rowyn

Today is cloudy and cool.

I haven't fed the birds yet, but we heard a great horned owl hoo-hooing out in our yard! :D That's awesome. I don't think we've had one since a few years back when an owl and several crows fought over the yard for the whole summer.

.

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ysabetwordsmith

Unraveling the Drama Between Hank Green and the Knitting Community

Hank Green has been a knotty boy. One of the latest episodes of his YouTube show, SciShow, is all about knitting and how science is elevating the lowly craft to a place of actual importance. You know who finds that take distasteful? Knitters.

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smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/screenplay

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
Super cute!!

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/screenplay

asakiyume

Wherein I manage to answer every question with a No, I don't have one of these, but how about this tangentially related answer? (Via

sovay and

osprey_archer)

1. Lust, books I want to read for their cover.

There aren't any of these right now, but back when I was a kid, I picked up Patricia McKillup's The Forgotten Beasts of Eld because of this cover. I loved the evening sunset glow of it, very Maxfield Parrish-esque.

2. Pride, challenging books I finished.

When we're talking about reading for pleasure, I'm pretty much of a quitter when the going gets tough, so I can't really say there are any of these. Maybe reading the Portuguese version of Ideas to Postpone the End of the World (Ideias para apiar o fim do mundo), but see, then it's not entirely pleasure reading; it's partly language practice. And it's a very short book, so...

There are books that have lingered in my currently-reading pile pretty much untouched, and it's not that they're super challenging, they just take more commitment than I can often muster, e.g., Elinor Ostrom's Governing the Commons, which I want to read for the information, and it's engagingly written, just .... for pleasure I'd rather read other stuff.

3. Gluttony, books I've read more than once.

I did this a LOT as a kid, but I haven't as an adult (except for, e.g., reading childhood faves to my own kids). Instead what I do is reread particular sections or passages that I love, but honestly, I don't even do that very often; mostly it happens when I want to share something with someone. This happened recently with Susanna Clarke's Piranesi, for example.

4. Sloth, books that have been longest on my to-read list.

I put things on my to-read list with thoughtless abandon; I don't even know what-all is on my list, and often they're things I'm only vaguely curious about. A bigger sign of sloth is the books I start and don't finish, like Governing the Commons, noted above. Or Robin Wall Kimmerer's Braiding Sweetgrass, which I think is beautiful in its moment-by-moment observations (some of which jump vividly to mind when I type this), but which, overall, I have a terrible time sitting down to read.

5. Greed, books I own multiple editions of.

I only own multiple editions of stuff I used when I was teaching in the jail, and I've been thinning those out (but e.g., I had multiple editions of Esmeralda Santiago's When I was Puerto Rican).

6. Wrath, books I despised.

Books I take a deep hate to I generally don't finish, but there are books that ticked me off mightily in some aspect or other, even if I didn't overall despise them. The focus on the technology of writing as a sign of cultural advancement that was present in Ray Nayler's The Mountain in the Sea annoyed me big time, though there were other elements in the book that I thought were very cool, very thoughtful. I have an outsized, probably unfair dislike of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers, very it's-not-you-it's-me thing (except that the dislike is large enough that I find myself whispering, But maybe it's a little bit you, actually)

7. Envy, books I want to live in.

I don't want to live in any books right now.

As a kid, I tried to get to lots of fantasy lands (the ol' walk-into-a-closet thing, because as an American kid I didn't even properly know what a wardrobe was: in our house, winter coats were in a closet), and I played that I was part of lots of others. But probably the ones I wanted to live in most were Zilpha Keatley Snyder's Greensky books. I wanted to glide from bough to bough of giant trees with the aid of a shuba and low gravity, have a life full of songs and dancing to defuse personal tensions, not to mention psychic powers and an overall jungle environment.

james_davis_nicoll

Sorry if you're a fan of boring old dry land...

Five SF Stories Featuring the Sudden Formation of New and Exciting Bodies of Water

james_davis_nicoll

How could a man die in front of Atocha Chief of Police Loren Hawn when that man died twenty years before?

Days of Atonement by Walter Jon Williams

dreadpiratekel posting in

pimpmethis

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

sartorias

I love Boston so much, especially this area around Harvard. The trees are rich with color, the air is brisk, requiring all my layers of flimsy California-wear, and the sidewalks brick with lumps of tree roots. I love it all.

Yesterday I went with Nine to the Mapparium on the other side of the river. (The bus ride down Massachusetts Ave is great for scenery!) If you've never heard of it--I hadn't until one of the Viable Paradise workshop writers clued me in--it's an enormous glass globe that you can walk into, to see the entire world, worked in jewel-toned glass, as it was in 1935. It was constructed to be a reminder that we are all in this world together; a needed warning then, as now. (Naturally those who need it most won't see or hear.)

We had a great time looking, then testing the amazing sounds created by voices enclosed in glass.

Afterward we met up with Rushthatspeaks for tea and chocolate at L.A. Burdicks. Oh, they know how to do chocolate so, so right. Delish. We chatted and reminisced and cackled like maniacs. Today we'll visit the Fogg to see a Botticelli that is usually hidden in a private collection. I can hardly wait!

I'm coming down from the high of a very successful workshop, and a month of splendid visiting and seeing and fast-lane busy. The workshop writers are so talented and so focused, and all this in beautiful Martha's Vineyard.

Tomorrow homeward bound!

jazzyjj posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

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

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!

Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

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

Go!

ysabetwordsmith posting in

dw_community_promo

goals_on_dw is a community for people who like goals and goal setting. A key focus is New Year's resolutions, that being among the most popular contexts for such activities. Although the most common time is January 1, "new year" can also refer to other calendars or cultures, whatever works for you. Alternatively, just pick a time that works for you and go for it. You can introduce yourself or make new friends here.

We talk about different goal systems, pros and cons of resolutions, arts and crafts for tracking goals, human psychology, and more. You can share your resolutions or other goals. There are weekly check-in posts in January, and monthly ones in the rest of the year, for folks to talk about their accomplishments. December-January is the most active period, and it starts ramping up in November as lots of people begin thinking about their goals for the next year.

2025 New Year's Resolutions and Other Goals is the guide post for this years goal-setting activities.
For more details on relevant topics, see "Things You Can Talk About Here."

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ysabetwordsmith posting in

dw_community_promo

Trouble is brewing at Bluesky. As a result, there's a wave of new users coming into Dreamwidth. Find your Bluesky friends here.

newcomers is a community for people who are just getting started on Dreamwidth, in the tradition of

twitter_refugees and

reddit_refugees. This community supports former users of other platforms who are moving to Dreamwidth because their previous platform has become untenable or has closed. As such, it will increase activity with each wave of new users, in hopes of helping them get settled in Dreamwidth so they want to stick around. It also serves previous users returning after a long hiatus, people who want to do more with a Dreamwidth blog that was only intermittent, or anyone else who wants help connecting and figuring out how to use this venue.

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ysabetwordsmith

Hidden 5-mile wide asteroid crater beneath the Atlantic revealed in stunning 3D

A massive crater hidden beneath the Atlantic seafloor has been confirmed as the result of an asteroid strike from 66 million years ago. The new 3D seismic data reveals astonishing details about the violent minutes following impact—towering tsunamis, liquefied rock, and shifting seabeds. Researchers call it a once-in-a-lifetime look at how oceanic impacts unfold.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, November 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Fairies and Fey." I'll be soliciting ideas for fairies, seelie or unseelie sidhe, the Wild Hunt, elves, other types of fey, Radical Faeries, other queers, tricksters, contraries, rebels, adventurers, mentors, historians, explorers, magic users, partners, teachers, leaders, dark lords, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, fantasy species, activists, other unusual fantasy folk, doing magic, doing things backwards, causing mischief, breaking rules, caring for the land, exploring new territory, meeting new species, upsetting predictions, twisting tropes, flipping stereotypes, expecting the unexpected, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, other fantastic activities, Underhill, faery rings, the forest primeval, underwater, underground, liminal zones, castles, ruins, dungeons, dragon lairs, schools, kitchens, campfires, libraries, apothecary shops, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other phantasmagoric settings, faerie magic, unusual magical systems, magical artifacts, enchanted musical instruments or weapons, quests, time periods other than medieval, governments other than monarchy, dragons, unicorns, enchantments, potions, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, fey time distortions, time travel, travel mishaps, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia is about live happy lesbians in a quirky fantasy world.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy about a blacksmith and a golem.

Dragonsilk is about trauma and recovery.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with a few really exotic characters.

Monster House is suburban fantasy with a diverse household, where the line between truth and fantasy isn't always clear.

The Ocracies features all the political systems other than monarchy.

The Odd Trio is about a family consisting of a dwarf, an elf, and a human.

P.I.E. is urban fantasy about paranormal investigations,

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. Eric the Elven King has interdimensional refugees. Officer Pink features centaurs and mystic shifters. Vybra of the Broken Angels specializes in fantasy sex and often dresses as a fairy.

Practical Magics is low fantasy with a prosaic focus.

Quixotic Ideas is contemporary fantasy where magic integrates with modern life in positive ways.

The Ursulan Cycle is genderbent King Arthur.

Or you can ask for something new.

Boost the signal to reveal a verse in any open linkback poem.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Current Mood: busy

tielan

A couple of cold days. Not freezing cold, just chilly. In the low teens for us, which is a bit on the cold side. Upper teens and early 20s, sure. Low teens? *brr*

We did get some rain last night. It was kind of exciting! Haven't had rain since I've been back home...

--

Work is ALL THE THINGS NEED TO BE DONE. And I am taking on more stuff because my team lead is injured and taking time off next week. And because I need to be more across the stuff that my team is doing and not so focused on what I personally do and know how to do. Expansion. Development.

--

I'm trying to get the courage up to have a "birthday of completeness picnic". I just feel like it's a little bit late to organise (last Saturday of November), and that nobody will come.

I just need to bite the bullet and send out the invites.

Picnic. Potluck. Party. It's as simple as that.

--

We have been eating very vegetarian around here lately. I've beem making things like mujadhara (caramelised onion lentils and rice), and cheesy bean bake, and musabaha (cream tahini chickpeas). And often eating it with an egg. Although in the case of the cheesy bean bake (some of which I froze) when it comes time to eat it, I think I might cook some lasagne sheets and make a vego lasagne of sorts.

Being in Georgia in particular really reminded me of how easy it is to eat vego when you have good spices, but also there's a number of foodie/healthy eating influencers that I follow who've done a few vegetarian recipes (lots of beans and pulses) and they look good. I'm not about to give up meat - no way, no how. But it's good to have vego every now and then, and not just rely on the meat all the time.

--

I just realised I didn't really do a travelogue on Georgia. I'm thinking about doing a fairly thorough one, because it's not something that most of you are ever going to see much about, and it might be worth it.

Is anyone interested in a detailed travellogue through Georgia? (It'll be a lot of what I already posted over on instagram, with maybe some details dredged from my memory.)

--

I'm also looking at a trip for next year, except I don't think I can afford it right now. By the time it comes around? Sure! But right now? No.

*sigh*

Okay, we'll hold off, and who knows, things might materially change by the time things come around.

--

Also, I need a new travel icon...

ysabetwordsmith

These are the content notes for "The Clearest Signal."

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ysabetwordsmith

These are the location notes for "The Clearest Signal."

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ysabetwordsmith

Here are the character notes for "The Clearest Signal."

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ysabetwordsmith

This poem came out of the October 2025

crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by prompts from

dialecticdreamer and

readera. It also fills the "Broken" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem is posted in exchange for the City Engines stories that

dialecticdreamer has been posting about Frank the Crank and belongs to that thread in Polychrome Heroics.

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flexagon

A few other things from the week:

Got to meet a potential new polycule member. I liked them. I'm a little worried about sketchiness -- I just don't love it when someone's been separated-not-divorced for many years, their stated reasons for not divorcing don't hold any water, and their spouse purportedly doesn't want to hear anything about other partners. But it's not up to me. So... who among us hasn't taken a gamble and hoped that the sketch would fill in nicely?

This reminds me, I had lunch with Lion on Tuesday and it went fine, especially after we discovered we're both playing Blue Prince. Exposure therapy works! It's actually much much weirder that Lioness smiled at me at the circus school on Sunday. I'm trying to just let my system respond to that without my brain getting in the way.

My house has a leak, and the neighbors fretted for a while about who to go with for the permanent fix, because we already spent the condo association's reserves on paint this year. In the meantime, the leak was on the side of the house with my tiny native plants, and I think they're almost all trampled. Sorry, little things, I failed to protect you. Maybe I'll try again next year.

Went dancing at ManRay on Saturday with the squirrel. I think we're pleased with ourselves for finally going. It was on our Bingo board of dates for the year, and now we have two bingos. Good squirrels!

Most interestingly, Birdie's father E came for a visit. She was nervous about it beforehand and a little overwhelmed during, so I stepped up more than I'd previously intended to on planning and hosting (and I had already planned to put E in my new condo on an air mattress, which indeed was done, and saved him a few hundred dollars). That visit kind of dominated Thursday through Sunday. It was interesting to see the parent/child relationship in the middle of that mid-20s individuation thing. I think E was slightly startled to watch Birdie ransacking my bookshelf and playing with my cat and trying on all my boots -- yeah, she has settled in quickly to the local nature of our relationship. A mildly invasive but cute development. E thinks I can be good for her just by modeling a fairly healthy life, and if I can do that then I'm certainly happy to; he was able to give me some hints of what not to model, and luckily I don't tend to do those things anyway but can easily take a bit more care with my language. I made them both stop at a scenic spot in the cemetery to take photos, taught them how to play Wavelength, and E got home safely. So -- good visit.

My base flew back from Europe tonight and we decided to punt on tonight's acro, giving me a much needed evening of rest. Somehow I'm super tired. I did some really solid strength work this week, but I think it's the one tumbling class (ok, walkover lesson) I took that really left me feeling unbalanced and sore. Gymnastics is a harsh discipline.

dragonbat2006 posting in

little_details

I tried Googling and got general info on curriculum, specific schools, and alumnae pages, but not the specific details I'm looking for.

My main character is an upper class 13-year-old boy who, due to long-term illness/frailty was educated by tutors at home, but is now being sent away to school. (Probably England, but since he lives in Yorkshire, I'm not completely opposed to it being Scotland if it turns out that there are significant differences in school experiences between the two countries and Scotland would work better for my character.)

1. Would most pupils begin classes in the fall term as is typical today? As in, would it be realistic for him to begin in September? Or was it more of a rolling admissions thing?

2. How far in advance would his father need to contact the school to enrol/register him? Would there normally be an entrance exam, or would it normally be, 'We accept anyone who can pay the fee, provided there's space'?

3. When it comes to letters to and from home, would there be any reasonable expectation of privacy, or would it be common for staff to read each piece of correspondence? Specifically, the boy has a female cousin of the same age with whom he's quite close. Would he get into any sort of trouble for writing to her or would her letters to him be delivered?

4. If she were in the vicinity of the school, would it be possible for them to meet under the auspices of a chaperone, or would that be totally unheard of?

5. How much would the outbreak of WWI impact him? I would guess that some of the younger teachers would have enlisted over the summer and some of the older boys talking about hoping it won't be over before they get a chance to get in it. Would that mean larger than expected classes?

Thanks so much!

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rowyn

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Network

Birdfeeding

Crafts

Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - Screenplay

reading meme: seven deadly sins of reading.

Five SF Stories Featuring the Sudden Formation of New and Exciting Bodies of Water

Days of Atonement by Walter Jon Williams

(no subject)

Boston

Just one thing: 28 October 2025

New Year's Resolutions and Other Goals

Newcomers

Science

Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, November 4, 2025

temps have dropped, ordinary life is re-establishing

Content notes for "The Clearest Signal"

Location notes for "The Clearest Signal"

Character notes for "The Clearest Signal"

Poem: "The Clearest Signal"

Polycule, bio family, dancing...

UK Boys' Boarding Schools circa 1914

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October 2025

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