Things I want you to know. UPDATED 20 OCTOBER 2013. (ETA 6 MAY 2016: while there's nothing in here that I utterly and 100% repudiate, except that my J&D goodfic list is now as out of date as everything else here, this is not the intro post I would make now. I... oddly enough, actually hope this will not form your first impression of me as I am now. I have changed significantly. The text below has not been edited to reflect that, much less any of the things I linked to.)

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I used to find Jak's hairstyle changes perplexing; I supposed he must have found some hair gel somewhere early in Jak II (or stopped using hair gel?), because his hair didn't seem to be much longer than when it stuck straight up. And then I happened to grab my hair and lift it straight up and noticed how much longer hair looks when it's sticking straight up than when it's curving over your head. TPL!Jak's hair, if it weren't spiky, might come down to about where his ears attach to his head. Possibly slightly lower. It's several inches longer in Jak II, and that's why it no longer sticks up. It's not due to lack of access to some product he used to use, because he probably wouldn't be able to get that product in Spargus, but his hair sticks up again in Jak 3 after he's cut it a lot shorter.

Because it's a big jump from "hey, I noticed that these people write differently from each other!" to "hey, I have a thesis to present to you about patterns in writing style!" and I'm only partway from one to the other. I invite anyone else who's noticed anything on this topic to please comment!

It seems like there are some patterns in writing styles; that is, I think there may be clusters of stylistic quirks that tend to group together and may be correlated with other things. I have given them preliminary names, but the names may not correspond correctly to their actual genres of origin.

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Any thoughts?

Mostly belonging to two series. Minor Vorkosigan Saga spoilers (for The Warrior's Apprentice, and sort of kind of for The Vor Game) follow. Possible minor spoilers for Steven Brust's Taltos and Teckla might also follow, maybe, if you squint.

Steven Brusts's Dragaera series: no spoilers yet; I'm not done. The Vlad books are... well, they appear to consist entirely of things that Brust thought would be awesome and thus included because why not. The whole thing takes place on another planet, starring some people who are basically Tolkienian elves but more violent, and some people who are normal Hungarians, who all descend from people who were kidnapped for an alien zoo or something. Everything is violent. Everyone is Hungarian or elven. Magic works in defined ways but not for defined reasons, but the magic worldbuilding is still very interesting; there are two competing systems, and of course one is viewed with greater prestige than the other. Inasmuch as there are themes (and there are, but I never got the impression they were Brust's favorite part of all this), they seem to be about oppression, morality, human dignity and prejudice, and how our personal relationships shape our morals. But really, it's about swashbuckling. And magic. And crime. And violence. And the worldbuilding is such that the answers to the moral and practical questions the characters consider, especially in the political arena, just cannot be the same as they are here. The narrator is a smartass and a lot of him shows through. Yes, it's first-person, from the point of view of someone who has opinions about everything, and those opinions are hilarious. Or dark. Or cynical. Have I mentioned that it's a very violent series partly about oppression? Yeah? Okay, there's your fair warning. This series is not really very tightly plotted... sort of...? Well, with one exception, which is the book where there are three different stories going on at once (Vlad growing up to become an assassin, Vlad meeting Morrolan for the first time, and Vlad casting a spell), which seem to be mainly irrelevant to each other until you understand how they're not actually irrelevant at all. In hindsight, one of them is even explicit commentary on another.

Am also trying to read the Khaavren Romances, but can't seem to stick with The Phoenix Guards. The narrator is bad. Charmingly bad, endearingly bad, but bad. I feel well-disposed to the book, but it's hard to read even so. It's even funnier than the Vlad books, though!

The other series I've been reading is the Vorkosigan Saga. I... gave up partway through, actually! I might at some point return to it, though. Barrayar was good. Shards of Honor was great. The Warrior's Apprentice wasn't bad. The Mountains of Mourning was intriguing, but one of the twists was immediately extremely obvious and the other totally blindsided me, and not even in that sort of "oh, I should have seen that coming and in hindsight everything makes sense!" way. Just came out of nowhere. The Vor Game bored me. I liked Aral and Cordelia's stories better. Miles is truly exceptional compared to the set of all characters who are the children of main characters and devour the plot like a cancer, but that isn't saying a whole lot, and he failed to interest me as much as Aral and Cordelia. He's a good character and I might return to the series eventually, though... but the moroseness sits better on Aral than Miles; Aral is Beautifully Tortured and Cordelia has a poet's eye for wry and cynical commentary, but Miles is just bitter. Though he is also awesome and does many hilarious things. You might like Miles. It seems eminently plausible to me that many people reading this would enjoy Miles. Miles once pretended to be a mercenary captain so hard that he ended up with an entire mercenary fleet just by pretending he already had one. Miles is like... imagine Loki, by which I mean the popular understanding of myth!Loki (as opposed to Marvel!Loki or any of the interpretations of myth!Loki that are actually supported by the Eddas), filled with bitterness and fantasy-poison-induced brittle bones, with a dad who responds to his wacky hijinks by suggesting that the best way to keep him from getting into too much trouble would be to give him lots of responsibility and access to state secrets because how could that possibly backfire? I may have just talked myself into trying to finish The Vor Game, in fact. I should probably mention how enamored I am of the disability representation in this series, too.

Some things I found interesting on tumblr and elseweb. Presented without full endorsement of every link.

On safety pins
I’ve now seen an article claiming that it’s a bad thing for people to wear safety pins.
If you pin one on yourself, and a guy is harassing me in a bathroom, I am going to turn to you for back up.
racial minorities are absolutely fucking sick of having to stand there and mop up white tears while we stand around being super sad about racism while racial minorities are getting fucking killed.

Happy, irrelevant things
Why do American comics have this thing where they seem to emphasize way too many random words
(video) Kitten in a Teacup Sketchbook Cover Speed Draw
URRGH I HATE MY FAMILY I SPENT FUCKING HOURS ARRANGING THESE CUPS AND THEY JUST KNOCK THEM OFF LIKE “HI DEAR NICE TO SEE YOU, THANKS FOR FIGHTING EVIL WHOOPS WHERE THOSE YOUR CAREFULLY STACKED CUPS?? LET ME JUST HURL THIS GOAT LEG FROM THE TABLE AND KNOCK ‘EM ALL DOWN” AND THEY TRAP ME IN MY ROOM BY SITTING IN FRONT OF THE DOOR AND THEY CALLED MY DOG STUPID ONE TOO MANY TIMES
a quick and Messy doodle of Grimbark Jade

On ways to move forward
THE TRUMP TEAM NEEDS TO FILL 3,000 VACANCIES IN THE NEXT TWO MONTHS.
Why you shouldn’t donate to Trans Lifeline
national popular vote ='haha sucks to be you, rural people, you no longer count for anything.'
the ACLU is a really good thing.
I would argue that this [attempt to convince electors to vote faithlessly] would be actually worse for the country than even Trump.
Given that the electoral college was put in place to benefit slaveholders, why do you think we still need it?
You can't take over the presidency for your own party by disposing of the current one.

Happy, irrelevant things
bulbasaur variants
jellyfish
I’m not saying I’m definitely an NPC, but if I am a protagonist, the game I’m starring in is probably free-to-play.

On dialogue and understanding
After Trump won the nomination, an American friend of mine Skyped me nearly crying with fear and horror.
I’m noticing one comment from a Muslim man who basically says “we voted for Trump because we feel like the Democrats pandered to Islamism. We know what Islamism is really like from experiencing it back home in Turkey, and voted for the candidate who said he would fight it.”
Which is the problem, I think, with identity politics. It’s not WRONG, it’s just… really coarse-grained.
But do THEY understand what WE voted for
it sucks that in all the talk of trying to understand Trump voters’ motivations and how we got this election all wrong, it feels like we have to put aside or compromise our own needs and values in the process, even though literally no one is saying that.
We can listen to what these people wanted without agreeing with them.
Progressive fundamentalism: how Hollywood and the media fortify the bubbles we all live in
dont follow your emotions in how you handle people. follow practicallity. be thoughtful. it wont accomplish anything but making these fearful jackassea more convinced theyre right in trying to kill us if we scream and attack them.

More happy, irrelevant things
(moving but not flashing gifs) Cuddle me like an otter
a collection of Oer-Wout's work
Mouse vole sleeping in the iris

This tumblr thread bugs me enough to say something.

The first post talks about "the idea of people having to be ‘useful’" and "having to produce something and have a use", claiming these are terrible.

An argument is put forth that these ideas are not new, and in fact, were even more true in neolithic societies when there was less excess production. This argument is "rebutted" and "disproven" by archaeological evidence showing that many physically disabled people survived for long periods of time in neolithic societies (e.g., congenitally disabled people living into their 40s).

Nowhere in the entire thread does anyone call out the absolutely stunning ableism here displayed.

It's distressingly common to view disabled people as helpless dolls for real people to be compassionate at. Ballast-existence, useless eaters, unable to contribute to society. It's a very common view. Apparently, it's a common view among tumblr communists. Thanks, tumblr communists!

Alas, neolithic societies aren't known for their copious records, but nonetheless, there have been literate societies with less excess production than ours. So the next best thing: anyone consider the vikings to have lived cushy lives of luxury with enough food to go around and then some, basically immune to famine or flood or storm or war or any other disaster because of their incredibly effective fertiliser? No? Nobody? Good, me neither. So what did they say about disabled people?

Well, Havamal (this is not the best translation, but it's free) has an entire stanza on the topic: "The lame rides a horse, the handless is herdsman, The deaf in battle is bold; The blind man is better than one that is burned*, No good can come of a corpse."

*In context, burned on a funeral pyre. As in dead.

If you think that the fact that someone with a physical disability being able to live in a society proves that that society is able to support useless people who contribute nothing, then... wow.

Just wow.

...And here I was supposedly done with the SJ blogging.

There are people who will tell you to give up your dream, because it can't be profitable, because there's no future in it. They'll tell you to do something that puts food on the table, day after day, week after week, month after month, and they'll tell you to do something that gives you an employer who gets you insurance, an employer who matches your social security contributions and withholds the right amount of money for your taxes, and never mind how you feel.

There are people who will tell you to turn away. Not in so many words, but. There are people who will tell you not to take the safe job. That you'll regret it. That you'll never truly live. That whatever safety and security you might have won't matter. That you can make your own way. That you can choose to go off the rails. That you don't have to begin with elementary school, care about high school and get good grades, go to college, then get a Real Job at which you do boring and repetitive things but which pays well. You don't have to; that's certainly true. You can make your own choices. You can blaze your own trail. As a freelancer-- a writer or an artist or a sculptor, or one of those people who play music on streetcorners with their instrument cases open for cash. Or living on friends' couches, doing what you love at others' expense, following your vision. Or you could become a saint, sell all you have and give to the poor, and live homeless and pray for all the world. You can, in fact, become an anchorite, and live in one room, praying to God and making candles; you can still do that. It's not just something that was done in the past! It's not common, but it's perfectly doable! (Well, you may find practical obstacles in your way. For instance, you need to be independently wealthy to become an anchorite, as far as I can tell.) And you can absolutely put your foot down and refuse to ever do anything without a better reason than That's Just How We Do Things.

In a world as big as this one, I can't be the first to say this, but I haven't seen many (...any?) people who will tell you this: sometimes, you despair, and your mind gets slow and clogged with hopelessness and purposelessness, and you have all the time in the world to make all the art you could ever dream of and all you can do is despair. And sometimes, the first halfway interesting idea to come to you in months comes as you work your first day of a new job. And sometimes, you feel like you're doing something, like you're some good to yourself and to other people, like you have something tying you to the world outside your own head, and you remember that you have a body because it's been four hours since you had a chance to sit down. Sometimes, you see a tiny glimpse of a lot of people; what dresses do a hundred different women want? Or what sandwiches do ten different people want so much and in such a hurry that they call in advance to make sure they'll be ready? And sometimes, someone tells you what to do, and that's how you know you're doing the right thing. Sometimes, you don't have to figure everything out yourself. Sometimes, you don't have to reinvent the entire process from scratch.

Sometimes, you can save reinventing the wheel for when you get home and write a fictional country's tax code from scratch.

This is a thing, and not every job that isn't novel-writing or painting consists entirely of unbearably long shifts during which you dice your soul into tiny pieces and set it on fire as a sacrifice to your hateful and callous manager. I mean, I won't say that every job doesn't; I just want to say that some don't.

And that people have day jobs for reasons other than cowardice or lack of vision. Even for reasons other than pure pragmatism.

Also, work can be more fun than school.

Okay, the SJ intellectual Turing test cannot possibly end in a way that isn't interesting.

The Wordpress format makes the Deconstruction: Pern posts really hard to read in order. Or at least, I haven't figured out any way to do it easily. And the links to comments are at the top of each post, not the bottom, which is awkward. And there are no "previous" or "next" links.

So now you can read them in order! Because, by the way, they're worth reading if you like the books or hate the books or have mixed feelings about the books or vaguely recall the books. If that doesn't convince you, here is a quote from the DF decon: "When we last left F’lar of the Immense Ego and Darth Lessa, Lessa had just obtained her dragon companion, Ramoth, guaranteeing she would be the next Weyrwoman of F’lar’s Weyr, ensuring the two of them can continue to be forced to spend time together. They do have something in common, though – they both have some belief that they are better than everyone around them."

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Fics which need a beta before they're fit to show anyone, and for which attempts to get betas have not succeeded yet:
1. 23k Pern DFlight-era genderbend/characterswap (it's kind of both), for once not suffering from the 25k thing. I mentioned it already in this post requesting a beta for it.
2. LA: the Pern darkfic which suffers the 25k thing like whoa. Practically the poster child for the 25k thing, in fact. So bad. AU, partly OC-centric, partly Lessa-centric. Attempted to make the dragons actual characters. Uses my Pern timeline. Content note: offscreen CSA, offscreen aliens made them do it, character death. Has a problem with the thing I call frame. Also has a variety of other problems. Filled with illogical, badly-written intrigue.
3. Re-edit of TWML. Crossover and fusion of several different fandoms at once. Attempting to see if I can make a version that, unlike the posted version, doesn't suck. A lot longer and better-explained than the version currently on my AO3.

Fics in progress, close to being done, actively being thought about or worked on, moving forward right now, and having a substantial amount already written:
1. Another Norsefic. Weird worldbuilding. Focused on Ragnarok. Not part of an existing verse.

Fics in progress, but the progress is slower or more sporadic, and/or the fic is short or not anywhere close to being done:
1. JRverse Thrymskvida
2. The Deadfic
3. J&D AU sequel to Last Chance
4. J&D AU where Baron Praxis makes a really sensible choice at the beginning of Jak II that changes everything... but not as much as he would have preferred.
5. Pern AU that I will totally abandon soon, probably, I think.
6. Post-DQuest Pernfic using the timeline explicitly stated in DQ instead of the one that actually works. F'lar-centric crackfic.
7. SBTS. This is my... fifth attempt. Ugh. Scrapped everything I already had again.
8. Norsefic, somewhat more fantasy adventure fic than some of the other things on this list (except JR!Thrymskvida), Lokicentric.
9. An original project
10. An original project that, though not intended for children, is sort of like a children's story crossed with a horror story crossed with magic realism crossed with Discworld crossed with mainstream fiction crossed with Harry Potter.
11. A really awesome original project!
12. A sad, sometimes bleak, sometimes funny J&D AU set during Jak 3. Technically a first draft is done, but it's so awful I don't think I even want to show it to a beta yet.
13. A J&D AU that... is really interesting, but I'm not sure where I'm going with it yet. Set after what would have been Jak 3 if Jak 3 happened in this verse.
14. The Norsefic that was supposed to be short and easy, but wasn't.
15. An additional Norsefic.

There are some other projects I fully intend to get back to... eventually. Such as the drabble I owe shyrstyne and have owed shyrstyne for three years now. Though at this point, that fic may never materialize. And there are some more projects that I have been sort of toying with sometimes, and which might or might not ever be posted or anything, and are being worked on or not being worked on but aren't being taken seriously.

Some of the fics on the sporadically-in-progress list could probably benefit from being talked out with someone, I think.

I have run out of ways that I know of to solicit betas. So, who even knows when anything will be posted. The next thing will probably be something short.