One book, one December meme response
Dec. 21st, 2025 02:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12Happy Gravy Day to those who celebrate! It's been a bit of a disjointed few days. I'm working right up to (and including) 24th December, so there's the usual mad scramble to deal with the inevitable mad scramble of students and researchers wanting to 'wrap things up before Christmas,' I'm trying to get all the food shopping and Christmas preparation done around that, and to top it all off, both Matthias and I have been sick. He's mostly better now, and I'm on the way to recovery, but the timing was less than ideal.
author_by_night suggested that I talk about the discrepancy between conventional understanding of history (based to a large extent on the experiences of the upper echelons of society), and the realities of ordinary people's lives for the December talking meme, and although I don't really feel qualified to provide a definitive answer to this, I'll do my best.
( See more behind the cut )
I've picked up The Dark Is Rising for my annual winter solstice reread, but haven't finished it yet, and have otherwise only finished one other book this week: The Art of a Lie (Laura Shepherd-Robinson), another great novel by one of my favourite writers of historical fiction. This was a page-turning, enjoyable read with all the features I've come to enjoy about Shepherd-Robinson's books: a scammer in eighteenth-century London embarks on a new con job on a wealthy widow, and finds he's picked a more savvy and complicated mark than his usual targets. The book switches perspectives, each time revealing more unreliabilities in its pair of narrators, pulling the rug out from each other and from the reader with every shift in point of view. As always, the author's extensive research and rich evocation of this period in history is on full display — I was delighted to learn more about eighteenth-century confectionery- and ice-cream-making, law-enforcement in London before it had a dedicated police force, and all the various opportunities for scamming and corruption (most of which are essentially unchanged to this day — there was a common 'Spanish prisoner' scam which is identical to today's 'Nigerian prince' scam).
And that's about it for this week. I hope everyone else is having a restful time.
author_by_night suggested that I talk about the discrepancy between conventional understanding of history (based to a large extent on the experiences of the upper echelons of society), and the realities of ordinary people's lives for the December talking meme, and although I don't really feel qualified to provide a definitive answer to this, I'll do my best.( See more behind the cut )
I've picked up The Dark Is Rising for my annual winter solstice reread, but haven't finished it yet, and have otherwise only finished one other book this week: The Art of a Lie (Laura Shepherd-Robinson), another great novel by one of my favourite writers of historical fiction. This was a page-turning, enjoyable read with all the features I've come to enjoy about Shepherd-Robinson's books: a scammer in eighteenth-century London embarks on a new con job on a wealthy widow, and finds he's picked a more savvy and complicated mark than his usual targets. The book switches perspectives, each time revealing more unreliabilities in its pair of narrators, pulling the rug out from each other and from the reader with every shift in point of view. As always, the author's extensive research and rich evocation of this period in history is on full display — I was delighted to learn more about eighteenth-century confectionery- and ice-cream-making, law-enforcement in London before it had a dedicated police force, and all the various opportunities for scamming and corruption (most of which are essentially unchanged to this day — there was a common 'Spanish prisoner' scam which is identical to today's 'Nigerian prince' scam).
And that's about it for this week. I hope everyone else is having a restful time.
Scrivener for fanfic, continued
Dec. 21st, 2025 01:10 pmvriddyI mentioned earlier in the year that I migrated to Scrivener for my fic projects as well. I've been finding my feet more and more with it, and slowly customising the interface in ways that tickle my brain just right. Thus I thought I'd record and share a snapshot of my current system!
I'm still using a single project for all fandoms. Sometimes I think about switching to a Scrivener project per fandom, especially when I start writing a multi-chap, then I go meh again... I dunno. I have a couple of fandoms I write a lot for, but more that will only ever have a couple of fics. And it's not necessarily clear from the start which will be which either. I think I'll continue this way until it feels too unwieldy. Or maybe if I start something that I know will be novel-length........... but even then?! Haha. Who knows.
This first organisational tidbit isn't particularly exciting. I renamed "Manuscript" into "Fic" and have a subfolder per fandom. Multi-chapter fics get their own subfolder, often with more under: one for the Story files, and then other files and/or subfolders for notes. Otherwise it's usually just a file under.
Scrivener has a concept of a "Research" folder which is the only folder where you can include images and the like. I renamed that into Ideas and inspiration, and store screenshots and other inspiring pictures there.
Then I can look at the thumbnails and remember why I love a particular ship, or feel inspired all over again by a particular scene XD >:D >:D
Note: Friends who I am DESPERATELY trying to drag down into the K-9 hole with me, hopefully to go nuts about that OT4 together, don't zoom in if you don't want spoilers ;)
( And this is where things get fun )
I'm sure I'll continue to tweak and improve, but this system is working well for me at the moment, and also it makes me happy.
I'm still using a single project for all fandoms. Sometimes I think about switching to a Scrivener project per fandom, especially when I start writing a multi-chap, then I go meh again... I dunno. I have a couple of fandoms I write a lot for, but more that will only ever have a couple of fics. And it's not necessarily clear from the start which will be which either. I think I'll continue this way until it feels too unwieldy. Or maybe if I start something that I know will be novel-length........... but even then?! Haha. Who knows.
This first organisational tidbit isn't particularly exciting. I renamed "Manuscript" into "Fic" and have a subfolder per fandom. Multi-chapter fics get their own subfolder, often with more under: one for the Story files, and then other files and/or subfolders for notes. Otherwise it's usually just a file under.
Scrivener has a concept of a "Research" folder which is the only folder where you can include images and the like. I renamed that into Ideas and inspiration, and store screenshots and other inspiring pictures there.
Then I can look at the thumbnails and remember why I love a particular ship, or feel inspired all over again by a particular scene XD >:D >:D
Note: Friends who I am DESPERATELY trying to drag down into the K-9 hole with me, hopefully to go nuts about that OT4 together, don't zoom in if you don't want spoilers ;)
( And this is where things get fun )
I'm sure I'll continue to tweak and improve, but this system is working well for me at the moment, and also it makes me happy.
December Days 02025 #20: Performer
Dec. 20th, 2025 11:38 pmsilveradeptIt's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
( 20: Performer )
( 20: Performer )
Book review: Solo Dance
Dec. 20th, 2025 09:25 amrocky41_7 posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
booknookTitle: Solo Dance
Author: Kotomi Li
Genre: Fiction
Author: Kotomi Li
Genre: Fiction
Last night I wrapped up Solo Dance by Kotomi Li, translated from Japanese by Arthur Morris. This short book is about a young gay Taiwanese woman who struggles with both internal and external homophobia, and eventually moves to Japan looking for understanding.
Queer stories from other countries are always interesting to me and it’s a good reminder that progress has not been even all over the world. Much of the book is pretty depressing, because the protagonist struggled with fitting in even before she realized she was gay, and she has some real struggles. She is battling severe depression for much of the book and at several points, suicidality.
The book is touching in that the protagonist’s struggles feel real and she’s someone who is so close to having positive experience that could change her life for the better, but her luck keeps dropping on the other side each time.
I don’t want to spoil too much about the end, but while I was grateful for the overall tone of the it, it is contrived and not very believable. But I did enjoy the protagonist’s travels leading up to that point. It’s not at all subtle, and it packs a lot more plot into the final handful of chapters than the rest of the book, but it was still sweet to see the protagonist’s perspective shift a little through her engagements with other people.
I’m not sure if it’s the translation or the original prose, but the language is stilted and very emotionally distant. The reader is kept at arm’s length from the protagonist virtually the whole novel, and while we’re often told she’s feeling these intense feelings, I never felt it. It was like reading a clinical report of her feelings, which was disappointing.
This is Li’s first novel, and it reads that way. There’s a lot of heart in it, and I appreciate it for that, but it lacks a lot in technical skill. I would be interested to see more of Li’s future work, when she’s had more time to polish her ability, but I don’t regret taking the time with this one.
Behind, behind, but still plenty - Early December 0205
Dec. 19th, 2025 11:53 pmsilveradeptLet's begin with something that should be obvious, and apparently isn't: regardless of what you think about them, if you use someone's pronouns when they tell them to you, you make the person less likely to exit the world early.
An Oklahoma University students decided to stage a stunt and submit an assignment that was a personal attack on the person that was grading it. Unsurprisingly, she failed the assignment. Also unsurprisingly, others have decided to use this as a way to attack the grader and all other trans people, and the grader has been the only one punished for this, because the crime of being trans and in a position where you might pass or fail someone is much greater than deliberately provoking an outrage machine to work on your behalf. Because, of course, the student claims being failed was because she spoke her religious truth, and not because she intended to provoke an outrage machine.
The national Girl Guides organization in the United Kingdom was forced into banning all trans girls from participating in Girlguiding under the threat of being sued into the ground for continuing to admit trans girls. Similarly, the Women's Institute was forced to exclude trans women from their organization because of similar threats. The Labour party says they have to ban trans women from the main events of their Women's conference. The animating problem in all of these decisions is the morally bankrupt UK Supreme Court decision that defined women according to their assigned sex at birth and visible sexual characteristics rather than by some standard that would actually include all people who are women.
Steve Cropper, legendary musician and involved in an awful lot of music that people would know by listening to a few bars, is back with bandmates at the age of 84 years. The only reason I know that name is because Steve Cropper was one of the band members playing behind the Blues Brothers, in both movies, and presumably in many of the other skits involved with the Blues Brothers. Damn good musician.
( Plenty inside, from people behaving badly to zooborns )
Last out for tonight, drag the Pantone company for the entirety of this upcoming year, as they chose an anodyne shade of white for 2026. While that may be accurate, in that's what the U.S. administration wants to have happen in the year, removing all traces of any color other than white, surely the people picking colors could have done a better job than thinking that whiteness was the way to go in this day and age.
What might happen when the suffering child of Omelas is murdered, and how much Omelas will do its best to put things back the way they used to be, because they all believe the lifelong suffering of one child is better than the possible suffering of many children.
The punk spirit never dies, but Everyone Asked About You had a revival due to an old album having been uploaded, and then discovered, and rediscovered, and then became entirely more popular than they would have ever imagined.
And a story about how a writer was almost ground into paste because people preferred the LLM version of the writing to the authentic thing, and how a friend managed to claw back a space where the pablum was not considered the pinnacle.
(Materials viaadrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
An Oklahoma University students decided to stage a stunt and submit an assignment that was a personal attack on the person that was grading it. Unsurprisingly, she failed the assignment. Also unsurprisingly, others have decided to use this as a way to attack the grader and all other trans people, and the grader has been the only one punished for this, because the crime of being trans and in a position where you might pass or fail someone is much greater than deliberately provoking an outrage machine to work on your behalf. Because, of course, the student claims being failed was because she spoke her religious truth, and not because she intended to provoke an outrage machine.
The national Girl Guides organization in the United Kingdom was forced into banning all trans girls from participating in Girlguiding under the threat of being sued into the ground for continuing to admit trans girls. Similarly, the Women's Institute was forced to exclude trans women from their organization because of similar threats. The Labour party says they have to ban trans women from the main events of their Women's conference. The animating problem in all of these decisions is the morally bankrupt UK Supreme Court decision that defined women according to their assigned sex at birth and visible sexual characteristics rather than by some standard that would actually include all people who are women.
Steve Cropper, legendary musician and involved in an awful lot of music that people would know by listening to a few bars, is back with bandmates at the age of 84 years. The only reason I know that name is because Steve Cropper was one of the band members playing behind the Blues Brothers, in both movies, and presumably in many of the other skits involved with the Blues Brothers. Damn good musician.
( Plenty inside, from people behaving badly to zooborns )
Last out for tonight, drag the Pantone company for the entirety of this upcoming year, as they chose an anodyne shade of white for 2026. While that may be accurate, in that's what the U.S. administration wants to have happen in the year, removing all traces of any color other than white, surely the people picking colors could have done a better job than thinking that whiteness was the way to go in this day and age.
What might happen when the suffering child of Omelas is murdered, and how much Omelas will do its best to put things back the way they used to be, because they all believe the lifelong suffering of one child is better than the possible suffering of many children.
The punk spirit never dies, but Everyone Asked About You had a revival due to an old album having been uploaded, and then discovered, and rediscovered, and then became entirely more popular than they would have ever imagined.
And a story about how a writer was almost ground into paste because people preferred the LLM version of the writing to the authentic thing, and how a friend managed to claw back a space where the pablum was not considered the pinnacle.
(Materials via
adrian_turtle, azurelunatic, boxofdelights, cmcmck, conuly, cosmolinguist, elf, finch, firecat, jadelennox, jenett, jjhunter, kaberett, lilysea, oursin, rydra_wong, snowynight, sonia, the_future_modernes, thewayne, umadoshi, vass, the meta_warehouse community, little_details, and anyone else I've neglected to mention or who I suspect would rather not be on the list. If you want to know where I get the neat stuff, my reading list has most of it.)
December Days 02025 #19: Ficcer
Dec. 19th, 2025 11:36 pmsilveradeptIt's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
( 19: Ficcer )
( 19: Ficcer )
Friday open thread: concrete political actions, birthday edition
Dec. 19th, 2025 04:16 pmdolorosa_12Tomorrow is my birthday, so I thought I'd take the opportunity to use this week's open thread as a chance for all of us to do some good. Behind the cut, I'm going to recommend some concrete political actions for causes that matter to me — charities, campaigns, resources — and if you feel so moved, please do take the suggested actions.
Alternatively, use this prompt as a way to highlight in the comments causes and actions that matter to you. Two requests if you do take this latter option:
Be specific when describing your causes. If they are focused on a particular country or region within that country, name it, rather than expecting people to intuit that your cause is US-specific, limited to rural Australia, or whatever.
If you are asking people to part with their money, only recommend initiatives to which you have personally donated or would be comfortable donating. Organisations rather than individual fundraisers are generally safer in this regard.
( Charities, campaigns, resources )
Please do recommend your own actions in the comments.
Alternatively, use this prompt as a way to highlight in the comments causes and actions that matter to you. Two requests if you do take this latter option:
( Charities, campaigns, resources )
Please do recommend your own actions in the comments.
New BNHA fic: We'll prescribe you a sheep (Dabi/Hawks)
Dec. 19th, 2025 09:32 amvriddyI woke up antsy, which after a couple of hours morphed into a fuzzy, overwhelming anger I could barely repress despite having no specific target for or place to direct it, or really any useful action to take from it.
So that made me think about Dabi/Hawks, and want to write them, and to push hard on the angst, maybe post-canon, probably ending in MCD for at least one of them. Possibly both.
Then I remembered the sheep farming AU. Which I started in early, pre-vaccine covid days. In which Dabi and Hawks run away from it all and just live quietly, happily together, raising their sheep.
Maybe soft could be good, too. Time for a new entry in that AU! Also good for relearning to occasionally write short and to yeet more easily. Writing more short things can only work if I don't just add them to the towering pile of "stuff to edit at some point"!!!
We'll prescribe you a sheep | Dabi/Hawks | 800 words | rated T
Summary: Dabi's sick and misses the sheep. Hawks tries to help.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.
So that made me think about Dabi/Hawks, and want to write them, and to push hard on the angst, maybe post-canon, probably ending in MCD for at least one of them. Possibly both.
Then I remembered the sheep farming AU. Which I started in early, pre-vaccine covid days. In which Dabi and Hawks run away from it all and just live quietly, happily together, raising their sheep.
Maybe soft could be good, too. Time for a new entry in that AU! Also good for relearning to occasionally write short and to yeet more easily. Writing more short things can only work if I don't just add them to the towering pile of "stuff to edit at some point"!!!
We'll prescribe you a sheep | Dabi/Hawks | 800 words | rated T
Summary: Dabi's sick and misses the sheep. Hawks tries to help.
Read it on Dreamwidth or AO3.
December Days 02025 #18: Essayist
Dec. 18th, 2025 11:31 pmsilveradeptIt's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
( 18: Essayist )
( 18: Essayist )
The Friday FIve for 19 December 2025
Dec. 18th, 2025 07:44 pmanais_pf posting in thefridayfive1. What is one thing about you that you hate?
2. What is one thing about you that you love?
3. If you had to change one thing about you what would it be and why?
4. What is one word that you would use to define yourself?
5. Imagine what you would look like in a perfect world...what do you look like?
Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.
If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!
2. What is one thing about you that you love?
3. If you had to change one thing about you what would it be and why?
4. What is one word that you would use to define yourself?
5. Imagine what you would look like in a perfect world...what do you look like?
Copy and paste to your own journal, then reply to this post with a link to your answers. If your journal is private or friends-only, you can post your full answers in the comments below.
If you'd like to suggest questions for a future Friday Five, then do so on DreamWidth or LiveJournal. Old sets that were used have been deleted, so we encourage you to suggest some more!
Stuff goes wild on the peripheries
Dec. 18th, 2025 04:50 pmdolorosa_12We're back for another December talking meme post. This prompt is from nerakrose: quintessentially Australian books.
This is not really a week in which I feel much like talking about quintessentially Australian anything, but I'll do my best.
I need to start out with a caveat, though. I haven't lived in Australia for more than seventeen years, and I often feel a bit out of touch from the country's contemporary politics, culture, and so on. So my answer reflects, in some ways, an Australia frozen in the 2000s, and many Australians who do actually live there now, and who have lived there in the intervening twenty-ish years may feel that my answer doesn't reflect their current reality.
( With that disclaimer out of the way, here's my answer )
nerakrose: quintessentially Australian books.This is not really a week in which I feel much like talking about quintessentially Australian anything, but I'll do my best.
I need to start out with a caveat, though. I haven't lived in Australia for more than seventeen years, and I often feel a bit out of touch from the country's contemporary politics, culture, and so on. So my answer reflects, in some ways, an Australia frozen in the 2000s, and many Australians who do actually live there now, and who have lived there in the intervening twenty-ish years may feel that my answer doesn't reflect their current reality.
( With that disclaimer out of the way, here's my answer )
December Days 02025 #17: Persistence
Dec. 17th, 2025 11:30 pmsilveradeptIt's December Days time again. This year, I have decided that I'm going to talk about skills and applications thereof, if for no other reason than because I am prone to both the fixed mindset and the downplaying of any skills that I might have obtained as not "real" skills because they do not fit some form of ideal.
( 17: Persistence )
( 17: Persistence )
Community Thursday
Dec. 18th, 2025 05:31 amvriddyCommunity Thursday challenge: every Thursday, try to make an effort to engage with a community on Dreamwidth, whether that's posting, commenting, promoting, etc.
Posted & commented onbnha_fans. Final episode of the anime aired. Main series is truly truly over now!!!
Commented ongoals_on_dw.
Commented ongetyourwordsout.
Commented oncommon_nature.
Promotedgetyourwordsout, worderlands, inkitout, fan_writers.
Posted & commented on
bnha_fans. Final episode of the anime aired. Main series is truly truly over now!!!Commented on
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getyourwordsout, worderlands, inkitout, fan_writers.