A decrepit fleet sails from Germany to play its role in a futile war, crewed by sailors who seem more eager to kill each other than the perfidious Australians.
The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook
A decrepit fleet sails from Germany to play its role in a futile war, crewed by sailors who seem more eager to kill each other than the perfidious Australians.
The Heirs of Babylon by Glen Cook
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for Sun, 08 Jun 2025
Jun. 8th, 2025 12:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
calvinandhobbes_rss_feed
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
Best Novel: Someone You Can Build a Nest In, John Wiswell (DAW; Arcadia UK)
Best Novella: The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock)
Best Novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld 11/24)
Short Story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24)
Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (self-published)
Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros)
Kevin O'Donnell, Jr Special Service Award: C.J. Lavigne
Best Novella: The Dragonfly Gambit, A.D. Sui (Neon Hemlock)
Best Novelette: Negative Scholarship on the Fifth State of Being, A.W. Prihandita (Clarkesworld 11/24)
Short Story: Why Don’t We Just Kill the Kid in the Omelas Hole, Isabel J. Kim (Clarkesworld 2/24)
Andre Norton Award for Middle Grade and Young Adult Fiction: The Young Necromancer’s Guide to Ghosts, Vanessa Ricci-Thode (self-published)
Best Game Writing: A Death in Hyperspace, Stewart C Baker, Phoebe Barton, James Beamon, Kate Heartfield, Isabel J. Kim, Sara S. Messenger, Naca Rat, Natalia Theodoridou, M. Darusha Wehm, Merc Fenn Wolfmoor (Infomancy.net)
Ray Bradbury Award for Outstanding Dramatic Presentation: Dune: Part Two by Jon Spaihts, Denis Villeneuve (Warner Bros)
Kevin O'Donnell, Jr Special Service Award: C.J. Lavigne
Fandom: Trails of Cold Steel
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.
Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...
Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.
The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.
This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.
There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)
This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169
Pairings/Characters:
Laura S. Arseid/Duvalie, Ines/Ennea, Victor S. Arseid/McBurn
appearances by other assorted Cold Steel characters and hints of other ships Rating: M
Length: 22442 words
Creator Links: Rosie_Rues
Theme:
Grief/Mourning, Dreamsharing, Recovery, Enemies to Lovers, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, changing roles in life, loss of limb
Summary: With the Great Twilight over, Duvalie follows Laura home to Legram. She's not entirely sure why she's here, or when she's going to leave, but she can't bring herself to regret her choice.
Meanwhile, Victor's dreaming of the only man in the universe still willing to offer him a challenge...
Reccer's Notes: While I have read this fic several times, the most recent was some time ago, I always remember it as being roughly half of one ship and half of another- I note this here because one of those ships is M/M. In my rereading, I see the balance is more 2/3 to 1/3, with the bulk of it being the theme-compliant Laura/Duvalie, who begins as something of a lost and reluctant guest in Laura's home in the wake of the loss of the woman who saved her. The emotional metamorphosis of Duvalie's canonical hostility towards Laura- already very much blunted as the story opens, turn to friendship and later towards attraction is an absolute treasure. There are many smaller moments of many relationships of varying sorts between her and otter female characters throughout the story, some of which absolutely beg for stories of their own.
The M/M ships is Victor/McBurn, and they are a prominent part of the story- really a story occurring in parallel, but separately- until it suddenly isn't. While I don't want to dwell on them in this post as they are not germane to the theme, it bears mentioning that they are there in case they would turn anyone off from reading. But I will say that their development is quite astounding, a sword master who has lost an arm, a god who has lost his world and any connection to it and what they become to each other.
This fic deals with grief in many forms, over many different kinds of loss, from loss of friends, comrades in arms, loss of a limb, loss of connection to oneself and an entire world. It's all very sensitively written, and even the absolutely fantastical loss of a god from another dimension with his entire world somehow becomes much less fantastical than one might expect.
There are also themes of many different changes in life that come with time passing and with dealing with these griefs. Oh, and the very cracky-sounding, but utterly sincerely dealt with coping with the shock of learning that your father is banging the demon god from another dimension. (that needs to be a tag, ok)
This is just one of my favorite ever fics, by one of my favorite authors.
Fanwork Links: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45897169
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for Sat, 07 Jun 2025
Jun. 7th, 2025 12:00 amcalvinandhobbes_rss_feedFandom: Taskmaster (series 16)
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor
Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.
Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.
Fanwork Links: Team of Sue
Characters/Pairings: Sue Perkins/Susan Wokoma
Rating: Gen
Length: 00:02:06
Content Notes: no archive warnings apply, and there are no video-specific warnings.
Creator Links: thingswithwings on AO3
Themes: Female relationships, Friendship, Team, Humor
Summary: If you're lost, you can look, and you will find me.
Reccer's Notes: This is gorgeous and hilarious as the Sues stumble about carrying out the endless ridiculous tasks, laughing, triumphant, and always there for each other.
Fanwork Links: Team of Sue
No new amendments arrived, and I finished an Office Action on the amendment which was on my Expedited docket. I also wrote an Office Action on one of the three cases on my Amended docket, but I couldn’t post it for credit, since it was an Examiner’s Answer responding to an Appeal Brief. Instead, I posted it to my supervisor for consultation. If she signs it, and then a second supervisor signs it, I will be able to post it for credit, and then, at some future time, the Board of Appeals will decide how to rule on it. Meanwhile, I am still at three cases on my Amended docket, but down to zero on my Expedited docket.
I also finished a first action on my oldest Regular New application. This coming week, I hope to do a first action on another Regular New case. There’s just one week left in the third quarter.
I also finished a first action on my oldest Regular New application. This coming week, I hope to do a first action on another Regular New case. There’s just one week left in the third quarter.
A while back, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy.
Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history thatlirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.
Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy. Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.
For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.
As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history that
lirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.
Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
I was just clearing out my screenshot folder and re-found some things I made a couple of years ago during the Guardian rewatch. They amused me, so: repost!
:D
[Tumblr post #1 | Tumblr post #2]
:D
[Tumblr post #1 | Tumblr post #2]
A couple days ago, my cousin sent me a Facebook post from AeCha Cafe that said they were having their soft opening. A new bubble tea shop was opening in Tipp City and this was the first I was hearing of it?! Though I wasn’t able to go to their actual soft opening on Tuesday, I did make it out there yesterday with my cousin and her three kids.
AeCha Cafe is smackdab in the middle of Tipp City’s historic downtown, and has the prettiest blue tile storefront:
We walked in and took a look at the menu. They offer milk tea, fruit tea, some coffee options, lemonade, matcha, all that good stuff:
I had never heard of Cha Dum Yend before, so I asked about it and was told that it’s like Thai Tea without the milk. My cousin doesn’t drink milk so she actually ended up getting that, and I got an iced strawberry matcha. I know, I know, I should’ve gotten bubble tea since I was at a bubble tea place, but a strawberry matcha just sounded so nice and refreshing in the moment! I promise I’ll try the bubble tea next time.
Initially, I thought that the space was pretty small, but it turned out there was a whole other section of the shop with a decent amount of seating, and it even had this comfy looking couch section:
I noticed a couple of wall decorations that were perfect backgrounds for aesthetic photos, like this neon-sign and wall sticker set up:
After careful consideration of where to take my drink photo, I chose the latter:
I’m glad that this cute little shop moved in, and am excited to visit here more this summer with my cousin and her kids. It’s a great location and I’m looking forward to seeing more from them once they’re all settled in and in the groove of things.
If you’re in the area, be sure to check them out and support them in this first week of being open! Their hours are Tuesday-Friday from 8am-8pm and 10am-8pm on Saturday and Sunday.
What’s your favorite milk tea flavor? Do you like popping pearls or tapioca pearls? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
A few things that are up with me recently that I have not yet otherwise posted elsewhere:
1. When the Moon Hits Your Eye is one of Amazon’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2025 (So Far), and it’s nice to know that the book has made its mark at this point in the year. And while I recognize that the “so far” lists are just a way for Amazon and other places to double-dip on the marketing around “best of” lists, in point of fact lots of good stuff released early in a calendar year escapes the notice of end-of-the-year lists (there’s a reason Oscar contenders come out in December), so I can’t help but appreciate the effort. Other authors on the list include Stephen Graham Jones, Nnedi Okorafor and V.E. Schwab, so it’s worth checking out if you have not done so already.
2. I won an award! In Italy! The Italian translation of Starter Villain took the Premio Italia (not to be confused with the F1 series race of the same name) in the category of “International Novel,” with other finalist authors in the category being Charlie Stross, Iain M. Banks, Alastair Reynolds and Mike Resnick. That’s a nice peer group. The full list of winners and finalists is here. Thank you, Italian science fiction fans!
3. Longtime visitors to Whatever know that in the last couple of years I’ve been posting cover versions of songs here. I’ve collected up ten of them into a YouTube playlist called “Cover Story,” and that playlist includes cleaned up and remastered versions of three of the songs previously posted here: “Love My Way,” by the Psychedelic Furs, “That Ain’t Bad” by Ratcat, and “She Goes On,” by Crowded House. The cleaning up is mostly fixing vocals (removing intakes of breath, moving the vocals up in the mix) and changing up instrumentation in a couple of places. Don’t worry, I’m not giving up my day job to embark on a life of cover artistry, but you know what? These don’t entirely suck. I especially think “Fake Plastic Trees” and “Under the Milky Way” are pretty darn decent. And it’s fun for me, which is really the point. Enjoy.
Aaaaaand that’s it for now – I’m busy at Phoenix Fan Fusion the entire weekend long, so if you’re going to be there, come say hello. Otherwise, have a fabulous weekend.
— JS
What goes better together than dragons, revolution, and being queer? Not much, and author Vanessa Ricci-Thode is here to show that with her newest novel, The Dragon Next Door. Dive in to her Big Idea to see how queer wizards can be both powerful and fierce and wholesome and cozy.
VANESSA RICCI-THODE:
How did I get from action movie Hobbes & Shaw to a sapphic romantasy? It’s not as big a stretch as you might think (and don’t tell me you watched that without wondering what if they just kissed already!) Like most of my ideas, big or otherwise, it always starts with asking What If?
“What if there weren’t so many fucking dudes in this?” is something I find myself asking all the time. Because look, I like action movies both mindless and thoughtful. But dudes aren’t the only ones who know how to throw a punch and blow shit up. And while yes we do very occasionally get Evelyn Salt and Captain Marvel and Furiosa and Wonder Woman, why not a whole lot more?
But I don’t make movies, I make books. So here we are. I’ve always liked the grumpy/sunshine, opposites attract, odd couple type of tropes going back to the original Odd Couple, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. I watched Hobbes & Shaw and really got noodling on doing something similar, but asking myself “What if this was queerified and genderbent?” I grew up rarely seeing myself in anything, so you can bet your ass I’m putting myself in everything (and everyone else who never got to see themselves in things).
Another What-If central to the story: What if they kissed? But make it ace. I rarely see any of the intersections of my identity in popular media, and I decided to make this an asexual romance at a time when that was something I was discovering about myself. As important as it is for me to see myself in things, I want others to have that as well. Both MC’s are women of colour and I very much am not, so there was a lot of research going into authentic portrayal and staying in my lane. I went through every free resource plus some paid workshops provided by Writing the Other, and then I hired a sensitivity reader.
My initial musings envisioned writing a book that was some kind of fantasy buddy-cop plot with more action and less pining than the end result. I also wrote this toward the end of TFG’s first term and really had revolution and overthrowing dictators on my mind. This book’s research started with The Anti-Fascist Handbook and the history of revolutions, but once I decided it needed a baby dragon (because of course it did), things went in an entirely different direction. For starters, my characters having to care for a dangerous but sort of helpless fire-breathing puppy took things in a much more nurturing direction.
And then I realized they weren’t just going to sit around and let the dictator take over—they’d march out and meet the threat head on. Not the revolution I was looking for, but definitely still cathartic. And, well, as a Canadian living under the threat of annexation, this book really hits differently now than when I wrote it. During outlining and then drafting, the book morphed into something more anti-colonial, stopping the takeover from happening in the first place (I was revising during the Biden years and possibly too optimistic).
Writing this book certainly offered a lot of challenges, not only in basically throwing out half my research and having to re-outline the entire second half while I was still drafting. This book had a monster of an outline, almost 20,000 words long! But I had three POV characters with arcs to track, trying to match emotional and plot beats for all three. This is the most upfront work I’ve done on a novel and probably the most intentional I’ve been about what I wrote.
And now we’ve (unfortunately) come full circle politically, and I massaged a few things in the final editing pass to reflect that, but the core themes have always been about community and bravery and a lot of mutual pining. In queerifying some of these action and fantasy tropes, the focus on community became central, with characters who are (usually) gentle with each other despite being at odds.
While the book has some applicable messages about unity, courage and the power of spite, it’s still a cute, cozy-adjacent adventure with a pair of odd couple wizards mothering a delightful baby dragon.
The Dragon Next Door: Amazon (US)|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Google Play (US)|iBookstore|Indigo|itch.io|Kobo|Powell’s|Universal Link
Author Socials: Website|Bluesky|Instagram|Goodreads
Read an excerpt.
A foundling boy raised by a great snake becomes intrigued by a reclusive calligrapher living near the river snake and boy call home.
Numamushi by Mina Ikemoto Ghosh
Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for Fri, 06 Jun 2025
Jun. 6th, 2025 12:00 amcalvinandhobbes_rss_feedI received several days of advance notice that the water in my apartment would be shut off Thursday evening at 9:00 PM, and restored at 5:00 AM while they worked on the water mains, so I bought a large bottle of water earlier this week. Thursday evening, I dined at Namaste Jalsa, a few blocks from the Patent Office, and then came home. Sure enough, I saw workmen and machines doing stuff, and water spraying up from the main. I managed to walk around the flooded patch of sidewalk without getting my shoes soaked.
At home, I have bottled water to drink, but no shower and no proper toothbrushing. I do hope that the water will be restored on schedule.
At home, I have bottled water to drink, but no shower and no proper toothbrushing. I do hope that the water will be restored on schedule.
