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Some Fragments Concerning the Island of Bereswek by [archiveofourown.org profile] midwinterspring. A peaceful and charming addition to the lore of Earthsea.
If one spends enough time and pays enough attention in the towns and villages of Bereswek, they might notice certain unique stones adorning homes and people. These stones aren't the rubies and sapphires worn by the kings and queens of Enlad and Havnor, or the warlords who attempted to replace them, but other minerals entirely.
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Two stories about young people seeing the world through autistic eyes, and receiving some acceptance around that.

The Code for Everything by McKinley Valentine. I love how this one ended.

The Steel Magnolia Metaphor by Jennifer Lee Rossman.

Both stories are in the list of finalists for the Emeka Walter Dinjos Memorial Award for Disability in Speculative Fiction via [personal profile] mrissa, who is also a finalist for her story So your grandmother is a starship now: a quick guide for the bewildered!

And a bonus link about mathematician John Conway, who invented the Game of Life which is used as coding practice at developer retreats. John Conway Solved Mathematical Problems With His Bare Hands by Kevin Hartnett. No idea if John Conway was autistic or not, but he saw the world in his own quirky way.
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It's always fun when people make games for Yuletide. This is a quietly mysterious text-based twine game, with hints and a walkthrough. I figured everything out except something that's not in the hints, so I looked at the walkthrough and got to the end. It has a custom soundtrack!

Over The Moon by [archiveofourown.org profile] TheBigCat. It's a fan work for another game, For A Change.
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The Ravages of Spring by [archiveofourown.org profile] ariadnes_string. "When Morgon first returned to Osterland, he came as a wind down the chimney of Har’s great hearth. He thought the wolf king might appreciate that." A lovely brief story after Patricia McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy. I have read those books many times, and this gets the tone and movement and relationships of them just right.

Fill to me the parting glass by [archiveofourown.org profile] someinstant. “You will be nervous, the first time,” Chalice had told her in the first months of her apprenticeship. “The binding will feel heavy, and you will have to push through. Steady your hands thusly,” she had said, demonstrating the First Hold, the one that allowed a Chalice to press their wrists to their chest, providing stability. (Or, Three first bindings, and one final Chalice.)" In the world of Chalice by Robin McKinley. I haven't read the book, but this story makes me think I would like it. And I love the song, The Parting Glass

This Lovely Green by [archiveofourown.org profile] tryfanstone. "I'll have a garden or nothing at all," Lovejoy said. In the world of An Episode of Sparrows by Rumor Gotten. A strong sense of place and relationships, even without knowing canon.
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The 2008 xkcd Christmas Special (the novelization) by [archiveofourown.org profile] cnoocy via [personal profile] redbird. "It's important not to let people online get away with saying things like "The Most Impressive Christmas Lights Display You'll Ever See."" Captures a certain kind of madcap dyi frenzy. I was pleased to catch most of the "canon-typical obscure references." At least the programmer ones. I just went and found a nice version of the Intonent Hodie hymn.

Here’s the original xkcd comic, which I don’t think I had seen before.
I started wondering what xkcd stands for. https://xkcd.com/about/ (It doesn’t)

(My, it’s a pain to post html on an iPad!)
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A Diplomatic Relationship by [archiveofourown.org profile] edonohana "Federation Envoy Uhura meets Princess T'Pring for diplomacy, flirting, and literary allusions." Two smart women appreciating each other for being smart. Yeah!!

Rarely, If Ever, Do They Forgive Them by [archiveofourown.org profile] Crafting_Entropy. "Dick Grayson's upset when he finds out Damian often hides out at Jason Todd's apartment. Jason doesn't see why this is his problem." Emotionally deep conversation and some very gourmet eggs for breakfast.
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Murder by Pixel: Crime and Responsibility in the Digital Darkness by S.L.Huang. (Name rhymes with wrong, per intro at @slhuang@wandering.shop .)

Story content notes:
- Harrassment/stalking
- Suicide (reporting of, non-graphic, not by a protagonist or POV character)

This novelette is written in a journalistic style, which gives it enough distance from the above issues that I kept reading. It tackles urgent ethical issues that we all need to consider.

Poems!

Nov. 2nd, 2022 07:49 pm
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Two fantastic poems crossed my path recently.

Dante on The Metro by Marissa Lingen, [personal profile] mrissa. She says it came out of missing the Montreal Metro. Certain rediscovered rhythms and echoes of BART have moved me to tears, so I resonate with that.

Prayer for Werewolves by Stephanie Burt at [personal profile] radiantfracture's journal. Moved me to tears, too.

whole poem, because I like it that much )
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Michigan Seems Like a Dream to Me Now by Marissa Lingen, [personal profile] mrissa. A soft, gentle post-apocalyptic bedtime story.

very mild spoiler )
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A Different Aftermath, comic by [twitter.com profile] ursulav, Ursula Vernon. Beautiful art, story about hope after the apocalypse. Made me cry in a good way.

Try opening it in a private browser window if you don't have a twitter account.

Also, see [personal profile] jesse_the_k's comment on great info for reading twitter without an account.

And an alternate link that has the whole comic in a dw feed from [tumblr.com profile] capricorn-0mnicorn without fussing with twitter at all.
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New Day Dawning by Francesca Forrest, [personal profile] asakiyume. Here is her intro, complete with gorgeous photo of a káurë.

The story is filled with enough world-building, ideas, and characters for a novella or a novel. It centers an argument over what's right and ethical, and I kept arguing with the premises after I finished reading. I wanted more, and at the same time perhaps it's perfect as it is, a compressed, unresolved argument just like so much that's unresolved in the world right now.
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I adored "The Forgotten Beasts of Eld" and the Riddle-Master series. I liked some of the books that came after that, but the appeal faded as I started to recognize the recurring themes and the characters seemed more vague and interchangeable. I'm taking note of people's favorites and might go back and find them. (Library card is on the list for this weekend!)

As I noted in a comment to someone's memorial post, I realized when I came back to "Forgotten Beasts" as an adult that Sybel was not a nice person, or at least not acting ethically all the time. I wonder what I would think of the book now, having acquired more compassion for people's difficult choices and adaptations, and still wanting people to act ethically all the same.

Along that same theme, I think I had read [personal profile] vaznetti's lovely story "The Crown of Hed before (rec'd in 2014), but it resonated differently than I remember, especially around big moves. Highly recommended for spot-on characterizations and a thought-provoking woman-centered story. Via [personal profile] cofax7 and [personal profile] vaznetti.
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The Dragon Project by Naomi Kritzer. I like stories where the kind people (and creatures) win.
Mr. Long has learned how to make tea. He’s not very good at it yet, but if I fill the electric kettle up at bedtime, he starts it in the morning and makes tea for me as I’m getting up.


Also, Clay by Isabel J. Kim. I like the slowness of this story, and agree with the ending, although it felt a bit abrupt.
Modern bodies are made in large quantities. Factories line the edge of the Fissure Basin. Workers scoop sand and mud into large churning vats, feeding extruders that empty into molds in the standard shapes. Factory supervisors smooth out imperfections and align the bodies in the kilns. In optimal circumstances, one in twenty bodies come out of the kiln alive.


Via short story list from [personal profile] mrissa.
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Nonstandard Candles by Yoon Ha Lee.

A lyrical story about darkness, that did not turn out to be dark in the end. I loved the descriptions of inks.
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This Baba / Тази баба "This Grandmother," a half-hour video about Penka Encheva made in 2014.
This film is a story of one grandma who was an extraordinary traditional singer as a young woman in her native country of Bulgaria. She had dreams becoming a professional singer, but her path led her to become a teacher instead. In 2010. At age of 67, she come to America to live with her daughter’s family and help care for her two young grandsons. Penka’s is a universal story of grandmothers from every country across the globe who are divided between here and there, isolated by a lack of English, stuck in suburbs, missing their friends and loved ones back home. However, Penka found new life with a choir, Bulgarian Voices of Seattle, and is now making her dreams come true.

Produced by Mary Sherhart
Directed by Bogdan Darev
Featuring Penka Encheva

In Bulgarian language with integrated English subtitles.


I saw Penka sing as part of the release of this movie, but I haven't seen the movie. They recently posted it to youtube. Saving it here because I don't have time to watch it right now, and I want to get back to it.
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Wole Talabi posted My Favorite African Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Fiction of 2021.

I read Undercurrency by Sam Beckbessinger and liked it. There were a couple of moments where I worried it was about to turn darker than I'm comfortable with, but it always veered back from that. A woman main character, navigating the conflicts inherent in being a powerful woman along with the conflicts inherent in trying to make a profit while caring for the planet.
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Several people in my neighborhood have installed poetry posts with clear-front containers that keep sheets of paper (mostly) dry. On my walk today I saw two great poems.

The Term by William Carlos Williams
full poem )

Clearing by Martha Postlewaite
full poem )
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Roots of Lamentation by Marissa Lingen, [personal profile] mrissa.
“It’s the Greek hell,” she continued. “Unexpected, right? Most people I meet here have thought, well, will it be Christian, will it be Buddhist, will it be, I don’t know, some kind of interdenominational interdimensional woo-woo combo platter. But nope! It’s Greek! Wild, huh?”


Changeling Children by [archiveofourown.org profile] englishable via [personal profile] eruthros. "FN-2187 may have been the first stormtrooper to defect, but he certainly won't be the last - still, Poe has to be surprised by how very young the Resistance's newest recruits are. Finn, on the other hand, is not." This made me cry.
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Yams and sweet potatoes are totally different vegetables — here's how to tell the difference by Laurel Randolph.
Unless you shop at a grocery store with an impressive international produce department or are visiting an African or Caribbean market, you likely won't come across true yams in the US.


From respair to cacklefart – the joy of reclaiming long-lost positive words by Susie Dent.
Yet previous generations had the potential to be kempt, ruly, wieldy, ept and – most recently thanks to PG Wodehouse – gruntled. Some were even full of ruth (compassion), feck (initiative) and gorm (due care and attention). Now is surely the time to reunite these long-lost couples. It may not work for everything – there is no entry (yet) for “shevelled” or “combobulated”, but Mitchell airport in Milwaukee has gloriously provided its passengers with a “recombobulation area” in which to release some of the tension of air travel.

Anyone else reminded of James Thurber's delightful "Thirteen Clocks"?

Also I updated my Yuletide 2021 recs posts Sweet relationships and From far lands to add author names. None of them are familiar to me, which means I get to click author links and see what else lots of new-to-me people have written! I like the variety and warmth of the stories this year. If you saw both rec posts right when I posted them, I ended up adding a story to each of them later that fit the theme.
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Dreaming in Silver and Void by [archiveofourown.org profile] frith_in_thorns, via [personal profile] rachelmanija. "She was found in the Lowlands, but she was from so much further away." This story is jewel-like and perfect. I don't know canon, and didn't need to.

Masked Cities by [archiveofourown.org profile] reconditarmonia. Also via [personal profile] rachelmanija. "You take a trip to the city of Agilulfa." An interactive text game where people wear masks (decorative, not medical). I haven't played all the way through it yet. The traveler doesn't keep as low a profile as I would as a tourist.

Okay, now I completed it. It's a little more aimless and anti-climactic than I expected. I kept flinching and waiting for something terrible to happen. Still a lovely Yuletide offering!

101 Gifts For the Druid Who Has Everything by [archiveofourown.org profile] Ferritin4. A new Asterix and Obelix adventure! It's been many years since I read one of the comics, but the illustrations popped up in my head as I read each name. <3 <3 <3
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