james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
([personal profile] james_davis_nicoll Aug. 18th, 2025 10:27 am)
2010: Cadbury falls into shadow, electoral loss sends the Labour Party off on a delightful journey of reinvention, and millions of travelers spontaneously learn how to spell Eyjafjallajökull.

Poll #33506 Clarke Award Finalists 2010
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4


Which 2010 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?

View Answers

The City & The City by China Miéville
4 (100.0%)

Far North by Marcel Theroux
0 (0.0%)

Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
2 (50.0%)

Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
0 (0.0%)

Spirit or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones
0 (0.0%)

Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts
0 (0.0%)



Bold for have read, italic for intend to read, underline for never heard of it.

Which 2010 Clarke Award Finalists Have You Read?
The City & The City by China Miéville
Far North by Marcel Theroux
Galileo's Dream by Kim Stanley Robinson
Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding
Spirit or The Princess of Bois Dormant by Gwyneth Jones
Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts

The Benson Diary by AC Benson review – musings of an Edwardian elitist:

His outlook is that of an Edwardian clubman; and indeed, the only England Benson knew well, apart from Eton, Cambridge and the court at Windsor Castle, was the smoke-filled rooms of Pall Mall, a world largely without women. Benson did not much like women and was not at ease with them, preferring the company of handsome young men. The editors go to great pains to argue that Benson, while certainly homoerotic, was not actively homosexual. But, really, who cares?
....
In truth, these diaries are a monument of misplaced scholarship.

Okay, I am jumping up and down going BURN! because one of the editors is someone who wrote a ghastly retro piece of work within my own Field of Endeavour which I had occasion to review back in the day.

(The Literary Review was kinder)

But also, while I guess Bensons are a minor fandom of mine, the diaries I would be interested in reading are those of Minnie (Sapphic romps at Lambeth Palace!) and of naughty Fred, EF Benson, author of the camp classics about Mapp and Lucia and the Edwardian bromance David Blaize. Though once attended conference paper claiming that the M&L novels were essentially romans a clef about his circle, so maybe he didn't need to write a bitchy diary as well.

I think we already had as much of AC as anyone would wish to know in that Goldhill volume on the family, which had a bit too much AC for my taste to begin with.

thawrecka: (Coffee!)
([personal profile] thawrecka Aug. 18th, 2025 07:05 pm)
I have finished the Bleach filler! Insert a maniacal laugh here.

They should have done more one shot filler episodes instead of too long boring arcs, and that's about all I can say about that. It's not that the reigei arc was entirely without merit (for one thing, I like how they actively tried to show Ikkaku incorporating Iba's feedback about his shitty battleground behaviour as a bit of a character motivation bridge between arcs, and while I didn't find Kageroza or Nozomi particularly interesting there were interesting moments and some cool fights, including surprising match ups like Komamura vs fake Soi Fon), but it did go on too long, and kept redoing the same thing in increasingly less interesting ways. How many times do we have to see Byakuya fight himself??

I do appreciate filler episode 342 because it's all about Ichigo and Rukia's friendship, and that's my favouritest thing in the series. For most part I'm :/ about them dragging out Ichigo's power loss, but I did like that the entire episode was a nice farewell between them.

And now onward to the fullbring arc. It's grown on me in the manga in reread, but we'll see how I feel when I watch it.

The new episodes of The Summer Hikaru Died and Kaiju no 8 on the weekend were great. I'm living for the uncomfortable tension between Yoshiki and "Hikaru", and the last episode was a real knife to the chest. And as for Hibino Kafka and his crew, the revelation that Kafka is now not fully transforming back from kaiju but small parts are staying monstrous was interesting, and I'm excited to see where they go with that. Also, I love that he's just going to do his best about it. Also, that the scientist was saved! And I think Narumi has grown on me, even though I found him dull at the start of the season.

I have also watched all four episodes in existence of Let's Go Karaoke!, about a member of the Yakuza approaching middle age forcing a middle school choir boy whose voice is about to change to go to karaoke with him so he can learn to sing better. It's not remotely what I thought I would be into, but it's so compelling. The first episode is so uncomfortable with how cringe Kyouji is, hahaha. Poor Satomi, having all that inappropriate karaoke time and struggling with so many teenage emotions. That scene in episode three just about rewired my brain. And the last episode! Crying while massacring an X Japan song! So good. I'm glad I got back into anime just in time to watch weird silly nonsense like this. A choir boy having inappropriate tension with a yakuza who makes him go to karaoke is not what I would have thought I enjoyed watching a year ago... but it's real fun.

Since I started it last Monday, I have also finished watching all 48 episodes of The Apothecary Diaries, which is unhinged behaviour, but also after everything I saw about this series before I watched it being that Maomao never has convincing attraction to men, I was surprised how obvious it is that she's attracted to Jinshi. I guess that must be ship war rhetoric from people who ship her with Loulan instead? She is very shippy with Loulan, but I don't like Loulan hahaha. Obviously she should kiss almost every woman though. I wouldn't have minded her smooching Suirei, but maybe Suirei should get smooched by Ah Duo instead.

I feel like Jinshi and Maomao should not hook up because that would fundamentally change their relationship in ways that wouldn't be great for Maomao. Much like with the X Files, I find the idea of them doing something with all that tension both compelling and ill-advised.

TBH, most of my favourite parts are when she's hanging out with concubines and other servants in the rear palace, or when she's chatting with her sex worker friends at the brothel. It's pretty good for interesting female interaction, and while it's frank about sexuality and sex work, and there's horrors in the backstory, and it mostly doesn't dwell too much on them to stop feeling light and charming. And the main character enjoys testing poisons on herself, in classic chemist fashion.

I did laugh every time they clearly did not have the money to properly animate a thing, so there was a succession of still images and a voice over.
monkiainen: (33 awkward)
([personal profile] monkiainen posting in [site community profile] dw_community_promo Aug. 18th, 2025 11:46 am)
If you're anything like us, you'll no doubt have a mountain of books that you just never get around to reading. Well, that's where [community profile] thestoryinside comes in - have someone choose your book for you!

The process is simple: join the community, and each month sign up to be partnered with a buddy, who will then choose a book from your 'to read' list. At the end of each month there will be a community post to discuss your thoughts on the book(s) you read!

However, we're putting a twist on the traditional 'pick for me' routine and each month we'll vote on what genre of book we'll be reading; now, of course this is open to personal interpretation, for example, if the genre is horror and you're not a big fan, you could go for a Goosebumps book, or even Twilight. There will be an opportunity in each voting post to ask any questions you might have.
Tags:
selenak: (Demerzel and Terminus)
([personal profile] selenak Aug. 18th, 2025 09:35 am)
Theatre

I can spend a few days in London right now, and that already meant two plays.

Harold Pinter Theatre: A Man for All Seasons

By Robert Bolt, who at least in terms of this particular play is to Hilary Mantell what C.S. Lewis is to Philipp Pullmann, i.e. Wolf Hall and sequels are the His Dark Materials to A Man for All Seasons’ Narnia, and as in the Pullmann-Lewis case, Mantell ended up doing exactly the same thing they begrudged in the end, just from the opposite direction.


A Thomas by any other name… )

Foundation 3.06: In which the moon isn’t the only thing eclipsed.

Spoilers have provided data )
thawrecka: (Bleach)
([personal profile] thawrecka Aug. 18th, 2025 06:28 pm)
Let's Eat! (705 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Abarai Renji/Kuchiki Rukia
Characters: Kuchiki Rukia
Additional Tags: Fluff, Missing Scene, Established Relationship
Summary:

Three moments in time when Rukia thinks about the people she shares food with.

poliphilo: (Default)
([personal profile] poliphilo Aug. 18th, 2025 08:02 am)
 Five of us walked down to the Peace Garden in our blue Quakers for Peace tee-shirts and took up position by the monument to civilian victims of WWII.  Only Jacky really tried to engage the general public. After a while she moved off, leaflets in hand, to see if she could find any military men to challenge. The rest of us looked at one another and agreed that her kind of active evangelism wasn't for us.

After we'd stood about for what we considered long enough we drifted off- either to have lunch or watch the aerobatics.....
I spent a good chunk of today (about three hours) stuck in traffic on I-5/I-205, with a migraine, so I could pick up someone from the airport.

This isn't like, oh, woe is me, it's more like — oh, this is how we love people.

(Yeah, it would have been possible to shuttle them down here, but it didn't feel very kind to go, "and now that you have made it to PDX, please catch a shuttle in a weird, unmarked location and I'll catch up with you at some point", not when the point of being out here is at least partially to maximize the time spent together.)

(I should also note that I'm fine, now — it was Bad but not so bad that I couldn't function; once I picked them up, that in and of itself was enough of a distraction that I was like "oh yes good I can Keep Going", and eventually it did mostly fade. Ish. It's trying to make a resurgence now, but I am also about to go to bed, so.)


I find myself thinking about loving people a lot lately. How do you show people you love them, do they know that you love them, &etc. Sometimes it's the big things — huge declarations and whatnot — and sometimes it's just...I saw that coffee yogurt you like was on sale at the fancy grocer, so I picked it up for you, or I saw this thing and I knew I had to show you, or I'll let you touch me when I don't let most people do that.

My parents didn't model unconditional love. I don't think they modeled love at all, really. I grew up in a household where we didn't touch each other, where there was this elaborate imaginary point system where you scored points by putting down your opponent — jokes, mostly, that made the other person look bad while you looked clever.

I wonder sometimes how I made it out of that without internalizing those lessons — that it was less important to be kind than to be clever; that showing any kind of vulnerability was weakness and would be used against you; that telling someone you loved them was gauche and the worst kind of vulnerability.

I know that the household I grew up in was dysfunctional. "Was" as though it's not still dysfunctional, somehow.

I just.

I don't think teenage rebellion is supposed to look like radical acceptance and kindness.

Is this why I don't feel like an adult very often? I've hit almost all the adult milestones: graduated (from a PhD program, even), have a house, am happily married, figured out the big identity pieces, mostly...

...but I guess I never did grow out of that teenage rebellion phase.

Mm.


I owe a debt of gratitude, I think, to everyone who has ever loved me and loved me well. A thank you for showing me what love is supposed to look like. It's not something I can repay, but how can I? The answer is "love them back", and I do, and I show them in the ways they want to be shown.
whimsyful: william churchill's leisure - a painting a blonde woman reading by a half-open window with muted green shades (women reading by window muted green)
([personal profile] whimsyful Aug. 17th, 2025 08:15 pm)
The Manor of Dreams, by Christina Li

Described as a cross between The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and Mexican Gothic, The Manor of Dreams takes place across two timelines: in the 1970s, up-and-coming actress Vivian Yin thinks she’s finally caught a break after marrying a hotshot actor and moving to his sprawling ancestral South Californian manor, but then the horrific visions and nightmares start. In the present day, trailblazing actress Vivian Yin has just passed away after living her last years as a recluse, and her family is shocked to discover that she had changed her will at the last minute, leaving the house to the Dengs, descendants of her former housekeepers, instead of her own daughters. Both families move into the manor to fight for what each believe is their rightful inheritance, and insists on staying even as unsettling things start to happen—odd visions, strange things coming out of the pipes and walls, and a garden that seems to have a mind of its own…


mild spoilers below the cut...
As it happens I read this between two others books that were dual timeline stories about finding out what happened to a reclusive female former celebrity (the other two were the aforementioned Evelyn Hugo and Emily Henry’s Great Big Beautiful Lie), so I definitely noticed some similarities and repetitions. One aspect they had in common, and this is something I often find in dual-timeline stories, is that I found the past storyline far more compelling than the present day one. In the past portions of The Manor of Dreams you’re following Vivian as she tries to pursue an acting career and find the source of the strangeness going on with the manor and deal with challenges to her family; the present is mainly about the younger generation wandering through the manor trying to figure out what happened in Vivian’s final years and days while being involved in their own interpersonal dramas, and it just felt much less dynamic overall.

The prime example of this: both the past and present timelines end up having a surprise lesbian romantic subplot, but I found the one in the past well fleshed out and believable whereas the one in the present was very instalove-y, to the point that I wondered if Li included it purely because she wanted a pair of sapphic lovers ending happily to counterbalance the tragic ending of the pair in the past. Which is completely her perogative if so, but Madeline and Nora just didn’t have much chemistry between them, especially compared to the lovely slow build between Sophie and Ada.

Overall, I did enjoy how nearly the entire main cast are Asian women with distinct personalities and who are allowed to be flawed and unlikeable. I also appreciated that this isn’t one of those genre novels where all ills and evils can be laid at the feet of the privileged straight white guy and everyone else is angelic—there is an evil privileged straight white guy, don’t get me wrong, but ultimately he wasn’t the one who created the horrible situation that lasts all the way into the present day. Let your women of color make massive fuck-ups that perpetuate across decades! It makes for much more interesting characterization.



The Appeal by Janice Hallett


A contemporary fair play mystery with an entirely epistolary format. The setup: the Haywards are the most prominent and socially powerful family in the sleepy town of Lower Lockwood. Not only do Martin Hayward and his wife Helen own the local country club, but he’s the director of the local theatre group The Fairway Players and she’s the star actress. So when their young grand-daughter Poppy is diagnosed with a rare type of brain cancer that requires a pricey new experimental treatment, the Fairway Players and the community quickly rally around a fundraising campaign. But Samantha Greenwood, a nurse and newcomer to Lower Lockwood and the Players, thinks something is fishy. As she raises doubts the tension builds up in this close-knit and insular community, culminating in a murder and arrest. But QC Tanner believes the wrong person was arrested and that the real murderer is still walking free—and that the clues to what really happened are in the giant pile of subpoena’d emails, texts and other documents he just handed over to his two junior lawyers Femi and Charlotte.


read more...
There was a great comment [personal profile] cleodoxa made on a book review here which perfectly summed up what I’m looking for in a mystery:
the appeal of the mystery genre is less about the restoration of order than the dance of the seven veils. The constant discovery of secrets and alterations of the picture is what I like, and also simply the way the structure of the mystery genre makes a collection of character portraits and an atmosphere into a novel

The Appeal is an excellent example of this. Hallett is not the first nor the second to marry the mystery novel with the epistolary format (both Wilkie Collins and Sayers wrote well known prior examples), but it’s still thrilling to see someone pull off both the slow shifting of what one believes is the truth and successfully differentiate a large cast of characters in such a format. I was especially impressed by clearly the characters came across in their own words, through situations like having one character texts several others contradictory messages, and how the same event is interpreted completely differently according to each individual’s biases, personalities and allegiances. It also successfully uses all the unreliable narrators to hide the truth in plain sight; any wrongdoers know that in the worst case their electonic messages could be subpoena’d, so you know that some of what you’re reading has to be intentionally misleading or downright false, and the fun part is figuring out what.

As for the solution and clueing, I did guess the rough shape of the truth and perpetrators, but not the exact details. I do think some parts of the solution are a little out there given the hints available, but overall this was a very fun mystery, with excellent execution of what could have been just a gimmick.


Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

A biography of an incredibly influential but now mostly forgotten fashion designer. Claire McCardell (1905-1958) may no longer be as well known as her contemporaries Chanel and Dior, but she is responsible for either inventing or popularizing a whole host of clothing items so ubiquitous we no longer even wonder how they came to be: the hoodie, ballet flats, the wrap dress, the concept of mix-and-match separates as well as the capsule wardrobe etc. She also was the first to start using denim as a fabric in women’s clothing, and basically created modern women’s sportswear and swimsuits. She also prioritized comfort, practicality and versatility in her designs, fighting to add pockets to as many of her clothes as possible despite objections from her male superiors.


read more...
Dickinson briefly covers McCardell’s childhood in Frederick, Maryland where she formed her passion for clothing and design as well as her fight to go study clothing illustration at Parsons School of Design in New York. After a formative year abroad in Paris, then the undisputed fashion capital of the world (American designers basically just copied/stole French designs), she started working in New York’s cutthroat garment industry. The majority of the book is about her rise from a clothes model at a department store, to assisstant for a wholesale manufacturer, to head designer at a major sportswear company (but still constantly butting heads with her male boss over matters like adding pockets), to being the first designer to be given full control over her designs at an American manufacturer, to creating her own brand and becoming the face of the “American Look” -- described as casual, stylish, mass-produced and affordable ready-to-wear and sportswear.

One major theme that struck me about her story was how much fashion was shaped by geopolitics and social mores. McCardell only really got a chance to promote her own design vision on her own terms because afte Paris fell to the Nazis during WWII, the New York fashion industry could no longer continue their practice of copying French designs and so were forced to innovate. And later when America joined the war effort, both wartime rationing and the push for women to join the factory workforce were incredibly well suited to McCardell’s minimalist, practical style that prioritized comfort and flexibility. But once the war ended and attitudes about women working swung back towards conservatism, McCardell had to actively fight against a return to more restrictive, impractical styles such as the “New Look” pushed by rising hotshot Christian Dior. This New Look promoted a more “demure and docile feminity”, reintroduced restrictive shapewear (including corsets cinched so tight in the waist several of his models fainted during the fittings) and clothes you “couldn’t walk, eat, or sit down in”, and went hand-in-hand with the backlash to women’s autonomy.

I also appreciated how Dickinson displayed a more complex view of what it took for women to succeed in business in those times. McCardell owed several of her early opportunities to job recommendations and other help from female colleagues and mentors in her network, which she paid forward amply later down the line in the form of mentorship, informal support and advice to aspiring young female designers. But McCardell also essentially stole the credit for her close friend and fellow designer Mildred Orrick’s idea of separate close-fitting underlayers—precursor to the modern day leggings, which destroyed their friendship for many years. She was also clear to point out that despite the undeniable sexism McCardell suffered, she was also privileged both as a result of her own choices (ex. marrying a wealthy older widower who already had his own children and enough money for servants so she never needed to give up her career for children or housework) and from being a white woman. Opportunities like the affordable and safe women’s-only housing McCardell lived in during her student days in New York only rented to white women. Despite these additional barriers, there were several successful Black designers at the time like Ann Lowe (who made Jackie Kennedy’s bridal gown) and Zelda Wynn Valdes (who created dresses for celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald and Mae West).

Overall, this was a fascinating look at the life of an ambitious and complicated woman who built her own fashion empire and indelibly changed the way we dressed, as well as how politics and social mores are inextricable from fashion.
([personal profile] jazzyjj posting in [community profile] awesomeers Aug. 17th, 2025 10:11 pm)
It's challenge time!

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

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

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

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

Go!
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([personal profile] fic_in_a_box_mod posting in [community profile] ficinabox Aug. 17th, 2025 10:03 pm)

During signups we're willing to take late nominations! Please only nominate tags that you intend to immediately request or offer.


Late Relationship/Solo/WB Nominations

Limitations

  • We will add at most 10 fandoms per person.
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  • Tags must meet all of the below requirements.
  • We will not be workshopping or fixing any nominations at this point..

(*We will add in WB: Any tags to any new fandom free of charge, though.)

Requirements:

  • Late nominations must be in batch load format: Fandom,Tag,Tag,Tag(...)
  • Each fandom should be on a separate line.
  • Fandoms which are already in the tagset must be exactly as they appear in the tagset. If you're nominating a fandom that isn't in the tagset please let us know which fandoms are new.
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  • Worldbuilding tags must be in the format listed in the guidelines and adhere to all of the guidelines for WB tags. In addition, please include an explanation separate from the list for each worldbuilding tag for what it is (This doesn't need to be complicated, just enough that we'll know it fits the rules!). We will not be accepting worldbuilding tags that need workshopped, though you're welcome to workshop it yourself (or on the Newbie Discord Server if you need help!) and try again. You may find the nominations queries a useful reference.

Late Relationship/WB Nominations will close on August 30th at 10:00PM Eastern (Countdown)! Make sure you request them before then! No new tags will be added after that point because your usual late nominations mod will be traveling for the rest of sign ups.

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([personal profile] fic_in_a_box_mod posting in [community profile] ficinabox Aug. 17th, 2025 09:45 pm)

Sign ups!

Signups are open! Go to the collection here (link) to sign up!
Signups will be open until August 31st at 9:59pm EDT (Countdown)

You must be 18+ to sign up.

Other links:

What Are Sign Ups?

Sign ups are how we figure out who wants what and who's creating for who! The process is this:

  • Participants fill out a sign up form on AO3. The sign up form is split into requests and offers, both of which use tags from the tagset.
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You are allowed to sign up with one well-behaved sock (i.e. a maximum of two accounts per person).

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You should therefore request as if you will only get ONE of your requested relationships/characters.

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If you request a relationship-field tag that involves an ambiguous group or character description, we will accept your creator's interpretation. If you request "Solo: The Avengers (Marvel Cinematic Universe)" your creator can pick any character who fits the broadest possible definition of canonical Avengers. If you request an original character, Original Work, Reader, or other tag that could specify gender but doesn't, your creator can pick any gender.

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New to DNWs? They're important, but a little tricky Click here to re-read our DNW explainer from the rules post.

DNWs should be phrased and understood to be value-neutral. For example, one might DNW dogs because...

  • they find dogs upsetting
  • they find dogs boring
  • they just spent the past week reading every fic about dogs in the fandom and are a bit tired of dogs now
  • they really like works with dogs sometimes and really hate them other times and it's easiest to just DNW them instead of asking their creator(s) to thread a needle
  • for personal reasons, thinking about dogs is very painful right now

It's impossible to tell which explanation above is true for any given participant with "DNW: Dogs" on their request, so the only sure thing you can know is that that participant just doesn't want dogs in their gifts. This ambiguity is a feature, not a bug.

Never explain why you DNW something, but definitely explain how to apply the DNW and if there are any exceptions.

  • Unhelpful "why" explanation: "DNW: dogs (they're gross)" — this isn't relevant to avoiding putting dogs in a gift, and also might make people who like dogs feel bad
  • Helpful "how" explanation: "DNW: dogs (canonical werewolves are fine, but please no normal wolves)" — this answers a question that a creator might have about how best to apply the DNW!

In the event that a DNW is included in your gift, only reasonable DNWs noted in your AO3 requests will be enforced. DNWs cannot be used to box your creator into producing a very specific work, and should be clear and specific in scope. You cannot DNW part of something you've requested. If you believe an enforceable DNW has been broken in your gift, please email us immediately.

FAQ: DNWs (Click here for yet more info)

What makes a DNW "unreasonable"?

The goal of DNWs is to state, as unambiguously as possible, what specific things one doesn't want in a gift. It's not the job of DNWs to prevent a recipient from getting a bad gift (although we hope everyone will get only good gifts) or to ensure that a recipient gets exactly what they want. Requests aren't commissions, and we value the creative freedom of our participants.

An unreasonable DNW might contradict a requested relationship or medium, try to force the creator into a very narrow set of options, be phrased too vaguely or broadly or confusingly, and/or seek to prevent the creator from creating works about a large part of canon.

  • Example: Requesting a pirate canon like Pirates of the Caribbean or One Piece and then listing the DNW "pirates"
  • Example: Requesting the medium opt-in "Medium: In-Universe Epistolary/Journals" and then listing the DNW "first person POV"
  • Example: DNWing "OOC writing" (How is a creator supposed to ascertain what counts as OOC to the recipient? How could the mods make a decision about if something is OOC when they probably don't know the fandom?)
  • Example: DNWing "dead dove content" ("dead dove" has many possible meanings, so no one can be sure what this DNW means; you need to list the actual content that you don't want.)
  • Example: DNWing "CBT/wax play/gun kink/etc." (We can't enforce an "etc"!)

What happens if I have an unreasonable/nonspecific/otherwise unenforceable DNW?

If we notice it, we will ask you to remove it (or to remove the tag it contradicts, if it's something like the epistolary example above) or rephrase it. If we only realize you have an unenforceable DNW because you've received a gift you feel hits that DNW and would like a replacement gift, we will unfortunately have to refuse.

Why are you making such a fuss about DNW phrasing?

Broadly speaking, we think DNWs are an important and wonderful part of multifandom exchange culture and learning to create and identify good DNWs is imperative for good exchange etiquette. This exchange attracts a large number of new exchange participants, so by explaining in detail we can set our newbies up for success in the wider exchange circuit! If we could do so by just saying "list stuff you don't want in your Do Not Wants" then we would do that, but years of experience has shown that a lot of the information offered above on DNWs is absolutely not intuitive and needs to be explicitly stated for newbies.

Also, and more immediately, we will be on the hook for assuring some of you get gifts via pinch hits, including sending out emergency pinch hits if someone gets an unacceptable gift! Bad DNWs make it harder to find a pinch hitter and more likely one of those DNWs will be hit by accident. We'd prefer not to have to tell anyone that their DNW is too confusing for us to give them a replacement gift.

Help! I don't know how to phrase a DNW! / What if I think a DNW I want might be unreasonable?

Don't worry, there are people who want to help! Many people on the FIAB Newbies Discord server will be happy to help you figure out how to phrase your DNWs in the #sign-up-discussion channel.

Offer Instructions (On AO3, For Participants Offering Fic)

Offers are for saying what you would like to make. They aren't visible to anyone but the mods. You must use only tags from the tagset. Each offer is a set of tags that go together: a fandom and relationship tag(s). You can't offer specific mediums on AO3; look at the next section of post for information about offering specific mediums.

You must have a minimum of 1 offer. You may have up to 10 offers. For matchability, we recommend you make at least 3 offers.

If you are unmatchable (no requests match your offers) when sign ups close, we will email you. All participants need someone to match to in order to participate, so if you're unmatchable and don't reply to our email, we'll have to delete your sign up.

Your will be matched to your recipient based on one fandom and one relationship/character.

You should therefore offer as if you will only get ONE of your requested relationships/characters.

When you get your assignment, it will list all of your recipient's requests, but you're only required to create for one of them. If you would like to create for a request you didn't match on, or if you'd like to create for multiple requests, that's fine!

Offer Instructions (Non-Fic Mediums)

Everyone who signs up is by default offering 10k of fic unless they email us at ficinaboxmod@gmail.com–click here if you're wondering why.

Fic is the exchange's default medium because that's what it's most easy to find pinch hitters for. We don't want to be in a situation where the only way to open the collection is to get someone a gift in a rare medium because that could cause months of delays.

Ideally, we would just make everyone request a medium tag for fanfiction…but there's no way to make participants do that when they sign up. We would have to edit potentially thousands of individual requests to fix people who'd forgotten to request fic, and that's just not something we have the time for. It's actually easier for us to just handmatch people who are doing other mediums.

We do really, really want you to make non-fic things! Think of it like a concierge mod service, hand delivering an appropriate assignment to you. The VIP treatment, because we're so excited about mediums.

To make your non-fic offers, please include the following in your email:

1. The username you are signing up with.

(If you're also signing up with a sock, you can put information for both accounts in one email.)

2. A list of usernames of participants who are requesting something you can make.

For each username, include:

  • What relationship-field tag you can create for
  • What medium tag(s) you can create for.

We need the info about relationship field tags and medium tags not because you will be obligated to create that exact thing, but because we will double check during matching that the recipient we’re matching you to is still requesting what you need. We will check that your match hasn’t, for example, removed the ship and medium you said you can create from their request.

Please do not skip giving us usernames! Matching you by hand to a specific username is super easy and quick, and anyway since we're making you email us we want to give you an assignment you'll definitely be happy with. You will not be obligated to create the exact tags you've told us you can create for your recip.

Other Notes

You can update your offers by emailing us again if things change during the sign up period.

You will probably find the automagic app helpful for finding recipients, as it lets you search requests by medium.

FAQ: How to Use the Auto-App

How do I use the automagic app to look at requests?

Follow the link to the app above. The "Grouped Requests" tab defaults to showing requests grouped by fandom. You can use the "Filter" field on that tag to search the fandoms so you don't need to scroll through all of them to find the one you're looking for. You can group by other fields, or you can use the "Search All Requests" to do advanced searching, like searching for a request that has a certain combination of fandom and medium.

How do I use the automagic app to find recipients if I plan to make things that aren't fic?

To find medium matches, go to FIAB's Automagic App and then do one of these things:

  • Browse by fandom and look at all the stuff in each fandom, if you're open to creating a lot of different mediums
  • Change the "Group By" drop down to "Freeform" to browse by length/medium opt-in.
  • Go to the "Search All Requests" tab and use the filters there to search in more detail. For example, you could put "Star Wars" in the fandom field and "Art" in the freeform field and you will be shown all requests that have "Star Wars" in the fandom and at least one medium tag with "Art"
  • If you want to give your recip a specific medium, check to see if they've opted into the tag you're thinking of making.

Do I need to search use the Optional Tags field to search for mediums?

No, for FIAB's version of the app all Optional Tags are counted as freeforms and included in searches of the "Freeform" field, so you can just search that one field!

Is there a way to bookmark things on the automagic app?

Yes, there is! While sign-ups are open, you can browse requests and use the heart icon next to fandoms to create a bookmark for a whole fandom. Once sign-ups close, you can use the heart button to bookmark specific prompts/requests.

shadowkat: (Looking Outwards - Tessa)
([personal profile] shadowkat Aug. 17th, 2025 11:30 am)
Much like The Fantastic Four film - I was on the fence about seeing this film. It had mixed reviews, and I didn't exactly love the last few Superman films I'd seen. Also, James Gunn's last cinematic effort, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol III gave me a headache. (Although I'm thinking that may have been more of a Star Lord and Rocket issue than a Gunn issue.)

As you may or may not know, Superman 2025 is the eleventh Superman film in a long and winding series of films, dating back to 1948, with the most recent being Zack Snyder's highly controversial Man of Steel (2013). (That's not including all the television serials and animated films and serials.) Superman was originally created by two Jewish immigrants way back in 1938 - when fascism was on the rise in Europe, and Hitler was in the midst of persecuting the Jews. They created Superman as a sort of inspiring hero during those dark times, he was an immigrant to the US, an alien, who was kind and helped others no matter what. A beacon of hope.

I've seen various people in comics and in film try to do a more nihilistic take on the character of Superman or a nihilistic commentary on the character - and it never quite works for me. I understand the desire to do it - and why a lot of folks don't like the original version, but Superman at his core is a hopeful character and a kind one. What lies at the center of the Superman story, at its very core, is hope. Get away from that - you lose the story. If you veer too far away from that - you are kind of losing who the character is and why, which is what happened with the previous take on the character, and why Gunn for the most part wisely goes back to the source material and the Salkind's version. It's worth noting that Gunn cleverly references both Salkind's take on Superman and Snyder's. Snyder's science fiction take, and version of Lex is kind of melded with Salkind's.

Superman 2025 directed by James Gunn, written by James Gunn, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster - is the first film in James Gunn's Gods and Monsters arc for DC's rebooted film verse. Clocking in at just over two hours, it clicks by at a good pace, and I didn't notice the time fly by, but, there are one or two fight scenes I'd have trimmed, but I feel that way about most action films.

It's important to note that unlike all the previous films, with the exception of sequels, this does not start with Superman's origin story. It starts in the middle of story - Superman has lost a major battle, his first, the film tells us why and what later on. A lot of action happens before the film even begins. We're in the middle of it and it works, because we've all seen the origin tale multiple times, over twenty to be exact, so it's not really needed. They refer to it, we're told what it is, so in case you were hiding under the proverbial rock for the last 80 years, you know.

Unlike the Fantastic Four Film - this film is harder to discuss without substantive spoilers. I tried, I gave up.
spoilers )

All that aside? I loved the movie. It kept to the core values of the source material, and the original intent of the writers. The filmmakers told their story with just the right amount of humor, and humility. And it put a smile on my face. Lifted my spirits. And gave me hope.

After watching it, I had an overwhelming urge to break into a jig and cheer, instead I just posted online that I loved it to little bitty pieces. I enjoyed it so much, that I've watched it twice now. And will most likely down load the soundtrack to listen to - tomorrow at work.

It also taught me a valuable lesson - be careful with reviews or read them with discretion. Many of the reviews I read turned me off of the film - leading me to believe, erroneously so, that it was too busy, head-ache inducing, with a low-brow and crude sense of humor. This couldn't be further from the truth. I don't know what film they saw? But it wasn't the same film I saw - and I've watched it twice now.

Reviewers, myself included, are human and tend to critique the film through their own lens. We often tell a story with an agenda in mind, either hidden or overt, and that includes reviews. I've learned, the hard way, not to determine what to watch, read or listen to based solely on someone else's view of it. More often than not, I have to see it for myself. We never see the same films as others do, because we see them filtered through our own mind and baggage. And more often than not, we only see what we want to see.
muccamukk: Drawing of 13 floating in space outside the TARDIS. Her speech bubble is a heart. (DW: 13 Hearts Space)
([personal profile] muccamukk Aug. 17th, 2025 05:29 pm)
After the 1030 panel on Thursday, all the streams worked fine! There was one room that was cursed, and the volume was often very low, but all of the others were great as long as the panellists used the mic, and some were on Zoom so people from other countries could attend. It looks like many of them will be re-playable, also, so I can check out panels I missed.

My sister-in-law came to stay with us so we could watch panels together. It's been really fun, and I'm glad we did it.

Some highlight panels were:
Worldbuilding Through Geography and Environments
with Martha Wells, Marshall Ryan Maresca, Nicola Griffith & Paolo Bacigalupi

Diasporic Caribbean Science Fiction
with E.G. Condé, Alex V Cruz, Fabrice Guerrier, Malka Older, Suzan Palumbo, Tonya Liburd, Tonya R. Moore & Premee Mohamed

Reading by Guest of Honor Martha Wells
with previews of both Queen Demon and the Murderbot coming out next year, plus a great Q&A.

Navigating AI as an Author or Editor
with Jason Sanford, Cassie Alexander, Dr. Corey Frazier, Emily M. Bender & Neil Clarke

Feminist Futurism Versus Project 2025: An Empowering Speculative Salon
with Isis Asare, Ada Palmer, Andrea Hairston, Annalee Newitz & Charlie Jane Anders

SFF's Role in Revolution on the African Continent
with Naomi Eselojor, Gabrielle Emem Harry, Khaya Maseko, Ngozi Anuoluwa, Nkereuwem Albert & Soila Kenya

Making It Gay… or Trans, Neurodivergent, BIPOC, and More
with Atlin Merrick, Clara Ward, Hana Lee, Maeve MacLysaght & Sarah Rees Brennan

Sifting Through History
with Remy Nakamura (M), Leigh Bardugo, Natania Barron, Nisi Shawl & Paul Weimer.

I didn't take notes on anything, but could relay any impressions I have, if people want?

I did at most 1/4 of the Hugo reading/watching, and then July was such a wash that I didn't even vote, but I was pretty happy with the results. The only category I was invested in was best series, and I was delighted that Rebecca Roanhorse won for Between Earth and Sky.

Otherwise: the novella I thought was the best of the bunch won, and the novel I hated lost. I'm still cross Blackheart man wasn't shortlisted, and the nomination stats aren't out yet, so I haven't seen how far down the list it was. I'm going to be even more cross if it was just one off, and Adrian Tchaikovsky getting two slots kept it out. (I always think it's nice when an established author who already has awards declines a spot if they have two titles in the same category, since that gives a new person a chance a lot of the time, but I'm less enamoured of the idea if it turns out that it's only women declining award nominations.)

I'm also very happy for Moniquill Blackgoose, who won the Astounding (not a Hugo), and Darcie Little Badger for her Lodestar (not a Hugo).
hannah: (Marilyn Monroe - mycrime)
([personal profile] hannah Aug. 17th, 2025 07:47 pm)
The Museum of the Moving Image's recent Tom Cruise retrospective ended this afternoon, with a grand total of twenty-two different movies being screened at least once, with some playing twice. I'd decided I'd see everything at least once - I didn't need to sit through the theatrical cuts of The Outsiders or Legend a second time - and managed it with very little trouble and fuss. Mostly just what's inherent in the subways, like lines being down for a weekend and not finding out until I'm in the station and had to find an alternate route that, thankfully, still took me to a station within six blocks of the museum.

It was like going to summer camp, honestly. A regular thing to keep me busy in the long, hot days. Something to look forward to. Shared experiences with voices that gradually grew more and more familiar and faces I came to recognize. And now that it's over, we've gone our separate ways. We might bump into each other again - as dense a city as it is, it's not huge, and the community of repertory movie screening enthusiasts is small enough it's more than likely to happen eventually. Even if we don't, it was fun while it lasted and I'll look back on it fondly.

None of the movies were a chore. All of them were a pleasure to see on the screen, some more than others - for example, Eyes Wide Shut is something I appreciate more than I enjoy. Plenty of them were overwhelming in the best ways, whether it was the immense, immersive sound or the rich colors of the film prints or simply letting myself get taken away for a little while in a really good story. It was just as much about having the experience of the big screen viewing as it was the movies themselves - not quite a compulsion, not exactly a fixation. Hearts that are true, as Dave Barry described them, and a line in the essay kept echoing throughout this summer: "If you ask her why, it shows you could never understand."

All right, that one and another: "And the hell with what people say." Tom Cruise is a good actor, a sharp producer, someone I can personally say has a lovely smile, and he doesn't need anyone defending him. At least, not in the context of internet snark, cheap jokes, flippant comments. He's not my friend. He's someone I'm glad to share the planet with for a little while because his art's good, and I find it inspiring and meaningful. I don't need more than that.

While I don't need more than that, sharing it for a little while made for a wonderful time.

Worth mentioning are:

This one guy who brought up Alan Moore's Superman work and wasn't prepared for me to bring up Top Ten and Tom Strong,

That same guy who argued that after a long week at work you'd want to unwind and see some light fair and as such might not go see a Tarkovsky or 8 1/2 and wasn't prepared for me to say I'd recently seen 8 1/2 and found it a buoyant and uplifting piece on the creative spirit,

This one guy who agreed Streets of Fire is a movie that needs to be seen at night,

This one couple who hung back a few minutes to talk about how Jerry Maguire picks up where other romcoms leave off and how these days there aren't enough movies in the "people trying to become better" and "good people trying not to be lonely" genres,

This one projectionist who answered a couple questions I had about who owns individual prints and lends them out for screenings,

The print of Magnolia that keeps playing around NYC that I've now seen six different times and can recognize the flickers because a print's an object that changes over time and seeing those flickers reminded me of the nature of film as something that's almost a living creature that breathes with you in the dark,

The projectionist who had to re-adjust Cocktail a bit to get it into focus which was a moment that added to the viewing experience in a good way,

The curtains that closed over the screen and pulled back to make sure we knew we were in for a good time,

The MOMI staff members who were always thoughtful and patient and were able to give me a couple extra copies of the various movie programs and got to know me on sight by the end of July,

The MOMI itself for putting it on,

Everyone who took their tickets home as mementos and souvenirs,

Everyone who crowed somewhere about seeing thirty-five and seventy millimeter prints because even bad movies look fabulous that way and good movies are an absolute joy to behold,

Everyone who'd seen the older works like Risky Business and Born on the Fourth of July and Top Gun when they'd first played in theaters decades ago and were happy to see on a big screen and be lifted up and pushed under again,

Everyone who brought kids to one or both of the Top Gun double features because I know those kids had a fantastic time,

Everyone who laughed,

Everyone who cried,

Everyone who sucked in a breath and held it and let it out as one because we were all feeling the exact same thing in that specific moment,

Everyone who clapped at the end credits,

Everyone who hollered at the director or the cinematographer or the title card whether that came early or late in the individual movie,

Everyone who had firm opinions about which movie theaters in the five boroughs are worth the time and energy it takes to visit them,

Everyone who hung around a while between movies or after the day's programming was over whether it was at the doors or in the courtyard or on the subway platform and let the conversation continue just a few minutes more,

Everyone who I already knew beforehand or recognized after a few screenings and looked forward to seeing because of the pleasure of seeing a movie in shared company,

Everyone who legged it out to Queens to see a beloved movie on the big screen for the first time or possibly the fortieth, traveling by car, train, bus, commercial airline, commuter light rail, crossing state lines and time zones, who brought their own food, who shared their popcorn, who was happy to exchange a few words in the theater or in line waiting for the bathroom as a way to make the waiting easier or just for the pleasure of exchanging a few words about the recently shared experience, everyone who wanted to have a good time at the movies, everyone who spent this last summer together with me like I haven't done since I was a kid and helped make it something worth remembering.
musesfool: Superman & Batman, back to back (you always think we can take 'em)
([personal profile] musesfool Aug. 17th, 2025 05:58 pm)
I finally saw the new Superman this afternoon and I enjoyed it a lot! The casting was exceptionally good - Nicholas Hoult was the best Lex Luthor since Rosenbaum, and I thought Fillion was just the right amount of bumptious asshole as Guy Gardner. (Do I wish we could get John Stewart in a live action movie? Yes. But I'm still so glad they didn't go with boring Hal Jordan.)

The writing for Clark was great and he and Lois had fantastic chemistry. Mr. Terrific was indeed terrific! Plus KRYPTO!!! spoilers )

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