Question thread #145

Oct. 23rd, 2025 12:36 am
pauamma: Cartooney crab wearing hot pink and acid green facemask holding drink with straw (Default)
[personal profile] pauamma posting in [site community profile] dw_dev
It's time for another question thread!

The rules:

- You may ask any dev-related question you have in a comment. (It doesn't even need to be about Dreamwidth, although if it involves a language/library/framework/database Dreamwidth doesn't use, you will probably get answers pointing that out and suggesting a better place to ask.)
- You may also answer any question, using the guidelines given in To Answer, Or Not To Answer and in this comment thread.

Stranded, by Melissa Braun

Oct. 22nd, 2025 11:38 am
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


From the blurb:

One fellow camper will do whatever it takes to make it out of the Boundary Waters alive. Even if he's the only one.

A psychological thriller mixed with intense action.


Nah, just kidding! It's not a psychological thriller, it's a survival story. One of the teenage campers is a racist, a sexual harasser, and an attempted rapist, but he never tries to kill any of the others or abandons them to die or anything like that.

Yep! It's another disappointing survival book with a misleading blurb and gratuitous grossness towards teenage girls!

Teenage Emma is traumatized after failing to save her younger sister from drowning, so she gets her parents to book her into a teen wilderness survival course to take her mind off things. In a portentous scene, her father gives her a Swiss army knife. She's confused and concerned that he's giving her a weapon to take on a camping trip - does he expect her to be attacked? I was confused why she would think of a Swiss army knife as a weapon rather than a tool. If you don't even know what a Swiss army knife is, then you can't tell that it's a knife at all when it's folded. If you recognize it when folded, then you know that it is a multitool.

The early part of the book jumps around confusingly in time, to the point where I flipped back pages repeatedly to see if I'd missed something. No, it was just the author's pointless decision to start with them pitching their tents after the first day's walk, then jump back to them packing their supplies.

We get very little characterization, but that's okay: three of the seven are about to die! Two days in, a strange storm hits their camp. It's described in such a portentous way that I thought it was supernatural or man-made, but nothing ever comes of this so I guess not. Two of the campers and the guide are squashed by falling trees, then a wildfire starts. Instead of jumping in the lake, they run for their lives and get very lost.

At this point, we get some characterization. Chloe is the girl who isn't Emma. Her race is coyly not mentioned until Isaac, the creepy boy, gets racist at her about being black. Oscar is the boy who isn't creepy, so Emma naturally falls in love with him. Isaac constantly sexually harasses Emma, once tries to rape her, and is sadistic to animals. This goes on for the entire book.

Late in the book, Oscar and Isaac both fall over a cliff. Isaac dangles from a rock stub by one hand, and holds Oscar, who is suspended in mid-air, by one backpack strap. Emma and Chloe make a rope of clothing, with a key part being her bra. Isaac somehow grabs the clothes rope without falling. He's clinging to a rock stub with one hand and a backpack strap supporting another person. How does he get one hand free to grab the bra rope without falling? This is not described as it's not thought through. He grabs the rope - again, anchored by A BRA tied to a tree - and, it's not clearly described, but it seems like Emma single-handed pulls him and Oscar up. Is the bra made of bungee cord?

Emma ponders that Isaac was very brave and unselfish. People are complicated, she realizes. This is as close as the book comes to any resolution on Isaac sexually harassing and threatening her for the entire book, oh and also TRYING TO RAPE HER.

This book sucked.

Wednesday is World Wombat(t) Day*

Oct. 22nd, 2025 07:13 pm
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

I managed to plough through The Wheel of Fortune and do not think I will be plunging into a major Susan Howatch re-read binge. O all those angsty men. As for man handing on misery to man, Larkinesque-like, it deepens like the Mariana trench. Plus, the Katherine Swynford-analogue character gets no interiority, and besides being pretty much normal and sensible (unlike pretty much everybody else, no, Anna seems fairly stable) is full of deep mystical working-class Welsh wisdom. Good for her levanting to Canada (can one levant in that direction?). The last section in particular had me muttering about codfish.

O what a thoroughly delightful change to move on to Eve Babitz, Slow Days, Fast Company: The World, the Flesh, and L.A. (1977) - you do not need heaving melodrama or even actual plot to be compellingly readable, just saying.

On to Anthony Powell, Books Do Furnish a Room (A Dance to the Music of Time, #10) (1971) in anticipation of group discussion at beginning of November. Getting faint frissons of that narrative pattern of that period which was eschewing ominiscient voice but having a first-person narrator who just happens to be in a position to see or hear Events and can reflect upon them.

Latest Literary Review.

Also finished the book for review but have not yet got round to getting any thoughts on it written, this week having been a bit of a week, so far.

On the go

Maggie Helwig, Encampment: Resistance, Grace, and an Unhoused Community (2025).

Also happened to notice Jonathan Rose, Readers' Liberation: The Literary Agenda (2018) when I was looking for something else - I think this must have been something in return for reading something for a publisher? - I don't think I actually bought it - but looked interesting in the light of recent musings about reading.

Up next

Having discovered that I do, in fact, have a copy of The Making of a Muckraker, maybe a spot of dipping into that?

***

*Wombat Awareness Organisation: World Wombat Day!

rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
https://bsky.app/profile/luketurner.bsky.social/post/3m35pa3ywek2h



[Image description: Bluesky post by Luke Turner reading "here is a pleasingly anti-fascist animal painted on the Hurricane of gay RAF pilot Ian Gleed", above a picture of Gleed in the cockpit of his plane pointing to the image on its side of a cartoon cat swatting at and destroying a swastika.]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Gleed (he may have been the fastest RAF pilot to ever make ace, in two days; he was only 26 when he was killed)

Further research by [personal profile] robynbender established that he actually had said antifascist cat painted on all his planes:

http://www.hatfield-herts.co.uk/aviation/gleed.html

(no subject)

Oct. 22nd, 2025 09:45 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] catdracoand [personal profile] gryphynshadow!

Yuletide letter

Oct. 22nd, 2025 03:18 pm
thawrecka: (Underworld)
[personal profile] thawrecka
Hello!

I'm [archiveofourown.org profile] thawrecka, and I'm excited to read whatever you write. If you want to see more about what I like about these canons, or if you want to find more of what I like in fiction feel free to browse here or my tumblr.

If you're the person assigned to me, hi! :D If you're someone else, I also welcome treats.

Requests

Expandフェルマーの料理 | Fermat no Ryouri (TV) )

Expand琉璃 | Love and Redemption (TV) )

ExpandPet Shop of Horrors (Manga) )

ExpandLexx )

ExpandUnderworld (Movies) )

ExpandGhost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex (Anime) )




ExpandGeneral likes )




ExpandGeneral dislikes )

Fradrian Week 2025

Oct. 21st, 2025 05:09 pm
fradrianweek: (Default)
[personal profile] fradrianweek posting in [community profile] fandomcalendar

Fradrian Week 2025

tumblr | bsky | AO3

Fradrian Week is a fan-led event celebrating the femslash ship of Franziska von Karma x Adrian Andrews from Ace Attorney! This prompt event runs from December 8 - December 14, 2025. We're so excited to see what everyone will create 🩵💛

Prompts and How to Submit

Main Prompts (SFW)

Day 1: Work / Relaxation

Day 2: Wounds / Healing

Day 3: First Dates / Mishaps

Day 4: Facade / Showbusiness

Day 5: Trust / Reliance

Day 6: Future / Celebrations

Day 7: AU / Free Day 

NSFW Prompts (18+)

Day 1: Lingerie / Clothing Kink

Day 2: Whip / Glasses

Dat 3: First Time / New Discoveries

Day 4: Roleplay / Fantasy 

Day 5: Submission / Bondage

Day 6: Semi-Public Sex / Long Distance Sex

Day 7: AU / Free Day

To submit your work, post to the #fradrianweek2025 (for SFW creations) or #fradrianweek2025nsfw (for NSFW creations) on tumblr or bsky and/or submit to our AO3 Collection. We will be sharing creations throughout the week! 

Late submissions will be accepted up to 1 week after the event. 

General Guidelines

  • You can submit fanfiction, drabbles, podfic, poetry, sketches, a mixtape—whatever medium you feel passionate about! There is no minimum word count.

  • This event is meant to be for fun—don't feel like you have to create something perfectly polished in order to participate (although if you want to, you can!) 

  • We encourage you to cheerlead others' work by commenting and sharing. A kind comment or tag can go a long way! 

  • The main (SFW) prompts are open to all ages, but you must be 18+ to create NSFW works. 

  • SFW works can be up to T-rated. They can contain swearing, light substance use (alcohol, smoking), mild suggestive language, "fade-to-black" or implied sex, but can't contain explicit sex or graphic violence. 

  • NSFW works can be M- or E-rated, and must be properly tagged with kinks and relevant content warnings. Please take care to warn for topics like suicidal ideation and suicide, especially if you are exploring them more graphically than they are shown in the text of the game.

  • We do not allow the use of generative AI for this event. 

FAQs

  • Can I combine days or prompts? Yes, you can do that if you wish. You can also combine SFW and NSFW prompts. 

  • Can I include other pairings? Yes, OT3s and polycules are fine, as long as there is a focus on the Fran/Adrian dynamic. 

  • Can I interpret the prompts broadly/loosely? The prompts are meant as inspiration, and you're welcome to interpret them how you want to! We've tried to make them open ended to give creators the option to make them their own. 

  • Can I combine the Fradrian Week prompts with prompts from other fan events (like AA bingo)? As long as it's okay with the organizers of the other event(s), we're fine with that! 

Have fun, and happy creating! 

Amorous toads

Oct. 21st, 2025 03:42 pm
oursin: Photograph of Stella Gibbons, overwritten IM IN UR WOODSHED SEEING SOMETHIN NASTY (woodshed)
[personal profile] oursin

This was in one of my inboxes this am (ironically, Mme C-C-'s):

Nice to connect beyond work
Hi,
We’ve crossed paths around the office a few times, and I’ve been meaning to say hello. I recently joined a dating site and thought it might be easier to connect there outside of work.
If you’re open to it, here’s my profile: [redacted link]
You’ll need to sign up to view it.
No pressure at all—just an invitation to chat in a space that isn’t tied to corporate email.
Either way, wishing you a great week.
Best,
A colleague

How creepy is that? (sending it in to phishing reporting).

(Or maybe run it past Ask A Manager???)

***

Actually, it is a bit of an insult to bufo bufo to characterise anyone doing this sort of thing as a toad, no? Especially when the poor things are currently suffering a good deal in their quest for LUHRRVVV: can Britain’s toads be saved from traffic and terrible decline?

(No, they are not zipping around doing dangerous driving in fast cars, parp-parp, like Mr Toad.)

They are trying to get to suitable mating areas:

toads like large ponds. Their ability to stay out of water for longer than frogs, means they can travel further to reach them – sometimes hundreds of metres, Petrovan says. They tend to stick to their ancestral migration routes – it’s common for adult toads to return to their birth pond to mate.

This is why the toad crossed the road.

I think I have heretofore mentioned the people who help toads to do this thing: in fact it's a bit of a recurrent theme.... (going way back).

(no subject)

Oct. 21st, 2025 08:57 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] adore!

Coincidence?

Oct. 20th, 2025 07:48 pm
oursin: Grumpy looking hedgehog (Grumpy hedgehog)
[personal profile] oursin

Another flare-up of lower-back issues. This will be the third time this has happened with Academic Thing impending.... (podcast particiption scheduled for tomorrow). Can do without this, really. in particular the associated insomnia.

***

Further cause of miff: thought from listing in back of an NYRB paperback that there was a Jessica Mitford volume I did not have - further delving reveals it is merely The Making of a Muckraker under a different title with a new introduction and one chapter that is not in my 1979 Quartet p/b. Huh.

***

Honestly, I look at the headshot at the top of this piece and go, 'man, he is such a square he is cubed': after 70 years of hip-shaking thrills, is rock’n’roll dead?

Come on (thanks Chuck): styles of music have their day and time moves on.

Will concede that have recently been reviewing books leaning heavily on popular music culture of the 50s-70s and its impact, but you know, that was a particular time and context, and anyone doing rock now is pretty much a tribute band or very very retro, surely?

It was clear from the works I was reviewing that The Scene was constantly shifting and moving on and developing niche scenes differentiating themselves from The Mainstream and so on and so forth.

And it is one thing to be nostalgic, and to be interested in a bygone epoch of popular music culture, and another to believe that it has to keep on being a living scene.

AWS outage

Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 am
alierak: (Default)
[personal profile] alierak posting in [site community profile] dw_maintenance
DW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.

Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.

Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
Except very occasionally if I can locate a spot that currently has reception.

So while that's going on, replies to anything may be delayed, but I'm reading when I can and distractions are still very much appreciated.

ETA: may now be fixed, I am deep in spoon debt and would like to be allowed to falldowngoboomnow.

Culinary

Oct. 19th, 2025 07:19 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

This week's bread (because last week's suddenly got The Mould): a loaf of Bacheldre Rustic Country Bread Flour, v nice if turned out a bit crumbly.

Friday night supper: sorta-nasi goreng with saucisson sec and red bell pepper.

Saturday breakfast rolls: Tassajarra method, einkorn flour, maple syrup, dried ('apple-juice infused') blueberries: turned out particularly well.

Today's lunch: pork belly slices slow-braised in soy sauce, rice wine, maple syrup and 5-spice powder; served with slowcooked tenderstem broccoli (lime rather than lemon at the end), fine green beans and chopped red bell pepper roasted in walnut oil with fennel seeds and drizzled with elderflower vinegar, and cornbread (plain white flour + baking powder, half and half with mixture of fine/coarse cornmeal)..

Just wanted to say

Oct. 19th, 2025 09:07 am
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
I very very much appreciate everyone who has been leaving me questions and comments here, and if anyone would like to add more they would still be extremely welcome.

Homework Woes

Oct. 18th, 2025 12:24 pm
soc_puppet: Butt-end view of an agouti rat laying on its back, holding the stem of a pink flower to signify that it has shuffled off this mortal coil (drama hound) (Drama llama)
[personal profile] soc_puppet
Blaaaaargh, I really, really do not like these "Current Event Journal" assignments for my Social Problems class!

ExpandAssignment instructions under a cut )

I just. That's a badly written assignment, right? We haven't actually gone over how to critique the articles in class, like how to find things to critique, and it sounds like opinion articles would be best suited for this? But the assignment doesn't specify opinion articles, it just says that it has to be about a sociological problem.

I went with the radioactive shrimp for my first Current Event Journal project, and I'm going with the Trump administration's layoff of a lot of the special education workers in the Department of Education for this one, but like. How to critique that. Do I need to be looking for less accurate reporting? How do I communicate how I found out that the information was inaccurate? We haven't even gotten the first one back, so I can't refer to any feedback for more information!

Anyway, it's a headache.
oursin: Cod with aghast expression (kepler codfish)
[personal profile] oursin

When I glanced through Mr J Jones' review here of Sami artist Máret Ánne Sara’s Turbine Hall installation (spoiler alert: he did not like it), my thought was, there is no point in asking Mr Jones for an opinion on anything which does not feature nekkid laydeez, because I can remember him being snotty about a Barbara Hepworth exhibition. (And we are not that keen on his opinion on the nl's, either.)

Anyway, two correspondents take to the letters column to have a go at him:

completely misses the point. The land the Sámi live in is “quite big”, just as the Turbine Hall is in Jones’s words, but the Sámi do not take over the entirety of their landscape. They live within it. The “fort” is not a place to “hide”. That is a city-boy reading rather than a deeper understanding of the ancient methods that Sámi families use for herding reindeer in the vastness of their lands, combined with the political realities that surround them. Jones is too close to playgrounds and not close enough to the realities of the Sámi and northern political history.
***
I was appalled by Jonathan Jones’s review.... There is something incredibly unique and, in the end, pristine about existence in these Nordic villages. Maybe it is the ultimate quiet that falls upon the forests at times. Everyday life is not silent, but the forest silence after a day’s work is peace. Is art not art unless it includes some gore, an exhibit of violence? The artist has captured the ordered existence necessary for survival in harsh conditions and the peace that comes from living with nature rather than against it.

(no subject)

Oct. 18th, 2025 12:32 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] tavian!
rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3m3eovdxmwk2z

Okay! This is going to take a while so I had to finish some stuff first, but: Why Da Pope Fucking Up Opus Dei Is A Huge Fucking Deal: a thread

I believe the proposed reforms are currently leaked/not confirmed yet, but this is fascinating.

(ETA: the previous round of Pope-exegesis.)

Symbiotic Friends

Oct. 17th, 2025 04:44 pm
yourlibrarian: Butterfly on yellow flowers (NAT-Butterfly IconGreen)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] common_nature


Found various examples in the sunflower fields of communal residents.

ExpandRead more... )

Sport for fun and sport for - not

Oct. 17th, 2025 04:13 pm
oursin: Picture of Fotherington-Tomas skipping, with words subversive male added (Subversive male)
[personal profile] oursin

Though even conkers people take seriously apparently: 'King Conker’ cleared of cheating at World Conker Championships (Is nothing sacred?)

However, this sounds like it brings a certain anarchic spirit to the business: ‘Cheating is encouraged’: nut crackers at Peckham’s Conker Championships go for the fun

But apparently the TikTok generation post videos of gently unpeeling them???

The conkers danger is actually a Top Elf'n'Saftee Myff: 10 ridiculous Health and Safety myths debunked.

Am not sure why conkers should be having a moment just now, because they were dropping off the local trees several weeks ago, and are surely now past.

But at least the people playing conkers seem to be having fun: apparently - and counter to all those exhortations to do this thing for the good of your mental health - doing marathons has a downside: One in four endurance runners displays ‘worryingly high’ levels of anxiety and depression.

One wonders how far it's the obsessive dedication as much as any physiological factor that has an adverse effect.

rydra_wong: Lee Miller photo showing two women wearing metal fire masks in England during WWII. (Default)
[personal profile] rydra_wong
that would be greatly appreciated.

Currently trying to support a friend in a Very Bad Situation and it's desperately anxiety-inducing and my brain is trying to eat itself, which also makes me less useful as support, which is bad.

So if anyone would like to ask or discuss anything about Prophet or Dark Souls or IWTV or climbing or, you know, any of the somewhat cheering topics I sometimes ramble about, PLEASE DO. "More of a comment than a question" questions also very welcome.

I cannot guarantee replies in a timely or consistent manner (because of the Situation and also the bad state of my brain) but it would be deeply appreciated nonetheless.

(no subject)

Oct. 17th, 2025 09:40 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] susanstinson!

King of Ashes, by S. A. Cosby: DNF

Oct. 16th, 2025 11:59 am
rachelmanija: (Books: old)
[personal profile] rachelmanija


Roman left the family business, a crematory, and its town to become an accountant to the rich and famous. His sister now runs the crematory with their father, while their younger brother Dante stays on the rolls but his actual profession is being a drug addict and ne'er do well. When the kids were teenagers, their mother vanished. Their father is widely suspected of having murdered his wife and cremated his body, but no proof was ever found. When the book opens, Roman hears that his father is in the hospital, victim of a suspicious accident. He heads home to visit his father and help out his sister. Naturally, he immediately gets embroiled in trouble.

I've loved or liked all of Cosby's previous books and was very excited for this one - especially given the crematory setting. (Cosby himself ran a funeral home with his wife.) Unfortunately, I did not like or feel connected to any of the characters in this one, and so I didn't care what happened to them. Cosby's characters are typically criminals who do bad things, but in his other books, I understand the reasons they are who they are and like them even if I wouldn't want to meet them in real life. But in this one, fairly early on, Roman - who I already didn't feel connected to - commits an act of horrifying cruelty that seems completely unmotivated.

ExpandRead more... )

It's possible that this is explained later, and my guess is that the explanation is "Roman is actually a sadistic sociopath," but I lost all interest in him at that point, and DNF'd the book as I no longer wanted to read about him, none of the other characters interested me either, and the sadistic sociopath explanation doesn't help. I heard an interview with Cosby where he talks about wanting to write a classic tragedy with a very bad protagonist a la Macbeth, which makes his intention make more sense to me, but it doesn't make me want to return to the book.

Cosby is a great author but this book was a miss for me. I HIGHLY recommend Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears for very well-written books where bad people do bad things that are very motivated, and you can't help rooting for them to succeed. I recommend All Sinners Bleed for a well-written book about a good guy fighting both crime and legal bad things. I recommend My Darkest Prayer for a fun, OTT thriller with a very Marty Stu protagonist. I don't recommend this.

Excursed

Oct. 16th, 2025 05:04 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

Went out this pm: had to make a trip at some point to Institute Whereof I Have The Honour To Be A Fellow to pick up the ID card I muddled the info about where and when to pick up on the day of the welcome reception -

- and discover that due to the systems upgrade in progress which also means a delay in allocating new fellows institutional email addresses, mine has not yet actually been processed anyway, ooops ooops, they will post it to me, much apologies.

So I got in a nice bit of flaneuserie down Alfred Place Gardens as aforementioned herein, and I also, since I was in the area, took in this exhibition: The Word for World: An exhibition and book presenting the maps of Ursula K Le Guin, which I'm not sure I'd have made a special expedition to see, but as it was in an adjacent Bloomsbury Square, fitted in very well.

(Adjacent Bloomsbury Square in which the riffraff do not have access to the central gardens, only keyholders, mutter mutter.)

Nicely done, but I fancy I would have made more of it had I read the works to which the maps related a bit more recently than I have (Le Guin re-reads having been a bit of a back-burner project for a while).

(no subject)

Oct. 16th, 2025 09:34 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] desayunoencama!
soc_puppet: Chibi Tsutako from the Maria-sama ga Miteru manga dressed in a graduate's robe taps for attention with a baton (Infodumping)
[personal profile] soc_puppet
Okay, update time. Hmmm...

School continues apace! We're at the half-way point in the term, and so far my grades are looking good in Intro to Human Services and Social Problems. I'm optimistic about my grade in Ceramics, but I don't expect to have a good idea about it until next week; we're doing a critique of our first major project on Monday (already rescheduled twice, blergh), and I expect we'll get our grades on that after.

I've got at least a paragraph for each of my classes, but they get pretty long, so I'm cutting them individually.

ExpandSocial Problems )

ExpandCeramics )

ExpandIntro to Human Services )

That's about it for now. I will continue to plug away!
rachelmanija: (Autumn: small leaves)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Yuletide signups are open!

Here's the tagset showing what's eligible to request and offer.

What intrigues you in the tag set? And who plans to participate this year?

Dear Yuletide Writer,

Oct. 15th, 2025 12:58 pm
rachelmanija: (Autumn: small leaves)
[personal profile] rachelmanija
Thank you for writing for me! If you have any questions, please check with the mods. I am a very easy recipient and will be delighted with whatever you write for me. I have no special requirements beyond what's specifically stated in my DNWs. I'm fine with all POVs (i.e., first, second, third), tenses, ratings, story lengths, etc.

My AO3 name is Edonohana. I am open to treats. Very open. I love them.

This year I have gone for a slate of obscure-even-for-Yuletide canons plus a few less obscure canons with obscure-even-for-Yuletide characters. Some of my prompts are longer than others, but I want everything equally.

I like hurt-comfort, action/adventure, horror, domestic life, worldbuilding, evocative descriptions, camaraderie, loyalty, trauma recovery, difficult choices, survival situations, mysterious places and weird alien technology, food, plants, animals, landscape, X-Men type powers, learning to love again or trust again or enjoy life again, miniature things or beings, magic, strange rituals, unknowable things, epistolary fiction, found footage/art/creepy movies/etc, canon divergence AUs anf alternate versions of characters. I particularly love deadly/horrifying yet weirdly beautiful settings, especially if there's elements of space/time/reality warping as well. And many other things, too, of course! That list is just in case something sparks an idea.

ExpandGeneral DNWs )

ExpandCrossroad - Barbara Hambly )

ExpandEarthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin )

ExpandFire Dancer Series - Ann Maxwell )

ExpandKi and Vandien Quartet - Megan Lindholm )

ExpandThe Last Hot Time - John M. Ford  )

ExpandLyra - Patricia Wrede )
oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

Finished Queer Cambridge and the author is very aware that it is a microhistory of a very particular group of gay (if one can define them thus over the several generations in question) men in a very specific place, who had a considerable amount of privilege and protection, even if that was sometimes just 'we do not discuss these matters' and look away. And that not all of them were particularly nice (some of them sound horrid) and also the awareness of how being a lovely young bloke of the disposition could accrue valuable patronage (in a way that has never been open to women) - this was so much so with Dadie Rylands. Of interest, well-done, pretty well-researched but I picked up on what I thought was skipping over something I Haz Knowinz about, and which when I went back and checked my notes, yes, there WAS a connection, hah.

Then on to Rachel Ferguson, Alas, Poor Lady (1937), which is part of that cycle of novels of that period of The Horrors of the Victorian Ladies Who Failed To Marry and the lurking fate of being a Distressed Gentlewoman. It's pretty much downhill all the way - the parents are pretty hopeless in both preparing their daughters for life and actually providing for them, and then there is all the Burden of Historical Events. Ferguson is no Delafield, alas, though on the other hand this lacked the sheer excruciation of Consequences or Thank Heaven Fasting I suppose.

On the go

Some while ago somebody somewhere was mentioning the novels of Susan Howatch and I can't remember if they were specifically name-checking The Wheel of Fortune, but anyway, brought that to my mind as the one which is doing a story based on the late Plantagenets/rise of the House of Lancaster so I picked up the ebook.

This was what had me thinking of the Starkadders. In fact looking back though it is years since I read any of her books - it's a while since I even read the more recent spiritual-angst + sex ones - they tended to involve intricate and lurid family dynamics based on some historical avatar + family estate. Come on down, Flora Poste!

(Also, book for review that I have been longing to get to for months while I did the interminable essay review.)

Up next

Gosh, that's long, though. However, still have several birthday books, plus, latest Literary Review.

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Oct. 15th, 2025 09:42 am
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Happy birthday, [personal profile] akuchling, [personal profile] brithistorian and [personal profile] mamculuna!

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