scifirenegade: (worried | paul k)
[personal profile] scifirenegade posting in [community profile] rare_ships
Title: in the stardust of a song
Fandom: Anders als die Andern (1919)
Author/Artist: [personal profile] scifirenegade
Pairing: Paul Körner/Kurt Sivers
Rating: General
Warnings: implied/referenced character death

On my journal
On AO3
On Squidge

18 | midway, midday

Jun. 11th, 2025 11:07 am
verylongfarewell: (mbeu.)
[personal profile] verylongfarewell




We're already halfway through the week. It's been a weird one, because Denmark held Pentecost-holidays Thursday through Monday, so the week didn't - in practice - start until yesterday. And so, mid-week, is also only the second day or the work week and all my routines are a bit out of the water due to that. Besides that, my foot has been hurting really badly (or, at least, more badly than it's done for months) since Saturday, so my thoughts have been very anxious and I've been hyperfocusing on it a lot.

Tomorrow, my assisted living person will come visiting, but unless my pain has gotten a lot better, our plan of taking the bus definitely won't go anywhere, because I honestly think my leg needs the rest and no additional stress. So no walking to the busstop. And no getting in and out of a vehicle that moves.

Unless it's gotten better, of course. From yesterday until today, it's already improved somewhat.



My girlfriend's article got approved for the magazine it was written for! She was so overjoyed and I was endlessly proud of her. We need to celebrate it, when she's done the final editing work, I've promised I'll buy us takeaway and we can have a nice dinner at home.

She'll be working on it tonight. I think, to keep in time with the editing vibe, I'll reread The Lover of Lilith, my submission call short story, and maybe write a companion piece or something. Nothing big, just to hold on to the themes and style of the short. I have a few ideas already, just haven't really sat down and worked on them, but if she is going to work on her article, I can work on this.

I have started a new Marie-Claude short story, too. It's in the epistolary style, but like text messages. I think it'll be good, but it's very slow in writing, because there is a lot of formatting to do, plus some themes of parental neglect that always get to me when I write them, so I have to take it in little bits.

However, I like it and I'm developing her voice a lot like this.



My girlfriend has also promised to buy me a new notebook for the Marie-Claude and Jean Louis project we're doing, and my love has befallen the new The Little Prince design that Paperblanks is releasing the 1st of July. To get free shipping, we have to buy a few extra things, so I've made a list of stuff I want, now that we're already ordering, including 3 bookmarks, 2 pencil sets, a canvas bag and an extra notebook, because I prefer having both one that is unlined and one that is lined, since I use them for different things.

It'll be expensive, but because a friend of mine just bought something off their website, I have gotten a 10% off coupon that I can use, and then it'll be slightly less terrible.

I also have some books to pick up at the local bookstore, but since I am not going into town until later in June, that's a headache for then.

Plus, there are also the library books I need to turn in...



Saturday, I'm having a friend over and her dog. K. is out with one of her friends, so we'll both be social and hang out with people that aren't one another for once, and I'm glad for us.

Overall, things have been good. But I'm seeing my therapist today and I finally, now, 40 minutes before we're meeting up, know what to talk with her about. I've been drawing a blank for days.

Not because everything is fine, but because everything has been exactly not fine enough that nothing seemed worse than the rest. If that makes sense.


Insect Apocalypse

Jun. 11th, 2025 04:04 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
‘Half the tree of life’: ecologists’ horror as nature reserves are emptied of insects
A new point in history has been reached, entomologists say, as climate-led species’ collapse moves up the food chain even in supposedly protected regions free of pesticides.

They include in Germany, where flying insects across 63 insect reserves dropped 75% in less than 30 years; the US, where beetle numbers dropped 83% in 45 years; and Puerto Rico, where insect biomass dropped up to 60-fold since the 1970s. These declines are occurring in ecosystems that are otherwise protected from direct human influence.
[---8<---]
At one research centre – falling within a 22,000-hectare (85 sq mile) stretch of intact forest in Panama – scientists comparing current bird numbers with the 1970s found 70% of species had declined, and 88% of these had lost more than half of their population
.


As the insects die off, everything that eats them -- birds, amphibians, reptiles, etc. -- suffers a decline also.

Hard Things

Jun. 11th, 2025 12:04 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The following poems from the June 3, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl are currently available. Poems may be sponsored via PayPal -- there's a permanent donation button on my Dreamwidth profile page -- or you can write to me and discuss other methods. There are still verses left in the linkback poems "Delight in Another," "A Sense of Weather Changes," "Ouroboros Insects," "The Loving Embrace of Night," "Generations of Cooks Past," "Homefree and Clear, " "One Bite at a Time," "Stars and Diamonds," "Mishpocha," "Changing Your Nature," and "Besa."

Read more... )

Book Review - Dune Messiah

Jun. 10th, 2025 10:50 pm
theradicalchild: (Arabian Camel Wandering Desert)
[personal profile] theradicalchild
Dune Messiah (Dune Chronicles, #2)Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Newer editions of the first Dune sequel have a foreword from its author’s son, Brian Herbert, who indicates that it’s perhaps the most misunderstood entry of the original series, given its antithetical nature to its predecessor, with protagonist Paul Atreides, the Muad’Dib, becoming a “fool saint.” Frank Herbert intended the first follow-up to evoke the lesson that governments often lie to their people, with citizens needing to question their leaders. As in the first entry of the original Dune Chronicles, new chapters open with philosophical quotes, indicating things such as the lack of separation between gods and men.

The second book occurs twelve years after its predecessor, with Paul’s Jihad raging for that intervention. The Muad’Dib controls the flow of the spice melange, with his sister Alia also a religious icon. Meanwhile, Scytale, a Tleilaxu Face Dancer, and Jadacha, a hermaphrodite able to change his gender at will, conspire to assassinate Paul. The Sisterhood also believes that Paul’s Jihad has somewhat gone out of control. Furthermore, a love triangle develops among Paul, Irulan, and the Fremen Chani, with the Muad’Dib contemplating siring an heir and arguing with the two women about doing so.

There are occasional surprises in the second installment, such as the return of a character thought dead in the book’s predecessor, not to mention a sequel hook for the third book in the Dune Chronicles, with Brian Herbert indicating that Dune Messiah arose with the intent of being a bridge between the first and third entries rather than a standalone story. The first sequel accomplishes its goals well, although, like the original, it’s somewhat more human interest than hard science fiction. Even so, those who enjoyed the original Dune will likely appreciate its sequel.

View all my reviews

Square Peg in a Round Hole

Jun. 11th, 2025 09:53 am
sweetsorcery: (Default)
[personal profile] sweetsorcery posting in [community profile] addme
Posting here because I haven't in years, and I struggle to find people who share even one or two interests with me, so the suggested template doesn't fit me any better than most things. I'll use what I can of it, and I apologise for being very rambly. :)

Name: [personal profile] sweetsorcery

Age: well over 18

I mostly post about: Writing, Fandom Events (Exchanges, Challenges, etc.), Life and Health Challenges. After that, it gets murky, because I often want to post about the many, many things that interest me and then just talk to myself about them instead, because my tastes couldn't be less mainstream.

What are these interests: Writing M/M (see fandoms), Victorian and Edwardian Ghost Stories/Horror/Weird Fiction, Golden Age Adventure Stories, Audiobooks and Vintage Radioplays, WWI and WWII (specifically British Military History, Aviation, and Naval warfare), British Social History from the Victorians through to the middle of the 20th Century, Ancient History, Art (esp. Romanticism, Neoclassicism and Surrealism) and Architecture (esp. Art Deco, Tudor, Jacobean), Archaeology, Ancient Egypt, Paganism, Spirituality, Reincarnation, Mythology, Folklore, Parapsychology, Taoism, British Dance Bands from the 1920s - 1940s, Baroque Music (incl. Opera very selectively), Romantic Era Music, Pop from the 1950s - 1980s, Dancing (sadly mostly passive these days), Romantic Poetry, Old Movies (I say 'old' instead of 'classic' to avoid confusion, because again, my favourites are pretty obscure to most people and include a lot of War Movies), Silent Movies, Age of Sail, etc.

My fandoms have been many over time, but these are the ones I'm most likely to read/write now and in future: Biggles - W E Johns, Famous Five - Enid Blyton, Vienna Blood (still on my first run-through of the TV series, but loving it), Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson, Vintage Ghost Stories (I keep adding to the list of inspiring ones to write about), Vintage War Movies (ditto), 18th and 19th Century RPF, Ancient Egypt RPF

I'm looking to meet people who: share one or more of my eclectic interests

My posting schedule tends to be: What is a schedule?

When I add people, my dealbreakers are: You might assume from my old-fashioned interests that I'm rather conservative. Nope, not unless it comes to wishing people were still polite and well-spoken. Think of me as a kind of Ariadne Oliver type... and if that means anything to you, we might get along well. ;)
While I don't post or read about Politics if I can possibly help it, please keep on your side of the enclosure if you're homophobic, transphobic, racist, ableist, anti-science, anti-personal freedom, supportive of fascist regimes, or prone to diving down conspiracy theory rabbit holes. If you don't believe in the motto "Live and Let Live", we won't get along; that extends to writing too, because while I don't write anything needing AO3 archive warnings, you'll regularly find themes and pairings in my writing that offend conservatives and antis. Also, you must be over 18 too - I don't censor my writing or my posts.

Before adding me, you should know: I'm a Pisces with a Scorpio ascendant, and an INFP, so I'm consistently spinning day dreams and easily distracted. I avoid conflict, but I have claws/pincers for emergencies. I'm agoraphobic and aegosexual.
I have CPTSD and Fibromyalgia, and I do talk about that. I mention this because it's cost me "friends" before, so if you easily get sick and tired of people whose daily life mostly consists of being sick and tired, and who sometimes need to vent their grief about that in their own journal, you might like to avoid me. It's unfortunately part of who I am, but I promise, I don't post detailed medical horrors. If I do post about it, it's usually as an apology for disappearing for a while and under a cut.
I sparingly use generative AI art to help me visualise literary characters of whom no proper visuals exist, but I don't use AI in writing. I don't claim AI art as my own, and fandom icons are about the most public use I make of it; if you're going to lecture me on that, please just move on.
I get hyper-fixated and will post about my fixations at length with the least amount of encouragement.

Refugees

Jun. 10th, 2025 06:28 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
CEO invites the world to invest in refugees: 'Humanity flourishes when people have the tools to succeed'

“One in 10 of us will be displaced in 25 years. One in 10. Each of us is more likely to be displaced than ever before,” Oyler said in her TED Talk, which will be published at a later date.

“The time for incremental change is over. We must do things differently.”
[---8<---]
“When Uganda allowed refugees to work, the country's GDP increased by nearly a billion dollars,” Oyler said. “Ethiopia reformed its policies, and now thousands of refugees contribute in key sectors like agriculture and manufacturing.”

“When Rwanda, the country where I live, included refugees in its national ID program, they gained access to health care, financial services, and are growing an economy.”



It's all about knitting people into society as fast as possible. Make sure they have access to survival needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and health care. Then compare what they can do with what needs doing. To accommodate untrained workers, list your top 10 or so fields with a desperate shortage of workers, then offer free training for anyone who wishes to enter those fields.
theradicalchild: (Lepi Jedi)
[personal profile] theradicalchild
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace

Anakin-Hur

I've mostly been into the Star Wars franchise as a teenager but only really watched the films in the Original Trilogy, not bothering with the original Expanded Universe material until later on (and they've pretty much been invalidated due to Disney's purchase of Lucasfilm). I knew that the OT movies were labeled Episodes IV through VI as a larger saga, and I naturally took excitement at the announcement of the prequel trilogy beginning with Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. It really polarized the hell out of critics and fans who believed the OT films to be untouchable (which I've long found to be BS), but I still have a good appreciation for it and have really gotten into heated debates about the merits of the Prequel Trilogy since their release.

Episode I opens with the Galactic Republic threatening to tax trade routes, which pisses off the Trade Federation and causes them to blockade the backwater planet of Naboo, with Supreme Chancellor Finis Valorum sending Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his Padawan, Obi-Wan Kenobi, to resolve the matter peacefully. Upon release, fans whined about Yoda being the Jedi Master who instructed Kenobi, but keep in mind that in the Original Trilogy, Obi-Wan lied to Luke and contradicted himself (the decanonized Expanded Universe material indicated that he trained under Yoda as a youngling before becoming Qui-Gon's apprentice, so that could still be in the case in the new canon material).

And there's Threepio's cousin, passing gas

Apparently, Obi-Wan was too drunk in his twenties to remember that Qui-Gon was the Jedi Master who instructed him.

Queen Amidala, actress Natalie Portman's star-marking role, and the democratically-elected monarch (?) of Naboo, rages at Viceroy Nute Gunray, the ethnically-stereotyped leader of the Trade Federation (representing Asians), for his blockade, and confers with Senator Sheev Palpatine about what's going on, and the Federation proceeds with its invasion of the planet. Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan flee the Federation ship they infiltrate to the planet's surface and meet the ever-polarizing character Jar Jar Binks, the Gungans representing Africans in terms of ethnic stereotypes (but personally, I find Donald Duck and Lisa Simpson to be a million times more annoying).

The Jedi go with Jar Jar to the underwater Gungan city of Otoh Gunga to meet their xenophobic leader, Boss Nass, voiced by BRIAN BLESSED, who tells them to piss off and sends them on their way through the planet's core to Theed, Naboo's capital, where they flee via ship. Despite having a million freaking directions to flee in space, the queen's starship moronically flies near one of the Trade Federation vessels (a plot hole bequeathed from The Empire Strikes Back), sustaining damage, but a group of astromech droids lead by none other than R2-D2, the sole survivor of the repair efforts, helps them get away to safety.

star-wars-i-queen-amidala

Elect a clown as queen, expect a circus

Damage to the ship's hyperdrive leads the queen's starship to land on the desert planet of Tatooine, where the party meets a young slave boy named Anakin Skywalker, who with his mother Shmi is enslaved to a Toydarian junk dealer named Watto, representing the Jews in terms of ethnic stereotyping. Qui-Gon tries to buy parts for the ships, but as Tatooine is outside the Galactic Republic, his money is worthless; at the same time, the rogue Jedi Master senses that the Force is strong in Anakin, doing a blood test to determine that his midi-chlorian count is off the charts. The Force having a biological basis has been another point of contention for series "fans," but this makes sense later on in the Prequel Trilogy, and even the Original Trilogy hints that the Force may have a strong biological basis.

True to Obi-Wan's word in the Original Trilogy, Anakin is indeed a "great pilot," and really excels at mechanics and Tatooine's resident sport, podracing, preparing for a huge race that serves as a brilliant homage to Ben-Hur, which he wins, and consequentially, his freedom from slavery, although his mother is left behind in the bargain with Watto. The enigmatic Sith Lord Darth Maul harasses the party as they began to leave for Coruscant, but they eventually get there, with the Jedi High Council determining that Anakin is too old to be trained in the Order given his inner demons and Oedipus complex.

star-wars-i-congress

C-SPAN...in space!

In a session of Congress that plays out like a galactic version of C-SPAN, Queen Amidala and Senator Palpatine call for a Vote of No Confidence against Chancellor Finis Valorum, but their petition is shot down, which leads the queen to go home and get the help of the Gungans in repelling the Trade Federation from their planet. Queen Amidala plans to have the Gungans serve as a distraction in getting the droid armies out of Theed so she and her team can infiltrate the capital, after which the battle on the plains of Naboo plays out. One thing I found particularly odd is the Gungans' forcefield system, which the droids can't shoot through yet can oddly walk right on through.

Anakin Skywalker finds himself in the midst of all the chaos that ensues on Naboo, taking refuge in a starfighter with R2-D2, although he accidentally takes it into space, becoming the accidental hero of the day and showing his early genocidal tendencies by taking out the Trade Federation ship and its alien crew, disabling the droids the Gungans are fighting against. "Now this is podracing!" I think demonstrates Anakin's inherent Dark Side tendencies in treating war like a game, which pretty much proves the case later on in the Prequel Trilogy era.

And look freaking sweet

The Sith are way more creative with their lightsabers than the orthodox Jedi.

In the meantime, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan take on Darth Maul with his badass twin-bladed lightsaber, in which the latter ultimately takes the quick-and-easy path to becoming a Jedi Knight and becomes Anakin's master, to the chagrin of Master Yoda, who is ultimately proven right since Kenobi turns out to be a terrible teacher in the long run. Senator Palpatine succeeds Finis Valorum as Galactic Chancellor, which of course eventually bites the Galaxy in the ass, and promises to watch young Skywalker's career with "great interest," a bombastic ceremony in Theed concluding the film.

As usual, composer John Williams rocks the music boat with his soundtrack including of course the iconic main Star Wars theme and its occasional variants throughout the film, with tons of original melodies as well, many of which utilize vocals, in the case of the battle against Darth Maul. I've also begun watching films to their ending credits nowadays, with the concluding music at the very end being really haunting, ending with Darth Vader's iconic respiration, a chilling reminder of how an innocent boy like Anakin can succumb to evil, and giving me tears just to think about as that's pretty much been the story of my life.

You're not fooling anyone.

Gee, I wonder who that could be.

The visual effects are nice as well, and while nitpicky critics have complained about "stupid conspicuous CG bullshit," I really can't tell the difference, with the worlds and effects being beautiful. Some have complained about the alleged superiority of the technology compared to the Original Trilogy, but it's not nearly as bad as in, say, the Star Trek franchise, and Star Wars has been far more about the characters and worlds anyway than the goings-on of starship crews. There are further a lot of questionable, sometimes lampoonable, plot elements, but the OT films aren't ones to talk in that regard, as the Family Guy parodies brilliantly point out.

All in all, I think that "professional" film critics and so-called "fans" dislike The Phantom Menace for all the wrong reasons, the wrongest being that the original films are absolutely perfect and among the greatest films of all time. It's definitely far from a flawless film, but...no amount of gaslighting or having the crap beaten out of me will convince me that movies with "twists" like Obi-Wan Kenobi and "Ben" Kenobi being one and the same or dialogue like, "Why you stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-looking nerf herder!" are "masterpieces." As George Ball said, "Nostalgia is a seductive liar," and to rephrase it in Yoda's speech patterns, "A seductive liar, nostalgia is."




The Good The Bad


  • Excellent soundtrack by John Williams.

  • Beautiful scenery and visual effects.

  • Great homage to Ben-Hur.

  • Plenty of brilliant moments.




  • Fans will whine about "inconsistencies."

  • YMMV regarding Jar Jar and the ethnic aliens.

  • Midi-chlorians explanation for the Force won't make sense until later on.

  • Obvious from the beginning of the Prequel Trilogy who The Phantom Menace is.


The Bottom Line
Definitely not perfect (but neither are the original films), but really misunderstood and disliked for the wrong reasons.
3.5 stars





I'm reposting my reviews since I'm going through the Skywalker Saga films again.

The Phantom Menace
actually feels way better in retrospect due to things like this:



And all that tariff stuff, but I don't mind.