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March 23rd, 2024
 | 11:31 am - To explain the origins of the #smalleuropeanwoman hashtag which has been trending ...
https://twitter.com/keithdunn/status/1635730926347993088
As some articles have mentioned, other races have trackers and non-stop updates and reports; the Barkley Marathons has a mildly-cryptic guy named Keith and his Twitter account.
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March 22nd, 2024
| 09:30 pm - HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT HOLY SHIT
She only went and fucking did it:
https://twitter.com/keithdunn/status/1771285169963438324
Jasmin Paris just became the first ever woman to finish the Barkley Marathons.
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March 21st, 2024
 | 11:37 am - The Saint of Bright Doors
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png) sabotabby has just read Vajra Chandrasekera's The Saint of Bright Doors, for anyone who would like to join her and me in screaming about it in the comments (warning for spoilers):
Reading Wednesday
Can highly rec it to anyone who hasn't read it. The pitch I have given to a few people:
The protagonist is grappling with issues like "what if the guy you're dating forwards you the crowdfunder to invite to the city the revered religious figure who (little does he know) is the father you've never met and who you were raised to assassinate, and it's awkward because you don't know if he's forwarding it ironically or not", and despite everything you might infer from this, it's not a broad comedy world
Just SO MUCH LOVE for putting e-mail and dating apps and immigration paperwork and support groups in a full, serious secondary-world fantasy novel and proving that you can, and for the plague which is so overt in its Covid resonances and so keenly observed, and all of these things which I've never seen put into a fantasy novel before.
And it has a lot to say about Chosen One narratives, state violence, family mythologies, and the dynamics of social control.
Also I suspect a healthy dose of Planescape Torment in its DNA.
Anyway you should meet Fetter, he's great.
Here are the first two sentences of the book:
The moment Fetter is born, Mother-of-Glory pins his shadow to the earth with a large brass nail and tears it from him. This is his first memory, the seed of many hours of therapy to come.
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March 17th, 2024
| 07:39 am - "Let me put it on record that my brother had a ferret named Oscar"
"My hon. friend now has that on the record. I am not sure what else to say about that, except that I am sure that Oscar brought her brother great joy."
Context: on Friday, Liz Truss's poisonous little private member's bill (which would have altered the Equality Act to make "sex" refer to AGAB rather than legal sex, thus stripping a number of existing rights from trans people, banned under-18s from socially transitioning, and excluded trans women from women's sports) would have been debated in the House of Commons, had discussion of the previous bill not gone on for ... some considerable time.
Now Truss's bill has to go to the back of the queue, and its odds of getting debated (let alone making it into law) look very slim.
(It is rumoured that the Tory MPs got a heads-up to filibuster it as well -- which implies that Truss's bill might actually have been too poisonous for the Tories to tie themselves to right now, which would, if true, be excellent news, because they're absolutely going to be trying to use trans issues as a battleground in the run-up to the election. Or Sunak just fucking hates her.)
The previous bill being debated was the Animal Welfare (Import of Dogs, Cats and Ferrets) Bill, which is a legit and serious bill which would ban the import of puppies and kittens under a certain age and attempt some steps to stop smuggling.
Some of the filibustering, however, was delightful:
https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2024-03-15/debates/CD456FEB-9942-469A-9841-6A9224220284/AnimalWelfare(ImportOfDogsCatsAndFerrets)Bill (content note: discussion of animal harm)
"Has the hon lady ever owned a ferret? If so, what was that ferret's name?"
"My hon. Friend has prompted me to mention that I have three rescue chickens—Honey, Rosie and Lola—and they continued to lay for another three years after we got them. I commend him for his efforts to save chickens."
Credit to the MP who spent several paragraphs recapping an RSPCA "fun factsheet" on ferrets, the MP who segued passionately into the evils of pet theft and how distraught he personally would be if his cat was stolen, and all the MPs who listed their own pets.
Peter Gibson
"Earlier, I omitted the names of my own dogs, which I would like to put on the record: Clemmie, Peppy and Ebony. As we all know, Clemmie came third in the Westminster dog of the year show in 2022."
Mark Spencer
"My hon. Friend has corrected the record."
Also, this is beautiful:
Jane Stevenson
"I am one of the most passionate people about animal welfare in this place, and it is lovely to see some new converts on the Labour Benches discussing animal welfare—[Interruption.] And on the Labour Front Bench. However, I would also be interested to hear the hon. Gentleman’s thoughts on Labour’s determination to prevent single-sex spaces being discussed today, because that issue is also important to my constituents."
Steve Reed
"I am very disappointed indeed that the hon. Member has attempted to politicise an important point. We are talking about the welfare of animals."
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| 07:28 am - Oh nooooo
GFW are having a "pause in operations", probably permanently. So if there's anything you've been eyeing, grab it now -- everything's on sale:
https://www.genderfreeworld.com/
For the record, my most-complimented garments have all come from GFW (apart from That One Insect T-Shirt I found in a secondhand shop).
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March 11th, 2024
| 05:45 pm - Relevant, interests
GFW have come up with a new design for their unisex boxer shorts which allows you to wear a sanitary towel with wings:
https://www.genderfreeworld.com/collections/underwear-boxer-shorts/products/schapiro-paisley-navy-boxer-shorts-unisex
Currently only available in the paisley. Also apparently their boxer short production is currently being paused, so grab them while you can.
For boxer-short-loving people who prefer reusable menstrual protection, WUKA do boxer short period pants: https://wuka.co.uk/collections/boxer-shorts/products/wuka-ultimate-boxer-shorts-medium-flow
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March 8th, 2024
| 04:06 pm - The Wrong Kind of Fans
There's merch, for those of us who always are:
https://wrongkindoffans.threadless.com/designs/the-wrong-kind-of-fans-logo
I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the merch is a by-product of a scheme for making ... artisan silicone sculptures ... for purposes of great justice, but, you know.
It's a long story, okay? The edges of which I have only glimpsed as it flashes past like a meteorite.
https://bsky.app/profile/kbspangler.com/post/3kluso4zlzm2j
Me: …and the data has an indicator suggesting hundreds, if not thousands, of votes might’ve been discarded or reassigned!
Mom: uh-huh…
Me: Table that for a minute while we get into the possible international sanctions violations—
Mom: Okay but why is your friend making dildos again?
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March 5th, 2024
| 04:54 pm
[ID: the Destiel "I love you" news meme, with the bottom text reading "Helen Joyce claims that the dominant pairing in all slash fiction in 2016 was Kirk/Spock"]
( Cut for discussion of transphobia rather than just shitposting )
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March 3rd, 2024
| 11:49 am - Signal-boost
azurelunatic: 2024 sleep masterpost
People are welcome to add what works for them in comments.
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March 2nd, 2024
 | 08:42 am - Okay, this is cool
Locus: The Year in Review 2023 by Niall Harrison
Every once in a while, in defiance of all the cacophony of the actual world, the federated genres of the fantastic can still produce a work whose single novum speaks with a clarity that demands attention.
Uses Prophet's central novum as a jumping-off point to talk about other significant sf/f novels of 2023 in terms of how they engage with nostalgia and its hazards, with insecurity, reassurance, and the attempt to imagine a possible future.
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February 27th, 2024
| 01:54 pm - Reality is broken so apparently this happened
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3kmdpwmlpip2t
I really wish Bluesky had polls so I could ask which was more batshit, Alito asking how much YouTube would weigh or the state of Texas yelling "SIR THIS IS A WENDY'S" at the Justices
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3kmdqkqnwtk2i
because people keep asking: I am telling you the literal truth, the lawyer arguing Netchoice v Paxton for the state of TX literally said the actual words "sir this is a wendy's" to the supreme court of the fucking united states of america
https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3kmdqlaj4d72z
no it did not make any more sense in context
Transcript to prove (thread): https://bsky.app/profile/rahaeli.bsky.social/post/3kmdugnvafh2t
Also: https://bsky.app/profile/mmasnick.bsky.social/post/3kme4e5ebvx2n
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February 25th, 2024
 | 02:02 pm - PSA: if you got a pulse oximeter early in the pandemic
Now is a good time to check that the batteries haven't died and get new ones if needed.
(I do not have Covid, I have something which is probably flu, but it's kicked me into checking on my Miscellaneous Respiratory Illness supplies.)
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February 23rd, 2024
| 04:13 pm - Commended to the #whaleweekly crowd
By eruthros:
Also at AO3: Vid: a vulture feeds upon that heart forever.
Summary:
For God’s sake, be economical with your lamps and candles! not a gallon you burn, but at least one drop of man’s blood was spilled for it.
(Content notes: animal harm, massive spoilers for the ending of Moby Dick.)
For maximal tonal contrast, they also made Here It Goes Again.
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February 20th, 2024
 | 05:38 pm - Hugos rubbernecking
Recap time!
1) R F Kuang and a bunch of other authors turn out to have been mysteriously declared "ineligible", after dossiers were compiled on whether they had done or said anything that might conceivably be viewed negatively by the Chinese government, as filtered through the imaginations of a bunch of Westerners who can't tell the difference between Nepal and Tibet.
2) A huge swathe of Chinese ballots turn out to have been dumped because of claims that they were based on a "slate" (even though it wasn't a slate, and the rules don't allow for dumping ballots for that reason anyway), thus directly preventing a large number of Chinese authors from being finalists -- they should, in fact, have made up almost all of the finalists in the big fiction categories.
https://bsky.app/profile/scalzi.com/post/3kluqr6intj27
John Scalzi:
At this point I'm working from the assumption that my finalist position for the Best Novel Hugo award last year is ill-gotten and taking the place that should have gone to a Chinese title and author, and don't really have a problem saying so.
3) Multiple allegations of sexual harassment are made against Dave McCarty.
And now:
https://bsky.app/profile/jayblanc.bsky.social/post/3kltiv53np52n
Jay Blanc:
I just checked. China Telecom, who were a premium sponsor of the Chendgu Worldcon, and allowed to use the trademarks by WIP/WSFS... Are on the US Sanctions List.
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February 19th, 2024
| 03:03 pm - Welp
https://bsky.app/profile/peripateticmeg.bsky.social/post/3klriakbhgt2x
Meg Frank:
Dave McCarty is emotionally abusive, generally manipulative, and has sexually harassed myself and numerous others. I’ve spoken openly about this and made CoC complaints when possible.
He is not a missing stair, he is a creepy handyman who has been using his previous community service as a shield.
ETA:
https://bsky.app/profile/artzfreak.bsky.social/post/3kls3v2jyil2q
Jesi Lipp:
I've never made it a secret that he groped me at a Smofcon in 2011 and it has always been largely treated as a non-issue.
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February 18th, 2024
| 11:26 am - More Hugos rubbernecking
1) https://bsky.app/profile/tkingfisher.bsky.social/post/3klkop7xsrj2h
Ursula Vernon:
So in further Hugo news—yes, it just keeps going—if you put the leaked spreadsheet next to the list of nominees, it looks like pretty much nobody in the big fiction categories should even have been on the ballot. They should almost all have been Chinese authors.
(N.B. I'm linking to threads and just pulling out the money quotes, but go, read them in their entirety.)
2) In Diane Lacey's apology letter, she said:
We were told there was collusion in a Chinese publication that had published a nominations list, a slate as it were, and so those ballots were identified and eliminated, exactly as many have speculated*. This certainly accounted for some of the disappearances. These were all Chinese language publications so I don’t know who the authors might have been. I was never privy to the actual nomination numbers.
(Unclear whether throwing out these ballots was sufficient to exclude Chinese authors in the way that occurred, or whether additional "curation" would have been required, as Camestros Felapton has suggested.)
3) It wasn't a "slate", it was a recs list with multiple options in each category, no different from something like Locus's 2023 Recommended Reading List or ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png) ladybusiness's crowd-sourced Hugos recs list.
https://bsky.app/profile/vajra.me/post/3kliutx45au2a
Vajra Chandrasekera (author of The Saint of Bright Doors, which btw is very good):
Which I learned only from here, along with the fact—I'm sure already common knowledge, but I suppose I haven't been paying attention lol—that the "slate" of Chinese votes that were summarily disqualified by the white censorship committee was a recommendation list published in Science Fiction World.
For those of you who don't know, Science Fiction World is probably the biggest sf magazine in the world by circulation. Many non-Chinese writers have published in it, including me. So they published a Hugo explainer for their several hundred thousand subscribers
And along with explaining what a Worldcon is, how the voting works, and explicitly encouraging their readers to vote for their favourite work from China or anywhere else, they did a list of recommendations, with one to nine options per category—again, including both Chinese and non-Chinese creators
Obviously, given the tremendous size of the Science Fiction World subscriber base (bigger than that of every western magazine put together) many people would have made perfectly legitimate use of these recommendations, same as any high-profile Hugo recommendations list except with more readers.
So essentially the white censorship committee penalized Chinese fans for existing and discarded all of these votes as illegitimate, which instantly removed all the most popular Chinese writers from contention and allowed for a US-dominated year in standard fashion. They did TWO levels of censorship.
There's the "keep science fiction white" censorship round, and then there's the "bootlicking no one even asked for" censorship round.
Damn it I was NOT going to participate in this discourse but it's just so fascinatingly fucked up I keep getting pulled back in
The saddest thing is that the Science Fiction World explainer/recommendation list article also expresses excitement that Chinese works never translated into English stand a chance for a Hugo nomination for the very first time.
https://bsky.app/profile/yilinwriter.bsky.social/post/3klnuw4bufn2z
Yilin Wang:
I wasn't planning to comment more about the Hugos but the discussions about the "slate" really bug me. I don't think I have seen any translations of the blogpost from Science Fiction World (the publication that put out the list), so let me try to translate it very carefully here for context.
4) EVEN IF IT WAS A "SLATE" (HOWEVER YOU DEFINE THAT), THE BALLOTS SHOULD HAVE NOT BEEN THROWN OUT.
https://bsky.app/profile/voter.bsky.social/post/3klh73mqntk2f
Jameson Quinn (primary designer of the EPH system):
As I understand it, the ENTIRE POINT of EPH is to make it unnecessary to take any discretionary administrative choices about slating. If valid Hugo voters (that is, Worldcon members) decide to vote a slate, that is their right. EPH is designed to still provide a diverse set of nominees, including...
...at least some qualified, non-slate nominees.
So if Chinese works were indeed removed "for slating", in my opinion this was directly contrary to the spirit of EPH (which I know well) and the WSFS bylaws (which I know only very vaguely).
That's all I have to say right now.
4.5) In 2016, when the Puppies really were running a slate, and prior to EPH, Dave McCarty was Hugo Admin and proposed throwing out those ballots:
https://bsky.app/profile/scifantasy.bsky.social/post/3klnwsd5ug52k
Will Frank:
The 2016 slate only had major influence in a couple of categories, but it was there.
Dave proposed to the rest of the Administrative team that, pursuant to the authority delegated to the Administrator, he could declare that nominations based on a slate were invalid, and toss those ballots.
The rest of the administrative team, including the Vice-Administrator, the various staffers, the Deputy Division Head of the WSFS Division (which the Hugos are part of), and others said he shouldn't do that. The VIce-Admin threatened to quit if he did.
(*wave*)
Dave backed down.
That time.
In case there was any ambiguity about the fact that YOU CAN'T THROW OUT BALLOTS JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK THEY'RE PART OF A SLATE.
5) And then, in breaking news, WHAT THE FLYING FUCK:
https://bsky.app/profile/tkingfisher.bsky.social/post/3kln6ebhg2b2q
Ursula Vernon:
Now, back to Dave. Had he truly thrown out all those Chinese “slate” ballots, we’d be back to a normal distribution.
But it sure as hell looks like what he did was just copy and paste the English frontrunners over the Chinese ones on his spreadsheet.
Read the whole thread; it's amazing.
6) Samantha Mills, "Rabbit Test" unwins the Hugo.
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February 15th, 2024
| 12:53 pm - A blesséd milestone for an infant fandom
Prophet fandom has its first porn:
What are you doing with your whole life (how about forever) by Anti_kate
I hope Blaché and Macdonald are watching the AO3 stats and I hope they're celebrating.
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| 08:39 am - For anyone rubbernecking at the Hugos clusterfuck
Holy shit:
The 2023 Hugo Awards: A Report on Censorship and Exclusion by Chris M. Barkley and Jason Sanford
Duplicate at File770, where discussion is taking place: https://file770.com/the-2023-hugo-awards-a-report-on-censorship-and-exclusion/
https://bsky.app/profile/johnmaddening.bsky.social/post/3klgpwe5hpc2s
I certainly hope a member of Glasgow 2024 nominates this for a Best Related Work Hugo.
Though, as pointed out in reply, it came out in 2024 so would be eligible for the 2025 Hugos (Seattle).
Brutal thread from Mike Dunford:
https://bsky.app/profile/questauthority.bsky.social/post/3klgnirnlkd2u
The report is well worth reading, as are the associated documents. Having read it, and quite a lot of other materials surrounding this debacle, here's my current thinking:
I no longer believe that the primary factor driving the fiasco that was the 2023 Hugo Awards was Chinese censorship.
There may have been some, but the evidence I've seen so far is at best equivocal.
And some of the decisions - such as deeming a work that is apparently available in China ineligible - do not seem to be entirely compatible with Chinese censorship as the driving force behind the disqualifications.
The emails in the current leaks also don't seem to include anyone from China, despite the presence of Chinese nationals on the Hugo committee.
To put it very bluntly:
Based on the latest revelations - and on the other things that have been said in places like File770, including transcripts of McCarty's interview - I think the driving force behind the disqualifications was racism.
I think that McCarty, and other involved WSFS members, reached conclusions about what would and would not be acceptable based on nothing more than their own preconceived, paternalistic notions of what was and wasn't acceptable. And did so without bothering to inform themselves.
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