erinptah | Reading

Or, anyway, I glanced at the headlines and oh fuck no. Can I just go back to bed, and somebody wake me when things improve?

quailfence

Deltarune chapter 4 thoughts, I think I have fewer than chapter 3 but we'll see

click for spoilers

When Carol showed up I was immediately like "omg she's the knight" but I saw some people saying afterwards that Dess might be the knight which is fairly plausible as well
ALSO as we're leaving she says something like "you are welcome here any time" with "you" in red which makes me think that she's aware of the SOUL!?!?
Really liked the bit where we played as the SOUL as well, hope there's more of that in future chapters
Implications that Susie is returning Noelle's feeling yaaay <3 and some Kris/Berdly crumbs which I don't ship but I'm happy for those that do
Also I had such a tough time with the Titan to the point that I would up using CheatEngine and eventually looked up a playthrough... turns out I was like 1 turn away from the much easier phase 2 lol
I looked up some more secrets and stuff before writing this post and I LOVE Gerson as the secret boss + his fight!
Also turns out my prediction of Susie and Kris being the only playable characters in this chapter was half right, Ralsei isn't playable in the middle
Speaking of, I really like the stuff about how Dark Fountains change based on who makes them
That being said... for the third fountain I spent like an hour wandering around, even getting the first clue to the secret boss, before finally looking up a walkthrough and apparently you had to just go back through the door?? Did I miss something or???
OH YEAH the scene with Toriel and Sans was SO FUNNY, definitely cemented shipping their DR versions, 10/10 no notes
Uhhh yeah I don't have much else to say, great chapter excited for the rest

dhampyresa

I was rewatching Avengers: Infinity War and it, again, struck me how bloody hypocritical Steve's "we don't trade lives" line(s) is. Friend. Pal. Bro. My man. Do you really think no Wakandan is gonna die fighting Thanos' armies. Like. Get a fucking grip, omg.

lb_lee

Turns out Mary Ellen Copeland has a fantastic psychological crisis plan available for free online (via the Wayback Machine)! Saving this for myself for sure!

lb_lee

This is a placeholder post that will later hold a textual transcription of the 1995 pamphlet Trail Cooking: Clean and Green, by Ro and Joanna Piekarski.

isis

Paul Krugman talks with Ada Palmer about her new (nonfiction) book Inventing the Renaissance. I came at this from the Krugman side (he's a Nobel-winning economist who used to write for the NYT, and I subscribe to his substack) but I figured some of you would be interested from the Palmer side (I never got into Terra Ignota, though). I found it really interesting! I read the transcript, but there's a link to the video conversation as well.

Speaking of Nobelists, a v. v. srs study found that countries with greater per capita chocolate consumption produce more Nobel laureates - so eating chocolate makes you smarter, right? :-)

watersword

Over the course of about six hours this week, the weather went from "pleasant warm early-summer" to "holy bananas, it is hot and sticky high summer" and I was not emotionally prepared for it. But I am promised thunderstorms today, and I got cucumbers at the farmer's market, and will finish swapping out the cozy linens for the crisp ones, and all of that will help.

conuly

A shocking number of people will blithely tell us all about the book they read, in English, on an English-language subreddit, and never tell us that they didn't read it in English. I can only catch so many of them - if they don't say "English isn't my first language" or make any obvious foreign language errors then I'll never know. (Some of them say "I read this in my own language" and then don't tell us what that language was.)

Most of these people, if prompted, will tell you what language they read it in. Three times now, I've had to ask twice because they refused to answer the question in a useful way, and every time that person has been Greek.

I thought it was a little funny the second time, but three times is the start of a worrying pattern, especially as it's not at all the most popular not-English language posted there. Maybe there's something going badly wrong with their school system?

(And, sidenote, even if you're certain it was translated from English you still ought to tell us the language it was written in. At least in theory this can help us weed out false positives, although I may be expecting too much of fellow commenters to that subreddit.)

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

( Read more... )

vriddy

Starting to process my backlog of links. Originally, I started collecting this particular list when the allegations about Neil Gaiman surfaced last year (if you've been lucky enough to miss that, but want to learn more, muccamukk's round-up post is still an excellent overview).

It's always hard when stories, songs, shows, etc that made a difference to you turn out to be created by someone who's done or is doing horrible things. I always find it hard when it's followed by a demand to just stop liking whatever it was, as if that's as easy as snapping your fingers to remove the impact of sometimes formative stories from one's life.

Here are a few links that helped me navigate this, whenever it happens, since it happens often. If you only have energy for one link, I'd recommend making that the first one. It's nuanced and practical.

Dealing with Authors Who are Jerks, Bastards, or Downright Evil in Real Life by writinginthedarktw. "But how should we react when a writer we admire, or who we have a personal relationship with, turns out to be a not-so-good person? The short answer, of course, is you can react any damn way you wish. There’s no right way. But I can share with you how I attempt to navigate these rough waters."

( 4 more links: 1 for library workers, 2 on how putting people on a pedestal does no one any good, 1 on a specific fandom )

conuly

has got to be shrinkflation of dumb phone games.

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

( Read more... )

stardust_rifle

Me: So, I’ve started watching Kowloon Generic Romance-

The Voices In My Head: So, let me guess, your favorite character is the intersex genderqueer with full body tattoos and a snake’s tongue who wants to get revenge on his rich father and whose sexual practices can be summed up in this Tumblr post?

Me: Aww, how’d you know?

quailfence

Finished Deltarune chapter 3, gonna play ch 4 tomorrow cos I think that's what Toby recommended? Anyway some random thoughts/emotions/theories below the cut, ~~proper review to come when I've finished chapter 4~~ it turned into a proper review lol

(also no ch 4 spoilers in comments pls!)

[click here] FOR [SPOILERS!!]

Is the knight thing that took Toriel Dess? Or maybe Rudy? Not super likely and mostly based on the horns + I was randomly thinking about Noelle when they turned up
Also, weird that Noelle seems not to have been mentioned at all in this chapter - wonder if that's a consequence of Toby having to write around Snowgrave, but trying to work around diverging routes by ignoring them isn't Toby's style
Also Undyne!! The music when she turned up didn't sound like her at first but it became more familiar as it went on, not sure what it's reminding me of
Speaking of music, even if you didn't know the Word Of Toby saying that Mike was part of Spamton's backstory, Tenna's boss music (+ also the 'heart on a string' in one of the boss minigames) makes it really obvious that him and Spamton are connected
Overall Tenna seems like a combination of Mettaton and Spamton, I think I like him but I'm not super obsessed with him - can easily see why someone(/Tumblr) could tho
His boss fight was HARD, easily took half a dozen tries i think
The cooking/serving minigame was also really tough, took me like 4 or 5 tries and even then only by the skin of my teeth, mostly cos I kept getting the controls mixed up
Reappearance in Tenna boss fight was super easy though, by far the easiest of the minigames in that fight
Rhythm game was also fun and pretty easy, took me like two tries. I wanna look up the lyrics to the song cos the little I caught was a wild mix of silly and serious
I guess this is turning into a review so quick speed round of the things I didn't like:
I was probably kinda getting my hopes up but I wish Elnina/Lanino/Rouxles had stayed together
The format of boards 1 and 2 wasn't bad per se but it was kinda weird and it was a relief to go back to something more normal for 3 - do like how it furthered the Themes tho, in particular I'm thinking of the bit where everyone swaps controllers and so Kris (and by extension, the player) is controlling someone else/someone else is controlling Kris
Also there really needs to be save points in them - my laptop died right after my first attempt at the rhythm game so I had to replay the whole of board 2
aaaand finally Toby isn't really the kind of guy who would do this + as I said I do like the character but it sorta seems like Tenna is trying to recapture Spamton's popularity? Though now that I've written that down it kinda seems like it might be the case in-universe/there's some other in-universe explanation for that but idk if/how much it'll ever come up in game
Okay back to speculation/positivity but I kinda get the vibe that Ralsei isn't gonna be a player character in chapter 4, mainly from the trailer bit + something about the end bit in the LIght World? IDK how to explain it
Oh yeah I think I'll have to rewatch the ending cutscne (specifically Susie's speech to Tenna) cos my audio cut out for some of it + when trying to fix that I accidentally skipped a few textboxes
aaaand addressing the beginning at the end - the start hit me with Susie/Ralsei feels (note to self, reblog some art of them when I'm done with chapter 4), but I was also hit with Ralsei/Susie/Kris feels which suprised me cos I wasn't into the ship from ch 1+2 and yet all of a sudden I was?? not complaining tho, new ship acquired I guess lol
I don't think I ship it as a triad tho, I think Susie dates Kris and Ralsei and Ralsei has an unrequited crush on Kris
Other ships aquired: Rouxles/Westherpeople (as mentioned above), Tenna/Mettaton, maybe Tenna/Spamton
OH YEAH Rouxles is confirmed bi and poly, happy pride
Also one of the quizzes confimed Kris' last name as Dreemur, before I was one of the "well it's not explicitly stated" people but now that it has been I'm now wondering why I thought that/why their AO3 canonical isn't listed as that? Either way that tag's gonna have to be updated
I think the secret boss was found by sailing for a really long time to the left and up in board 2, and Susie might be the victim of this chpater's Weird Rout if there is one (due to the aftermentioned contoller swapping), but otherwise I have No Idea who/what they might be I wouldn't be very surprised if I'm wrong
uhhh I guess that's it, see you tomorrow or the day after for chapter 4 yelling
EDIT forgot a thing: Ralsei’s description of the nature of darkeners at the start REALLY reminded me of the lyrics of Don’t Forget/the credit music
Also, per TV Tropes: “ This chapter's Superboss fight is the mandatory Hopeless Boss Fight against the Roaring Knight that occurs at the chapter's climax, meaning that the player has to fight the overpowered enemy, unlike the first two being optional in areas you had to double-back to fully unlock. That said, assuming you aren't possessed of godlike reflexes or Save Scumming to get the hang of the Knight's attacks, you still need to defeat another secret but easier boss to unlock the Shadow Mantle, which makes it possible to win the fight, albeit, with much difficulty...just not defeat the knight.”

Current Location: Home

tozka

Happy Thursday! I'm leaving this housesit tomorrow-- I have the weekend free for sightseeing and then I need to make my way over to Evanston, Illinois for my next (short) sit. Today is a lot of cleaning, packing, and trying to eat whatever's left in the fridge!

For now, here's some links for y'all:

The Quantum Bang multi-fandom fix-it big bang is live and stories are being posted now! (h/t

starwatcher)

June's theme at

fancake is female relationships (of all kinds). Come make recs!

unfitforsociety posted some Batman (Batfamily) fanfic recs. ( More links! )

lb_lee

Details here: https://www.anti-robotclub.com/event-details/the-marketplace-cambridge-ma-2

Time: Sunday, June 8, 12-5 pm

Location:
The Foundry
101 Rogers st.
Cambridge, MA

We will have a bunch of short-run prose collections, including Perspichor Freelance Explorer (an asexual monster romance), Disabled Cyborgs, and more! Cone say hi!

Current Mood: tired

mozaikmage

Last month I read too many long books, so this month I read a lot of really short books! I wrote this up a few days ago but only found the time to post it now rip. Anyway, here we go!

My Nemesis by Charmaine Craig

I… don’t know if I liked it or not. I don’t think I understood it very well. Short, but felt like it took a long time to read.

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Fun! It’s interesting how much Dorothy Sayers likes her detectives: Wimsey and Harriet are her little blorbos and she thinks they’re so fun and she wants to write about them doing fun things. While Agatha Christie clearly does not really like any of her detective characters as much as she likes her puzzles and mysteries. I feel like it could’ve been shorter though. Still unsure if I wanna try Gaudy Night or not.

Great Big Beautiful Life by Emily Henry

I think Henry's characterization and framing of the interviewing-an-aging-celebrity setup worked better than the same setup in Evelyn Hugo, but the romance was unconvincing and the final twist didn’t land super well. Also Evelyn Hugo did have more Diversity even if it was also very annoying about it (‘being bisexual… is just like being biracial’ was somehow a repeated motif in Evelyn Hugo. which. okay) I guess with straight white women authors you gotta pick your poison huh. The romantic leads did have convincing physical chemistry, even though the sex scenes were more implied than explicit.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

I Get It Now. So short and sweet but man. She’s so right. Long live the minimum wage service worker.

Flirting Lessons by Jasmine Guillory

Hm. It keeps telling me these women are sexually attracted to other women but without describing any of them thinking about other women in a sexual manner at all. Both POV characters are constantly saying the other is super hot, without describing what is hot about her. Does she have big boobs, long legs, nice eyes? Who knows! Sometimes their clothes are described at least. It's not even that it's not explicit they're not... in their bodies enough? Not having enough bodily reactions to things, or reacting enough to body things, even when doing body-related events like salsa dancing and attending a burlesque show. The sex scenes felt like Insert Finger A into Hole B, rote lists of events with no emotion attached to them. Remarkably unhorny for a book with multiple sex scenes. Felt like an “eat your vegetables” kind of F/F. Also I found it implausible that Taylor's long string of exes were all just totally fine and cool with no longer dating Taylor and that there were zero lingering messy feelings on anyone's part at all.

Thornhedge by T. Kingfisher

Fun enough, a fairytale twist/retelling. Short and sweet. I wish I was allowed to write novellas.

Cover Story by Celia Laskey

OP said this was originally set in present day and then rewritten to be in 2005 and it was not rewritten hard enough because it does Not feel like 2005 at all. Characters reference memes and fashion trends that did not exist in 2005 and there’s not nearly enough ambient homophobia to be plausible/make the closet thing make any sense, especially with how the characters talk about being gay and out in a very not-2005 kind of way. They weren't even doing Target Pride Collections yet in 2005! I have a weakness for mid-2000s chick lit and that’s why this feels so off to me. It doesn’t sound like the Devil Wears Prada, or Sex and the City, or any of those types of books. But Y2K is in and cool now, OP should’ve leaned into it more! Sex scenes and relationship were both fine enough I guess.
Hilariously the book got one-star bombed by Swifties accusing OP of being a Gaylor which, if that's true, I did not pick up on it because the Celebrity Character read a lot more like a knockoff Kristen Stewart than anyone else.

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

Very short, but dense. Lots going on. Very clear atmosphere and very direct story.

Her Majesty’s Royal Coven by Juno Dawson

Very cruel sequel hook, very topical and pointed subject matter. I don’t know if it’s a stylistic choice or the editor just ignored it but none of the dialogue is punctuated correctly? Otherwise the prose is fine and that one Goodreads reviewer was exaggerating. The magic system made sense.

Nicked by M. T. Anderson

FIVE STAR READ: whimsical, funny, entertaining, AND gay. M. T. Anderson is so good at words, the opening and ending both hit so well. Loved, loved, loved. Might have to buy a copy now.

Disney High: The Untold Story of the Rise and Fall of Disney Channel's Tween Empire by Ashley Spencer

I stayed up late to inhale this but I don’t know if I’d call this “good,” I was just a disney channel kid at exactly the correct time to be invested in extra lore about my childhood favorite shows. I don’t think the structure worked well, it should’ve been chronological because a lot of the later chapters had overlapping “recurring characters” I guess (like the Jonas Brothers, Miley, Selena, Demi, etc) and that got confusing. The “fall” part in the title happened entirely in a 5 page epilogue, which, lol. Overall feeling was that Disney Channel was really good when the author was at the right age to enjoy it and got worse when they grew out of it. Fortunately this coincided perfectly with the age I was watching it so I had fun reading about things I cared about when I was young.

Like Real People Do by E.L. Massey

Decent fic that doesn’t function as well on its own.

How to Summon a Fairy Godmother by Laura J. Mayo

Not funny but trying very hard to be. Ending was extremely satisfying, but most of the buildup to it was less satisfying. Everyone kept speaking in big paragraphs with no body language or description to break it up, which annoyed me.

Thick as Thieves by Megan Whalen Turner

Read for reference on my romantasy wip and I did enjoy it a lot. Reminded me of Nicked lol. I liked the worldbuilding and the characters.
Personal updates: starting my editorial internship next week aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. hopefully it goes well!

Current Location: catsitting at my neighbor's house!
Current Music: da-da-da-dameningenda which I still can't FC on expert in prsk :(

vriddy

I am 57% into my beta edit preps – not the edits themselves based on the actual beta feedback yet, but the list of action items I intend to go through. I'm more or less following the plan I had set out, though I ended up using Scrivener comments a lot instead of a separate file as I had expected. So I have 3 files/file types:

Structural comments, which I'll address first. I think this will be the most difficult and most painful part. Will try to do this in a way that has as few consequences as possible to limit the amount of rewriting (I think that's feasible as long as I'm careful, for this particular story).
Overall comments, for stuff that'll need small changes in every chapter. I plan to re-read this before and after every chapter edit, so I keep it in mind as I edit and potentially find new areas to include these elements. It's about things like certain characters feeling too one-dimensional and/or too unsympathetic (so more options for interactions, flashbacks/memories, and other elements to flesh them out more), worldbuilding elements that still weren't highlighted enough and feel like a surprise when they come up later, etc.
One file per chapter for more generic notes, though so far I'm not really using that much. Scrivener comments are doing the job. And it's very satisfying when several people bring up the same thing and I can edit an existing comment, like, wow! This sure was a confusing paragraph for everyone, huh!

Having said that, I still had massive, massive, massive issues with getting started. Like, I had built this all up into such a huge thing in my head, and it's in the first time I handle feedback on an entire manuscript at once, and from several people... Below the cut is a list of things I did to finally make myself Just Do It (tm). Maybe there'll be a piece of inspiration for someone else, though mainly I want my future self to remember to check here next time I'm stuck! In my case, it was definitely a process problem, like, just not knowing where to start or what to do.

( vriddy's weirdo productivity tips on actually getting started )

In general, I am tremendously enjoying working offline. I got the feedback back in 3 formats: GoogleDocs, Ellipsus, and LibreOffice with tracked changes. I am loving the LibreOffice one, so much that I downloaded all the GDocs too (thankfully the comments are included!) and work like this for everything. Ellipsus didn't work for me for reasons I mentioned earlier, and as a note doesn't seem to allow exporting with comments either, as far as I could see.

Making progress feels nice! Once I have a system, it's easier for me to let momentum carry me. We'll see if that continues to work when it's time to do the actual beta changes! I do intend to take a short break before jumping in.

vriddy

Community Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.

Over the last week...

Vigilantes chit-chat on

bnha_fans.

Commented on

endings.

tozka

2025 Reading Log | 35/200 yearly goal (+2 from last update)

I've gotten sucked into a fanfic-reading frenzy (Naruto, of all things) so my book-reading has been sparse these past few weeks. However, I did read two books since my last Reading Wednesday post!

First, I decided to read the Oz books (including the post-Baum books by Ruth Plumly Thompson) as a kind of reading project thing, and I of course started with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

I've read it before, but the last time was (I'm pretty sure) back in 2007 when I got my first ereader and put a bunch of public domain books on it.

It's a charming book, and I especially liked the intro from Baum in the beginning that spells out the aim of the book: to be a modern fairy tale for kids that isn't focused on morality lessons. And it does that!

( Chatter about Wonderful Wizard of Oz, including spoilers )

Besides that, I also read a novella by KL Noone called The Pooka's Share. It's a m/m urban fantasy romance between a paranormal police officer and a pookah (Celtic shape-changing spirit) with surprise (to me, because I hadn't read the summary) BDSM elements. A cute story! Perhaps spent a bit too much time on the worldbuilding when this is just a one-off and short to boot, but overall good.

conuly

Isn't the moon dark too,
most of the time?

And doesn't the white page
seem unfinished

without the dark stain
of alphabets?

When God demanded light,
he didn't banish darkness.

Instead he invented
ebony and crows

and that small mole
on your left cheekbone.

Or did you mean to ask
"Why are you sad so often?"

Ask the moon.
Ask what it has witnessed.

*****

_Link

conuly

But so it doesn't get lost in the crowd, don't forget about the protest on the 14th!

( Links )

Profile

humorist + humanist

Style Credit

Style: Early Edition for Five AM by winterfish

humanist + humorist

THOR'S INSPIRATIONAL SPEECHES ARE NOT ADMISSIBLE IN COURT

Reading

Well, I read the news

Deltarune chpater 4 thoughts

"We don't trade lives" sure, man

Copeland's Psych Crisis Plan

Piekarski and Piekarski's "Trail Cooking: Clean and Green"

interesting links to fascinate people

(no subject)

JFC what is it about Greeks?

Link spam: Enjoying problematic works/authors

Absolutely the worst, most insulting sort of shrinkflation

my tastes are as predictable as death and taxes

Deltarune chpater 3 thoughts

murdle, leather at pride, protest poetry

We are Tabling at Anti-Robot Club in Cambridge!

May Reads!

Getting started on beta edits/beta preps

Community Thursday

reading wednesday

Why Are Your Poems So Dark? by Linda Pastan

I've got a lot of links built up, here's some more

Profile

Links

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit