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I'm grateful to everyone for all the great book recommendations. As a thanks, here is a Bookshop.org promo code for 20% off your first order:

https://refer.bookshop.org/egkfmyy2

I really like them as my Amazon alternative. (They only ship in the US and UK though.)
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I feel the need for some "escapist" literature (or video), and right now I want to escape into something dreamy and otherworldly. I would love recommendations.

An example of the type of thing would be Angel's Egg, the 1980s short anime. On the fast-paced, action, heartwarming end, maybe the recent movie, Flow. At the intellectual/concrete extreme, maybe A Voyage to Arcturus.

Seeking stories with...

* nature/beauty
* a dreamy or surreal quality - like it may be a dream or metaphor or afterlife or enchantment or something.
* on the slow, quiet end.
* vaguely old-timey in setting, like anywhere from 150-7000 years ago or the rough equivalent in an otherworld.
* some story/plot, though it can be slight, long enough that I get to spend time with the characters: novella or long; hour-ish video or longer.

Don't want...

* anything YA
* anything obviously moralizing;
* any "strong feminist heroine" or anything that smacks of contemporary politics of any kind from any side of the aisle;
* anything fast-paced or action packed. (I'm fine with Flow at the extreme end of fast.)
* anything that "feels" like it was written in and for the 2020s or 2010s;
* anything really short.

Fine with or Fine with Caveats...

* melancholy, dark, horror-tinged if not super dark/depressing/horror
* relatively thin characters, as long as what's there isn't any of the "don't want."
* romance if it's subtle, not the main point, not stereotypical. (Romance will be an easier sell if it's m/m.)
* child, teen characters as long as the story itself doesn't feel aimed at modern kids/teens (see Angel's Egg).
* written/created in pretty much any time period from ancient to present, if it more or less fits the above.

Thanks in advance for rec's!
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Trivia question: What do Andor S2, Picard S3, and the live action Yamato movie all have in common? See the spoilery answer behind the cut.

Warnings: rant, mentions of sexual assault, written quite fast.Read more... )
labingi: (r2dvd)
My overall take: it’s excellent, and my chief feeling at the end was “disappointed.” This is only partly the series’ fault. It’s partly the inevitability to ending up at Rogue One, which is melancholy. It’s partly that it was a long three years’ wait with high expectations, and there’s no way a handful of episodes could live up to those fantasies.

The series falters in its own right due to its compressed timeline. You can tell it was four seasons’ worth of storytelling compressed into one. It reminds of seasons 4 and 5 of Babylon 5: it’s clear they had a good plan, and they had to pivot hard to align it with a different production timeline. They couldn’t quite pull it off, but they came about as close as anyone could. I hope there may be either deleted scenes (maybe a directors’ cut?) or a novelization/comic book that uses the five-year story they clearly had mapped out, character building and all. I’d buy it. The action, script, filming, etc. remain top notch.

As many have noted, this series is incredibly important, trenchant, and bloody prophetic as a fictionalization of the fascist upsurge we are currently living through. At times, it was difficult to watch because it hit so close to home. That’s needed and deserves high praise.

Spoilers followRead more... )
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Silly question but when did "exhale" become a noun? I've been seeing it everywhere in fan fic lately, everywhere an "exhale," not one fic with an "exhalation"--or a "he exhaled." I figured it was a fan fic thing.

Then I saw an "exhale" in the poem "Forgotten Portraits," on my son's AP test study list.

The dictionaries are pretty much still telling me "exhale" is a verb.

This is, of course, all my language snobbery and utterly irrelevant, but when did this happen? What memo did I miss?
labingi: (r2dvd)
Feral Historian has a great (spoilery) video on Blake's 7 as a sadly realistic take on rebellion:

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In the great crossover 'verse in my head, this is the 45th anniversary of the Downfall of Sauron. I don't have any brilliant new thoughts on Middle-earth to share right now, but I appreciate that this day usually falls during my spring break, thus allowing me to celebrate it at home in Glen Ellen, which, being the land where I grew up, has always been Middle-earth to me, especially in the spring.

It's scary hot out for March right now, into the lower '80's F today, a reminder that the old world has gone, and, as our tenants pointed out, you never know what the weather is going to do from day to day. I will say this, though: I see real recovery from the fire. It feels like the first time the scars have looked significantly healed. Our two surviving legacy oaks, Drus and Maxima, who were surely dealt lethal blows in the fire (in 2017) both look surprisingly happy. Maxima has so much new growth it practically looks like a tree again. I don't know how this can be because neither of them have a square foot of healthy bark left anywhere, but they are still trucking along and the more power to them.

There's been a lot of rain this year, and the creeks are higher than I've seen them in a long time, which is always pleasant and welcome.

These are not specifically Middle-earth thoughts, but I think they are Middle-earthy. To have a keen eye for the land you love is very Middle-earthy thing.
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Okay, in my belated Arcane thing, I’m going to jump in with some character analysis, specifically arguing that Silco is the same basic character type as Scrooge, not in terms of their ultimate arcs but in terms of their psychological dynamics. Spoilers for S1 and maybe tiny bit of S2 under the cut Read more... )
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I am late to party for Arcane fandom, which means I probably won’t find anyone to talk to about, but I think I want to talk anyway. Honestly, I feel a bit silly, like I shouldn’t be “wasting my time” on fan essays? Not a waste; it’s just, wow, my view of engagement online and with art has really changed since 2005. It feels scarier and lonelier. Okay, general Arcane thoughts (and self-analysis and comparisons to other stories) beneath the cut. I’ll get into more specific character stuff in another post Possible spoilers through S2.Read more... )
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I'm going to cross-post my <user name=ownhands> newsletter here. By the way, my silence on DW since January is not for lack of wanting to post; it's just lack of time. My hope is when I'm done with my degrowth thesis defense, I'll have a small quantity of breathing room to post fun stuff... Maybe...

You can view my nice HTML newsletter here or read the text below...

Forward!

I see a silver lining to the United State's current situation: it's grave enough to inspire change. If the USDA is too understaffed to ensure food safety, maybe it's time to pivot to CSA's, farmer's markets, and gardening ahead of supply chain breakdown due to climate change. If the ACA is on the chopping block, maybe switch to a direct primary care provider and/or CostPlusDrugs. Frightened by Amazon's, Facebook's, and X's swings to the right? It's a great time to buy from Bookshop.org and local stores and check out BlueSky or Diaspora. Disclaimer: None of these options, especially the healthcare ones, are flawless; proceed at your own risk. With that disclaimer ringing in your ears, yes, it's a frightening time and risky as heck, but it's also an invitation to seek out new harmonies.

OwnHands Fiction Search Update: It's Not Quite Dead...

It feels much better. Monty Python jokes aside, Glenn and I just met to discuss our progress so far. He's facing a challenge in trying to build this project with open source tools. Because this will be a digital commons, but it's longer and harder. For that reason, we're fishing for others with programming experience to come on board and help us out, especially with back-end work. If you or someone you know is interested, please reach out to me. It's a labor of love for now, but once we have a proof of concept, we'll be applying for grants.

Whatever Happened to Being Cut?

Life is ironic. After talking up my book on relationship cutoff, I've decided not to release it widely. Too many people have misinterpreted me as saying that it’s fine to ignore boundaries. That’s not what I said. Yet this misreading raises the possibility that some might use my book as an excuse to harm others. I don’t want to be responsible for that.

I have also had favorable responses, some "every therapist should read this" types of response, and I believe this book can help some people in some circumstances. I will, therefore, continue to offer it on a limited basis (e-formats free) to some people I interact with personally. If you are interested in learning more or receiving a copy, please contact me.


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Yes, this is an ad, but it's a GOOD ad. Bookshop.org has become my go-to alternative to Amazon for buying books. It doesn't list quite as many titles, but I almost always find what I'm looking for. I feel good about using it and am happy to share this discount offer with others...

Discover Bookshop.org! The only online bookseller where every purchase supports local bookstores. Enjoy 20% off your first order!
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This is a comment I posted on Jessie Gender's patreon in response to the podcast episode she did with Vera on the Crusade ep., "The Path of Sorrows." I'm not sure the review is available off Patreon (I certainly encourage joining her patreon), but the gist was they liked the Gideon and Matheson plots okay and were annoyed by the Galen plot.

Mild spoilers for Crusade (including some info on where it was headed post-series cancellation and Technomage novels)

Your readings are really well explained and make sense, yet my response to this episode is just about the opposite of both of yours. I find most of it fairly boring/okay but enjoy the Galen parts, and I wanted to share why. Personal context: I watched Crusade when it first aired when I was in my early 20s, so my core response to it is very “romantic young adult” and less sensitive to overused tropes than I would be today. (I think that’s also true of our pop culture, in general, so I give the fridging some handicap points for being from the 1990s.) If I were encountering the series for the first time today, I’d probably share more of your critical disappointments. As it is, I love Crusade, not as well-made art but like you love a flawed friend who died young but lives in your memory. What I love most about the series is Galen, so let me do a reading of his character.

Re. the bitter atheism, I am more in Jessie’s camp that this works as being in character. I’ll refer briefly to the Technomage novels, though I’m on the fence about whether I personally consider them canon. (I’ve heard JMS does, but they also contradict bits of the series, so...?) But if we sort of follow the novels, Galen in Crusade is only about thirty, though Peter Woodward was older. At roughly the time Isabel died/Galen met Gideon, he was about twenty. His experience of losing Isabel is effectively a late adolescent experience. Since her death, he has been stuck in that grief, which means his attitude toward her death—and much of his emotional life—is still rather adolescent. His slightly incoherent splice between denying God/hating God is stupid, yes. It’s an adolescent response; it’s rather Ivan Karamazovian, another “angry young man” with a big brain and a lot emotional immaturity. The point of the episode, for Galen’s character, is pretty explicitly that he’s stuck; he can’t forgive and move on. That’s a feature, not a bug in his character.

Galen’s self-construal is deeply invested in having someone to love. His sense of duty is sweeping: to find a cure for the plague, etc. But his sense of his emotional life’s meaning reduces largely to investment in the object of his love. And he keeps losing those objects. He lost his parents as a child. He next attached to Elric, who died, then to Isabel, who died. And then he attached to Gideon. Light spoilers in the next paragraph for JMS’s plans for the later show...

JMS’s plan, as I recall, was that Galen and Gideon’s friendship would break down badly. Gideon, for some valid reasons, would feel betrayed by Galen, and working through that would probably have taken a good chunk of the planned five years. This could have been, in its own way, Crusade’s Londo and G’Kar arc. This would have been absolutely agonizing for Galen because Gideon’s friendship is emotionally his reason for living.

This episode is a building block in a narrative that was never built. But just as the first half of S1 of B5 is pretty clunky, Crusade clunked but was going somewhere. Its character work, especially around Galen, Gideon, and Dureena, had the potential to be amazing.

A while back on Facebook, I was part of a thread where someone asked JMS if he’d ever share his plans for Crusade in more detail. His response was that asking him that was like asking a parent whose child died at four where they would have sent them to college, and he requested never to be asked that again. I took that to heart. We’ll never really know the story of Crusade, and I’ll always regret that and always honor what it started to try to do.
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I was actually reading Wilde a few months ago, so apologies if my memory is dim. RL busy-ness and chronic pain have pushed updating DW to a back burner. In any case, I had somehow managed to get through life without reading either of these works and am glad I now have. Spoilers for those living in a cave for the past 130-odd years.

Salome

This tale of John the Baptist and Salome is a one act play. It is highly abbreviated and operates at a high level of symbolic removal from realism, which is a nice way of saying I found the characters one dimensional and uninteresting. I'm sure it all depends on how a specific performance handles it. It is also translated into English from French, so kudos to Wilde for being able to write drama in a foreign language, but this might explain why the voice doesn't sound all that much like "Wilde" to me.

I confess I didn't realize that Wilde's play is apparently the genesis of the idea that Salome was in love with John. I grew up with that story as the standard pop cultural narrative, popularized no doubt by Strauss, but it seems Strauss got it from Wilde. So I have to give him credit for rewriting the Bible in a way that, at least to some extent, has superseded the biblical account in cultural prominence. I give it 10/10 for cultural influence and 3/10 for execution.

The Picture of Dorian Grey

Honestly, I had expected to be a bit bored. I somehow had it in my head that this was a slight story made famous because it had a resonant core concept (like Salome?). I was pleasantly surprised to find it a very well written short novel. But what surprised me most was the realization--having just watched season 2 of Rings of Power--that Wilde's moral orientation in this story is much the same as Tolkien's. Who'd have thought?

Lord Henry is pretty much in the position of a Second Age Sauron here, filling the role of tempter and purveyor of bad advice. Of course, Lord Henry is a much more human-feeling character than Sauron, dealing with his own disillusion and--interestingly--the one to voice a lot of classic Wildean aphorisms. But both advocate a self-centered approach of what is metaphorically "shiny," power, beauty, etc. Both are radically divorced from basic human empathy (though Lord Henry has some for Dorian and enough vestiges of it left to sometimes understand well how others think). Both lead those who listen to them into misery and tragedy by prescribing selfishness at the expense of care of one's fellow people.

I was surprised a while ago to learn that Wilde was quite a devout Catholic convert, though I can only imagine in a somewhat non-dogmatic way. I wonder if there is an underlying Catholic orientation I'm sensing in this similarity to Tolkien. In any case, it's not what I expected to unearth.
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via [personal profile] annavere

"TV questions: pick your five favourite TV shows (in no particular order) and answer the following questions. Don’t cheat!"

I don't know if these are literally my fav's, but they're the ones that came to mind (excluding anime). There may be spoilers below.

1. Blake’s 7
2. Andor
3. Game of Thrones
4. Crusade
5. Doctor Who
Read more... )
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Reposting my newsletter from [community profile] ownhands

Election Reflections

Like everyone on the left, I'm scared for our future. I'm also hopeful. In the face of the fear and polarization, there's an undercurrent of mutual care I don't remember seeing in 2016 or 2020. There's a sense that the left needs to do some soul searching. In this moment, I personally think our most important task is listening. Our most important stance is compassion, remembering the humanity of each person.
 

Book Launch for Being Cut


Sunday, January 26, at 11:30 a.m.

Kairos-Milwaukie United Church of Christ
4790 SE Logus Road, Milwaukie OR 97222.

Join me January 26 for a brief reading from Being Cut: A Rumination on Relationship Cutoff and open discussion of why cutoff happens, how cutoff feels, and how we can to heal from it or limit its harm. (No pressure to attend the church service before the event.)

I didn't write this book with this election in mind, but I think the book may be timely. At its most basic, it's about listening and connection, things we need now more than ever.

Own Hands Story Search Update

 
Glenn and I have been slammed by the day jobs, which has slowed our progress on our story search tool (and these newsletters). But as I write this, he coding away on website setup. I'll keep you posted!
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Content warning: some critique of the left by someone on the left behind the cut. Please feel free to skip if you're emotionally bleeding too much for self-critical, political strategy talk.

Like pretty much everyone on my reading list here, I'm pummeled by this election. A little surprised by the degree of landslide but mostly just scared. Not looking forward to a minimum of four years under fascism.

A big hug to everyone who is tired and scared.

I'm trying to think, though, about why so many voted for him. Some are hateful racists, etc., but that's not over half the country. Misinformation and propaganda are also huge, of course. Beyond that, these are some reasons I see, based on my vantage point teaching service classes in higher education...Read more... )
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The verdict: This story is written like fan fic by a high schooler. It’s amazing the production team let this get through. That said, it has some elements I really like and wish had a better show to breathe in. (Note: I’m skipping all accent marks out of fatigue.)

Overall Production:

The Good

Visual effects, music, costumes. Acting! These are good actors, and they deserve better material. In some cases, they are even very well cast, and they are acting the heck out of what little they’ve been given. In terms of story, the fleshing out of Sauron is generally good in my book.

The Bad

The writing overall. Especially toward the end, it’s paint-by-the-numbers. It’s full of lines like “I am the light.” “No, you are the darkness.” That’s not a quote, but it’s indicative of the basic pattern of stock lines and responses. It also does set-up and pay-off poorly, like introducing a nameless Elf who gets pep-talked along the lines of “I know you’ll do your best” and then dies doing their best one minute later.

The Hit and Miss

Directing and editing. Sometimes, it’s really good: good shots, creative angles, well paced, nice variety. Sometimes, it feels borderline amateur—like there’s a scene where Elendil’s daughter tells a soldier (paraphrased), “There’s nothing to see here. Move along,” and a second later follows up with (paraphrased), “Do I have to report you for insubordination?” The only insubordinate thing I saw was that, for a second, he slightly moved his head; there was no camera work or direction that indicated he was disobeying her. That sort of flub in basic craft, while rare overall, is surprisingly common in this most expensive show ever.

Note: some bits that seem like editing problems may be script problems, like lots of late-Game-of-Thrones “teleportation.” The show has a tendency to do something like, “So-and-So is coming,” and the very next cut, So-and-So is there. If you want to express either distance or tension, you could at least intercut with another scene between announcing someone is on the move and having them suddenly arrive.

Spoilers for plot stuff follow.Read more... )
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I was watching a YouTube video essay on girls being acculturated to the male gaze and learning to perform for it from a very young age—and it hit me like a ton of bricks: I didn’t experience this. I don’t think I had any awareness of a male gaze until well into my young adulthood (maybe 25-30), when I did become aware of occasionally being catcalled or—on the nicer end—being praised by a passing guy for looking nice today.

But from my earliest memories all the way through puberty, all of high school, and well into college, I never had a sense of males “gazing” at me or a sense that I should perform for their benefit.

I wanted to be a pretty girl. I had a sense of what that meant aesthetically and enjoyed dress-up. But my sense from childhood through high school was mediated almost exclusively by my social feelings about other girls. I wanted to be as good as they were (or better, let’s be honest). I wanted to be acceptable to them—not sexually, but socially. I didn’t want to look sexy; I wanted to look cool, not necessarily chasing-the-latest-trend cool (though I pegged my jeans like everyone else) but what I considered to be looking good in my own body.

Much this, though, happened as solitary dress-up “play,” even into adulthood. In public, I mostly wanted to look nice but not attract attention. And I wanted to be comfortable, so I wore pants and T-shirts as much as I was allowed and mostly based “looking nice” on whether I felt things fit well. This dressing down may have been a large part of why the “male gaze” never imposed itself on me: and the glasses and being a skinny bean. But I wasn’t “ugly,” and teen boys being teen boys, I expect some of them “gazed” at me (and probably everything else female), but I was literally never aware of it. I was so unaware of it that by the time I graduated high school, I was painfully convinced that no guy would ever find me attractive or ask me out. But my solution to this was not to dress sexy; it was to “stop being so shy” and start asking out the guys I liked. (Yeah, that didn’t work.)

Thinking about this now—how totally oblivious to the ubiquitous “gaze” I was—I wonder if this is a sign that I have always been a friendship bonder (and maybe asexual-adjacent), that bonding through sexuality just never occurred to me. The idea that a guy would find me sexy on a purely physical level always has felt uncomfortable and, frankly, insulting to my personhood. And while I definitely had a physical taste in guys, I couldn’t imagine ever crushing on them without admiring them personally, mainly for what I perceived as their moral values and intellect. Meanwhile, at the end of the day, my central relationships, the ones that mattered and sustained and were real and badly scarred me, were always friendships, with girls, guys; it didn’t matter.

I wonder how genuinely uncommon my experience is, or is it just one that doesn’t get talked about?
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My Wish List for a Second Age TV Series

Happy Bilbo and Frodo’s birthday, all! (In the great crossover ‘verse in my head, Frodo is 95 today.) Here’s a Middle-earthy post in honor.

I think Rings of Power S2, overall, is better than S1, and I have been enjoying some of it. On the whole, however, it’s a lost cause for me, so I’m going to lay out some things I’d like to see if the Tolkien estate ever grants rights to adapt The Silmarillion. (I know RoP is hampered by not being able to do this.)

Here are my broad contentions: 1) It should focus on the Elves and 2) it should follow Tolkien’s timeline. My picks for protagonist would be either Gil-galad or Elrond. For me, RoP’s biggest contribution to Middle-earth worldbuilding is Adar, and while he couldn’t be used in this hypothetical adaptation due to copyright, I will take inspiration from his plotline. Expect spoilers for any Tolkien lore and vague references to RoP stuff.

Disclaimers: My memory of a lot of The Silmarillion of is vague. I’m writing this in the midst of a pain flare up from too much screen time, so I’m not bothering to look up details like accent marks. Sorry for mistakes.Read more... )

What's on your wish list? I'd love to hear.
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Read the latest updates on the Own Hands Story Search tool for finding fiction. We're narrowing down the categories we'll focus on for our first proof-of-concept search.

In other news, if anyone wants to be a first reader/reviewer for my non-fiction book on relationship cutoff, please PM me for a free ebook/PDF.

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