The Slacktiverse

Open Thread: Writing

christhecynic — Sat, 25 May 2013 23:51:44 +0000

I’m still under the weather, let’s push the weekend post back a day. (Deadline for submissions to it similarly pushed back.)

Until then, writing.

Do you do it? What’s your style if you do, what type do you like to read if you don’t. Anything you’d like to do better? Questions, comments, requests for help? It’s an open thread, go wild.

-chris the cynic

Deconstruction Round Up, May 24th, 2013

christhecynic — Sat, 25 May 2013 01:42:06 +0000

(by the Slacktiverse and others; collected by chris the cynic)

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Ana Mardoll: Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings

Multiple Deconstructions:

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Erika M. and Will Wildman: Something Short and Snappy

Enders’ Game:First Post
- Ender’s Game, chapter five, in which Ender SHOWS THEM ALL and Will says ‘whatever’ a lot

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Fred Clark: Slacktivist

The Left Behind Series: First Post
- Throwing Chaim under the (hypothetical) bus

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RubyTea: Heathen Critique

Multiple Deconstructions:

THE SECRET ON ARARAT
- The Seven, They’ll Ski at Nothing

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InsertAuthorHere: Um… InsertAuthorHere

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:

Season 3 (ongoing)
Thoughts on Ponies (ongoing)

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Omskivar: Omskivar Reviews

Eragon: First Post

Eragon: Chapter 41

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Philip Sandifer: Philip Sandifer: Writer

Doctor Who: First Post

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Yamikuronue: Raven Wings

Multiple Deconstructions:

Bitten: First Post
- Human (chapter 2)

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Please comment or e-mail us if we’ve forgotten anybody or you have anyone to add. Or if any links are broken, or if you’re linked to and don’t want to be, or for more or less any reason really. There are fewer links than normal this week because last week’s was late so there’s been less time between the two posts.

Just this once, Rose, everybody lives.

Board Business, May 23th

christhecynic — Fri, 24 May 2013 00:11:19 +0000

(posted by chris the cynic)

Irregular Business

The problem with having me be the one to do the regularly scheduled posts is that I happen to be incredibly unreliable. This week I have an excuse though, I’ve been sick. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be all better by when it’s time to do the weekend post so do try to get submissions in on time.

Regular Business

Submission deadline for the weekend post is 20:00 EST Saturday. (Article submissions can be sent in any time.)

Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. The answer to that is always the same: You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.

The sections of the post are as follows:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.

Remember, this is since you last submitted to a weekend post, not since the last weekend post. For example, if the last time you submitted was a month ago, everything you wrote since then is fair game.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.

Deadlines

Please email all submissions to said group email address (SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com). The deadline this week is 20:00 EST.

Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular Weekend Post. But you’ll have to tell me they’re urgent or time sensitive because it’s liable to go right over my head if you don’t.

This can be used as an open thread, if you want.

This week in the Slacktiverse, May 20th, 2013

christhecynic — Mon, 20 May 2013 13:30:24 +0000

(posted and compiled by chris the cynic, written by members of The Slacktiverse)

Sorry it’s late

The Blogaround

As her garden progresses through the spring, Storiteller considers one of the garden’s major enemies – the weed. But rather than cursing it out, she describes how weeds are perfectly adapted to their ecological circumstances and gardeners can avoid creating that environment in A Weed By Any Other Name.

Ana Mardoll wrote:

Elementary: Becoming the Oppressor
Season 1 | Episode 3 “Child Predator”
Joan mentions that she “read all the articles over the years”, and provides information which reveals that she has followed the case closely (as opposed to just being briefly aware of it while it was a media sensation). And I think this is so important, because while many characters on the show (and a few of the viewers) assume that Joan is passively changing her career on a whim or to suit Sherlock, conversations like this reveal that she has had an interest in detective work and criminology long before she met Sherlock.

Twilight: Existence and Empathy
Yet a side-effect of stripping Edward and Bella and Jacob of the choice of leaving in order to create Perfect Security is the fact that their pairings seem motivated by persons and powers they have no control over. Imprinting may be for the imprinter’s “own good”, but that fact in no way diminishes the fact that it was imposed on them without their consent and they have no free will to refuse it. That’s kind of fucked up.

Fringe: Having Anti-Choice Cake (And Eating It Too)
I’m genre-savvy enough to understand that this plot was largely created in order to speed up the pregnancy so that New Baby can be used for plot points in a way that 8-Week Long Pregnancy couldn’t. I’m sure there will be a scene wherein Peter has to gaze lovingly at his infant son and make a tough decision or whatever heart-string-tugging bullshit the writers decide to wad up and throw at us. Whatever, I don’t care. My larger issue is with how this episode was a huge bundle of anti-choice cake being crammed down our gullets.

Narnia: Moving To Calormen
The thought occurs that if a god really is willing to work this damn hard to get us in position to sin, then we’re pretty much all screwed because I honestly can’t point to a place in the narrative where Eustace was given any semblance of choice or free will.

chris the cynic wrote:

It is by now well known that Star Wars movies are produced without a thought as to the previously established facts, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to be gained by looking at the stuff that was retconned into nonexistence. With that in mind I collected all of the things that the original trilogy says about the story that came before it and did my best to put it in order. The result was The prequels as they were described in the original Star Wars trilogy.

I told a spammer I have a donate button, described (with pictures) converting ordinary sunglasses to work with my corrective glasses via the cunning use of a paperclip and pliers, and made mention of those times the cops called on my professors to translate Latin for them.

I also finished off chapter 13 in Snarky Twilight (which is not to say that the chapter is done because I don’t think I ever did the start.) That installment has Bella getting continuity on Edward’s angst, Edward almost becoming a sympathetic character but then messing it all up, Bella sticking to the script for as long as she can bear to, a discussion of the connection between quick reflexes and controlling a truck more than half a century old, and stuff. Lots of stuff.

In Case You Missed This

Nothing submitted this week, but feel free to say stuff in the comments.

Things You Can Do

Nothing submitted this week, but feel free to say stuff in the comments.

–Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

Deconstruction Round Up, May 19th, 2013

christhecynic — Sun, 19 May 2013 17:53:48 +0000

(by the Slacktiverse and others; collected by chris the cynic)

Real life did indeed get in the way, hence the lateness. I’ll be aiming to get the weekend post in by the end of the day, so if anyone has a submission they didn’t send in, send it today.

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Ana Mardoll: Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings

Multiple Deconstructions:

The Chronicles of Narnia: First Post
- Moving To Calormen
Elementary: First Post
Fringe: First Post
Tropes and Characterization: (I’ve been ignoring this tag, which I shouldn’t have, I was going to post the entire backlog but there is too much, just take a look at the index.)
- No Place Like Home
Twilight: First Post
- Existence and Empathy

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Erika M. and Will Wildman: Something Short and Snappy

Book Club:
- Cat’s Cradle Book Club meeting, chapter 1-4
- Cat’s Cradle Chapters 5-8

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Fred Clark: Slacktivist

The Left Behind Series: First Post
- Steppin’ Out With My Baby

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Froborr: My Little Po-Mo

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: First Post
- All the ponies in this town are crazy! Do you know what time it is?! (Lesson Zero)
- Hello everypony! Did I miss anything? (Luna Eclipsed)

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RubyTea: Heathen Critique

Multiple Deconstructions:

THE SECRET ON ARARAT

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InsertAuthorHere: Um… InsertAuthorHere

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: (I’ve been doing a very bad job of keeping track of when this is updated and when it is not. Largely because it follows a different format. At some point I’ll get a system down, but not this week.)

Season 3 (ongoing)
Thoughts on Ponies (ongoing)

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Mouse: Mouse’s Musings

Left Behind: The Kids: First Post
- Warning! Ragedump ahead!
- Marjorie escapes but Janie doesn’t

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Philip Sandifer: Philip Sandifer: Writer (Formerly TARDIS Eruditorum: A Psychochronography in Blue, which is now a redirect.)

Doctor Who: First Post

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Yamikuronue: Raven Wings

Multiple Deconstructions:

Dogs and Goddesses: First Post
- Dogs and Goddesses Chapter 7 Part 2: In which this becomes a romance novel (Yes, this is a repeat, I appear to be having a problem with my links not taking.)
Bitten: First Post
- Bitten: Prologue

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Please comment or e-mail us if we’ve forgotten anybody or you have anyone to add. Or if any links are broken, or if you’re linked to and don’t want to be, or if I’ve inadvertently caused the end of the world, or for more or less any reason really.

Board Business, May 16th

christhecynic — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:52:30 +0000

(posted by chris the cynic)

Irregular Business

Due to real world commitments the schedule for the next few days may be a bit… fucky. If the deconstruction round up and the weekend post are posted late that is not a sign of the apocalypse. Be not alarmed. On the other hand, I said, “may,” which means, “may not,” as well. Everything could be on time. We’ll have to wait and see.

Regular Business

Submission deadline for the weekend post is 20:00 EST Saturday. (Article submissions can be sent in any time.)

The sections of the post are as follows:

The Blogaround

Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.

In Case You Missed This

Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.

Things You Can Do

Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.

Deadlines

Please email all submissions to said group email address (SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com). The deadline this week is 20:00 EST.

This can be used as an open thread, if you want.

Open Threads: Resurgam

christhecynic — Tue, 14 May 2013 18:53:00 +0000

(posted by chris the cynic)

Portland, Maine, for much of its early history, had a habit of being knocked down, burned down, knocked down then having the rubble burned down, and burned down then having the cinders knocked down. This habit led to things like shying away from kindling based structures in favor of brick (which doesn’t actually stop the buildings from burning down) and adopting “Resurgam” as its motto.

Resurgam is Latin for, “I shall rise again.” (Due to the ambiguous nature of Latin it can also mean something along the lines of, “were I to rise again,” but in the motto it’s future, not present subjunctive.)

When most things rise again they end up being different from what they were before the fall. The big TV at my grandparents’ house became a very nice table on which a working TV could be placed. These floppy disks rose again as a mathematical sculpture.

Please, share examples you know of of things rising again in new and different forms.

Reminder: the topic in an open thread is there to encourage discussion, not restrict it. Nothing is off topic in an open thread.

This week in the Slacktiverse, May 12th, 2013

christhecynic — Sun, 12 May 2013 15:50:43 +0000

(posted and compiled by chris the cynic, written by members of The Slacktiverse)

The Blogaround

Last week, Storiteller described how her garden – especially her seedlings – are actually doing much better than she expected in Growing in Hope. She has most of them transplanted now and none of them have died (yet), so her luck continues. This week, she reflects on the fact that although she never would have predicted it, she actually misses hard exercise. In You Don’t Know What You’ve Got Til Its Gone, she thinks about how pregnancy has kept her from finding the fulfillment that comes with that intensity. Although she doesn’t mention it in the post, she’s also realized how grateful she is that she can participate in hard exercise in normal circumstances, as many people cannot.

chris the cynic wrote:

This week I wrote a post that was working toward a grand unified theory of tonal changes in the Star Wars Expanded universe. I moved two Twilight related things, originally posted at Ana Mardoll’s, to the blog. The first was an angry version of Bella (not sure if the character is a male or female version of Bella) delivering an angry speech which, when combined with illustrations of what mental shield can do, made the army at the end of Breaking Dawn leave without a fight. The second was an installment of Snarky Twilight. It was one in which Edward, trying to skip to the script canon-Twilight had given him, tried to make the possibility of Bella’s death all about him and Snarky Bella was herself.

I also made a post in which I recommended people read the latest from Hyperbole and a Half. (That being Depression Part Two.) And in the recomendation I commented briefly on how depression is varied, the fact that I made a comment at Hyperbole and a Half, and what my favorite comment, of those few I read, is.

In Case You Missed This

All of these via Fred Clark:
- Rhode Island institutes marriage equality. This made it so all of New England, and 20% of the USA as a whole, have marriage equality as the law of the land.
- Delaware does the same.
- Maryland takes a big step toward offshore wind.
- Cape Wind wins billions in backing for offshore wind in Massachusetts.
- Grocery Stores that give you rides exist to help those who have difficulty gaining access to good foods.
- Greensburg, Kansas, is coming back (Greensburg being the town that was wiped out by a giant tornado. The survivors decided to rebuild better by making things as sustainable as possible)
- The HPV vaccine is working (in those places where it is used.)
- College Athlete Gives Up Final Event to Save Someone’s Life

Things You Can Do

kisekileia shares this “Petition regarding the fact that Hungary is basically no longer a democracy.” I know I shouldn’t have, but I’ve personally have lost track of the goings on in Hungary. This latest news, while not entirely unexpected, is disheartening

Petition to give student loans the same low interest rates that loans to banks get.

Petition to not give the main character from brave a makeover before letting her into the Disney Princess club.

–Co-authored by the Slacktiverse Community

Open Threads: Video Games

christhecynic — Sat, 11 May 2013 14:19:29 +0000

(posted by chris the cynic)

Do you like video games? Regardless of whether you like them in general, what, if anything, do you like about them? What, if anything, do you dislike about them?

Have you a favorite? A least favorite? An “I don’t rank things in a way that produces favorites but this is a list of games I really like/dislike”?

Are there games that you’d like to see made that don’t exist yet?

Two reminders today. First, if you have submissions of the blogaround do try to get them in by 20:00 (8PM) US Eastern time today. The email to send them to is SlacktiverseAuthors (at) gmail (dot) com.

Second, the topic in an open thread is there to encourage discussion, not restrict it. Nothing is off topic in an open thread.

Deconstruction Round Up, May 10th 2013

christhecynic — Sat, 11 May 2013 01:46:05 +0000

(by the Slacktiverse and others; collected by chris the cynic)

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Ana Mardoll: Ana Mardoll’s Ramblings
Multiple Deconstructions:

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Erika M. and Will Wildman: Something Short and Snappy

50 Shades of Grey: First Post
- 50 Shades Darker Chapter 15 brought to you by the brave Alex! (Actually from last week time but the link didn’t take then.)
- 50 Shades Darker Chapter 16 in which Erika gives up halfway through and tries a new approach.
Enders’ Game: First Post
- Ender’s Game, chapter four, in which Ender Wiggin becomes the blatant reader-fantasy-insert

—

Fred Clark: Slacktivist

The Left Behind Series: First Post
- Chaim is one of my Jewish characters

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Froborr: My Little Po-Mo

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: First Post
- Okey-dokey Loki (The Return of Harmony)

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RubyTea: Heathen Critique

Multiple Deconstructions:

THE SECRET ON ARARAT
- TSoA: Chapter 47: The Survivors

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Mouse: Mouse’s Musings

Left Behind: The Kids: First Post
- Seeing Shades of Grey

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Philip Sandifer: TARDIS Eruditorum: A Psychochronography in Blue

Doctor Who: First Post

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Yamikuronue: Raven Wings

Multiple Deconstructions:

Dogs and Goddesses: First Post
- Dogs and Goddesses Chapter 7 Part 2: In which this becomes a romance novel
Bitten: First Post
- This week was that first post, Introducing: Bitten, which is a heads up that the deconstruction will start (Tuesday) instead of a deconstruction post itself.

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Please comment or e-mail us if we’ve forgotten anybody or you have anyone to add. Or if any links are broken, or if you’re linked to and don’t want to be, or if [insert whimsical reason here], or for more or less any reason really.