Murderbot books are more entertaining, also better edited -- bunch of low level grammar errors in these. Still, they've become entertaining. I read "The Falling World" by mistake; going back to the actual first book was much more intelligible.
Watanare 7 is in the queue; I look forward to it with a mix of anticipation and "what drawn-out shenanigans now?" dread.
Watatabe anime continues to be good.
I read the Bovadium Fragments, a recently published Tolkien thing, basically a short satire about cars in Oxford, and political fight over a bypass road. Was interesting both for his writing and the historical context of cars taking over an newly-industrialized Oxford.
And, this should really have its own post, but a review article on whether it's fair to call SARS-Cov-2 "airborne AIDS". Short answer: strictly speaking no, they're pretty different. But there's a lot of evidence of SARS2 messing up your immune system in its own ways, with rising rates of other disease infections and maybe cancers, so in a "should I really try to avoid getting this?" sense, then yes.
Fandom primer: K-9: Public Security Bureau – Division 9 – Special Abilities Countermeasure
Dec. 24th, 2025 11:27 amvriddyIt's hard for me to figure out how to even start this post, because I was just presented with this picture:
...and I didn't really ask any more questions before reading the manga. Bonus impact for stumbling on it in Japanese because the "kept pet" implied in the verb is delicious, and obviously plays with the K-9/"police dog" title.
Anyway, meet Oboro on the left - he's great - and Ren on the right - she's great. The art is beautiful, and everyone is very pretty.
This seems pretty simplistic at first glance, but that slowly changes as we drill deeper into the worldbuilding and learn the nuances of these abilities and how they manifest. The implications are deeply fucked up, with often devastating consequences that I'm totally here for as my heart gets shattered again and again.
TOGETHER THEY FIGHT CRIME! More specifically, crime related to sin users. But they also get their asses kicked and handed over to them quite a bit, haha.
( A bit more on the story and on them )
I'm going to cross-post this in a couple of places soon, in the meantime I'm all ears for feedback/typos/suggestions!! I already failed at making this short though orz
...and I didn't really ask any more questions before reading the manga. Bonus impact for stumbling on it in Japanese because the "kept pet" implied in the verb is delicious, and obviously plays with the K-9/"police dog" title.
Anyway, meet Oboro on the left - he's great - and Ren on the right - she's great. The art is beautiful, and everyone is very pretty.
About the world
Some people have special abilities, most of which are not well understood. Only one thing is known for sure: these abilities manifest after someone commits a crime. For example, the criminal from the first chapter is an arsonist and can control/become fire. (Somewhat unrelated, but this is pretty fun coming in from the BNHA world because it's like a universe in which only bad guys get a quirk.) Here, these abilities are called "sins," haha. In the Japanese, it's simply the kanji for crime with "sin" written in katakana beside it.This seems pretty simplistic at first glance, but that slowly changes as we drill deeper into the worldbuilding and learn the nuances of these abilities and how they manifest. The implications are deeply fucked up, with often devastating consequences that I'm totally here for as my heart gets shattered again and again.
The story premise
Our plucky detective Ren is selected to join Division 9, a newly created division that pairs a detective with a sin user in order to fight fire with fire -- what could possibly go wrong?! I love her. She kicks so much ass.
So, who's our main cast?
( Short character profiles )
TOGETHER THEY FIGHT CRIME! More specifically, crime related to sin users. But they also get their asses kicked and handed over to them quite a bit, haha.
( A bit more on the story and on them )
Where to read? How many chapters are out?
( 37 chapters, 3 volumes. You, too, could catch up in a reasonable amount of time! 🫵 )Bonus scythe, for fellow appreciators of the Rule of Cool
I'm going to cross-post this in a couple of places soon, in the meantime I'm all ears for feedback/typos/suggestions!! I already failed at making this short though orz
Book Chain, weeks 41 & 42
Dec. 24th, 2025 06:32 pmpedanther#40: Read a book with the same coloured cover as the previous book.
First attempt: The Pearl Harbor Murders by Max Allan Collins. One of a set of murder mysteries with the hook [famous author] solves murder mystery during [historical event with large body count]; most of the others feature mystery writers, but this one stars Edgar Rice Burroughs, presumably on the basis that he was, obligingly, actually there at the time. The more I got into it, the less keen I was on the premise, and I didn't find the narrative style or any of the characters particularly engaging. Also, it turned out to be an uncover-the-fifth-columnists plot, and I've had enough of those lately already.
Second attempt: Long Way Home by Eva Dolan. Another murder mystery -- not the kind where the murderer is caught and normal order is restored, but the kind where the murder is a symptom of a broken world and ends up not being the worst thing uncovered by the investigation. Grim, but at least I didn't get the feeling the author was taking the situation too lightly.
Not the kind of thing I'd normally read for fun, but it was on display at the library and the cover fit the prompt so I decided to give it a go. I don't regret spending the time on it, but I'm not tempted by the sequels. (There are apparently five sequels and counting, which surprised me a bit, as the detective protagonists didn't feel to me like the type to headline a series. Knowing that this was book one of The DI Zigic and DS Ferreira Series did give me a bit of amusement when I got to the part where DI Zigic gets shot in the line of duty and the author spends a couple of chapters trying to pretend he might actually be dead.)
That concludes the Book Chain reading challenge. I'm looking forward to seeing if there's going to be another one next year.
First attempt: The Pearl Harbor Murders by Max Allan Collins. One of a set of murder mysteries with the hook [famous author] solves murder mystery during [historical event with large body count]; most of the others feature mystery writers, but this one stars Edgar Rice Burroughs, presumably on the basis that he was, obligingly, actually there at the time. The more I got into it, the less keen I was on the premise, and I didn't find the narrative style or any of the characters particularly engaging. Also, it turned out to be an uncover-the-fifth-columnists plot, and I've had enough of those lately already.
Second attempt: Long Way Home by Eva Dolan. Another murder mystery -- not the kind where the murderer is caught and normal order is restored, but the kind where the murder is a symptom of a broken world and ends up not being the worst thing uncovered by the investigation. Grim, but at least I didn't get the feeling the author was taking the situation too lightly.
Not the kind of thing I'd normally read for fun, but it was on display at the library and the cover fit the prompt so I decided to give it a go. I don't regret spending the time on it, but I'm not tempted by the sequels. (There are apparently five sequels and counting, which surprised me a bit, as the detective protagonists didn't feel to me like the type to headline a series. Knowing that this was book one of The DI Zigic and DS Ferreira Series did give me a bit of amusement when I got to the part where DI Zigic gets shot in the line of duty and the author spends a couple of chapters trying to pretend he might actually be dead.)
That concludes the Book Chain reading challenge. I'm looking forward to seeing if there's going to be another one next year.
Ice hockey history
Dec. 24th, 2025 10:00 amrmc28Turns out one of my uni hockey friends has a long-standing history channel on YouTube, and of course he made a video about ice hockey history. I think I'd have liked it even if I didn't know the creator, enjoy:
A Merry Christmas
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:49 amthe_comfortable_courtesanA reminder from your humble amanuensis that a little seasonal treat, The Cathcart Apocrypha Volume 6, Times Changing Belowstairs, or, Circumstances Alter, is now downloadable from the website.
Merry wassails, and be careful when playing snapdragon!
Merry wassails, and be careful when playing snapdragon!
New K-9 fic: Oversight (Ren/Oboro/Fujimaru/Kagari)
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:45 amvriddyI think I'm starting to get it out of my system. Maybe. Not at all eyeing the manga volumes for a reread. This will be fine. I'm fine. We're cool.
Oversight | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 1.4k words | rated T
Summary: Ren has never questioned where Oboro lives, until now.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.
Oversight | K-9 | Fujimaru Jin/Hizuki Ren/Kagari Yukito/Oboro Yuushirou | 1.4k words | rated T
Summary: Ren has never questioned where Oboro lives, until now.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.