soricel | Network

A distant planet is home to two interdependent human colonies: the hierarchical City, founded by convicts exiled from Earth, and the egalitarian Town, founded by a group of pacifists. They have little in common besides having been removed from Earth because authorities there found them inconvenient, and they have very different visions for their shared planet's future. The City sees itself as the legitimate planetary government (they were there first and they perceive the Town as weak and worthy only of exploitation) while the Town sees itself as the City's equal and expects to resolve issues through nonviolent dialogue. Our protagonist is Luz, the daughter of a powerful City leader. As she learns more about the Town and her father's plans for it, Luz sees a deadly conflict brewing and finds herself caught in the middle.

Le Guin was quoted as saying that this book "might be" part of the Hainish Cycle. I'm not sure the timeline quite fits (not that she ever sweated the timeline) but the themes certainly do. My impression on re-reading is that this one does a lot of things that The Word for World Is Forest tried to do, but better—and it does some of the things that The Dispossessed already did, with less detail but with some insightful additional angles.

( cut for length )

I really like this book, and I definitely got more out of it as an adult, especially in the context of Le Guin's earlier work. I don't hear it mentioned very often when people talk about her, but I think there's more here to chew on than I first realized.

oursin

Steps towards identifying new Black voters in 18th-century Westminster and Hertfordshire, way back in 1700s, when being able to vote meant having certain property qualifications e.g. being a householder.

***

What did the Romans ever do for us? Not so much of the benefits we're always told: Urban populations in southern Britain experienced a decline in health that lasted for generations after the Romans arrived.

***

The history of mutual aid organisations: Prior to the development of government and employer health insurance and financial services, friendly or ‘benevolent’ societies were an important part of many people’s lives.

***

There are no pure cultures: All of our religions, stories, languages and norms were muddled and mixed through mobility and exchange throughout history (and I don't seem to have saved the links about the numbers of immigrants in medieval England....)

***

This is an older link I don't think I ever posted: Vitriol to Corrosive Fluid: ‘Acid’ Assault in the Twentieth Century:

There seems to have been a spike in cases in the late 1960s, but the pattern established in the nineteenth century was clearly at an end. With fewer cases occurring, and fewer making headline news, the incidence of this unique offence continued to fall until its reappearance in a different guise in the twenty-first century. However, the ongoing digitization of late twentieth-century newspapers may yet reveal further cases.

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: happy

elyusion posting in

dw_community_promo

If you like Japanese rock/metal bands dressed in various degrees of ostentatious fashion, please consider joining

vkotd to share your favorite v-kei songs or discover new ones. I'm looking forward to seeing fans on Dreamwidth's taste! ♪♪♪ ヽ(ˇ∀ˇ )ゞ

Current Mood: hopeful

loganberrybunny

Public

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

First things first: this is a review of the film. There's not much about the whole raucous "midnight screening" culture that appeals to me, and I don't think shadow casts and so on are really much of a thing here in Britain in any case. On another note, this first-run UK quad poster was designed by none other than John Pasche, the guy who made the Rolling Stones' tongue and lips logo!

Anyway, with my bisexual hat on,¹ Frank-N-Furter is not my queer icon. I don't see any real need to preserve historical representation in aspic, and plenty of things that were seen as ground-breaking in the 1970s can now be seen for the more uncomfortable ones they are. Frank is a well written character, and certainly charismatic, but a guy to be uncritically celebrated he ain't. We have a more advanced idea of consent than was often the case in the Seventies, for a start. The story is pretty silly, but rock musicals will do that, and several of the songs (not just "Time Warp") are decent or better.
¹ As Fred Astaire didn't quite sing: "I'm puttin' on my bi hat, 'cause I like 'em all, cat: women and the males."

The staging generally works, being an area where the campiness and deliberately cheap look works well, though it can look a bit... stagey, unsurprising given this grew out of a stage show. Tim Curry plays Frank superbly, and Richard O'Brien (who many of us in the UK will remember presenting The Crystal Maze in the early 1990s) is excellent as well. The rest are okay to good, so no real complaints other than the odd song lyric that's hard to hear. Not a film I'm going to rush back to, and as I say not one I'm at all interested in seeing in... that environment, but it's good to have ticked it off the list. ★★★

Current Mood: productive

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: happy

kalloway

Hikaru no Go vol. 1-23 (Yumi Hotta/Takeshi Obata) - I mentioned HikaGo last month as my actual advent countdown, even though I don't think I was quite on schedule... Anyway, I still really like it even though it should have ended with vol. 17. I should really write a few little bits of Hikaru/Akira.

Whistle! vol. 1-24 (Daisuke Higuchi) - a re-read from a very long time ago and while I still really liked the first half, the second half just didn't carry the weight and bogged down. Whistle! is about soccer, and starts off with a junior high team but the stakes just keep getting higher and higher and the end is really meh. I suspect there was some editorial meddling or something? I think I'll let this go...

Uta~Kata - a rewatch, still lovely, but it's not as strong as some series about magical adolescence.

Astro Boy vol. 1 - a more recent Astro Boy anime that was fun enough but I can't imagine hunting down the rest. I think my favorite 'modern' Astro Boy is the CG movie.

Transformers: Robots in Disguise (Overloaded & Decepticon Island) - this was pretty good story-wise but the designs/animation are kind of ugly. I think this is only the second RID disc I've ever found and yeah, I'd watch more but ??? (Same that iirc there's no collections of Rescue Bots, which sucks because Rescue Bots is cute.)

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues - pretty good and fairly funny but I also feel like attempting to replicate the sheer everything of Spinal Tap is a pretty impossible task. However, the cameos are amazing and holy shit does Elton John still have a strong voice.

Don't Rub Yourself Against My Ass!! (Sakira) - about the most meh BL manga I picked up like a decade ago and then forgot about. It can also go. The main story is about an ex-cop and it's really explicit but it's just not my cuppa.

Gundam Wing & Endless Waltz - for Christmas, of course. I feel like my mental timeline of Gundam Wing was weirdly off; some things happened way before I thought they should, some far later. Time to finally read the new manga...

shipperslist

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

dewline

Special weather statement for Ottawa-Gatineau today. 70-90 kph winds expected this afternoon. Rain all day, which has already arrived.

Current Mood: irritated

spikedluv posting in

fandom_on_dw

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

princessofgeeks

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

Current Mood: awake

mific

Apologies to friends here at DW. I've been so obsessed with HR everything I'd gotten very behind in reading my flist here. I am now caught up! Will try to do better.

I remember this state from when I first fell into fandom in about 2008/2009, and the key word is salience. The object of your desire becomes virtually the only salient (important) thing. Everything else pales in comparison and seems less important and interesting. It's no accident that salience is a technical term in addiction medicine. It's for sure linked with dopamine receptors and my brain is now very trained to give me dopamine hits for things related to HR, especially, at this stage, fic.

I'm not complaining, but I realise that we loons (an in-joke name suggested for the HR fandom) must be tiresome for those not in the fandom. (There's a solution to that...)

Anyway, it's also midsummer here and very nice, too. The garden (will do a few pics soon) is getting blowsy and a bit beset by fungal annoyances as we've continued to have intermittent rain and high humidity, but most days have highs of 27^C which is lovely and not too hot. Perfect for lying around reading and rewatching! I finally finished and mailed my second tranche of seasonal cards for NZ friends and family, the earlier lot having been sent overseas. They're later than usual due to the aforementioned salience of other distractions.

The bloody ducks managed to force their way back into my water garden through the duck dome, so the dome is now a basket weave with weft as well as warp, and tied more firmly to the barrel. The waterlilies are slowly recovering for a second time. The giant Mexican sunflower (Tithonia) is once more as tall as the house, having regrown from a 2 foot stub after cutting back. I'm not sure there's anything in the earth under my flat except Tithonia roots, these days. My peppers aren't thriving - not enough direct sun, as my potted plants got away from me and I didn't have the peppers in the front row. Lesson learned. Scarlet runner beans are doing well, but a lot of veggies and annuals haven't been great, probably as the very hot early summer exhausted and confused them. I'll plant some things earlier, in winter next year (sweet peas, tomatoes, peppers.)

Okay, that's my update - hugs for everyone and hope you're all coping with 2026 so far!

(Downs periscope and prepares to dive back into excellent HR fic).

sfbbmod posting in

smallfandombang

The third Author Check-In period is now over and we currently have 33 stories in 36 fandoms (this number includes crossover fandoms)! Here’s our preliminary list of fandoms for artists who might be interested in signing up, but are leery of doing so without knowing what fandoms will be represented.

( Preliminary List of Fandoms: )

Announcements & Reminders:

More Artists & Pimps: I want to thank the 16 artists who have signed-up and checked-in and remind all of you that WE COULD USE MORE ARTISTS!! As you can see from the list, we have a large number of potential fic in quite a diverse bunch of fandoms, and not enough artists for all of them, so please, if you haven’t already done so (or even if you have), pimp us out!

I do not belong to communities for all of these fandoms, so your help would be greatly appreciated. If you belong to any fandom-specific communities for the fandoms listed above (and such announcements are allowed by the mod), please make an announcement! Or pimp us in your own journal or Tumblr! And if you know some artists who are up for a challenge, please mention us to them. Artist sign-ups are still open!

If you are interested in signing up as an Artist, please do so at the Artist Sign-Up Post.

Rough Drafts: Also, please remember that rough drafts are due at the end of this month. (The submission rules post will go up on the 24th, but you will have until the 31st to get them in.) There is no extension on this date because I need the information for artist claims. HOWEVER, I am very flexible regarding ‘percent completed’ so long as you will have the final draft done on time and will have a substantial amount of story to submit to an artist, you’re good. Additionally, there is the option to opt-out of art, should you wish to take that route.

When submitting your rough draft:

1. Remember that your story description should be at least one or two paragraphs, not a clever one-liner. This description is for your artist, not [necessarily] the summary you’re going to include in your story header when you post. (Hint: If you don’t think you can come up with a longer summary, think about dividing your story into parts and give a summary of each part.) If you don’t turn in a nicely fleshed out description the first time, I’ll ask you to re-do it, so start thinking about that now.

2. Please be sure to warn about anything that might squick or trigger your artist. This includes things like character death, extreme violence, non-con/rape, heavy angst, dark themes, genderswap, mpreg, BDSM themes, A/B/O, etc. This is not the warning you need to give to your readers; this is a warning for your artist, so please list anything that might trigger or squick them.

This additional requirement is not meant to shame the author, but to protect the artist and author both. You won’t put an artist in the position of having to work with a story they won’t enjoy, and run the chance of possibly ending up with art you’re not satisfied with.

Thank you!

cyberghostface posting in

scans_daily

“The Joker to me is always the opposite of Batman. So if Absolute Batman is this thing, Joker would become a billionaire with all the resources, who is telling Bruce, ‘Well, you’re not going to become anything,’ and then it becomes, who would he put in Batman’s way? Well, Joker plays both sides, so he creates crime and creates the means to stop crime. He’s always playing us, and the Joker issue explains what a clown is and why the Joker loves them… If Bruce is Joker now, and he is chaos and he is disruption, then Joker is the system and order. That means Joker would have a Batcave, he would have a mansion, he would be handsome, and be a socialite. Maybe he has Robins!” -- Scott Snyder

( Scans under the cut... )

oursin

Happy birthday,

flemmings!

tamaranth

2026/005: The Debutante — Jon Ronson

This is the story of a Tulsa debutante who, as a result of a series of unlikely and often very bad life choices she made in the ‘90s, found herself in the midst of one of the most terrible crimes ever to take place in America. [opening line]

I don't think this really counts as a book: it's more of a podcast, complete with hooks and a 'special bonus episode'.

Jon Ronson explores the history of Carol Howe, adopted at birth by a wealthy family in Tulsa. She was a debutante, but a rebellious one, and became part of a white supremacist group (plus swastika tattoo, 'Dial-a-Racist' phone line etc). She was involved with a white supremacist Christian cult in Oklahoma with ties to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma Bomber. Then, apparently, she decided to become an informant for the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) and kept a detailed diary of events. The ATF claim she was 'deactivated' because of mental instability. Howe claimed she warned the ATF about the cult's plans to bomb a major target, but was ignored.

Ronson didn't manage to track down Howe, but he did -- in the 'special bonus episode' -- discover what happened to her: dead in a house fire in January 2025, after years of paranoid behaviour. An interesting investigation, but I would have preferred a straightforward narrative to the 'tune in for our next instalment' ambience of a podcast.

Current Mood: blah

mekare posting in

smallweb

I stumbled across this essay on community organisation and core web vs. peripheral web structures today. A fascinating read! It's been written by former organisers of a webring called yesterweb which seemed to have exploded in popularity before being shut down. The reflection on this experience (and general web trends) is really interesting.

Some excerpts:

The peripheral web can be described as the outskirts of the core web, with platforms such as Mastodon, SpaceHey, Neocities, Discord and IRC chatrooms, Matrix rooms, various imageboards, and others, including various functional clones of core web applications. It is the digital countryside of the corporate megalopolis. Advertising, sales, and data collection are substantially reduced if not entirely eliminated, providing better conditions for people to socialize in and a healthier experience overall. It is composed of web platforms that are hosted on separate infrastructure from the core web by individuals or organizations with various sources of funding. The peripheral web is discovered largely through word-of-mouth and personal research. In other words, bridging the peripheral web to the core web takes a significant amount of effort: the vast majority of internet users remain unaware of its existence.

The rapid increase in popularity of platforms like Neocities and Spacehey were a strong indicator that nostalgia was a significant force driving migration to the peripheral web in recent years. The community was first created when pandemic restrictions were just starting to loosen up. Nostalgia was often the first thing that stood out and appealed to new members: there is comfort in nostalgia, especially during particularly rough times.

However, Nostalgia would often lead to a regressive attitude within the space that made it difficult to achieve any sort of change. Users focused highly on nostalgia would value aesthetics as their primary focus which would lead to a distrust of new tools that did not meet their nostalgic criteria.

The organization began as a handful of individuals working to discover and address the needs of the community. As the community grew larger, it transformed into a loose organization composed of staff members. Finally, a well-defined organization formed at the core of the staff that created a distinction between organizers.

In its loosely organized phase, attempts were made to draw the whole community into organizing efforts. Results were poor because of low participation, and because the participants were mostly composed of the newest members who had the least knowledge about the community. We could not ensure an accurate representation from this setup, so we moved the decision-making as a responsibility for staff members. This would not work out either as moderators had varying levels of commitment and we could not reasonably expect them to take a greater responsibility.

mific

Ok, so I have committed my first HR fic! A short, fluffy, h/c fic about Ilya and the white fleece jacket from the Sochi Olympics. So Fluffy.

Also a larger artwork combining a photoshoot pic, Ember and Ice and Heated Rivalry. I had a better ref for Shane, and am especially happy with how he came out. It's rated mature, NSFW. Diplomatic Relations.

It's an interesting fandom to be posting works in. In my older, quieter fandoms there's much more community engagement and more comments, with everyone aware the fandom's relatively small, these days, so more loyalty. In HR there's this frenzy of creation (nearly 7000 works so far), and fans hungrily soak up what's created with almost instant hits in the thousands, masses of kudos and bookmarks, and very few comments. Both types of fandom have their pros and cons. I'm just happy to be energised into writing more, and that energy rubs off (heh) onto my other main fandoms as well. What a time to be alive! (I realize seriously shitty things continue to happen elsewhere, but honestly, HR saved 2005 for me and many others, so I'm going to enjoy it.)

ysabetwordsmith

Dogs Build Their Vocabularies Like Toddlers

Basket the Border collie seems to have a way with words. The 7-year-old dog, who resides on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, knows the names of at least 150 toys — “froggy,” “crayon box” and “Pop-Tart,” among them — and can retrieve them on command.

The number is average. Most dogs can learn 100-200 words, typically 150-160. However, a majority of those are verbs like "sit" and "fetch." Nouns are less common, but most dogs learn a bunch of things like "food" and "leash." Having a vocabulary that is mostly nouns is uncommon.

Why a collie? Because people used to teach them the names of the sheep. "All in" is useful, but "Cut Molly" (out of the herd) is even more so.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

nanila posting in

awesomeers

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!

Profile

soricel

January 2026

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30	31

Page Summary

pauraque - The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin (1978)
oursin - A few things lately noted
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
elyusion in dw_community_promo - Visual Kei of the Day
loganberrybunny - Film post: The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
princessofgeeks - Heated Rivalry rec
kalloway - Media Roundup, Accidental Advent (Mostly) AniManga Edition
shipperslist - Fandom Snowflake 2026, #4
dewline - And I have an appointment downtown this morning...
spikedluv in fandom_on_dw - Small Fandoms Bang: A Small Fandoms Big Bang
princessofgeeks - Awesome Heated Rivalry meta
mific - This is your life on drugs
sfbbmod in smallfandombang - SFBB15: Preliminary List of Fandoms & Reminders
cyberghostface in scans_daily - Absolute Batman #15
oursin - (no subject)
tamaranth - 2026/005: The Debutante — Jon Ronson
mekare in smallweb - An interesting article
mific - Fic! Art! Thoughts about being in a juggernaut fandom
ysabetwordsmith - Animal Communication
nanila in awesomeers - Just One Thing (09 January 2026)

Style Credit

Style: Sylph for Ciel by nornoriel

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jan. 14th, 2026 10:32 am