ekaterinn | Reading

Fostering a teen is a challenge at the best of times. The end of civilization is not the best of times.

The Memoirs of a Survivor by Doris Lessing

james_davis_nicoll

I got an email from Riotminds providing me with a free preview of their upcoming Wicked Dew - Victorian Horror RPG. What caught my eye is that it seems to be entirely online. I've asked if there's a downloadable rulebook I overlooked, but I can see why a company might adopt a purely online approach.

[Update]

There will be a printed book.

runpunkrun

So I posted my Star Trek fic: Maybe He's Born With It (Maybe It's GlaxosEpsilonYor)!!

Going by file dates I started that one in 2020, so compared to all my other wips, it was relatively new. It took a lot of writing to finish because when I started it was really just a couple of paragraphs and then five handwritten pages. I quickly had a first draft, but it needed a lot of editing to connect the themes and refine Jim's voice. It's at the very start of his career as a captain and he's still a hot bro-y mess, and even though I found myself resisting his self-centeredness, I needed his actions to reflect that selfishness, and I think I hit a good balance of bro and personal growth. He can be taught! Spock, of course, is perfect. No notes.

Next up in my endless list of neglected WIPs: It should be my Pinto fic—which, as I recall, is all but done except for the last lines, fuck you, last lines—but instead, it's the G-rated Stargate Atlantis

kink_bingo non-sexual knifeplay fic about an extinct Satedan fruit. I gotta be me.

Looks like I last opened this in 2011 and it's basically complete. Let's gooooo.

rydra_wong

Mostly to create some space in my head. But holy shit, Minnesotans, you are extraordinary and we see you. Across the fucking ocean, we see you.

( Cut for US politics, violence )

How To Help If You Are Outside Minnesota by Naomi Kritzer

james_davis_nicoll

Su Lin dutifully accepts a social obligation, only to find herself embroiled in another murder and further colonial machinations.

The Angsana Tree Mystery (Crown Colony, volume 8) by Ovidia Yu

james_davis_nicoll

DAVOS, SWITZERLAND – Following his poorly-received and rambling address at the World Economic Forum, U.S. President Donald Trump angrily demanded that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney personally give him the standing ovation he earned for his speech yesterday.

james_davis_nicoll

Canada denied spot on the Bored of Peace.

This is roughly on par with being denied a lifetime supply of dogshit popsicles.

runpunkrun

Photograph of a tray of eye shadows in a rainbow of colors, text: Maybe He's Born With It (Maybe It's GlaxosEpsilonYor), by Punk.

Author: Punk
Fandom: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series
Pairing: Kirk & Spock friendship
Rating: Teen
Content notes: No standard notes apply.

Size: 1,600 words

Summary: It's maybe the first real conversation they've had where one of them isn't accusing the other of academic misconduct or not loving his mom.

Read it on the AO3 or here »

( Maybe He's Born With It (Maybe It's GlaxosEpsilonYor) )

A/N: Thanks to

garryowen for support and beta. Good to have you back, dog.

Reblog on Tumblr
Email | The Underground | AO3

rachelmanija

A teenage boy, Ambrose, wakes up on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there. OS, the AI programmed with his mother's voice, reminds him that he's on a mission to rescue his sister, who went to Titan two years ago and sent out a distress call. And also, he has a surprise companion on a journey he thought would be solo: Kodiak, a teenage boy from the rival nation, who is ensconced in his own quarters and refuses to come out.

Ambrose, who is a typical teenager in lots of ways apart from being a genius and an astronaut, manages to coax Kodiak out and immediately starts thinking lustful thoughts about him. Kodiak, whose country is much more austere and militarized than Ambrose's, very gradually warms up to him.

And then what I thought was going to be a slow-burn gay YA romance in a science fiction setting takes a huge left turn. To be fair, it does still centrally involve a gay YA romance. But the science fiction aspect isn't just there as a cool background. It's actually a YA science fiction novel that has a romance along with a plot that goes in multiple unexpected directions, and is very moving in a way that's only possible because of the science fiction elements.

If you're a stickler for hard science fiction in which everything is definitely possible/likely, this probably has at least one too many "I don't think that's likely to work that way" moments for you. But if you'd like to read a fun and touching science fiction adventure-romance that will probably surprise you at least once, just read the book without knowing anything more.

( Spoilers! )

james_davis_nicoll

An unhappily married man's quest for the truth leads into a past almost everyone has forgotten.

The Iowa Baseball Confederacy by W. P. Kinsella

twistedchick

I think FOTUS is trying to get Greenland in order to impress his dead father. Where's a shrink when the country needs one?

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Dead Air Bundle presents English-language ebooks for Dead Air: Seasons, the post-apocalyptic tabletop roleplaying game from Italian publisher The World Anvil Publishing about a Blighted world forever changed.

Bundle of Holding: Dead Air: Seasons

james_davis_nicoll

Should we attempt to bring older works into the modern age?

Adventures in the Public Domain: On Updating Out-of-Copyright Works

rydra_wong

Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders. They live there. It is their country.

They are legally Danish citzens. Greenland is largely self-governing, with the possibility of becoming independent if they choose to.

Denmark can't "sell" them or their country because Denmark does not own them.

And after a number of centuries and some debate, a general consensus was arrived at that selling people is not ethically acceptable, you know?

Even if they wanted to, Denmark can't "sell" Trump Greenland any more than the UK could sell him Scotland.

Also N.B. 85-90% of the Greenlanders are Inuit.

I am very certain that this is absolutely about thinking that Native people don't really count as citizens and they don't really own their land; it is Terra Nullius, and they can be sold off in a deal between the "real" nations of Denmark and the US.

(Or their land can be sold out from under them and they can just be forced elsewhere, which I'm sure Trump would be just fine with.)

If the US wanted to try to ethically acquire Greenland, it could talk to the government of Greenland and offer them a great deal with significant benefits if they wanted to become independent and then have a free association deal with the US.

Or rather, it could have, maybe, because now the Greenlanders are fucking pissed off and scared over the threats and offers to buy them, and if they have to choose between the US and Denmark they are unambiguously choosing Denmark:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgx8w4pgk0o
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/14/us-invasion-threat-greenland-trump-denmark

james_davis_nicoll

I read the press release and have no idea what this imprint will publish.

rydra_wong

A post by Naomi Kritzer:

https://naomikritzer.com/2026/01/21/how-to-help-if-you-are-outside-minnesota/

This also has advice on how to start preparing for if and when this shit comes to your home state.

(If you are in Minnesota: https://naomikritzer.com/2026/01/19/how-to-help-twin-cities-residents/ )

james_davis_nicoll

Nanao must chose between staying with her abusive family or accepting the offer of marriage from handsome, wealthy, sincerely considerate Yako. A dilemma for the ages!

The Ayakashi Hunter’s Tainted Bride, volume 1 by Midori Yuma & Mamenosuke Fujimaru