This puzzle game by Scottish studio DMA Design takes as its inspiration the myth that lemmings (arctic rodents) mindlessly fling themselves off cliffs. In the game, lemmings (pixelly humanoids with green hair and blue leotards) fall from a trap door and begin marching mindlessly to the right, oblivious to cliffs, fire, lakes of acid, and other deadly hazards. When they hit a wall, they turn 180 and march the other way. It's your job to guide as many of them as possible safely to the exit.

lemmings fall from above and walk to the right, away from the exit that is immediately to the left. one has just exploded in a shower of pixels

lemmings fall from above and walk to the right, away from the exit that is immediately to the left. one has just exploded in a shower of pixels

To accomplish this, you can assign individual lemmings one of eight skills: Climber (climbs vertical walls), Floater (uses an umbrella to survive falls), Bomber (explodes after 5 seconds, leaving a crater), Blocker (stands in place and won't let other lemmings past), Builder (builds a staircase), Basher (digs a horizontal tunnel), Miner (digs a diagonal tunnel), and Digger (digs a vertical tunnel). Each level offers a limited number of skill assignments, so you have to use them strategically to create a path for the others.

Lemmings was wildly popular in the '90s, spawning multiple expansion packs, sequels, and spinoffs. As a child I don't know if I was really aware of what a global phenomenon it was, but it was certainly a phenomenon in my house, considering the countless hours my brother and I spent trying (and usually failing) to stop the cute little dummies from marching to their doom.

( cut for length )

The original Lemmings is unfortunately not commercially available. If you've misplaced your floppies/cartridge, various releases are available as abandonware. I was playing the DOS release on DOSBox, which runs fine but you may need to edit some files to defeat the copy protection. If that doesn't sit well or sounds like too much trouble, there are also several fan-made freeware clones that are supposed to run on modern systems, though I have not personally vetted any of them.

kitewithfish

Reading journal for July 8 2026

What I’ve Read
OK, look, I read nothing to completion this week. I got sucked into a deeply unhinged Chinese boy love drama and I rode that till the wheels came off! And I’d do it again! Subtitles take up a similar level of eye strain as reading a book!

So here’s my review of that:
Revenged Love (2025) is a gay (BL) Chinese language drama that focuses on a young man who gets dumped by his girlfriend and decides to seduce the rich man she replaces him with. The story starts out with magnificent levels of plotting and scheming, and gradually shifts from a story about manipulating people to get what you want to a story about knowing people deeply and loving them with your whole heart. The young revenger falls, and falls HARD, for the rich young man that his girlfriend replaced him with, and it’s a great set of performances from these two. It’s comic and goofy and heartfelt. It also involves someone having a deep care for his pet snakes – a thing that I find fairly rare in TV!

The whole series can be watched in Mandarin with English subtitles on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlCSMHgOKbE&list=PLiCVOcxScfwh-Gkl0A0SeugdHQUg4QZIu
Trigger warnings for: suicide attempts, self destructive behavior of several kinds, tossing a twink to a gang, OODLES of manipulative behavior, LOTS OF SNAKES

What I’m Reading

I have abandoned the sheep book – I had too little time left on the audiobook to finish and after I found out the reason for the murder, I lost interest.

Shroud – Adrian Tchaikovsky – about 85%

逆袭 - 柴鸡蛋 | Counterattack - Chai Jidan – the English language translation of the novel that is the basis for Revenged Love. It’s absurd and very, very funny.

What I'll Read Next
Hugos! No changes
Death of the Author Nnedi Okorafor Novel
Colourfields: Writing About Writing About Science Fiction Paul Kincaid Related Work
A Wizard of Earthsea: A Graphic Novel written by Ursula K. Le Guin Graphic Story
Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler Susana M. Morris Related Work
Absolute Wonder Woman Vol. 1: The Last Amazon written by Kelly Thompson Graphic Story
The Space Cat written by Nnedi Okorafor Graphic Story
Automatic Noodle Annalee Newitz Novella
The Summer War Naomi Novik Novella
The Power Fantasy Volume 1: The Superpowers written by Kieron Gillen Graphic Story
The River Has Roots Amal El-Mohtar Novella
Murder by Memory Olivia Waite Novella

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dunmeshi

Enjoy a fanwork recently, but don't want to create a whole new post to recommend it? Drop a link here! Every week, I encourage you to share a fanwork that you enjoy!

Please try to include some information on the ship or character(s) involved, as our members' specific interests vary! Provide trigger warnings, if applicable, as well. And please make sure you're properly linking back to the creator of the fanwork. So, no reposts!

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rocky41_7

As if spilling some hard-won secret into the closeness between them, he [Zhu] said, low, "Learn to want something for yourself, Ma Xiuying. Not what someone says you should want. Not what you think you should want. Don't go through life only thinking of duty. When all we have are these brief spans between our nonexistences, why not make the most of the life you're living now? The price is worth it."
...
But in the same instant she saw the raw truth of him, she realized that was all it was: something that was true for him. A man could want anything the world offered and have a chance, no matter how small, of achieving it.
...
She rose to leave. "Maybe all your suffering is worth whatever it is you want to achieve," she said bitterly. "But mine wouldn't be."

-- Chapter 12

It couldn't have been real--it was absurd to think a man could feel for a woman--but somehow it was enough to dissolve her anger in a tide of pain. It hurt so much she gasped with it. Stop doing this to me, she thought, anguished, as she turned and fled. Don't make me want to want.

-- Chapter 13

Zhu spoke calmly, but beneath the surface Ma sensed a shivering horror. "Ma Xiuying. Do you see something here you want?"
...
With a sensation of vertiginous terror, Ma felt the rigid pattern of her future falling away, until all that was left was the blankness of pure possibility. She took Zhu's small, calloused hand and felt its warmth flow into her until the hollow space of her chest blazed with everything she'd never let herself feel. She was yielding to it, being consumed by it, and it was the most beautiful and frightening thing she'd ever felt. She wanted. She wanted everything Zhu was offering with that promise of difference.
...
She said, "Yes."

-- Chapter 14

[Zhu] groped at Ma's waist for the tie that held her dress closed. It would only take a tug to undo, even for an awkwardly left-handed person. "You know, Yingzi," she said huskily. "I know how the business of rain and clouds works well enough, but I've never actually done it. I suppose we could figure it out together, if you wanted."

In answer, Ma put her hand over Zhu's and pulled, and her dress fell open. Underneath she was gorgeous and glowing and sweating, and as she helped Zhu work her dress over her shoulders she said, smiling, "I want it."

-- Chapter 19

(emphasis added)

Current Mood: loved

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rionaleonhart

The trouble with putting Chris and Robert of The Goes Wrong Show in bed together, and I say this as a big Chris/Robert fan, is that I feel Robert is romantic and vanilla in bed, whereas Chris has a masochistic streak a mile wide and just wants someone to tie him up and whip him. I attempted to write a fic in which Chris asks Robert to hurt him, and it never got anywhere because Robert's response was just '??? that doesn't seem right.'

Robert will hurt you unintentionally in the course of acting, and he'll hurt you deliberately in order to steal your role, but he just doesn't think the bedroom is the place for that sort of thing. Which is, I'll be honest, Robert, extremely inconvenient for me personally.

Anyway! While I'm talking about Chris/Robert, I received an anonymous question on Tumblr:

I was wondering if you had any thoughts about how the Robert/Chris dynamic would be if Chris were a trans man. I imagine Chris would be stealth so Robert might not even know until they started whatever you would call their bizarre but fascinating relationship.

I can see exactly how this would come to light. Chris and Robert end up furiously making out after an argument, unplanned and unexpected, and then Chris feels Robert's hands heading below the belt and panics, starts pulling away, "There's something I need to tell you—"

"Chris," Robert says, with a concerned frown, "your penis appears to be missing."

Chris is so thrown - by the situation as a whole, but particularly by the fact that Robert is imparting this information as if he's worried that Chris might not know - that he completely forgets anything he was about to say.

"Do you need the hospital?" Robert asks.

Chris swallows, with some difficulty. "No, I'm... I'm fine. This is the, er, the intended state of affairs."

Robert's frown eases, but only a little. "Do you have any genitalia at all? Because I did rather have plans."

Does Robert... does Robert know what being trans is? "Er, I..."

How is Chris supposed to articulate this? It's a tricky thing to phrase at the best of times, let alone when he's so aroused he can't think straight and faced by someone to whom the entire concept is apparently new.

"May I check?" Robert asks. "If you're not sure?"

Chris shrugs, helplessly. "I... I suppose."

Robert strips off Chris's trousers and pants, swiftly and matter-of-factly. Contemplates him for a moment. All Chris can do is stand there, blushing furiously.

"Oh," Robert says, brightening, "that's fine. I know exactly what to do with one of these."

And, as it turns out, he does.

daughterofshadows posting in

silwritersguild

A black banner with icons representing different types of media (a typewriter, a movie player, a palette, a zine and a cassette). The banner text reads: Cultus Dispatches "Six Demographic Takeaways from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey"

Who writes Tolkien-based fanfiction? Who reads it? As the Tolkien Fanfiction Survey enters its third iteration with up to ten years of demographic data, this month's Cultus Dispatches column tackles evidence from the survey to answer that question.

Ten years ago, the Tolkien fandom saw the final film of the Hobbit trilogy, which brought a boom in activity. With those films a decade behind us and in the midst of the Rings of Power television show, how has the fandom changed? Demographic data shows key changes in gender, educational attainment, and age, as well as sustained trends in race/ethnicity and religion and new insights about neurodiversity.

You can read the article "Six Demographic Takeaways from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey" here.

duckprintspress

The crowdfunding campaign for our next anthology, Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, launched yesterday, and we’re already almost 50% funded and a Kickstarter “Project We Love”!

With Wild and Full of Marvels: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Folklore and Fairy Tales, our authors and artists bring our perspective as queer adults in the 21st century to the stories, some ancient, some modern, that meant the most to us when we were young. Each creator selected a folktale, fairy tale, myth, or legend that had personal significance for them, then reimagined these personal touch-stones as we wish they could be: stories that uphold our cultures, stories that impart the lessons and morals we wish to impart, stories that drive home the cautions we wish we’d received, stories in which people like us are the heroes held forth for emulation. We’ve transformed these stories to be more inclusive, more personal, more understanding of others, and—of course!—much more queer.

The book contains 23 stories, each up to 5,000 words long; 21 full-page artworks; a 4-page comic by Max Jason Peterson; and a 10-page comic by Jupiter V—a total of 46 queer fanworks inspired by stories from North America, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

In addition to the book, we’re offering awesome merch – two stickers, a bookmark, an art print, a slate coaster, an acrylic window hanging, an enamel pendant necklace, and a journal! There’s also a ton of add-ons you can choose from, from stories from our back catalog to Duck Prints Press merchandise and more.

Visit our campaign page TODAY to learn more about the anthology, our contributors, what we’re offering to backers, and our plans for getting this book into print with your help!

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Yes sweet nuglets, it’s that time of year again: Time to sign up for Black Emporium!

CLICK HERE TO SIGN-UP!

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For a how-to-guide of the whole exchange that includes all of the information in this post, please take a look at our Participation Walkthrough Guide and FAQ.

ao3_news_feed

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35601

Spotlight on Open Doors

The Mass Effect Kink Meme a prompt meme for the Mass Effect games, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).

In this post:

Background explanation

The archive is being imported to AO3 to preserve the works and make them available to a wider audience.

The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Liara!Mod to import The Mass Effect Kink Meme into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own.

We will begin importing works from The Mass Effect Kink Meme to AO3 no sooner than August 2026. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.

What does this mean for creators who have work on The Mass Effect Kink Meme?

Most fanwork fills on The Mass Effect Kink Meme were posted anonymously. All the anonymous fills will be imported to AO3 using the collection's archivist account. If the creator of a fill chose not to post anonymously, however, and if they have an email address listed on their Dreamwidth or LiveJournal profile, we will send an import notification to that email address.

We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on AO3, we will invite it to the collection instead of importing it. All fanworks archived on behalf of a self-identified creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.

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Please contact Open Doors with your LiveJournal or Dreamwidth pseud(s) and email address(es), if:

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https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/35601

pauraque

In this sequel to A Memory Called Empire, Ambassador Mahit Dzmare and her imperial liaison/maybe-kinda-girlfriend Three Seagrass travel to the front lines of an interstellar war on a mission to try to decipher the alien enemy's language and establish diplomatic relations. What Three Seagrass doesn't know is that Mahit is also on a covert mission to sabotage diplomacy and keep the Teixcalaan Empire mired in an endless, unwinnable war.

I was so-so on A Memory Called Empire. I would say I had a stronger reaction to the sequel, both positive and negative.

First, the positive: I loved Nine Hibiscus and Twenty Cicada, new characters in this installment. She's the passionate, brilliant captain of the flagship, he's her loyal, cerebral first officer who adheres to a stoic alien philosophy. They deal with high-stakes ethical quandaries as the lives of millions hang in the balance, and they love each other with an intensity that goes largely unspoken. Is this aspect of the book pandering to people who love Kirk and Spock? Perhaps, but I had a great time being pandered to. I wanted the entire book to be about these two.

I mostly liked the stuff about establishing communication with the aliens too, which is also classically Star Trek in tone and approach. (It bugged me a little that the linguistics wasn't more realistic, but you rarely get that in SF and it isn't really the point here.)

Unfortunately, the things I liked were pretty definitively outweighed by all the half-baked themes, garbled political messaging, and many characters' infuriatingly stupid choices and baffling cluelessness. It wasn't quite throw-the-book-across-the-room level, but at certain moments it got close.

Ranting and spoilers

- How can it possibly take SO LONG for the characters to figure out that the aliens are a hivemind???? It's not just that it's a basic SF trope and obvious to the reader from literally the first page of the book. It's also that all the prompting the characters need to make the leap is right there in front of them the whole time! Mahit herself has Yskandr's mind in her head, there are the Sunlit guards and the Shard pilots who share their perceptions through technology... To these characters, the existence of a species with a shared consciousness shouldn't even be surprising. But it still takes them 400 fucking pages to figure it out, and they act like it's a galaxy-shattering shock. This makes no sense whatsoever and it makes most of the characters look inexcusably dumb.

- I don't get the way the Mahit/Three Seagrass relationship is written at all. In the first book, they liked each other from the start and then nothing happened with it until suddenly they kissed at the end. In this one, they have a stupid fight at the beginning and feel weird and uncomfortable around each other for hundreds of pages until suddenly they fuck. This didn't work for me. It especially didn't work because I felt like I was supposed to side with Mahit in their argument, but I didn't, because Three Seagrass doesn't know what Mahit is mad about and Mahit refuses to tell her. Mahit's narration is explicit that she wants Three Seagrass to know what's bothering her without being told, so basically she's punishing Three Seagrass for not being fucking psychic. Am I the only one who thinks it would have been more interesting if they'd actually ever talked about any of the issues between them, rather than just winding themselves up about it in their heads?? By the end I wasn't rooting for them to get/stay together at all, so when Mahit ran away from the relationship (again) I didn't even care.

- I felt the lack of gender stuff in the first book was a missed opportunity. In this book, the author seems to be strenuously trying to miss that opportunity as hard as she can. There is one scene where Mahit (in their shared consciousness) accuses Yskandr of not understanding fashion for "female-bodied people." It's brushed off. There's another scene where Three Seagrass says she wasn't sure if Mahit liked people of her "gender and sex," and several where Three Seagrass silently wonders if she had sex with Mahit, or with Mahit and Yskandr, or just Yskandr. No further discussion of these points. I truly don't understand what Martine is going for here. She chose to create a protagonist who is a woman sharing a mind and body with a man. She seems dimly aware that there might be interesting things one could say about this. She apparently doesn't want to say any of them.

- Even leaving aside the gender issues, I think there's a lot more that could have been done to explore the mindsharing scenario. Yskandr often reads like an invisible sidekick who just pipes up now and then to give Mahit some information, advice, or a snarky comment. What is his experience/consciousness/sense of embodiment like? We don't get his own internal monologue, just the things he "says" to Mahit. It doesn't feel as weird and alien as it seems like it should.

- Mahit and Twenty Cicada should have talked! He's assimilated to Teixcalaan in some ways but maintained his cultural distinctiveness in others; doesn't that seem like an extremely relevant perspective for Mahit to hear? The books act like Mahit is the only one in the galaxy who has mixed feelings about Teixcalaan, but surely she can't be.

- On a larger level, these books are about an absolutist expansionist empire and the vulnerable republic it threatens, and nothing about any of that is resolved or even really explored all that much. The child heir Eight Antidote is an interesting character and he's trying to do the right thing, but there's so much more going on here that can't and won't be resolved by a kid with some moral fiber taking the throne. Having a relatively nice emperor does not solve the problems of imperialism. In this book we learn more about how systemically fucked up Lsel is too, and nothing happens with that either. The plot doesn't even make it hard for Mahit to decide whether to stay loyal to Lsel, since there are power-mad authorities on Lsel who want to KILL HER. No wonder people were expecting a trilogy here; this book does not wrap up a single loose end.

Okay, that's probably more than enough of a rant. TL;DR: Book dances around a lot of interesting speculative and interpersonal possibilities and solidly lands on very few of them.

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masseffectkink

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silversea posting in

booknook

Happy Wednesday again! What are you reading this week?

rionaleonhart

I was trying something a little weird and experimental with Through the Cracks, my Deltarune fic set in chapter five's weird route, so I thought I'd reflect a bit on how things went!

( Notes on an experimental fic! )

I wouldn't want to do this with every fic, but it's been fun as a one-off experiment!

duckprintspress

okay, let's do this... so like. basically all I've done since last Wednesday (when I had surgery) is read. The lines often blur, and I keep having to reread stuff cause I'll realize I got through a paragraph or a page without actually getting any meaning out of it, so it's been a slog, but I haven't been able to brain anything else, either, so I just. kept at it. (My surgery went fine, and I'm healing quickly, I'm just absolutely walloped by fatigue. I tried not taking my painkillers today, because I have work I need to do, and I hoped that not taking them would help, and the result is that I'm sliiiiightly more pain... and still fatigue-walloped. oh well.)

1. What are you currently reading?

Cooking with Monsters: Harm-to-Table by Jordan Alsaqa: this is the sequel to a comic I was pretty meh about, and I'm still pretty meh about it. I can't even really put my finger on why, it just feels like it's missing some spark that'd really draw me.
this is the longest I've gone without making progress on Daomu Biji vol. 2 since I started in January. I just haven't been able to brain Chinese, I haven't been studying much either. I need to make sure I don't lose the habits, tho. I've worked too hard to fuck this up now.

2. What have you recently finished reading?

Copper Coins vol. 1 to 3 by Mu Su Li: I've previously read a fantranslation, so this is a reread for me, and that was intentional. I figured a reread of a not-too-complicated book was about what I could brain. And I was right. I think I liked this one better on a second read-through, the dynamic between Xue Xian and Xuanmin hit better for me this time.
DNF: The Raven Scholar by Antonia Hodgson: I cannot fathom how this mess of a book got nominated for a Hugo. That it has a higher average rating than The Tainted Cup makes me despair for the future of Western fantasy literature. Maybe that sounds like hyperbole, but I mean it fairly literally, in the sense of: I already often feel that I do not click with books that are popular in the Western queer spec-fic-o-verse. For a book like this to get such high ratings means that I will increasingly find no place for myself in these reading circles. Clearly they're hitting for a lot of readers (books like Winter's Orbit and A Memory Called Empire, as more examples), but they are such solid misses for me, and it's frustrating to feel like I'm seeing the threads of how a genre I grew up with is going to have less and less to interest me. So I don't despair for it in a general sense, but I do despair for it in the sense of "a genre that actually has books I want to read and will think are good." and that's really sad to me, especially because, well. it's annoying to see something you think sucked get praised to the skies, while other books you think are better get ignored. (to clarify, I don't think The Tainted Cup is an example of a book that's getting ignored by the Western queer spec-fic-o-verse. it's gotten a ton of positive, and well-deserved, press. But these are the same circles that regularly look down on the East Asian BL I favor, turning their noses up at it as ~fetishization~ and meanwhile Meng Xi Shi is out here writing politics so far beyond what a book like The Raven Scholar manages...)

anyway. manga.

10 Dance vol. 8 by Inouesatoh: I have waited almost 2 years for this, my hold came through this morning, I finished reading it within 30 minutes of waking up. Fuck but that was so so so so worth the wait. (vol. 7 ended on a brutal cliffhanger.)
Fated NOT to Meet vol. 2 by Ei Eijou: I'll own I went into vol. 2 without any memories whatsoever of vol. 1, and it still read pretty well lmao.
Kaiju No. 8: Relax vol. 1 and 2 by Kizuku Watanabe: silly spin-off one-shots for Kaiju No. 8. They were cute. I read them in reverse order (since there's no plot) and liked vol. 1 better than vol. 2.
Syrup: A Yuri Anthology vol. 2: continues to be a delightfully toxic collection. The back blurb says it's dark and include taboo topics, and the reviews lambasting it are full of people going "omg this was so dark and the topics were so taboo." Some people just don't deserve evil GL.
Murderous Lewellyn's Candlelit Dinner vol. 2 by Sumnagi (re-read)
Twittering Birds Never Fly vol. 2 and 3 by Kou Yoneda: the characters in this are intriguing but I find it really hard to follow - both in terms of keeping track of the plot and side characters, and also the jump between flashbacks and present day events.
Yes, No, or Maybe? manga vol. 1 - 3 by Michi Ichiho and Yukimura: this read better than the anime... watched. It felt more dubcon and less non-con, which is a big plus.
Marriage Toxin vol. 4 - 7 by Joumyaku and Mizuki Yoda: it's losing some of its charm already, which is sad.
I Can't Say No to the Lonely Girl vol. 2 by Kashikaze: continues to be cute.
Golden Kamuy vol. 4 by Satoru Noda: I must have been a mess when I read this, I hardly remember what happened lmao.
Yona of the Dawn vol. 35: Mizuho Kusanagi: my library doesn't have vol. 36. wah.
Saiyuki: Resurrected Edition vol. 4 by Kazuya Minekura: what a useless stopping point, and I don't have access to Reload atm. I realized well before the end that clearly the main story wouldn't get resolved within the base 9 volumes (consolidated into 4 vols in the version I read) but I didn't realize just how unresolved that'd actually mean.
Sakamoto Days vol. 22 by Yuto Suzuki
Dandadan vol. 16 by Yukinobu Tatsu
That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime vol. 18 by Fuse

3. What will you read next?

Novels: I've decided that, for now, I'm saying "screw it" to my neatly-ordered-I'm-supposed-to-read-what's-next-on-the-top-of-the-pile TBR, and just impulse read. I've pulled out the My Husband and I Sleep in a Coffin duology by Wu Shui Bu Du, and I'm also eying the duology Twin Jades of Jiangdong by Fei Tian Ye Xiang.

Physical library loans: none!

Digital library loans: nothing is due in under a week, so eh, whatever I feel like. I accidentally stacked my Holds full of stuff again, even though I vowed to myself I wouldn't. In my defense, my libraries got a bunch of stuff that'd been unavailable/on my "notify me" list, so I was really eager to grab those now that I could. Of those, I think I'm most excited for I Want to Be Your Girl vol. 4, which is the last vol in the series and I really liked the middle 2 after being a little meh about the first. I also cannot *wait* for Our Not-So-Lonely Planet Travel Guide vol. 7. The one I was absolutely most excited for was 10 Dance vol. 8 but that hold came through this morning and I have already read it lmao.

solenne

So I sent my portfolio yesterday, and, unless i miraculously fail it, I am officially done with my studies. Well, I'll be getting my master's degree, but I am done with by base studies! I am happy, but it is taking a lot of effort to not fall into an existential crisis.

Anyway, in order to keep my mind off future I've been focusing on hobbies as much as possible. I'm continuing A Storm of Swords after a big pause due to exams. I also started my reread of Harrow the Ninth last night as a treat for sending the portfolio. It's somewhat hard for me to read right now. I am slower than usual, and I think it's due to mu brain being fried from looking at words the past week. Still, I am really enjoying myself and I am determined to catch any possible foreshadowing I missed last time. The last time I reread it I did the same, but I was partially listening to the audiobook, so I didn't underline anything. Now I am back to reading the pdf and am highlighting everything in Readest, which I started using recently.

The next on the list is She Who Became the Sun, and then possibly Babel. I am trying to think of a way to read them without ruining the nice covers. I have to take into account that I will be going on a vacation, and I do love reading on the beach, so I'll probably have to read something else If I don't want to ruin the nice covers of Babel.

I've also been dealing with TV Time shutting down, but I have moved my data, so now I can decide what to do in peace. I've moved to Refract, but the app is now experiencing some issues because so many TV Time users have moved there. The developers are trying their best, and say that everything will be fixed as soon as they get used to like 30times more users. I don't envy their position. Will probably be starting a list in google sheets just in case. This will probably keep me busy enough to stave off the imminent existential crisis.

And I keep existing.
Solenne

nverland posting in

creative_cooks

Asian Vegetable Pasta Salad

Ingredients
3 oz linguini
8 oz fresh sugar snap peas
2 c celery thinly sliced
1 c red bell pepper thinly sliced
1/2 c scallions sliced

DRESSING
1/4 c rice wine vinegar
1/4 c low sodium soy sauce
1-1/2 Tbsp toasted sesame oil
1 tsp spicy (chili) toasted sesame oil
2 tsp peeled fresh ginger grated
1 large garlic clove grated
1/2 tsp sugar
1 Fresno chile seeded and finely chopped (optional)

GARNISHES- USE ANY OR ALL
Chopped cilantro
Dry roasted peanuts chopped
Crushed black pepper
Toasted sesame seeds or toasted almonds
Bean sprouts

Directions
1 Cook pasta according to package directions. Add the sugar snap peas during the last 2 minutes of cooking. Drain and rinse with cold water. Place cooled pasta/snap pea mixture in a large bowl, stir in the celery, red pepper, and scallions.
2 To make the dressing put all ingredients into a small jar, and shake to combine. Pour dressing over pasta/veggie mix, stir and refrigerate for a half hour or so. Garnish with some or all of suggested condiments.
3 Any vegetables you like should work in this recipe. Try green beans, broccoli, or carrots. You can also add a tablespoon of peanut butter to the dressing and make it a very kid friendly.

rocky41_7

Flinging myself into the sun over Chaghan's death and its impact on Esen and Baoxiang.

The night before Chaghan's death, Baoxiang and Chaghan have a really awful fight, where Chaghan draws his blade on Baoxiang (who is unarmed); whether or not he would have actually killed Baoxiang if Esen hadn't intervened is unclear. (Chapter 12)

Esen found himself without anything to say. Up until this moment he had truly believed that if Baoxiang would just try, he could still be the son Chaghan wanted. But now he knew it had always been impossible.

As if reading his mind, Baoxiang said simply, "See?"

The next day, after the hunt, when Baoxiang is refused a horse on his father's orders, they fight again (Chapter 12):

Lord Wang met his eyes, pale and defiant. "So am I to find out by happenstance, from the servants, that my own father has disowned me?"

Chaghan said coldly, "Your father? I thought I had made it clear that you've lost any right you had to use that name. Would that my sister had died before getting you! Get out of my sight! Get out!"

Yet, seconds later, when Chaghan is in danger (Chapter 12):

"Father!" Lord Wang's voice was shrill with horror as he threw himself lengthwise into the dirt at the edge, heedless of his silks...He saw the two reaching hands grasp. The cords in Lord Wang's neck stood out with the effort as he shouted, "General, help!"

Even after these two horrific fights they've had, even after years of Chaghan making it clear he regrets adopting Baoxiang and the thousands of implicit and explicit ways he's told Baoxiang he thinks he's worthless, Baoxiang still sees Chaghan as his father. When Chaghan is in danger, even immediately after Chaghan has publicly disowned him, Baoxiang does not hesitate for a second to rush to Chaghan's aid.

Yet as Esen looks at Baoxiang in the aftermath of this event, of their father's death, his mind almost immediately turns to suspecting Baoxiang let Chaghan die. Yes, Ouyang had sowed the seeds of that thought, but Esen is the one willing to believe, almost immediately, that Baoxiang let this happen on purpose.

When they return to Anfeng for Chaghan's funeral, Esen bars Baoxiang from attending. (Chapter 15)

He [Esen] strode to the doors and flung them open, stepping out into the diffuse brightness of the hot pearl sky. The empty courtyard echoed with the memory of those hundreds of people in white. But today there was only one figure there. From a distance Wang Baoxiang's elaborate white drapery and drained face had all the humanity of a carved piece of jade.

On the day of his father's funeral, Baoxiang stands alone outside in the courtyard because Esen will not allow him to attend the ceremony, because Esen has already become so wholly convinced that Baoxiang let their father die.

The first time Esen and Baoxiang speak after this incident, Esen makes the following observation. This occurs as Esen sits at his father's desk for the first time, trying to get a grip on running the household he now heads (chapter 15):

His [Baoxiang's] fine-boned Manji features seemed more prominent, and there were shadows under his eyes. Under his familiar brittle smirk, there was something as pale and secretive as a mushroom.

The very first thing he does in their first post-Chaghan confrontation is to highlight Baoxiang's foreignness. His otherness. Esen is full-blooded Mongol. Baoxiang is not. Esen doesn't even think of him as Nanren, but as Manji. Barbarian. And in this moment, when Esen regards him full-on for the first time since suspecting him of killing their father, he thinks Baoxiang's foreign features are "more prominent."

Of course, they fight (chapter 15):

Esen slammed back his chair. "You dare speak of him to me!"

"Why?" asked Baoxiang, advancing. His voice rose. "Why can't I speak of our father? Do tell, is there something you think I did?"

...

"I don't admit anything! I don't need to! You've already made up your mind." Baoxiang grabbed the desk and held on..."No matter what I say, no matter what I do, both of you would think the worst of me. You slander me with ill thoughts I've never had--no, not even when he had me on my knees, and was cursing my very existence. You think I murdered him!"

It's a brutal, ugly, honest fight that's really gutting to read (kudos to SPC). It's not just that Esen suspects Baoxiang might have done it--it's that, as Baoxiang said, he's already decided Baoxiang did it. Without speaking to Baoxiang, without really considering any other option, he almost immediately reached for and settled on "Baoxiang killed our father out of resentment." It's how quick and willing Esen was--like Chaghan--to believe the worst of Baoxiang. He begins the entire encounter, as noted above, by mentally clocking that Baoxiang isn't like him or Chaghan. He's different. He's foreign. He's secretive.

We, the readers, were present at the moment of Chaghan's imperilment. We know that Baoxiang tried to save him, that in spite of Chaghan's abuse, he was desperate to bring him back to safety, but he failed. Esen, in absence of having seen it for himself, is ready to believe right off the bat that Baoxiang acted selfishly and viciously--and that, I think, is what really cuts him. That his own brother, probably the person he is closest to (which says a lot, given how little these two actually know each other...) is so quick to see the worst of his intentions.

Esen concludes this fight by disowning Baoxiang as Chaghan did days earlier (chapter 15):

Esen slammed his hands against the desk with such ferocity that it dealt a blow to Baoxiang and sent him stumbling...Esen heard the ugliness of his voice: it was his father's voice. "He was right about you. You're worthless. Worse than that: a curse. Rue the day this house took you in! Even if I have not the authority of the Great Khan, then at least my ancestors should witness the truth of my words in disowning your name. Get out!"

It takes Esen all of a handful of days to assume Chaghan's former relationship with Baoxiang. Where before he defended Baoxiang (not particularly zealously, but still) to Chaghan, now he echoes Chaghan's own words, the same words he knew had hurt Baoxiang so badly before.

It's crushing. We know they care about each other, we do. But in this time when they should be leaning together, to support each other in their grief, Chaghan's legacy has left them with this. Baoxiang at last is left with no allies, and Esen, although he doesn't know it, is left with no one to stand between him and Ouyang.

starspray posting in

tolkienshortfanworks

Author: StarSpray

Title: What If?

Characters: Maedhros, Maglor

Pairing: n/a

Text type / Format: drabble and a half

Source / Fandom: Silmarillion

Rating: G

Warnings: n/a

Word Count: 150

Summary: "What if we just left?"
Author notes: Written for the SWG July instadrabbles, and for Tolkien Gen Week on tumblr.

( Read more... )

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rocky41_7

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rocky41_7

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Ma Xiuying's Desire

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Cultus Dispatches: Six Demographic Takeaways from the 2025 Tolkien Fanfiction Survey

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Asian Vegetable Pasta Salad

Chaghan's Death

What If? by StarSpray

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