Beyond Selidor

The current snowflake_challenge is one that I always find incredibly stressful: I don't really collect fannish merch (other than ... physical books? Dreamwidth icons?), and I'm completely incapable of taking decent photos of anything that isn't a) a tree or b) a body of water.



So, with that disclaimer out of the way, here is the prompt:

In your own space, post the results of your fandom scavenger hunt. earch in your current space, whether brick-and-mortar or digital. Post a picture or description of something that is or represents:

1. A favorite character
2. Something that makes you laugh
3. A bookshelf
4. A game or hobby you enjoy
5. Something you find comforting
6. A TV show or movie you hope more people will watch
7. A piece of clothing you love
8. A thing from an old fandom
9. A thing from a new fandom

My photos can be found on Instagram. Edited to add that the bad-quality photos were stressing me out so much that I deleted the whole photoset from Instagram, so the link here will no longer work. The descriptions of the photos remain below.

I have merged several categories.

1. A favourite character — Noviana Una from Sophia McDougall's Romanitas trilogy. This is the back of a t shirt which is possibly the only piece of fannish merch I own, a quote from McDougall's book referencing Una. (A picture McDougall drew of her own character, plus this quote, forms my default Dreamwidth icon.)

2. and 3. Something that makes me laugh + a bookshelf — a small portion of the Terry Pratchett section of our bookshelves. This is only a small portion of our collection as a whole — my copies are all still at my mum's place in Australia, and many of Matthias's copies are still in Germany. At some point, we will have all the copies in the one place and may have to discard the duplicates.

4. and 5. A game or hobby I enjoy + something I find comforting — swimming swimming swimming. I am, as I have said many times, half woman half ocean. Swimming is the only thing that stills the sea inside.

6. A TV show or movie I wish more people would watch — Babylon Berlin

7. A thing from an old fandom — the final lines of Northern Lights, the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. This isn't my oldest fandom, but it was my first experience of fandom as an online community, and the HDM forum I joined still remains my gold standard for online fannish spaces. It was the perfect welcome and introduction to fandom-as-shared activity.

8. A thing from a new fandom — the extant books from Pat Barker's Briseis-centric Iliad retelling trilogy.

I read three more short stories yesterday. All are free and online at the Tor.com website.

( Short fiction )

I was going to devote this week's post to the Hugo Awards situation, but to be honest, I thought better of it. Why waste my energy on the emotionally draining behaviour of a bunch of immature, selfish, cruel, destructive people? I'd rather talk about people who build, create, nurture and share.

At Safe, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz talks about words, actions, and using power for good. It's a post filled with hope and compassion. (Content note for discussion of abusive behaviour.)

Rochita's post refers to this one by Laura Mixon, which comes with a similar content note.

I absolutely adore M Sereno's poetry. Her latest, 'The Eaters, published in Uncanny Magazine, is gorgeous. Amal El-Mohtar reads it aloud here.

BBC Radio 4 is doing a programme featuring extensive interviews with Ursula Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin at 85.

Short stories I read and enjoyed this week include 'Monkey King, Faerie Queen' by Zen Cho (published at Kaleidotrope) and 'Ambergris, or the Sea-Sacrifice' by Rhonda Eikamp (published at Lackington's, illustrated by Likhain).

Over at SF Signal, authors pay tribute to Terry Pratchett and Leonard Nimoy.

Ken Liu discusses his new novel The Grace of Kings at SF Signal.

This round-up post at Ladybusiness has some fabulous short story recommendations.

It's always disorienting for me to see real-life friends and former academic colleagues getting discussed in SF publications.

This is the most Cambridge story ever.

Please spend your weekends being lovely to each other.

I'm the lunatic in ur cafes, laughing crazily in the corner

Today I was sitting in My Favourite Cambridge Cafe Whose Name I Will Not Divulge Because Then It Would Always Be Too Crowded And I Would Never Get A Table. I had brought Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman with me to read. I got as far as the list of Dramatis Personae before I had to leave, as I was laughing so much I thought everyone in the cafe would think I was a nutcase. Here were some of the gems:
Crowley (An Angel who did not so much Fall as Saunter Vaguely Downwards)
Thou-Shalt-Not-Commit-Adultery Pulsifer (A Witchfinder)
Anathema Device (Practical Occultist and Professional Descendant)
Madame Tracy (Painted Jezebel [mornings only, Thursdays by arrangement] and Medium)
Full Chorus of Tibetans, Aliens, Americans, Atlanteans and other rare and strange Creatures of the Last Days.

I adore Pterry and Neil Gaiman.

Links
When I looked at yesterday's Irregular Webcomic it looked very familiar. Surely not, I thought. That looks exactly like the main quad at Sydney Uni. Then I scrolled down and read the commentary. Oddly enough, it was modelled on Sydney Uni, jacaranda tree and all! And Sydney Uni's modelled on Cambridge, which is even cooler.

Have some swing dancers dancing in front of Parliament House, thanks to the Riot Act. You've gotta love those Canberrans.

Raphael is going to be blogging about his trip to the UK here. (I suspect that everyone who knows him and reads my blog knows this already, but oh well.)

Life
Well, I suppose I should do something productive today. I'm meant to be writing an article for the newspaper, but I've been putting it off. Now my editor's written to me suggesting it be 'broader'. Any broader, and this article's going to wind up longer than my dissertation. *sigh*

Edited to add:
TV
I don't have anything much to say, except that Dollhouse keeps getting better and better. The new series of Robin Hood, on the other hand, is just getting worse and worse. The replacement Djaq new Girl Outlaw Kate (dubbed 'Blondie' by the good folks at Obernet) is exceptionally annoying. Gisbourne's mopey, Robin's angsty and the addition of Friar Tuck to the gang does little to cover the fact that this was one season too many.