Rachel Manija Brown's Blog, page 25
August 20, 2023
The Titan, Redux
Must-read article on Stockton Rush and the Titan.
A few excerpts:
Lochridge’s report was concise and technical, compiled by someone who clearly knew what he was talking about—the kind of document that in most companies would get a person promoted. Rush’s response was to fire Lochridge immediately, serve him and his wife with a lawsuit (although Carole Lochridge didn’t work at OceanGate or even in the submersible industry) for breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation of trade secrets; threaten their immigration status; and seek to have them pay OceanGate’s legal fees.
...
As chief pilot and the person responsible for operational safety, Lochridge had created a dive plan that included protocols for how to approach the wreck. Any entanglement hazard demands caution and vigilance: touching down at least 50 meters away and surveying the site before coming any closer. Rush disregarded these safety instructions. He landed too close, got tangled in the current, managed to wedge the sub beneath the Andrea Doria’s crumbling bow, and descended into a full-blown panic. Lochridge tried to take the helm, but Rush had refused to let him, melting down for over an hour until finally one of the clients shrieked, “Give him the fucking controller!” At which point Rush hurled the controller, a video-game joystick, at Lochridge’s head. Lochridge freed the sub in 15 minutes.
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A few excerpts:
Lochridge’s report was concise and technical, compiled by someone who clearly knew what he was talking about—the kind of document that in most companies would get a person promoted. Rush’s response was to fire Lochridge immediately, serve him and his wife with a lawsuit (although Carole Lochridge didn’t work at OceanGate or even in the submersible industry) for breach of contract, fraud, unjust enrichment, and misappropriation of trade secrets; threaten their immigration status; and seek to have them pay OceanGate’s legal fees.
...
As chief pilot and the person responsible for operational safety, Lochridge had created a dive plan that included protocols for how to approach the wreck. Any entanglement hazard demands caution and vigilance: touching down at least 50 meters away and surveying the site before coming any closer. Rush disregarded these safety instructions. He landed too close, got tangled in the current, managed to wedge the sub beneath the Andrea Doria’s crumbling bow, and descended into a full-blown panic. Lochridge tried to take the helm, but Rush had refused to let him, melting down for over an hour until finally one of the clients shrieked, “Give him the fucking controller!” At which point Rush hurled the controller, a video-game joystick, at Lochridge’s head. Lochridge freed the sub in 15 minutes.
comments
August 18, 2023
Disaster Open Thread: Lahaina & Yellowknife Fires, Hurricane Hilary, etc
Let's use this post to talk about current disasters, emergency preparedness, and related topics.
Three days ago I was madly clearing brush from around my house to prep for fire season. Yesterday people were evacuated near me due to a fire (now contained; caused by a gas explosion). Today I'm prepping for a motherfucking hurricane.
It will almost certainly be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits land. BUT STILL.
Open thread! All related topics, personal experiences, etc welcome. International experiences welcome. This is a collapse awareness friendly post. You can be as upbeat or depressed as you feel - the only thing banned is criticizing other people for how they feel.
comments
Three days ago I was madly clearing brush from around my house to prep for fire season. Yesterday people were evacuated near me due to a fire (now contained; caused by a gas explosion). Today I'm prepping for a motherfucking hurricane.
It will almost certainly be downgraded to a tropical storm by the time it hits land. BUT STILL.
Open thread! All related topics, personal experiences, etc welcome. International experiences welcome. This is a collapse awareness friendly post. You can be as upbeat or depressed as you feel - the only thing banned is criticizing other people for how they feel.
comments
Dumb Witness AKA Poirot Loses a Client, by Agatha Christie
She opened the morning room door, and Bob shot through like a suddenly projected cannonball.
"Who is it? Where are they? Oh, there you are. Dear me, don't I seem to remember -" sniff- sniff- sniff- prolonged snort. "Of course! We have met!"
"Hullo, old man," I said. "How goes it?"
Bob wagged his tail perfunctorily.
"Nicely, thank you. Let me just see -" he resumed his researches. "Been talking to a spaniel lately, I smell. Foolish dogs, I think. What's this? A cat? That is interesting. Wish we had her here. We'd have rare sport. H'm - not a bad bull terrier."
Having correctly diagnosed a visit I had paid recently to some doggy friends, he transferred his attention to Poirot, inhaled a noseful of benzine and walked away reproachfully.
While Poirot and Hastings are having breakfast together, Poirot receives a letter from an old woman, Emily Arundell. It's very circuitous as well as written in spidery handwriting, refers to some incident that's never explained, and says she wants to consult Poirot. Hastings thinks it's nothing, but Poirot notices the date: two months ago. Why was it mailed so late?
He and Hastings go to her home village to investigate, where they learn that Miss Arundell died shortly after writing the letter, of long-standing liver problems. Hastings, of course, would let it go at that; his biggest interest is in her terrier Bob, who he understands very well... to the point that he translates all of Bob's barks and body language into English! This becomes a running thing and is hilarious and charming. I have never liked Hastings more.
Poirot, however, is interested to learn that Miss Arundell tripped over Bob's ball and fell down the stairs shortly before writing the letter to him, and then changed her will to leave everything to her dithering companion rather than to her closest family members, her adult nieces and no-good nephew. ("Companion" is not a euphemism for lover. Miss Lawson was hired help, and relatively recently hired at that.) Was her fall a murder attempt? Did her shady nephew who joked about bumping her off really do it? What about her niece's suspiciously Greek doctor husband, who would know about poisons? Did she really get a premonition of death at the seance Miss Lawson dragged her to shortly before the murder?
The mystery itself is fine, with one particularly clever bit involving the seance, but not one of Christie's best. The characters are also fine (apart from Bob, I particularly enjoyed the supposed psychics, from whose offer of a dinner of "shredded raw vegetables" Poirot and Hastings flee in horror), but again, not Christie's best.
What makes this book shine, and it does shine, is in Poirot's unique approach to the case, Poirot and Hastings's interactions with each other and with the villagers, and in the dialogue and comedy scenes. It's really funny. Poirot tells a different lie about who he is and why he's there to everyone he meets, Hastings and Bob have an actual relationship arc with a very satisfying conclusion, and it's very difficult to read the book and not come away convinced that Poirot and Hastings are married, or at least joined-at-the-hip platonic life partners.
Christie scale: MILD levels of XENOPHOBIA against GREEKS and other FOREIGNERS.
I'm reviewing the audio version of this because it's so delightful. Hugh Fraser does a great job with all the voices, especially Bob-as-translated-by-Hastings. My mother and I listened to it while traveling together, and it was a very fun experience. It's available on Audible.
[image error] [image error]
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"Who is it? Where are they? Oh, there you are. Dear me, don't I seem to remember -" sniff- sniff- sniff- prolonged snort. "Of course! We have met!"
"Hullo, old man," I said. "How goes it?"
Bob wagged his tail perfunctorily.
"Nicely, thank you. Let me just see -" he resumed his researches. "Been talking to a spaniel lately, I smell. Foolish dogs, I think. What's this? A cat? That is interesting. Wish we had her here. We'd have rare sport. H'm - not a bad bull terrier."
Having correctly diagnosed a visit I had paid recently to some doggy friends, he transferred his attention to Poirot, inhaled a noseful of benzine and walked away reproachfully.
While Poirot and Hastings are having breakfast together, Poirot receives a letter from an old woman, Emily Arundell. It's very circuitous as well as written in spidery handwriting, refers to some incident that's never explained, and says she wants to consult Poirot. Hastings thinks it's nothing, but Poirot notices the date: two months ago. Why was it mailed so late?
He and Hastings go to her home village to investigate, where they learn that Miss Arundell died shortly after writing the letter, of long-standing liver problems. Hastings, of course, would let it go at that; his biggest interest is in her terrier Bob, who he understands very well... to the point that he translates all of Bob's barks and body language into English! This becomes a running thing and is hilarious and charming. I have never liked Hastings more.
Poirot, however, is interested to learn that Miss Arundell tripped over Bob's ball and fell down the stairs shortly before writing the letter to him, and then changed her will to leave everything to her dithering companion rather than to her closest family members, her adult nieces and no-good nephew. ("Companion" is not a euphemism for lover. Miss Lawson was hired help, and relatively recently hired at that.) Was her fall a murder attempt? Did her shady nephew who joked about bumping her off really do it? What about her niece's suspiciously Greek doctor husband, who would know about poisons? Did she really get a premonition of death at the seance Miss Lawson dragged her to shortly before the murder?
The mystery itself is fine, with one particularly clever bit involving the seance, but not one of Christie's best. The characters are also fine (apart from Bob, I particularly enjoyed the supposed psychics, from whose offer of a dinner of "shredded raw vegetables" Poirot and Hastings flee in horror), but again, not Christie's best.
What makes this book shine, and it does shine, is in Poirot's unique approach to the case, Poirot and Hastings's interactions with each other and with the villagers, and in the dialogue and comedy scenes. It's really funny. Poirot tells a different lie about who he is and why he's there to everyone he meets, Hastings and Bob have an actual relationship arc with a very satisfying conclusion, and it's very difficult to read the book and not come away convinced that Poirot and Hastings are married, or at least joined-at-the-hip platonic life partners.
Christie scale: MILD levels of XENOPHOBIA against GREEKS and other FOREIGNERS.
I'm reviewing the audio version of this because it's so delightful. Hugh Fraser does a great job with all the voices, especially Bob-as-translated-by-Hastings. My mother and I listened to it while traveling together, and it was a very fun experience. It's available on Audible.
[image error] [image error]
comments
August 17, 2023
Worm, by Wildbow
A couple years ago, I spent a very happy month reading this insanely epic webnovel. While on vacation in Europe, I re-read it. All one million words of it. No regrets.
What's Worm about?
It's about Taylor Hebert, a bullied teenage girl who gets the ability to control bugs, in a world where people mysteriously started getting powers thirty years before the book begins. She's a fantastic, memorable character - an antiheroine of the "the end justifies the means" variety - who means well (mostly), is often absolutely terrifying and mostly doesn't notice, is incredibly ingenious at using bugs to do basically anything, and carries an extremely epic story with ease.
The powers appear in moments of intense trauma (trigger events), and relate to that trauma and/or to the person's psychological issues in general. So people with powers have gone through something horrible and may be reminded of it whenever they use their new powers, or may have a power that's an ironic reflection on their problems, or one which would have prevented the trauma if they'd only gotten it in time. For instance, a person who blames themselves for not noticing that a loved one was suicidal might get the power to read people's emotions... when they trigger after the suicide. Unsurprisingly, people with powers (capes) tend to be emotionally damaged.
There's differences in how capes work in different countries, but in the US, capes are classified as heroes, villains, or rogues. Heroes are theoretically the good guys, but actually this means they work for the government and fight villains. Villains are theoretically the bad guys, but actually this means they're criminals or mercenaries who don't work for the government. Rogues are neither cops nor criminals, and there's not many of them; why is spoilery.
Taylor wants to be a hero, but her initial contact with heroes doesn't go well. She ends up going undercover in a group of teenage villains, the Undersiders. Her plan is to gather info on them from the inside, find out who their mysterious boss is, and then turn them in to the heroes. But in the classic problem with undercover work, she starts making friends with the people she plans to betray. Also, she's good at being a villain...
What's good about this book?
1. Taylor (Skitter). I fucking love Taylor. She's an all-time great character. I spent one million words with her, and I could happily spend one million more. She's ruthless, pragmatic, socially awkward, brilliant in certain spheres, angry, distrustful of authority (with good reason!), will go to the wire for people she cares about or wants to protect, and never, ever gives up. She's my favorite iron woobie and I adore her.
2. The characters in general. There's an absolutely enormous cast, and I could reel off twenty or so characters who are absolute favorites.
Without spoilers, I love Lisa (Tattletale), whose official power is information gathering and whose unofficial power is sarcasm; Rachel (Bitch - don't you dare call her Hellhound), whose power is temporarily turning dogs into giant monster dogs, who loves dogs and mostly can't stand people, and who has a character arc that rivals Taylor's; Sabah (Parian), a rogue who can control constructs made of cloth and so rides around on and fights villains with giant stuffed unicorns, teddy bears, etc; Lily (Flechette), a hero whose power of shooting big arrows turns out to have a lot more to it than is initially apparent and keeps hanging out with a certain stuffed animal controlling rogue...
For people who have already read the book, my favorites for whom it's spoilery to even say why I love them include Imp, Dragon, Defiant, Chevalier, Sveta, the Travelers, Faultline's crew, and (in a way) the Simurgh and Bonesaw, a psychopathic mad scientist who never matured past the age she triggered, so she's an adorable little girl who enjoys doing sadistic noncon surgery as an art form.
3. The plot. After a slightly slow start, it's incredibly page-turny, with one jaw-dropping twist after another. I can't say I couldn't put it down because I HAD to put it down, but I spent an entire month fidgeting through the rest of my life, itching to get back to it.
4. The worldbuilding. It's much more solid and well-worked-out than it appears at first, with a lot of things that initially don't seem to make sense worked into a satisfying whole. It also deals a lot with logistics: ( mild spoilers )
5. The powers. The powers are incredibly inventive and clever, and used in inventive and clever ways. They all have drawbacks and limits in addition to unexpected uses. For instance, the teenage hero Clockblocker (who announced his hero name on TV so his boss couldn't make him take it back) can temporarily stop time for anything he touches, but has no idea how long the effect will last other than the maximum time is ten minutes. If he freezes a sheet of paper in time and then lets go of it, that paper acts as a completely impenetrable shield for as long as his power lasts.
6. The majority of the ginormous cast of characters are women and girls. They're evil masterminds, child soldiers, loners, leaders, sociopaths, idealists, friends, lovers, mad scientists, fuckups, bureaucrats, assassins, caregivers, bruisers, artists, monsters, and anything else you can think of.
7. There's a canon FF couple who I really like, Lily/Sabah who have a really hot sexy commander/loyal knight relationship. But apart from them, there's a lot of femslashy relationships. In fact part of why I'd love more people to get into this is I'd like more tropey femslash for my favorite non-canon pairings (Taylor/Rachel and Taylor/Lisa). Taylor is a little black dress who goes excellently with many other characters as well. Plus there's a very unique and awesome canon het relationship (D/D to avoid spoilers) who could do with more fic.
8. So many crowning moments of awesome. SO MANY. It's epic and it feels it.
Why might I NOT want to read this book?
1. One. Million. Words.
2. Some iffy racial issues - not horrendous IMO, more "you can tell a white guy wrote that." However, there's also excellent non-stereotypical characters of color (such as Sabah and Lily, mentioned above.)
3. It's really dark, though leavened by the characters having senses of humor, and sometimes tips into grimdark/overly gruesome or gross.
4. The first couple chapters are noticeably rockier than the rest.
5. The fandom (which is mostly on Reddit, spacebattles, and another forum I forget) is oddly reductionist - I'm not saying Taylor is a precious cinnamon roll covered in ants, but the fandom tends to go way overboard in the direction of "every decision she makes is WRONG" and "she's an unreliable narrator so everything she says about her own motives is WRONG." Most of the fanfic is on two forum-style sites that both make my eyes bleed, and 90% of it is "Taylor has a different power." I don't think the presence of the author and a very influential podcast (We've Got Worm) helps.
What potentially upsetting content does it contain?: EVERYTHING. But particularly bugs, body horror, and bullying. Also, rape (off-page), gore, torture, dead children, dead dogs, child abuse, and multiple fates worse than death.
SOLD! How can I read it?
Waiting for it to come out in print or official ebook format is not going to happen, due to aforesaid weird fandom dynamics leading to the author deciding not to do it. So...
1. Read it online. If this makes your eyes bleed...
2. Email me at Rphoenix2 @ gmail and I'll send you an epub. If you do this, please pay Wildbow something via his PayPal or Patreon.
Okay, I'm intrigued! But it's too intimidating to dive into all at once.
So, would anyone be interested in doing an arc-by-arc readalong? I could put up weekly discussion posts.
comments
What's Worm about?
It's about Taylor Hebert, a bullied teenage girl who gets the ability to control bugs, in a world where people mysteriously started getting powers thirty years before the book begins. She's a fantastic, memorable character - an antiheroine of the "the end justifies the means" variety - who means well (mostly), is often absolutely terrifying and mostly doesn't notice, is incredibly ingenious at using bugs to do basically anything, and carries an extremely epic story with ease.
The powers appear in moments of intense trauma (trigger events), and relate to that trauma and/or to the person's psychological issues in general. So people with powers have gone through something horrible and may be reminded of it whenever they use their new powers, or may have a power that's an ironic reflection on their problems, or one which would have prevented the trauma if they'd only gotten it in time. For instance, a person who blames themselves for not noticing that a loved one was suicidal might get the power to read people's emotions... when they trigger after the suicide. Unsurprisingly, people with powers (capes) tend to be emotionally damaged.
There's differences in how capes work in different countries, but in the US, capes are classified as heroes, villains, or rogues. Heroes are theoretically the good guys, but actually this means they work for the government and fight villains. Villains are theoretically the bad guys, but actually this means they're criminals or mercenaries who don't work for the government. Rogues are neither cops nor criminals, and there's not many of them; why is spoilery.
Taylor wants to be a hero, but her initial contact with heroes doesn't go well. She ends up going undercover in a group of teenage villains, the Undersiders. Her plan is to gather info on them from the inside, find out who their mysterious boss is, and then turn them in to the heroes. But in the classic problem with undercover work, she starts making friends with the people she plans to betray. Also, she's good at being a villain...
What's good about this book?
1. Taylor (Skitter). I fucking love Taylor. She's an all-time great character. I spent one million words with her, and I could happily spend one million more. She's ruthless, pragmatic, socially awkward, brilliant in certain spheres, angry, distrustful of authority (with good reason!), will go to the wire for people she cares about or wants to protect, and never, ever gives up. She's my favorite iron woobie and I adore her.
2. The characters in general. There's an absolutely enormous cast, and I could reel off twenty or so characters who are absolute favorites.
Without spoilers, I love Lisa (Tattletale), whose official power is information gathering and whose unofficial power is sarcasm; Rachel (Bitch - don't you dare call her Hellhound), whose power is temporarily turning dogs into giant monster dogs, who loves dogs and mostly can't stand people, and who has a character arc that rivals Taylor's; Sabah (Parian), a rogue who can control constructs made of cloth and so rides around on and fights villains with giant stuffed unicorns, teddy bears, etc; Lily (Flechette), a hero whose power of shooting big arrows turns out to have a lot more to it than is initially apparent and keeps hanging out with a certain stuffed animal controlling rogue...
For people who have already read the book, my favorites for whom it's spoilery to even say why I love them include Imp, Dragon, Defiant, Chevalier, Sveta, the Travelers, Faultline's crew, and (in a way) the Simurgh and Bonesaw, a psychopathic mad scientist who never matured past the age she triggered, so she's an adorable little girl who enjoys doing sadistic noncon surgery as an art form.
3. The plot. After a slightly slow start, it's incredibly page-turny, with one jaw-dropping twist after another. I can't say I couldn't put it down because I HAD to put it down, but I spent an entire month fidgeting through the rest of my life, itching to get back to it.
4. The worldbuilding. It's much more solid and well-worked-out than it appears at first, with a lot of things that initially don't seem to make sense worked into a satisfying whole. It also deals a lot with logistics: ( mild spoilers )
5. The powers. The powers are incredibly inventive and clever, and used in inventive and clever ways. They all have drawbacks and limits in addition to unexpected uses. For instance, the teenage hero Clockblocker (who announced his hero name on TV so his boss couldn't make him take it back) can temporarily stop time for anything he touches, but has no idea how long the effect will last other than the maximum time is ten minutes. If he freezes a sheet of paper in time and then lets go of it, that paper acts as a completely impenetrable shield for as long as his power lasts.
6. The majority of the ginormous cast of characters are women and girls. They're evil masterminds, child soldiers, loners, leaders, sociopaths, idealists, friends, lovers, mad scientists, fuckups, bureaucrats, assassins, caregivers, bruisers, artists, monsters, and anything else you can think of.
7. There's a canon FF couple who I really like, Lily/Sabah who have a really hot sexy commander/loyal knight relationship. But apart from them, there's a lot of femslashy relationships. In fact part of why I'd love more people to get into this is I'd like more tropey femslash for my favorite non-canon pairings (Taylor/Rachel and Taylor/Lisa). Taylor is a little black dress who goes excellently with many other characters as well. Plus there's a very unique and awesome canon het relationship (D/D to avoid spoilers) who could do with more fic.
8. So many crowning moments of awesome. SO MANY. It's epic and it feels it.
Why might I NOT want to read this book?
1. One. Million. Words.
2. Some iffy racial issues - not horrendous IMO, more "you can tell a white guy wrote that." However, there's also excellent non-stereotypical characters of color (such as Sabah and Lily, mentioned above.)
3. It's really dark, though leavened by the characters having senses of humor, and sometimes tips into grimdark/overly gruesome or gross.
4. The first couple chapters are noticeably rockier than the rest.
5. The fandom (which is mostly on Reddit, spacebattles, and another forum I forget) is oddly reductionist - I'm not saying Taylor is a precious cinnamon roll covered in ants, but the fandom tends to go way overboard in the direction of "every decision she makes is WRONG" and "she's an unreliable narrator so everything she says about her own motives is WRONG." Most of the fanfic is on two forum-style sites that both make my eyes bleed, and 90% of it is "Taylor has a different power." I don't think the presence of the author and a very influential podcast (We've Got Worm) helps.
What potentially upsetting content does it contain?: EVERYTHING. But particularly bugs, body horror, and bullying. Also, rape (off-page), gore, torture, dead children, dead dogs, child abuse, and multiple fates worse than death.
SOLD! How can I read it?
Waiting for it to come out in print or official ebook format is not going to happen, due to aforesaid weird fandom dynamics leading to the author deciding not to do it. So...
1. Read it online. If this makes your eyes bleed...
2. Email me at Rphoenix2 @ gmail and I'll send you an epub. If you do this, please pay Wildbow something via his PayPal or Patreon.
Okay, I'm intrigued! But it's too intimidating to dive into all at once.
So, would anyone be interested in doing an arc-by-arc readalong? I could put up weekly discussion posts.
comments
August 16, 2023
Cute Mutants # 1: Mutant Pride, by S. J. Whitby
Imagine the X-Men, but Tumblr. Or rather, as is explicitly textual, imagine the New Mutants, but Tumblr.
My new morning routine involves me googling superpowers in general, and my ability in particular. Nothing new ever shows up. The closest thing I found is psychometry, which is a psychic thing where you get 'readings' from objects, like you touch a wallet and know 'oh this person prefers dubs to subs i.e. is wrong' or 'the woman who owns this writes Dramione fanfic i.e. is kinda yikes.'
Four teenage girls and a trans boy get powers after kissing the same girl at a party. The girl, Emma, is just as confused by this as they are. Inspired by Dylan, who can talk to objects and is a huge fan of X-Men comics, they start exploring their powers and having teen drama.
I don't know my sexuality. I've read so much stuff on the Internet about it and I just get more fucking confused. My God, the hours I spent on AVENwiki. I used to think I was some kind of ace but then this thing with Lou started. He was the closest I had to a friend before the kissing part of our relationship started and now it's – well, it's different. Putting a label on it is complicated.
I've mostly managed to get my school uniform on while musing on gray-aces and demisexuals and the like...
But things get serious when they learn that while they all kissed Emma consensually (she created a spin-the-bottle app to see if she was really ace or not), a local 20-something incel transphobe forced a kiss on her and got powers which he's using to commit crimes and terrorize people. He must be stopped!
The powers are really cool - Alyse's ability to transform her own body based on the emotions she's feeling is creative and beautifully described, and Dylan's talking objects are delightful. I love the general idea of "updated New Mutants." I was extremely charmed by the reading list of X-Men comics at the end of the book, excellent choices all.
Unfortunately, I can only enjoy Dylan's narrative style for the length of a Tumblr post. Overall, the book was way too Tumblr-twee for me. But I bet some of you would enjoy it a lot. It's a five-book series, and the first three are 99 cents.
[image error] [image error]
comments
My new morning routine involves me googling superpowers in general, and my ability in particular. Nothing new ever shows up. The closest thing I found is psychometry, which is a psychic thing where you get 'readings' from objects, like you touch a wallet and know 'oh this person prefers dubs to subs i.e. is wrong' or 'the woman who owns this writes Dramione fanfic i.e. is kinda yikes.'
Four teenage girls and a trans boy get powers after kissing the same girl at a party. The girl, Emma, is just as confused by this as they are. Inspired by Dylan, who can talk to objects and is a huge fan of X-Men comics, they start exploring their powers and having teen drama.
I don't know my sexuality. I've read so much stuff on the Internet about it and I just get more fucking confused. My God, the hours I spent on AVENwiki. I used to think I was some kind of ace but then this thing with Lou started. He was the closest I had to a friend before the kissing part of our relationship started and now it's – well, it's different. Putting a label on it is complicated.
I've mostly managed to get my school uniform on while musing on gray-aces and demisexuals and the like...
But things get serious when they learn that while they all kissed Emma consensually (she created a spin-the-bottle app to see if she was really ace or not), a local 20-something incel transphobe forced a kiss on her and got powers which he's using to commit crimes and terrorize people. He must be stopped!
The powers are really cool - Alyse's ability to transform her own body based on the emotions she's feeling is creative and beautifully described, and Dylan's talking objects are delightful. I love the general idea of "updated New Mutants." I was extremely charmed by the reading list of X-Men comics at the end of the book, excellent choices all.
Unfortunately, I can only enjoy Dylan's narrative style for the length of a Tumblr post. Overall, the book was way too Tumblr-twee for me. But I bet some of you would enjoy it a lot. It's a five-book series, and the first three are 99 cents.
[image error] [image error]
comments
August 13, 2023
Land Update
It's way too hot but my land is beautiful. I FINALLY managed to get some California native wildflowers growing from seed, so my goal of replacing most non-native plants with natives is proceeding nicely. I have beautiful patches and strips of pink and white and blue and purple and yellow flowers, some ruffled, some intricate as a Faberge egg, most no bigger than my thumbnail.
My nectarine sapling, my tomatoes, and my corn is growing very well - I have actual unripe nectarines! Very exciting. Even if something other than me ends up eating them this year, I now know that both grow well in the areas I put them.
I didn't finish my defensible space goals before going to Europe, so I'm continuing now. It's a ton of work even though obviously I'm not doing everything they recommend. I live in a forest, I'm committed to rewilding so I'm not raking leaves in the forest areas, and my deck is going to have deck furniture or what's the point?
But I'm doing everything I can, focusing on removing dead weeds, raking paths and other areas with nothing that's supposed to grow on them anyway to create firebreaks, and creating as much of an ember break as I can within the five-foot zone. Unfortunately the only cherry tree branches I can reach to pick the cherries are right up against and over the deck. Still pondering that one. I'm going to consult an arborist anyway so I'll ask about that.
All the leaves, branches, etc, are getting dumped on an ivy-covered downward slope ending in a fence. This is an area which I want to fill in anyway, to smother the ivy and create an area where I can grow... something. It's in dense shade and not easy to reach with a hose so I'm thinking shade-growing native plants.
I have another huge ivy patch I covered in cardboard over a year ago to smother it. I need to cover the cardboard in mulch, then in dirt. Once that's done, I will only have four giant ivy patches remaining, down from the eight or so I started with.
This is half an acre and I'm the only person working on it till I get the arborist involved, so it's a fairly jaw-dropping amount of work. Luckily it's work I enjoy, though I'd enjoy it more if it was cooler.
comments
My nectarine sapling, my tomatoes, and my corn is growing very well - I have actual unripe nectarines! Very exciting. Even if something other than me ends up eating them this year, I now know that both grow well in the areas I put them.
I didn't finish my defensible space goals before going to Europe, so I'm continuing now. It's a ton of work even though obviously I'm not doing everything they recommend. I live in a forest, I'm committed to rewilding so I'm not raking leaves in the forest areas, and my deck is going to have deck furniture or what's the point?
But I'm doing everything I can, focusing on removing dead weeds, raking paths and other areas with nothing that's supposed to grow on them anyway to create firebreaks, and creating as much of an ember break as I can within the five-foot zone. Unfortunately the only cherry tree branches I can reach to pick the cherries are right up against and over the deck. Still pondering that one. I'm going to consult an arborist anyway so I'll ask about that.
All the leaves, branches, etc, are getting dumped on an ivy-covered downward slope ending in a fence. This is an area which I want to fill in anyway, to smother the ivy and create an area where I can grow... something. It's in dense shade and not easy to reach with a hose so I'm thinking shade-growing native plants.
I have another huge ivy patch I covered in cardboard over a year ago to smother it. I need to cover the cardboard in mulch, then in dirt. Once that's done, I will only have four giant ivy patches remaining, down from the eight or so I started with.
This is half an acre and I'm the only person working on it till I get the arborist involved, so it's a fairly jaw-dropping amount of work. Luckily it's work I enjoy, though I'd enjoy it more if it was cooler.
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August 11, 2023
Watersong, by Mary Caraker
A fascinating science fiction novel in which all the characters are amphibious aliens at a Stone Age technological level, struggling to cope with biological, ecological, and cultural changes which they can only understand to a limited degree.
As is slowly and naturally shown, the characters have a complex life cycle involving multiple metamorphoses and habitats. This is really well worked out, inspired by frogs and sea turtles and whales and probably other creatures as well. The adults (landlings) are basically humanoid. They live on land in small tribes near the beach, and the females lay eggs in tide pools. The eggs are washed out to sea, where they hatch as swimmers who live underwater, guarded by the old ones - landlings who undergo a final metamorphosis back to aquatic, seal-like beings. The old ones sing to the swimmers, teaching them what they need to know about life on land. When the swimmers lose their gills and grow lungs, they swim ashore and join the other landlings.
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. But things are changing on the very first chapter. A normal and welcome event, the landing of the swimmers, goes wrong when only a few swimmers return, immature and lacking in their usual knowledge. One female is so small that she's left behind to die rather than helped back to the tribe. But one of the adults, Rintu, feels sorry for her and gives her his fur cloak.
As Rintu notices, one of their two suns, Smallsun, has stopped coming out, making the weather - and the ocean - much colder than normal. He suspects that this may have caused the problem with the swimmers. One old male knows a joke about how Smallsun sometimes vanishes for the period of a landling's full lifetime on land... but he doesn't know the point of the joke, and no one takes much notice.
The stunted female survives against the odds, gets a name (Embri), and basically forces her acceptance into the tribe. Because she missed most of the teaching of the old ones and had to live in the forest for a while without learning anything from the tribe, she's had to figure out a lot on her own and so has a bunch of new ideas. This mostly comes across as very off-putting to the other characters. But as the weather gets colder and colder, the swimmers stop returning, the old ones die in the freezing ocean, and it becomes clear that the tribe will have to adapt or die.
Caraker works out this premise beautifully. The POV rotates as time goes on, showing all sorts of different aspects of what's happening. Embri figures out how to save the swimmers by keeping them in closed-off pools and caring for them, which causes the ripple effect of parents knowing who their children are and even of monogamy and shared homes becoming a practice. Nithrin, a female from the same landing as Embri's, is her counterpart and opposite: beautiful where Embri was damaged from her rough start, determined to stick to tradition, but secretly just as different as Embri is, with the ability to see through solid objects.
( Read more... )
In a concise 214 pages, Watersong tells an epic story on an intimate scale. The worldbuilding is just fantastic. This is an excellent book which is exactly the sort of thing that science fiction can do and nearly nothing else can, and it deserves to be much better-known.
[image error] [image error]
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As is slowly and naturally shown, the characters have a complex life cycle involving multiple metamorphoses and habitats. This is really well worked out, inspired by frogs and sea turtles and whales and probably other creatures as well. The adults (landlings) are basically humanoid. They live on land in small tribes near the beach, and the females lay eggs in tide pools. The eggs are washed out to sea, where they hatch as swimmers who live underwater, guarded by the old ones - landlings who undergo a final metamorphosis back to aquatic, seal-like beings. The old ones sing to the swimmers, teaching them what they need to know about life on land. When the swimmers lose their gills and grow lungs, they swim ashore and join the other landlings.
At least, that's how it's supposed to work. But things are changing on the very first chapter. A normal and welcome event, the landing of the swimmers, goes wrong when only a few swimmers return, immature and lacking in their usual knowledge. One female is so small that she's left behind to die rather than helped back to the tribe. But one of the adults, Rintu, feels sorry for her and gives her his fur cloak.
As Rintu notices, one of their two suns, Smallsun, has stopped coming out, making the weather - and the ocean - much colder than normal. He suspects that this may have caused the problem with the swimmers. One old male knows a joke about how Smallsun sometimes vanishes for the period of a landling's full lifetime on land... but he doesn't know the point of the joke, and no one takes much notice.
The stunted female survives against the odds, gets a name (Embri), and basically forces her acceptance into the tribe. Because she missed most of the teaching of the old ones and had to live in the forest for a while without learning anything from the tribe, she's had to figure out a lot on her own and so has a bunch of new ideas. This mostly comes across as very off-putting to the other characters. But as the weather gets colder and colder, the swimmers stop returning, the old ones die in the freezing ocean, and it becomes clear that the tribe will have to adapt or die.
Caraker works out this premise beautifully. The POV rotates as time goes on, showing all sorts of different aspects of what's happening. Embri figures out how to save the swimmers by keeping them in closed-off pools and caring for them, which causes the ripple effect of parents knowing who their children are and even of monogamy and shared homes becoming a practice. Nithrin, a female from the same landing as Embri's, is her counterpart and opposite: beautiful where Embri was damaged from her rough start, determined to stick to tradition, but secretly just as different as Embri is, with the ability to see through solid objects.
( Read more... )
In a concise 214 pages, Watersong tells an epic story on an intimate scale. The worldbuilding is just fantastic. This is an excellent book which is exactly the sort of thing that science fiction can do and nearly nothing else can, and it deserves to be much better-known.
[image error] [image error]
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August 4, 2023
Nimona (Movie)
![[personal profile]](https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/hostedimages/1491408111i/22407843.png)
eglantiere
screened this for me and was very amused by my reactions. I somehow not only avoided being spoiled for it, but had osmosed basically everything about it wrong. My beliefs going in: It's a Japanese anime about a lone disgraced warrior who picks up a young girl with a mission, and they have a father-daughter relationship. I was picturing something like Lone Wolf and Cub or True Grit, set in some Japanese historical fantasy period.
What it actually is: An American animated movie based on an American webcomic. The setting is a fantasy-SF mashup with knights AND flying cars AND pizza. It does involve a lone disgraced warrior, but he's voiced by Riz Ahmed (with an excellent cartoon rendering of his puppy-dog eyes), and he's a GAY KNIGHT with a canon GAY relationship with another canon GAY KNIGHT. No, I don't know how I'd failed to osmose the gay earlier.
Nimona is a girl and they do have a sort of parental relationship but also a reluctant sidekick-knight relationship, and it's hilarious. Nimona is a great character who can shapeshift into basically anything, but frequently pink. She's pure id: "FIGHT! EAT PIZZA! CHAAAAARGE!"
The other thing I completely failed to osmose is that the entire thing is an allegory about trans/queer issues and acceptance. It's completely unsubtle and very sweet. Nimona can be a girl, a boy, or a giant pink whale; what is Nimona? "I'm Nimona!"
The animation is bright and bold, with nicely done flashbacks in different styles. The whole thing is funny and sweet and charming. I gather that it's not completely faithful to the original webcomic, but I don't know the original webcomic so I can't comment on that. I enjoyed it.
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August 2, 2023
Help Adorable Rescue Kitties! Feast Your Eyes Upon the Rescue Hedgehog!
I am currently on vacation in Bulgaria, where I had dinner with two friends, one of whom runs a cat shelter, Tenth Life. He very recently got permission to set up a trap-spay-release program for stray cats in Varna. If you read no further, please click and give them a donation - preferably, a recurring monthly one. That's what they need to keep their cats in food and litter and rent and so forth.
Kot (his nickname, which means cat) is twenty-one and has been rescuing animals since he was sixteen. His latest rescue is this adorable hedgehog, which was hit by a car and can't be released back into the wild as he's blind:
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I visited his cat rescue, which he established two years ago when he was nineteen. It's now an official NGO with twenty volunteers!
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If you like any cat you see, Tenth Life can transport it to you anywhere in Europe. Possibly also to America or other non-Europe parts of the world. The Facebook Group has the most up-to-date cat information.
Here is Kot feeding a sweetheart of a mama cat.
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I got to play with all the kittens but this darling in the cage, who is being isolated till his eye infection clears up. He jumped around in the cage, watching the other kittens and playing along.
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Except for cases like that, the cats all share the same space. It's a Wonderland for cats, with lots of shelves and secluded areas they can retreat to. There are seven cats at the moment, but some were hanging out in the quiet areas so I didn't get to photograph them all. Here is Piggy the cow cat along with the other two kittens.
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Kot is amazing at rescuing cats that others give up on. He nursed a teeny gremlin of a kitten back to health from a severe bone infection that made a vet despair; Aya is now a fine healthy cat with a limp. Here she is impersonating a dragon on my chest:
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Here are some before-and-afters of cats I didn't meet, which have already been adopted. Descriptions by my other friend, who adopted Aya (the gremlin-turned-dragon):
"Bashir, a cat who was either thrown out or lost, and who almost died on the street due to an autoimmune disease: he couldn't eat, wash or protect himself, and was starved into near translucence. he got treated, fed up, successfully survived dental surgery, and now dominates his new family"
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"Old persian dame Varya, who me and kot personally took away from the sea garden. adopted, but she and the adopters' cats didn't make friends despite everybody trying really hard, so - re-adopted."
[image error]
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I personally vouch for Kot, whom I've known since he was a teenager, and I've visited the rescue myself. It's an official NGO and the cats are very well cared for and loved. I can also attest that Varna has a LOT of stray cats (plus the odd dog and hurt hedgehog) who need this service.
And if you want to adopt a cat, maybe you can! Tenth Life transports cats to Europe, and other continents are also a possibility. Sorry Kot, I would love to adopt Isis but I don't think my other cats would approve.
Once again, please click here to Tenth Life give them a donation, ideally monthly. They accept PayPal, Visa, and other forms of donation. And please signal-boost this post!
comments
Kot (his nickname, which means cat) is twenty-one and has been rescuing animals since he was sixteen. His latest rescue is this adorable hedgehog, which was hit by a car and can't be released back into the wild as he's blind:
[image error]
I visited his cat rescue, which he established two years ago when he was nineteen. It's now an official NGO with twenty volunteers!
[image error]
If you like any cat you see, Tenth Life can transport it to you anywhere in Europe. Possibly also to America or other non-Europe parts of the world. The Facebook Group has the most up-to-date cat information.
Here is Kot feeding a sweetheart of a mama cat.
[image error]
I got to play with all the kittens but this darling in the cage, who is being isolated till his eye infection clears up. He jumped around in the cage, watching the other kittens and playing along.
[image error]
Except for cases like that, the cats all share the same space. It's a Wonderland for cats, with lots of shelves and secluded areas they can retreat to. There are seven cats at the moment, but some were hanging out in the quiet areas so I didn't get to photograph them all. Here is Piggy the cow cat along with the other two kittens.
[image error]
Kot is amazing at rescuing cats that others give up on. He nursed a teeny gremlin of a kitten back to health from a severe bone infection that made a vet despair; Aya is now a fine healthy cat with a limp. Here she is impersonating a dragon on my chest:
[image error]
Here are some before-and-afters of cats I didn't meet, which have already been adopted. Descriptions by my other friend, who adopted Aya (the gremlin-turned-dragon):
"Bashir, a cat who was either thrown out or lost, and who almost died on the street due to an autoimmune disease: he couldn't eat, wash or protect himself, and was starved into near translucence. he got treated, fed up, successfully survived dental surgery, and now dominates his new family"
[image error]
[image error]
"Old persian dame Varya, who me and kot personally took away from the sea garden. adopted, but she and the adopters' cats didn't make friends despite everybody trying really hard, so - re-adopted."
[image error]
[image error]
I personally vouch for Kot, whom I've known since he was a teenager, and I've visited the rescue myself. It's an official NGO and the cats are very well cared for and loved. I can also attest that Varna has a LOT of stray cats (plus the odd dog and hurt hedgehog) who need this service.
And if you want to adopt a cat, maybe you can! Tenth Life transports cats to Europe, and other continents are also a possibility. Sorry Kot, I would love to adopt Isis but I don't think my other cats would approve.
Once again, please click here to Tenth Life give them a donation, ideally monthly. They accept PayPal, Visa, and other forms of donation. And please signal-boost this post!
comments
August 1, 2023
All Sinners Bleed, by S. A. Cosby
I met Shawn Cosby at Boucher con, where he mentioned that he was worried that All Sinners Bleed wouldn't be as good as Razorblade Tears, and a friend encouraged him by saying that it didn't have to be as good as Razorblade Tears, it just had to be good.
In fact, All Sinners Bleed is very good but not as good Razorblade Tears. It's about the first Black sheriff in a small southern town investigating what turns out to be the work of a serial killer. Titus, the sheriff, is a great character, and so is his father. The characterization and themes are classic Cosby, and the writing is propulsive. I finished the book in one day. It has a very very satisfying final page.
The basic problem with the book, which made me like it less than his last two, is that plot itself is pretty standard. It's about a cop investigating a serial killer in a town where that isn't something that's happened before. The serial killer's motivations are pretty predictable. The writing is very good but it doesn't have the lushness of Cosby's earlier work. He seems to be going for a more stripped-down style, which, again, is very good on its own terms, but I don't like it quite as much. The dialogue, however is pure Cosby and the end is terrific.
Recommended if you like Cosby, but if you haven't read anything by him before, read Razorblade Tears or Blacktop Wasteland.
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comments
In fact, All Sinners Bleed is very good but not as good Razorblade Tears. It's about the first Black sheriff in a small southern town investigating what turns out to be the work of a serial killer. Titus, the sheriff, is a great character, and so is his father. The characterization and themes are classic Cosby, and the writing is propulsive. I finished the book in one day. It has a very very satisfying final page.
The basic problem with the book, which made me like it less than his last two, is that plot itself is pretty standard. It's about a cop investigating a serial killer in a town where that isn't something that's happened before. The serial killer's motivations are pretty predictable. The writing is very good but it doesn't have the lushness of Cosby's earlier work. He seems to be going for a more stripped-down style, which, again, is very good on its own terms, but I don't like it quite as much. The dialogue, however is pure Cosby and the end is terrific.
Recommended if you like Cosby, but if you haven't read anything by him before, read Razorblade Tears or Blacktop Wasteland.
[image error] [image error]
comments
