primeideal | Reading

I knew I was going to be confused jumping in in media res, and I think I've figured most things out from context, but wow, I was not expecting the creepy rabbit in evening dress who runs an alternate mirror dimension (literally accessed through a mirror). He hasn't been mentioned by name, but I looked it up and it's "Laplace's Demon" which is just a little too on the nose.

The premise of the show is that there are a bunch of living dolls created by a guy who studied alchemy, but they have to fight each other in the "Alice Game" so that the lone survivor can become a real girl. What the hell, "Father"?! Why the hell would you do this to your so-called children??! Clearly, he's the bad guy here, but I'm surprised none of the characters have figured it out yet; it seems like a total no-brainer. I get why the dolls would be for it (fucked-up family dynamics; going along with what "Daddy" tells them) but seems weird that their human companions would go along with it. I think they should unionize.

Overall, very 2000s animation, lots of roses as a thematic motif. The contrast between the dark, serious OP and then the comedy antics is wild, though. I like the doll themes (reminds me of TBF puppets) and the general aesthetic, so I'll stick with it for now. Looking forward to learning what the hell is going on in future episodes.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: West Coast (Lana del Rey)

Speaking of my coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb perspective on the various obligatory het romance plots in TOS, I’ve been really struck by how many seem dub-con at best. Maybe that’s partly because I’m finishing the third season and it’s especially pronounced there, and it’s also been particularly glaring with Spock in particular (the Kirk dubcon plots tend to be more viscerally horrifying, but he at least gets to consent sometimes).

Spock has a small fraction of the number of romantic (or "romantic") plots that Kirk does, and while I might be misremembering something in the many episodes I’ve seen—

1— “This Side of Paradise”

The premise of this "romance" is that Leila, the softly-lit blonde girl of the episode, was in love with Spock six years earlier, but his issues meant their love could never be, and he rejected any possibility of romance with her. It's not at all clear what past!Spock actually felt about the situation (Leila says "you couldn't give anything of yourself" and he wouldn't even put his arms around her), both because of his general manner when not under the effect of the sex/docility/spore cult pollen, and because her feelings are so much the main driver of both the backstory and the present events.

Early on, lead spore cultist Elias asks Leila if she’d like Spock to join their creepy community. She replies, “There is no choice, Elias. He will stay.” It doesn’t seem like she actually cares about what he’d choose in his right mind, just about using the sex pollen to railroad him into the life she wants with him. This doesn’t mean she was always like that (she herself has been exposed for a long time, though she doesn't change much when the spores lose their hold on her), but her disinterest in his consent to life with her makes this ostensibly sweet romance 100x creepier. Not helped by the sex pollen itself and her avoidance of explanations when Spock is still in his right mind and could decide for himself.

( Read more... )

ursula

Earth Day call log:

ursula used Governor Gretchen Whitmer's contact form to ask her to deny a permit to the proposed Line 5 oil pipeline, and will further celebrate Earth Day by attending a protest in support of EPA federal employee union members this afternoon.

The Sierra Club is trying to break a record for the most origami fish, if you want a fun craft for celebration.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Hit Me With Your Best Shot (Pat Benatar)

In response to this post, yavieriel said:

I don't have particularly strong K/S feelings - TOS Shatner has Dad Vibes too strong for me to overcome - but this has been a delightful journey to watch you take.

I replied:

Interesting, I see that more easily from Nimoy than Shatner, but we all feel the Dad Vibes differently, lol. And thanks, haha—I went from "this is just part of the fabric of the universe of me, I'm not passionate but it just kind of IS to me" to "beating my head against the wall to avoid going insane" so fast it feels like whiplash!

yavieriel said:

Oh that is fascinating, Spock is entirely "hot but unapproachable college prof" to me. I can't even slightly imagine him drinking beer while grilling, or mowing the lawn in cheesy tshirts, or coaching t-ball. Whereas I feel like Kirk would be entirely comfortable with those things, and probably somewhat enthusiastic. My own dad's very stereotypical middle class cishet guy-ness is definitely somewhat performative, but it's not insincere, if that makes sense? Which also matches with Kirk's vibes for me.

I replied:

Ah, I see! My own dad is an extremely reserved and intense programmer from LA with zero interest in the various sportsballs and a great value for reason and debate (and board games that require some amount of tactical thinking), and we've always been conspicuously similar and close. Also Spock continually being on the receiving end of microaggressions is pretty true to the ways my dad has been targeted (as a multiracial Mexican-American man), so Nimoy's Spock feels all the more familiar. That said, I think partly the show sexualizes Kirk so much that I personally find it hard to see him as exactly paternal despite the strong Father To His Crew vibes. But I can see that as a way to read, for instance, Uhura saying she finds it soothing to listen to his voice through the intercom when she's nervous—it could be seen as a shippy thing, but obviously isn't intended that way.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)

So the great chronological-by-airdate TOS watch with my housemates is nearing its end and I’m genuinely kind of sad about it, in much the same way that I was happy but kind of sad about my D&D campaign resolving.

I will say, though, that I’ve been trying not to be One of Those People but I truly hadn’t realized before this TOS household re-watch that Kirk/Spock on the original show was at this level. I didn’t clearly remember the little bits I saw as a kid (I was far more into TNG and Captain Picard as a tiny Anghraine) and so I thought it would be more like the standard action-adventure male friendships that inspire big slash ships, and not god-tier “these guys are truly unhinged about each other.”

I’d seen the various Spock/whomever shippers duking it out among themselves, but from a distance, and just vaguely felt that none of the ship warriors were covering themselves in glory. I hadn’t realized that—I’m sorry, I know I’m becoming the villain here, but I had no idea I’d end up feeling like every Spock ship in TOS vs Kirk/Spock is 100% coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb.

Tagged: #fine. the k/s girlies of yesteryear were entirely justified and spock especially has powerfully relatable closeted gay energy #(kirk does not. kirk's energy is powerfully bisexual)

ETA 4/21/2025: Somewhat relatedly, I was actually looking at how the characters' share of overall dialogue breaks down statistically between TOS and TNG. It turns out that, proportionally speaking, you'd have to combine the line shares of Picard, Data, Riker, and Geordi to reach the share of overall dialogue that Kirk and Spock have in TOS (~73% of all TOS dialogue). And this isn't only because Kirk gets so much of the dialogue (he does get a ton of it, though his share drops sharply over the course of the show; IMO he also gets the bulk of the bad dialogue in the later show, despite some great S3 scenes—he's not carrying so much of the show's bad writing earlier on). But the only TNG character who has a higher proportion of overall dialogue than Spock does in TOS is Picard, and only a few percent more at ~31%. Meanwhile, in TOS, there's a steep drop from Spock's share of lines/screen time to McCoy, who has only 13% of the show's dialogue; the line shares only get slighter from there. Meanwhile, Data and Riker both have slightly higher shares of overall dialogue than McCoy, and Geordi comes pretty close to his share as well. TOS gives a lot of centrality to Kirk and Spock compared to even other ST shows.

schneefink

After a long day of classes (on a bank holiday, too) I treated myself to some grapefruit + nougat ice cream and then planned to spend some time reading, do some housekeeping in preparation for hosting a guest (very exciting), and then write some overdue review posts, maybe prepare some recs if I'm feeling ambitious.

Instead I spent most of the evening continuing to play Astalon: Tears of the Earth. I'd seen it recommended quite a few times on r/metroidvania and I was very curious, so when I saw it was on sale I bought it even though it's not entirely smart to start a new game 2.5 weeks before an exam. Ah well.

You play as a group of three adventurers in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that investigate (read: fight their way through) a tower from which comes a substance poisoning their village. One of them sold his soul to the titan of death, and in exchange every time you die you are transported back to the entrance of the tower.

I also saw it described as a "metroidvania with roguelite elements," which made me a bit skeptical because the other game that claims that is Dead Cells and that didn't convince me when I briefly tried it. But that description isn't really accurate because it doesn't have the procedural generation of a roguelike, it has the exploration of a metroidvania, and that's my favorite part of the genre. It just doesn't have checkpoints and very little healing. But there's plenty of shortcuts to unlock so landing back at the beginning is much less frustrating than I'd feared. And unlocking shortcuts is very satisfying; the exploration is satisfying in general, with plenty of secrets to discover. Plus, there are not that many but enough character interactions that I care about the characters as well.

After about eight hours I've beaten three bosses (one of them I'm pretty sure is optional) and discovered around 35% of the map. ( Spoilers )

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Goin' Back (Freddie Mercury)

Femslash Spirk scrap for today (at a point around the end of “The Conscience of the King”):

“I will admit,” said S’paak, “that I do not find the governor’s presumed fate a particularly grievous one, captain. I see no reason that skill at performance should exempt anyone from justice, much less someone guilty of Kodos’s crimes.”

Captain Kirk’s lips curved into an unconvincing approximation of her typical expression. “His skill at performance wasn’t the difficulty, unfortunately.”

S'paak could not help but wonder what Kirk would have done if events had not taken the matter out of her hands. Dr. McCoy could talk with Karidian’s own theatricality about blood and severed heads and vengeance, but Kirk had been cautious to the point of near folly. True, the Jessica Kirk of Tarsus IV had been a girl of thirteen, and the uncertainty of human memory made caution understandable. But the weight of evidence was so clear.

Even so, Kirk—a woman more prone to leveraging emotion than hiding its existence—had not fully succeeded in concealing her true thoughts. At least, not from S’paak. Kirk had gone from uncertain and reluctant to grim, fearless, admirably unfaltering. S’paak guessed that, in the end, Kirk would not have hesitated to personally consign Kodos to the fate he deserved had circumstances allowed for it. That was not an irrational vendetta, however bitter, but deserved and necessary.

“Those difficulties are past,” said S’paak, “thanks to you, with respect to both him and his daughter.”

“Not me alone. But thank you, I think,” said Kirk. She turned slightly away, though not before S’paak observed the uneven inhalation of her next breath, the quick, repeated flicker of her lashes. “Riley deserves more of your sympathy, though. He’s younger than me, lost more, and I ... I’ve always needed challenges to struggle against. Something to overcome.”

“I see no logical reason for starvation to be among those challenges,” said S’paak flatly, “nor the massacre of civilians, least of all when they are sent to death on no pretext except baseless pseudoscience.”

( Read more... )

atamascolily

I forgot it was Bread Day until after the fact, but I did in fact make bread yesterday--twice, actually. I've been trying to recreate a particular kind of flatbread featured in Thunderbolt Fantasy, which is known as shaobing in Taiwan; however, I had run into difficulties because the recipes I found didn't look anything like what's featured in the show. Taiwanese shaobing is rectangular and oblong and covered with sesame seeds, while this bread was circular and covered with round marks.

It turns out that while this bread is known as shaobing in Taiwan, it's actually from the Xinjiang region of mainland China, and known as "Uyghur flatbread" or "Uyghur naan" or "nángbĭng". Thus armed with the appropriate search term, I was able to find recipes and attempt to recreate it at home.

The first version was a vegan form with whole-wheat pastry flour, which I rolled too thin and it came out more cracker-like. The second version was when I remembered I had Greek yogurt in the fridge with all-purpose flour, and which I rolled too thick. Both versions were tasty, but the yogurt one had better texture and heft, and was very filling (probably because Greek yogurt is so dense and proteinaceous). To get the circular shape, I rolled out the dough and placed it in a cast-iron circular pan and folded the edges over, then stamped the center with a circular cookie cutter to keep it from rising. (Traditionally, one uses a bread stamp with more geometric shapes on it, hence the iconic pattern.)

I like homemade bread, but flatbreads are significantly easier because there's no rising time and a lot fewer steps. I think I still need four or five more attempts to really perfect this--ideally shooting for the thickness of a pita, with onions and sesame toppings (which I didn't even attempt either of these times) and I'd like to find the right ratio (for me, anyway) of whole wheat to white flour. I also need to get better at rolling and folding edges, which came out a little lumpy.

Still, I'm really happy with how my experiments turned out, and the fact that it also happened to be Bread Day (an unofficial tumblr holiday) was icing on the cake--er, shaobing. Looking forward to more baking later now that I have the basic protocol down.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: SOS (Rihanna)

Femslash Spirk update: I’ve been brainstorming how “Amok Time” would even work and am really entertained by one solution I came up with:

The child marriage of Spock and T'Pring becomes one between S'paak and Stonn, who is still infatuated with T'Pring in this universe.
T'Pring remains the architect of the homoerotic duel and it still happens; I think she has already dealt with her own husband in some fashion or another and S'paak is now the only obstacle between her and Stonn.
I’d feel weird about the incredible “Kirk gets slashed across the chest in just such a way as to reveal his nipples” scene happening exactly that way with Jessica; I think the result here is instead very AOTC Padmé.
I think S'paak is surprised and unwillingly impressed by Stonn being capable of such calculating reason as this scheme required, not expecting it of him, and is rather relieved to discover that the real mastermind was T'Pring and her judgment of him was not mistaken.
Spock’s icy line to Stonn about how he may not find T'Pring as enjoyable to live with as to pine after becomes a warning from S'paak to T'Pring about Stonn’s mediocrity.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Coloratura (Coldplay)

Speaking of femslash Spirk genderbending name considerations:

I was really torn between how Spock is such a masculine-coded name by Vulcan norms that it feels weird to do nothing at all with it. But also, it’s so extremely iconic as THE name for THE character that an equally feminine-coded name like T'Pel or whatever would be super jarring (and distancing from the original character, I think—the potential in-world rationales for a character’s name are one consideration when I think about this stuff, but only one).

Also, Spock’s name predates the development of Vulcan as a language, and iirc, it’s also slightly odd as a Vulcan name these days (if I understand correctly, inconsistent orthographical representations and erratically silent letters are not at all usual). This does not even slightly bother me in terms of canon, but I thought a transliteration that looks more like “modern Vulcan” might preserve the basic sounds of the name while shifting pronunciation and appearance just enough to seem less specifically masculine.

Still, I was really tempted to try and make T’[whatever] work somehow with this. I feel like Sarek is the kind of person who might well insist upon a daughter having the prestige of the t'sai in her name, even if Amanda thought otherwise. But I couldn’t figure it out aesthetically, so instead I settled on S'paak. (I’m not 100% decided, but it’s the smoothest result thus far of my attempts to compromise between norms of Vulcan names and their components as more fully developed later, and the ultra-recognizable consonants of the original name.)

I’m also deciding how other crew members even address her, because “Miss S'paak” feels like a really weird and inappropriate way to refer to someone of her position and responsibilities, and yet this could at least be partly said of the canonical “Mr” as well. Maybe it’s just this era of Starfleet being relatively slack about this kind of thing, at least below the commanding officer’s rank? IDK, it’s not my impression, at least with regard to women.

Hmm, I checked, and Uhura is occasionally addressed as “Miss Uhura” but far more often as “Lieutenant Uhura” or just “Uhura.” Mira Romaine in “The Lights of Zetar” (which I watched not long ago) seemed to also be addressed by name as “Lieutenant Romaine” rather than “Miss Romaine.” OTOH Scotty is “Mr. Scott” quite often rather than addressed by rank, same for Sulu, etc, so maybe it’s more of a relic of the ultra-gendered dynamics and evolving world building of TOS… I’m still undecided tbh!

neotoma

Quail eggs, cracked-pepper goat cheese, ramps, porterhouse steak, morels, royal oyster mushrooms, asparagus, 2 tomato plants (Patio & Mr. Stripey), a dianthus, a petunia, 3 six-packs of brocade marigolds, and brown sugar kettle corn.

I'm going to try making compound butter with some of the ramps.

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: King (Florence + The Machine)

Further contemplated the femslash Spirk concept while I was going to sleep, inevitably, and concluded:

I am perfectly aware this has been done before in the last, you know, nearly 60 years of this ship’s towering fandom influence; I’ve definitely seen art and cosplay. However, I’m deliberately insulating myself from reading any other versions until the finer details are more nailed down in my own head.
McCoy is definitely still a man (specifically DeForest Kelley c. TOS) because it only later occurred to me that 1) thematically, I definitely prefer this trio as a mixed gender group and 2) the advocate for emotion and instinct and human warmth being a male doctor and the voice of logic and discipline being a woman and technically his superior pleases me greatly. I also like the McCoy-Kirk brotp as a male-female friendship that is intense, complex, and 100% platonic.
I’m still figuring out how Kirk being repeatedly menaced by the woman of the week would pan out with f!Kirk. With m!Kirk, it feels like the show pushes him having an irresistible appeal to women in general (regardless of the woman’s morality) that is in part where this ultimately comes from, but a) the show is also very concerned with matters of autonomy/violation mainly mediated through him as protagonist, and b) he’s got a lot of Odysseus tropes to him (among others) as a character that make his femme fatale allure and willingness to use it as a tool more interesting than as the inevitable fate of a female space captain. Also, even in a femslash context, it feels homophobic for it to always be women sexually harassing f!Kirk, especially considering just how far it goes in S3 (I think his first basically consensual kiss, in terms of both consent and all his faculties being online, is 16 episodes into the season, and that one is a result of deliberate deception; 18 episodes in, he has an actual if underwritten romance, but he's also being dangled by a third party before his love interest as a sort of glorified sex toy, though both he and the woman in question are allegedly truly in love, and at that point he's been raped at least once and I would argue twice, and had a purely non-con kiss and another that's dubcon at best).
Kirk’s going to be Jessica instead of my original idea of Deborah. I was thinking of what would be a sturdy, ordinary name in the Midwest comparable to James that would also abbreviate conveniently to a common short form (Jim / Deb / Jess). I wanted the shortened version to be something that could carry the emotional weight of Spock’s very occasional “Jim” without feeling that the nickname itself is more significant (gender-wise) than Jim is for a dude from Iowa. I also wanted to avoid the -y/-ie endings of so many English nicknames (sorry, Francophones). Deb seemed to work well, except I’d forgotten that I have a considerably older family friend who not only uses Deb (and is named Deborah) but happens to have very similar coloring and background to young Shatner. As I was plotting the femslash, the association with her felt increasingly weird and uncomfortable, so I switched to Jessica (chosen for reasons largely unrelated to it also beginning with J, but that helps!).
Does Jessica Kirk wear the miniskirt and go-go boots while issuing non-negotiable orders from her captain’s chair? Definitely.

Tagged: #i feel like jessica unironically loves the uniform and s'paak finds it deeply impractical for both of their positions #also the aesthetic is vaguely romulan and she doesn't care for that at all. except on kirk specifically for mysterious reasons #a mystery requiring further study obviously. lots of further study.

atamascolily

I thought I had Hidamari Sketch's number after four episodes, but the fifth episode dropped most of the comedy for a surreal and very literal fever dream with animation that would not be out of place in a labyrinth, and I loved it. And then episode 6 pulled the reveal that the caterpillar from earlier was actually a sphinx moth the whole time! (I wrote it up with screenshots on tumblr because I was so charmed). So I am very glad I decided to keep going with this show because it keeps surprising me.

I'm going through my library's collection of anime DVDs, but it's kind of hit or miss because their collection is so random... and also it turns out that the catalogue doesn't match what's on the shelves. I thought I picked up the first DVD of Rozen Maiden, but it turned out to be the first volume of the second season, and they don't have the first season at all. Which means I'm probably going into the second season blind, and I don't love it, but so it goes. All I know about this show is that there are talking dolls and gothic lolita fashion.

Also, it turns out there's no good way to search specifically for anime DVDs as a group in the catalogue so it's hard to find stuff that isn't at my usual branch.

Continuing to plow through more Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe stories wildly out of order. Currently reading The Doorbell Rang, which feels extremely topical as Wolfe and Archie Godwin clash with the government. According to the introduction, Stout wrote all of his drafts on a typewriter in one continuous sweep and didn't outline in advance--he didn't know who dun it at the beginning, he figured it out as he went along--and I think you can kind of tell once you're looking for it, but it works.

(I used to do this with all my stories, and then sometime in ~2020-2021, I had a breakthrough while working on Through a Glass Darkly and suddenly I started outlining everything, or at least the big plot points. There's still a lot of room for improvisation and a lot of things that develop in the process, but I think outlining has helped me a lot, even if it's not a requirement. You can bang out a novel in one draft by the flashlight method, and many people do, because the story usually tells you what to do and where to go, and you're basically doing all of the outlining unconsciously in your head as you write in real time.)

Reading a book of historical ghost stories and it mentions an English cryptid called a "bobbit" which was supposed to inhabit streams and creeks in a certain part of England - the book doesn't say, but I looked it up, and it's probably from the Middle English hobbe, from which we get hob, hobgoblin, bogies, boggles, and presumably "hobbit" (Tolkien says he made it up, but even if he wasn't consciously thinking about it, he might have still been influenced by it).

The library also purchased The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Dr. Chris Kempshall, which is a written as an in-universe academic text about nu!canon Star Wars (aka the Disney stuff). I just skimmed it briefly, so I might have missed them, but in keeping with their ongoing aversion to chronology, I didn't see any dates or years or timelines... and wow, can you imagine the chutzpah of writing historical nonfiction without ever once mentioning a dating system of any kind? I'll have to go back and follow up on this, obviously; I just didn't have the energy to deal with something that I know is going to make me incandescently angry right now.

Seriously, why does Disney hate dates so much? I feel like I am losing my mind every time I try to tackle the seemingly simple question of "When did this event take place?" As always, Wookiepeedia remains a more reliable source for information than anything officially compiled (and includes a list of continuity errors and inconsistencies in its article on Kempshall's book).

anghraine

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Uptown Girl (Billy Joel)

Technicallyyyyy it’s Thursday (12:28 AM!), but

brynnmclean tagged me in WIP Wednesday (thank you!!!) and I dutifully worked on some other projects before giving up and following my heart.

And what my heart wanted was … well. Okay. Look, I know, I know, but nobody can be that surprised:

S’paak had no way of knowing which Starfleet officer would receive command of the Enterprise after Captain Pike’s promotion, if promotion it could be called. It must be called that, of course, by the wish of Captain Pike himself, and by what all evidence suggested was a collective agreement from the highest ranks of the service. Therefore, the captain was promoted, and soon she would answer to a different man.

She had no data to aid speculation as to the nature, character, or identity of the person who would replace Captain Pike, since nobody in the crew, including S’paak, was privy to their superiors’ deliberations. Accordingly, she did not join the other crew members in guesswork about their new captain, even in the privacy of her own quarters—or her own mind. After all, to a disciplined intellect, there was little difference between the two, and she did not know who was even under consideration. Contemplating the matter would not produce greater knowledge.

Even with no particular expectations or thoughts about the forthcoming captain of the Enterprise, she felt an unfamiliar trace of surprise when she received the actual notification about it. She, S’paak, would be first officer on the ship, and as such, had been granted priority status with regard to personnel changes. No one else on the crew yet knew the name of the chosen captain.

The privileges of seniority did not startle her. The identity of her captain did, a little.

S’paak considered the notification a second time.

Commanding officer of the USS Enterprise: Kirk, Jessica T. (Cpt).

She knew virtually nothing of Captain Kirk, though the name sounded faintly familiar, enough that she thought it likely that she had heard it in some context in the past that had not struck her as worth committing to memory. A regrettable lapse, if easy enough to rectify with the many tools available to her. But S'paak had not expected that Starfleet would appoint a woman to Captain Pike’s position. Certainly not a young woman, as the (small and poor-quality) picture accompanying the name suggested Kirk was.

S’paak herself was not so illogical as to suppose that gender impeded a Starfleet officer’s capabilities in itself. But she had better reason than most to know that the practices of the Federation did not always resemble their ideals as closely as might be wished. Captain Kirk must have some unusual qualities, experiences, or connections—or some combination thereof—to rise so far at such an age.

“Fascinating,” S’paak murmured.

Tagged: #i would tag people but it's. uh. thursday #ALSO there is a method to the various choices made here i swear #also i am not AS hostile to post-tos sources as i am to the sweu etc but it's been years since i saw any of them #and i'm not concerned with accommodating long after the fact 'canon' material. this sparks joy (for me personally) and that is enough

[ETA 4/18/2025: After watching all the original ST movies, I feel more strongly than ever that ST is really many canons in a trenchcoat—engaging with each other but not actually compatible. This is especially the case with regard to Spock and Kirk, who take the biggest character arc hits via pop culture-ification and the soft reboot in even the original films, and only more over time (cf. the famous "Kirk Drift" article). I think movie Spock's arc is basically completely reset while defining him MUCH more by Vulcan culture throughout the films, but also swapping his and Kirk's TOS priorities pretty substantially. Kirk was often defined by The Good of the Many in TOS—few things infuriated him more than threats or harm to his crew, esp en masse—and I don't think it was TOS Spock's philosophy for a single moment. I also don't think that TOS Spock was truly all that normative as far as Vulcans are concerned; he often went out of his way to emphasize that he's half-human, his navigation of Vulcan identity was extremely fraught, and the function of that aspect of his arc was an attempt, however flawed, to engage with biracial problems specifically. So yeah, I super don't feel any need to bow to the movies or TNG or whatever, they're their own things—sometimes great, certainly engaging with TOS at times, but in an Aeneid to TOS's Iliad sort of way for me. And I do appreciate that ST historically has seemed less obsessed with welding a bunch of wildly disparate and not especially compatible projects into a single "canon."]

seekingferret

Ha! A couple years ago I ranted about Emily Hanford's Sold a Story podcast, which I thought perpetuated some misleading myths about how science works even though she was probably at least partially right about some problems with American reading education. Now Hanford is back with a three part followup series. I feel vindicated.

In my previous essay I questioned why we didn't see a magical school bucking the educational winds, where they used the science of reading and every student was an expert reader. Even if Hanford were wrong, I argued, one would typically expect outliers. Here Hanford shows us a school bucking educational trends and every student is an expert reader- and it doesn't exactly use the science of reading!

The premise of the new miniseries is that there is a school in a poor district of Ohio that has consistently delivered far better reading test scores than would be expected- nearly every student in this school district can read. And yet! Ohio state law changes inspired by Hanford's podcast were threatening to force this school district to make changes that might disrupt its educational model.

The Ohio school district's main innovations seem to me, based on Hanford's descriptions, to not actually be about the pedagogy, because I've been insisting since the beginning that probably the pedagogy is not the most determinative factor and nobody has convinced me otherwise. Hanford of course disagrees with me. She claims that it is things like an emphasis on teaching students lots of verbal language at an early age, and giving them significant time to practice. But while discussing these strategies and others, she plays recordings of the teachers and what their strategies seem to have in common is that they are extremely high touch, they are being implemented in classrooms with small class sizes, and the teachers are enthusiastic and engaged. My entirely unbacked by science intuition is that these factors matter more than pedagogy. This is why I've always referred to schools like this (ironically) as magic. These are of course the most expensive and difficult strategies to scale, so it's like saying, we've figured out the way to get every student to learn to read! Get more engaged teachers and don't overwhelm them with too many students! But this school district actually does have some clever ideas about the economics of teaching reading, such as enlisting gym teachers and music teachers as auxiliary reading teachers and giving them training, to allow the school to teach reading in small classes without having to add additional reading teachers. And also putting resources into solving problems of truancy so that you aren't wasting teacher time while students aren't there to benefit.

Hanford's starting point in the first series is that the science of reading says that three cuing is harmful and phonetic decoding is helpful, but this time around her theme is that implementation matters, not pedagogical theory, and again I must repeat that I am not an expert on teaching reading and I am talking without any authority, but I am so here for the new Hanford. She spends a lot of time on the intersection of new educational ideas and government's limitations, like the fact that federal law actually prohibits the Department of Education from endorsing specific programs, for fear of government overreach, putting schools in a funny position where they're required to meet specifications in laws like NCLB that can't actually be communicated, pushing them towards unreliable private organizations with unclear ideological objectives for guidance.

The whole thing was way more satisfying than the original series, and since I much prefer praising things to criticizing them, I had to note the improvement.

pilferingapples

Current Location: tragically not a crumbling edifice of ancient standing

I may as well start crossposting some things as Tumblr is Once Again Doomed Some More , so...here goes!

I've finished Gormenghast! or at least the first couple novels, and the last one--Titus Alone-- has no interest for me whatsoever. What I've loved about these books is Gormenghast, the immense crumbling impossible structure and all its absurd ritual. I would have read another five novels about that weird, weird place; I don't want even one about Titus , who I've never found very interesting , going off to have his coming of age journey .

(A brief digression: one year in junior high our English class spent the *entire year* reading books about What It Means to Be A Man. Not to become an adult, not just coming of age: The Meaning of Manhood. We read like eight books on the topic and they were almost all mid-century takes, heavy on the "kill what you love" and women and animals dying to symbolically free the newly- arrived Capital M Man. I've done my time with that one, so any interest I might have had in the world outside Gormenghast was whittled away fast with every narrative reminder that Other People Dying Had Ended His Boyhood etc etc . I don't begrudge people those stories if they want 'em but I've had 'em, I've done my time and I'm Done.)

...man I really REALLY did not find Titus interesting, except for the Marbles Scene. But that's a ramble for another time.

Because overall I LOVED these two books; I fell in love with the ridculously Gothic expanse of Gormenghast at once , and the characters won me over without me really noticing it. In the first book they all felt like part of the place, which was excellent; in the second it felt like they were more having their human-ness brought out in contrast to the surroundings, which was less fun in some ways , but I really loved everyone by that point so hanging out with them was still excellent. It says something about both the nature of the place and the characters that I was chill hangin' out and just letting things unfold at their own pace for a character like Steerpike; it was just impossible to feel like anything was urgent. 10/10 loved it all.

I wish I could spend more time with those characters and that world! I would have spent chapters reading about any tiny detail of the Rituals or the building or even the Bright Carvers (and in fact I'm profoundly disappointed we didn't learn more about "the Thing" from the POV of anyone but Titus. Ugh, Titus.) That being said, it's very funny to me that Peake himself doesn't seem to have any interest in the Tension of his plot; I lost track of how often he established a dramatic change of events that demanded action Right Now and then just skipped several chapters ahead to when it had Already Happened. Iconic. Brilliant. I don't need to know, Merv, you're so right. Tell me more about the hallway. TELL ME MORE, I NEED TO KNOW.

Highly recommended for: anyone who wants to read about a Weird Old Building and also some Weird People of various ages :D

isis

What I've recently finished reading:

In eyeball, Against the Tide of Years by S. M. Stirling, the second "Nantucket Trilogy" book. I liked the exploration and expansion of the map, but I really wished there was an actual map in the book, because I only had a vague idea, if any, as to where these various historical/archaic places actually were, and where they were in relation to each other. Even in the exploration across the American continent it wasn't clear where they were, because Stirling used native names (I guess?) for places. (And one of my big beefs with this book is that the exploration across the American continent had pretty much nothing to do with the rest of the book, and it didn't really have a point or a resolution. I assume it will be important next book, but in that case I wish it had been mostly left for the next book.)

I did like the new characters introduced in this one, and most especially I grinned when we met Odikweos son of Laertes of Ithaka, and also Alaksandrus of Wiulusiya, or Vilios, or Ilios. I always love seeing real historical characters show up in historical fiction! (Also I was extremely tickled when Ian quoted Monty Python, hee!)

In audio, Gods of Jade and Shadow by Silvia Moreno-Garcia, which I got from the library because it was one of the fantasy books recommended by Shannon Chakraborty in a NYT article last month. Casiopea Tun is a Cinderella in 1927 Mexico, a poor relation housemaid for her wealthy and unpleasant relatives. She snoops where she shouldn't and, oops, accidentally releases the Mayan death god Hun-Kamé, who was "killed" and imprisoned by his brother Vucub-Kamé. But before the god can take his revenge on his brother and regain his throne, he has to go on a hero's journey to find the missing parts of his body that his brother has scattered across Mexico, and of course Casiopea has to come with him.

I always enjoy stories of asshole gods and the mortals who help them out, and I really enjoyed having a story about gods and mythological traditions I wasn't familiar with. The writing's lovely, and it worked well as an audiobook, although either the reader's voice or the fidelity of the recording didn't play well with my running headphones, and of course I know only some Spanish and no ancient Mayan, so I felt like I missed a lot of names of people and places. I liked Casiopea's defensive sassiness, her desire for adventure finally unleashed, and Hun-Kamé's duality, his godly nature tainted by the vitality he drains from Casiopea to sustain his existence in the "Middle World". And the ending was great - I won't spoil it, but I was worried it would end up in typical YA land, and it did not.

schneefink

mcytrecursive had author reveals. I wrote three fics! I have periods of feeling very insecure about my writing, so it was especially nice that I had a good time writing all three, felt very positively about them, and then got very nice comments.
The first two are probably readable without knowledge of the fic they are based on, but all of those are great and you should read them anyway.

cut your chains in shining blue for

strifetxt, Hermitcraft
Recursing: Untamed Beasts by

WhisperNorBury
1.6k, Cub & Scar gen, prequel
Summary: Five times Cub killed Scar's summoner.
AN: My assignment, and the hardest one to write. Especially to settle on the five things, for a good progression and to make each of them different and interesting. I think it turned out very well! I was almost done when I remembered that Minecraft has respawns so now most of it takes place on hardcore worlds.

Etho's Escort Service From Hell for

alice_not_alice, Hermitcraft
Recursing: MailDemon AU by

azzayofchaos
1.5k, Cleo & Etho gen, demon AU
Summary: Cleo has fallen into Hell again, and this time she might need the help of a friend to get out.
AN: I wanted to write a treat for Alice, discovered this AU in the prompts, and wrote it basically in one go. Cleo and Etho are so much fun together, and I was reliably informed that I did achieve "funny."

(watch) where fears and dreams come true for

Odaigahara, Hermitcraft/Life series
Recursing: lost in the dark (he's got a heavy heart) aka Hunger AU by

definitelynotshouting
2.2k, Grian & Scar & Cub gen, canon divergence
Summary: Scar came with Grian when he left Hermitcraft and figured out a different way to keep him fed.
Cub finds them.
AN: Tagged as "downright fluffy compared to the original (a low bar)," but it does still have some angst, it would not be Hunger AU Grian otherwise (at least not without changing the premise.) Hunger AU is very angsty which is great but also made me want fix-it fic (at least partially...) and when I remembered that it's set in season 8 and thus pre-Scarland I got the idea for this, and I think it works.

I also got a fantastic gift:
star of the west horizon by

Odaigahara, Hermitcraft
Recursing: a rare talent indeed by

these_godforsaken_halls
6.7k, Grian & Cub & Scar gen, fairy AU post-canon
Summary: “I’m leaving for a while,” Grian tells Xisuma, who goes very still indeed at the suggestion that a fairy might spend the night outside of the hollow. “Just for a few days, now that I’m healed– I won’t be going far, and I’ll be extremely careful, I swear it, you don’t even know careful until you’ve seen how careful I’ve been, and Scar’s saying I’m much better at hiding than I was, anyway, so there’s no need to worry on that account.”
“Goodness, er, well–”
“And I’ve already packed, including all the pixie dust I’ll need,” Grian says firmly, “but you can look through what I’m bringing with me, if you’d like. To be sure I haven’t taken anything I’m not supposed to.”
“I’m not sure that’s necessary,” Xisuma says, and this is good, because it means Grian successfully diverted him from the main thing he was likely to object to. Grian can fly circles around Xisuma if he’s devious enough. He used to dodge scouts all the time, before–
Before.
He used to bait hawks.
Why I love it: Gorgeous. Fantastic character voices and relationships, perfect post-canon road to recovery, beautiful backstory flashbacks, wonderful atmosphere, just, so good.

I had such a good time with this exchange, I already look forward to

mcytblraufest, which is doing a Battleship format this year and I'm excited.

ursula

My essay On Approaching Hard Problems, about a dear friend and attacks on the NSF, is reprinted in the latest edition of MAA Focus.

atamascolily

Watched some more episodes of Hidamari Sketch. I hate, hate, hate, hate, HATE the anachronic order of the episodes--you'd think it wouldn't matter so much in a slice of life series, and it mostly doesn't... except that things keep being referenced/referred to and the show doesn't give us context for them until later. Also, it's just jarring to have each episode take place in a different time of year without continuity. It may have been a deliberate artistic intention on the part of the creators, but I do not love it. I also do not love the diet/weight jokes for one character, the occasional flashes of fan service and transphobia, or their teacher going a little too far over the top.

What do I like? Well, the main character gets a box of vegetables from home with a cabbage white butterfly, she decides to raise it up to be a butterfly, and the cocoon is anatomically accurate to the species. I liked that part a lot. (Speaking of which, the author avatar also appears as a caterpillar, so that seems to be a running theme.) Mostly, I'm just here for occasionally weird animation and Madoka Magica inspirations/parallels. I also like that the episodes are low stakes and are relatively independent from each other, which is soothing to watch right now.

Reading: Finished Swordheart by T. Kingfisher, which had the author's usual mix of comedy, down-to-earth heroines, and snark. I enjoyed it but don't have strong feelings about it.

Also finished Black Orchid by Rex Stout, which turned out to be two separate mysteries connected by a very loose thread--the aforementioned botanical plot and a second one involving a particularly gruesome murder plot that could only happen without vaccines. Stout is a Sherlockian and it shows, but I don't mind it; Archie's narrative voice and Nero Wolfe's eccentricities continue to be the main draw. Almost finished with The Silent Speaker, which was part of the two-book omnibus re-issue--good so far, but could use some more orchids. (Look, I know what I like, okay? And maybe I was spoiled by the first part of Black Orchid being so botanically involved... )

Started Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia, and I am not feeling it--the frame story about the brontosaurus/myolodon skin is good, but something is not working for me right now and I'm not sure how to articulate it except that I keep being bored, which is, uh, not good in travel writing.

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primeideal

April 2025

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Page Summary

atamascolily - Lily watches: "Rozen Maiden: Traumend" eps 1-2
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (29 January 2025)
ursula - (no subject)
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (29 January 2025)
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (27 January 2025)
schneefink - Started Astalon: Tears of the Earth
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (25 January 2025)
atamascolily - "On April 19th, I made bread" - Anonymous Roman graffiti from Pompei
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (24 January 2025)
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (24 January 2025)
neotoma - Farmer's Market -- 19 April 2025 (Grafting Knife Day, 30th of Germination, Year 233)
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (23 January 2025)
atamascolily - (no subject)
anghraine - Tumblr crosspost (23 January 2025)
seekingferret - Hanford Returns
pilferingapples - Gormenghast ( a much too brief review)
isis - wednesday reads
schneefink - Hermitcraft recursive exchange: 3 fics written and 1 received
ursula - (no subject)
atamascolily - more media reflections

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