to fight my artblock i decided to redraw some gerard p donelan comics as ds9. but once i started i could not stop....
so heres all deep space 9 of them. lol. again the poses and captions are lifted straight from his comics all i did was put space guys on there! please enjoy
Sex scene as character study is so good. What is your relationship to your body? What is your relationship to your partner? What lessons have you absorbed from the culture about yourself as a sexual being? How much do you have to trust someone before being comfortable with intimacy? What fears and insecurities come to the fore for you when you take your clothes off? It's so good.
How do they communicate? How do they expect others to communicate? How well do they understand their body and their own capacity for pleasure? What do they tend to do to make their partner feel comfortable? How comfortable are they showing emotion in front of others? How much insight do they have into what their own emotions mean and are connected to? What are they focused on during the encounter? How conscious are they of exchanges of power and vulnerability? very very very good
ten years ago as part of my creative writing degree we had a class on professional development where we learned how the publishing process works for different mediums and how to choose an agent and what the role of a publishing house is and back then, the advice was "self-publishing has its advantages but a traditional publisher will provide editorial support and market your book and if your book sells well enough they want to invest in your future" and now basically none of that is true anymore. books make it to shelves with noticeable errors and structural issues that could be addressed with one or two more rounds of developmental editing, authors are expected to do more and more of the marketing themselves to the point that they are expected to be social media influencers in their own right, and publishers appear to be prioritising flashy debut novels with huge advances they don't outsell, which means the author is less likely to get a follow-up deal.
Obviously a publisher is a business and a business needs to make money, but the idea used to be that you'd have a couple of very successful authors who bring in so much cash that they subsidise the new kid who is building a back catalogue of books that sell okay until they get name recognition and pay for themselves. I was told back then that a couple thousand pounds was very reasonable for a debut novel because you want to get royalties for the sales exceeding your advance and that way the publisher sees you as a profitable investment. The last couple of years I keep hearing about six figure book deals for debut (!) literary fiction (!) novels, what on earth?
I'm not saying that the publishing industry is uniquely awful or that it's worse than it's ever been or whatever, but especially in a time when reading and talking about books is trendy and there is so much money in books, it feels very, I don't know, symbolic? Prioritising flashy one-time projects over sustained and sustainable growth. Investing only enough resources to make your product fit for sale but not enough to make it good because people will buy it anyway. It's frustrating to me as a reader and as an aspiring writer and as a person existing in a capitalist system.
One of the tags referred to people thanking their editorial teams in acknowledgments, and I want to point out the growing prevalence of people thanking beta-readers and writing groups, both of which usually rely on a pre-existing community or relationship and, just as importantly, are unpaid.
My day job is as a freelance editor for nonfiction books, and I can safely say that if the publishing industry were operating as intended, I would either not have a job at all or be working for a specific press. Authors pay me directly to do the work that a press editor used to do as part of publication contracts. This is because so many presses have started outsourcing all their editorial work to either third-party contractors or, even worse, to genAI.
In short, venture capital has broken the publication industry the same way it's broken the retail, restaurant, and travel industries.
I didn't go into this side of it in my original post but YES! Fuck! I know this is a huge issue for translators too because they're being asked to do more work in less time for less money and I've heard rumblings about human translators being brought in only to essentially proofread work done by AI, which is so disrespectful to the sheer skill and artistic abilities of (literary) translation...
Anyway, I love editing. I think I love editing almost more than writing, and I'm pretty sure that I'm better at it. Last year I edited an academic article from 11k to 9k words for my supervisor and I felt like a god when I finished it, but when my supervisor asked if I'd thought about doing this professionally, I had to tell her that there's just not a viable career in editing anymore. Publishers used to employ! editors! Several different kinds of editors for different stages of the process! That used to be my dream job!
Editing is so essential to making a text good. It doesn't matter how talented or dedicated you are as a writer, you cannot achieve the level of quality by yourself that you could achieve by working with a skilled editor. That's normal! The lone genius who comes out of the cave with the perfect novel does not exist! The manuscript that gets sold to a publisher is supposed to be handed off to an editor who tells you to tighten up that plotline and reminds you that every day can't be Tuesday and sharpens your prose so your voice really shines. Skimping out on that part of the publication process takes money out of the hands of skilled professionals, leads to consumers (ew) receiving subpar products (ew!), and is such an injustice to the writers whose work can't reach its full potential (and the writers who won't get published because they can't afford to pay an editor out of pocket!).
It drives me up the wall. I hate reading a mediocre book and knowing that a skilled editor could have easily raised it from 3 stars to 4. We should all be way angrier about it, frankly.
they don't tell you this but when an event is advertised as "for all ages" they mean kids. they mean kids. if you, a grown-up, show up expecting to do the arts'n'crafts, you're the weirdo. even though they said "all ages."
great news everynyan, the event that inspired me to make this post in anticipation had an art'n'craft that WAS in fact for all ages, including grown-ups. (in fact it was mosaic-making from recycled glass, with the tools to cut pieces down to size yourself if needed, so it was decidedly for people of a certain age.)
I understand 100% where you're coming from and I have a rant on what the organizers probably meant by "all ages". This is coming from spending too many years running public festivals for anywhere from 100 to 20,000 people at every size of venue from school cafeteria to national convention center, though of course there are exceptions.
The organizers almost certainly really did intend that anyone of any age was welcome to participate in the activities. The problem, I have found, seems to come in 2 parts: the audience's socio-cultural expectations and how they respond to peer pressure (real or imagined), and the likelihood of who shows up at certain kinds of events depending on the regional demographics and how the event is advertised.
My rambling below the cut:
Take this with a grain of salt but I find it interesting and have spent a decade in arguments about it, so. The (US) audience for many hands-on / interactive events that appeal to both kids and adults, based on all the marketing data I have personally collected or paid tens of thousands of dollars for from third-party agencies, basically says that women ages 30-45 are driving almost all the social media views. Many of those women are trying to plan educational and fun excursions for their children ages 2-13.
The problem comes when you, the adult who is actually invited to participate in said activities, comes to an event with a lot of families with children ages 2-13. People with social graces will say: "I need to let the children enjoy this; it is uncomfortable if I take a spot from a child. Also if I am a man or otherwise have some caution I might be worried that as a solo adult surrounded by kids I will be seen as suspicious." So they just watch from a distance and then usually go home. Which to me sucks because there's often nothing inherent about the activity that makes it enjoyable only to kids.
But too many events don't seem to be at the stage of understanding you need to signal in 1) the advertising and 2) the actual physical setup that both adults and kids are welcome, or need separate stations, or hours that are for certain age groups. I think this is why a lot of museums started doing adult nights, especially science museums. If you ever go to the Exploratorium in San Francisco, this will be abundantly clear: the museum is genuinely designed to be fascinating to anyone from a preschooler to a postdoc but unless there's space to allow for all and curated exhibit design with big and small tables, for example, it triggers the mental block of "let the kids have this".
Anyway I spent a decade of my life arguing two things:
Built the event so that both kids and adults have separate and mixed space and train the activity leaders how to welcome and engage the whole spectrum of participants.
Recognize that sometimes you actually do need to provide a separate interaction time or space to make the adults feel welcome, especially childless adults, or at least signage to make sure everyone understands that no, it's actually the point.
I usually work on events that have "low threshold, high ceiling" activities so your mileage may vary. (Meaning: anyone can try doing the thing, even at a very basic or shallow level; the ones who want to go deep focus or discussion about what's behind the activity will find the presenters are VERY capable of talking details or having a back-and-forth about it all day.)
I had a really fun time running an event at a big public television station's festival where just as many adults without kids accompanying them did the activity as kids did, and stayed for a full hour or more as it really was pure fun, and also sensory-friendly compared to much of the other activities. I also wore myself out trying to argue with co-event organizers over the years that hands-on stuff really does appeal to everybody BUT sit-down performances and lectures usually really do have age categories, and it can be a big waste of money to try to combine the two in one mega-event if you don't have ticket revenue or reservations to judge interest by in advance.
That said, I definitely find more events run by neurodivergent people or audiences try harder to be welcoming – especially if the presenters get to engage in their special interests with all kinds of people.
I could write an essay on online or hybrid event design as well, featuring such sections as "you need to ASSIGN SOMEONE TO TELL THE ONLINE PEOPLE WTF IS HAPPENING AND MAKE SURE THEY CAN SEE/HEAR" and "people's attention spans rarely exceed one hour, and even that is a lot when online". Gretchen McCulloch did a really fabulous blog post series during the pandemic about taking LingCon online only and what they learned about event design. If you enjoy gatherings as much as I do, I also highly recommend Priya Parker's book The Art of Gathering because she basically point blank says what vibes and outcomes are you trying to achieve, does the event model you believe you need actually achieve those things (whether it's a baby shower or a happy hour or a conference), and what do the attendees actually want that would make them happy to be part of it.
Is this about how ppl born in the late 20th century have a unique and fluid experience of navigating barriers to information access and its our responsibility to teach the younger folks how to tinker with technology to avoid being spoonfed everything we experience in order to have critical skills that keep us informed, autonomous, and able to hold power despite looming threats of authoritarianism or..........???
I haven’t read this essay in… twelve years? I think? But someone (ETA: that someone was @whetherwoman who deserves the credit) linked it today and rereading it was a) a treat and b) honestly really helpful. If you, like me, want to write smut but often find it difficult, this essay may help a LOT.
Reblogging this as I periodically do because it’s still relevant (especially with so many new writers coming into fandom spaces who are SO ENTHUSIASTIC but maybe need some pointers?) and because I myself need the reminder. Wherever you are, Res, I hope you’re doing great.
It's part of a package called the KIDS Act, filled with digital ID and age verification and censorship!
MAKE THOSE PHONES RING!! CALL YOUR HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES ALL WEEK
202-224-3121
i HIGHLY encourage everyone to read the bills in the KIDS Act, because you will be doing more than 95% of people who read and introduce these bills
Crucially, this is being led by a lot of Democrats. This is not just Republicans sneaking bullshit in while they have the power to simply not listen to anyone; your democratic representatives will continue to co-sponsor and speak in support of this unless they know you, their voters, do not want them to.
today's reason I fucking love the open source community: Ageless Linux, a brand new Debian-based operating system specifically designed to break the law by giving children access to computers that explicitly refuse to track their age.
As of June 29, 2026 the law discussed here is a recently passed California state law (AB 1043) that requires age validation before using a computer connected to the internet. This is expected to happen at the operating system level, when you login to Windows, MacOS, Linux, etc.
Ageless Linux intends to force the issue before the California state supreme court, then ultimately (probably) the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). It's a stupid, dangerous law, voted into place by legislators who either don't understand the core issue OR knowingly voted for it because they're assholes.
California is an influential state in the US. Many laws & regulations passed there eventually trickle out to most states. That's why it's worrisome to see this kind of thing rammed through, and why it's important to fight it.
Also, it doesn't matter if you use Linux or not. Or whether you live in California or not. Visit their site, read the text, learn what's going on with access to computing in this hellscape timeline.
rewatched "getting married in buffalo jump" and it was much clearer to me on second viewing, because it's a great little story that just has slightly muddy pacing that rewards a rewatch!
anyway, annie and sophie sweetly domming alex is absolutely. a thing that needs to exist now. two very self-assured women who adore their strong, soft taciturn guy and said anxious, shy horse man who doesn't think he deserves nice things.....
me like "I'M CONNECTING THE DOTS!!!!" on this poly threesome about to blossom post-the-credits
we've got the fact that annie goes skinny dipping with both alex and annie on separate occasions (kinda suggested with the latter, but we do see her nude swimming and we are told they went swimming together and their hair is wet afterwards):
obviously we've got the fact that alex and annie have a child of course, so the three of them are very connected through the kid to begin with/are all very up for that
we've got annie and sophie casually talking about how hot alex is with one another
and then the whole... thing when annie and sophie first meet and annie a. becomes great friends with sophie subsequently and almost immediately, and b. subjectively seems like she really wants to make a move on her...
and then this whole bit of "everyone's Looking at one another while sophie plays footsie under the table and mostly alex is just very smiley and bashful but annie and sophie... oh they are Planning"
and just generally the way annie invites sophie into her life, not because of alex, but because she likes her very very much and they form a whole relationship independently of whatever either of them has/had going on with alex, whom they both clearly have deep feelings for as well (although they're also both very pragmatic women about the whole thing)
but yeah, that alex would expect to find sophie with annie, and that they clearly spend a lot of time together just the two of them doing similar things to what we've seen sophie and alex do....
the dots...............................................
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