Gilt edges not pictured, largely because I couldn't wrangle a photo setup for them.
Tags:
The penultimate update on ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
periru3 and my vid album Jagged Little Slayer, a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alanis Morissette. Here are our most recent two:
periru3 and my vid album Jagged Little Slayer, a mashup of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Alanis Morissette. Here are our most recent two:3/5. Another novella in this fantasy series about the scholar who has a demon in his head. This one about a misadventure with teens in tow, and how families grow and change, and young people starting to find their way.
Pleasant, but I continue to think that there is a tidiness to these books that keeps me from really liking them. It’s not just the knowledge that everything will work out in the end, which it generally does, but occasionally not. I think it’s that she’s set up this theological system to be a bit . . . I don’t know. Categorical? Hogwarts house-y? Overly interventionist? IDK, these books feel terminally undangerous in the midst of dangerous things happening. Angsty teens figure out their life plans in 30,000 words or less. Everyone has a salutary lesson. Go home. I’m not expressing it well. Whatever it is, I think it emanates from the theology, and it renders these books just a little bit too neat, too easy.
Pleasant, but I continue to think that there is a tidiness to these books that keeps me from really liking them. It’s not just the knowledge that everything will work out in the end, which it generally does, but occasionally not. I think it’s that she’s set up this theological system to be a bit . . . I don’t know. Categorical? Hogwarts house-y? Overly interventionist? IDK, these books feel terminally undangerous in the midst of dangerous things happening. Angsty teens figure out their life plans in 30,000 words or less. Everyone has a salutary lesson. Go home. I’m not expressing it well. Whatever it is, I think it emanates from the theology, and it renders these books just a little bit too neat, too easy.
Tags:
Two-ply ramie handspun. I still have to BOIL it with soda ash to set the twist, but this will be going to
ilyena_sylph. ♥Tags:
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otw_news_feed Oct. 5th, 2025 07:47 am)
otw_news_feed Oct. 5th, 2025 07:47 am)I. UPDATES TO AO3 COLLECTIONS
In late September, Accessibility, Design & Technology updated AO3’s collections feature by introducing collections tags—allowing more granular filtering and browsing between collections. This update also generally improved collection performance, introduced the ability to mark collections as “Multifandom”, and added Subcollections to the Collections filtering page.
For more details on recent AO3 releases and code changes, check out the most recent release notes.
II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
Besides updates to Collections, AO3 committees also continued work in a variety of areas.
Open Doors finished importing My Mongoose, a The Sentinel ezine archive, and announced two new import projects: Faerie: Tolkien Fanfiction and Forging Ghost, a Spike/Angel archive.
Tag Wrangling continued their work on creating new “No Fandom” canonical tags and announced another batch of tags in mid-September. On the @ao3org Tumblr, Tag Wrangling also announced changes to Critical Role fandom tags in light of the upcoming Campaign 4. They hope these changes will help users in finding and filtering for the works they want to see.
In August, Policy & Abuse received 3,863 tickets, while Support received 4,319 tickets—the current record for the most tickets either committee has received in one month. Tag Wrangling wrangled over 579,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per wrangling volunteer.
From mid-July to mid-September, User Response Translation helped Support and Policy & Abuse with 38 translation requests.
III. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Fanlore’s Stub September editing challenge was a big success! Thank you to everyone who took part. For October, Fanlore is currently running a book-themed month. Check out the Help page for how to take part and claim a book-themed badge!
TWC’s Transformative Works and Cultures has released issue No. 46, a general issue! It includes the launch of a new special section, New Currents. This section collects articles on new topics or approaches at a smaller scale than a special issue. In this issue, New Currents focuses on how fans and fan studies scholars engage with AI as a tool for transformative engagement with fannish texts.
In September, Legal responded to a number of user queries; they also joined allies in filing an amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in the case of Cox Communications v. Sony Music Entertainment. The case deals with when internet service providers can be held responsible for the actions of their users.
Legal’s brief discussed the importance of internet access as a practical necessity of daily life and argued that holding service providers liable for users’ copyright infringement based only on accusations of infringement, rather than actual proof of infringement, would threaten innovation and creativity by creating an incentive for service providers to deny service to creators without requiring evidence or providing due process. There is no date set yet for when the case will be argued before the Supreme Court.
IV. GOVERNANCE
Elections closed out the 2025 election—congratulations to the OTW’s new Board Directors: Elizabeth Wiltshire and Harlan Lieberman-Berg!
In preparation for October’s membership drive, Development & Membership has been organizing new donation gifts, Finance has been compiling the pre-drive 2025 budget update, and Communications and Translation have prepared the associated news posts.
Board coordinated with Communication’s Con Outreach division to attend EagleCon in Los Angeles, USA, and received the Lemonade award on the OTW’s behalf. Elsewhere, the Board Assistants Team (BAT) continued work on OTW website updates, prepared for the quarterly Board meeting, and completed a report on non-profit training.
Organizational Culture Roadmap, in conjunction with BAT, Board, and Volunteers & Recruiting, continued work on the cross-committee review of the OTW’s Code of Conduct. A survey was sent out to all volunteers soliciting their feedback for potential Code of Conduct updates.
V. OUR VOLUNTEERS
This month, Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for 3 committees: Fanlore, TWC, and Tag Wrangling.
From August 21 to September 24, Volunteers & Recruiting received 171 new requests and completed 174, leaving them with 46 open requests. As of September 24, 2025, the OTW has 991 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New BAT Volunteers: Cait B, Deimos Crow, MelMel, MustardPot, and Sullie Tosho (BAT Volunteers)
New Communications Volunteers: 2 Chair Assistants
New Development & Membership Volunteers: Kae Coolen, Maddie64, and Mako (Graphic Designers); Danielle G., jennybug, LizLeaf, and 2 other Development & Membership Volunteers
New Open Doors Volunteers: AuroraT, Kayla G, and vinnawis (Chair Assistants); and Julie Bozza (Senior FSHP Volunteer)
New Strategic Planning Volunteers: Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Cybersecurity Delegate)
New Systems Volunteers: E.V. Moebius (Systems Volunteer)
New TWC Volunteers: 1 Review Editor
Departing Committee Chairs/Leads: 1 Board Assistants Team Chair
Departing AO3 Documentation Volunteers: 1 Editor
Departing BAT Volunteers: Harlan Lieberman-Berg (Cybersecurity Delegate)
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 1 News Post Moderator
Departing Fanlore Volunteers: 1 Policy & Admin Volunteer
Departing Open Doors Volunteers: Julie Bozza (Chair Assistant) and 1 Import Assistant
Departing Strategic Planning Volunteers: 1 Strategic Planning Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: SlantedKnitting (Support Volunteer)
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: Mayrin, Yuechiang Luo, and 7 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Translation Volunteers: 1 Translation Volunteer Manager and 3 Translators
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
*dusts off journal* I've been meaning to post updates for a while, but of course never got around to it.
Anyway, CB had a stroke while we were on a family vacation in Paris. He is doing well, all things considered--the damage seems limited to a slight droop in his mouth and double vision--but he's been in the hospital for about a week now. My parents are with me, and we are trying to figure out his care with limited access to his doctors (visiting hours are limited, and they often make the rounds outside visiting hours). We have a translator, though it's our tour guide who obviously doesn't have that much knowledge about medical terminology. We have some print outs of test results in French, but we're having difficulty getting access to actual medical records, since they usually are put together on patient discharge.
Does anyone have experience with internationally transferring patients and/or flying with medical escorts or on a plane with medical equipment? We obviously don't want to move him if it will endanger him in any way, but we would also like for him to begin treatment back at home as soon as it is safe for him to go back.
Anyway, CB had a stroke while we were on a family vacation in Paris. He is doing well, all things considered--the damage seems limited to a slight droop in his mouth and double vision--but he's been in the hospital for about a week now. My parents are with me, and we are trying to figure out his care with limited access to his doctors (visiting hours are limited, and they often make the rounds outside visiting hours). We have a translator, though it's our tour guide who obviously doesn't have that much knowledge about medical terminology. We have some print outs of test results in French, but we're having difficulty getting access to actual medical records, since they usually are put together on patient discharge.
Does anyone have experience with internationally transferring patients and/or flying with medical escorts or on a plane with medical equipment? We obviously don't want to move him if it will endanger him in any way, but we would also like for him to begin treatment back at home as soon as it is safe for him to go back.
Somehow, I missed that William Finn passed on April 7, 2025, until I found out from an AO3 comment.
His work regarding death, loss, and grief is extensive; this is my favorite.
And if that made you cry, let this one, sung by the man himself, make you laugh.
May his memory be a blessing.
His work regarding death, loss, and grief is extensive; this is my favorite.
And if that made you cry, let this one, sung by the man himself, make you laugh.
May his memory be a blessing.
Lady Hotspur
3/5. What if Henry IV (loosely) but make it epic fantasy and make most of the major players women, and make most of those women queer.
Yes, there is a prequel book that I did not read, because I do what I want. This would probably be richer if you read in publication order, but it’s one of those situations where the prior book is set several generations before, so, you know.
Anyway, yes, the premise sounds great, and large portions of this book are wonderful. This manages to feel Shakespearean, and I don’t mean that it feels tragic (though it has that mode). It’s bawdy and political and deeply concerned with how history turns upon character, and how people stand or fall on their flaws. It also has a tremendous sense of the numinous and, getting somewhat less Shakespearean here but also not in another realm or anything, a wonderful touch with multiple shades of queerness and how that functions or doesn’t in monarchist systems.
However, while I’ve read books that were too long, I can’t remember the last time I read one that was at least a hundred thousand words too long. Phew. That is truly impressive bloat. I would be rating this higher if it were like 40% shorter (which would still make it a damn long book, to be clear). I lost patience with this multiple times. I always came back and found something to enjoy again, but man.
Read if you really like queer lady knights, women running the world, that Shakespeare feeling, and a book that feels as if it is tremendously slow even as many things are happening.
Content notes: Murder, war, references to child abuse, miscarriage, cancer.
3/5. What if Henry IV (loosely) but make it epic fantasy and make most of the major players women, and make most of those women queer.
Yes, there is a prequel book that I did not read, because I do what I want. This would probably be richer if you read in publication order, but it’s one of those situations where the prior book is set several generations before, so, you know.
Anyway, yes, the premise sounds great, and large portions of this book are wonderful. This manages to feel Shakespearean, and I don’t mean that it feels tragic (though it has that mode). It’s bawdy and political and deeply concerned with how history turns upon character, and how people stand or fall on their flaws. It also has a tremendous sense of the numinous and, getting somewhat less Shakespearean here but also not in another realm or anything, a wonderful touch with multiple shades of queerness and how that functions or doesn’t in monarchist systems.
However, while I’ve read books that were too long, I can’t remember the last time I read one that was at least a hundred thousand words too long. Phew. That is truly impressive bloat. I would be rating this higher if it were like 40% shorter (which would still make it a damn long book, to be clear). I lost patience with this multiple times. I always came back and found something to enjoy again, but man.
Read if you really like queer lady knights, women running the world, that Shakespeare feeling, and a book that feels as if it is tremendously slow even as many things are happening.
Content notes: Murder, war, references to child abuse, miscarriage, cancer.
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fancake's theme for October is Uncommon Settings! These are places you don't often see represented in fanworks, either in a specific fandom or fandom in general. They could be concrete locations like the moon or your hometown, or more nebulous areas like Slack or the underworld.If you're a font nerd like I am, you might be interested to know this font is called Cubao and is inspired by the signboards hung on jeepneys, SUVs, buses, and other transport vehicles within and outside the Metro Manila in the Philippines. I picked it because it looked awesome, only afterward learning that it also represents an uncommon fannish setting.
Also, also, I don't know if this'll work for you, but I accidentally discovered if I stare at this image and kind of Magic Eye it (stare through it) the moon appears to jiggle around inside its circle of text, like a hologram. Spooky.
If you have any questions about this theme, or the comm, or fonts, come talk to me!
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(yuletide_admin_feed Oct. 4th, 2025 02:28 pm)
yuletide_admin_feed Oct. 4th, 2025 02:28 pm)There's a new post up on the Yuletide Admin comm regarding
Nominations Queries Post 3. Please note that there may
have been a delay between that post and this crosspost.
You can go through to DW to check the details:
Dreamwidth Post
If you have follow-up questions, they can be asked in the DW comment section using a DW login, OpenID with another login, or a signed anonymous comment.
You can go through to DW to check the details:
Dreamwidth Post
If you have follow-up questions, they can be asked in the DW comment section using a DW login, OpenID with another login, or a signed anonymous comment.
About the only "life hack" of any sort I can reasonably advise: save those liquid medicine measuring cups. They're amazing for cooking and baking. A total of 3 teaspoons of this and that? Easily tossed in. A tablespoon of a liquid? Measure it out and then set the little cup down onto a flat surface. They're astonishingly handy to the point I'm routinely pleased at them.
There may well be a nicely polished, stainless steel version of these little cups at a restaurant supply store somewhere, or well-crafted ceramic equivalents, but neither of those also give me the rewarding feeling of having found a new use for an old object.
There may well be a nicely polished, stainless steel version of these little cups at a restaurant supply store somewhere, or well-crafted ceramic equivalents, but neither of those also give me the rewarding feeling of having found a new use for an old object.
Here is my series (in progress) for Kinktober 2025. Every day will be at least one limerick, with some verse cycles when I get too inspired to constrain myself to one at a go.
Thus far, I am leaning in the Obi-Wan/Anakin + Padmé on bass direction. There may be other guest stars. We'll see! Each day is posted separately for tagging purposes.
The prompt list I am using is here. Put in a plug for your favorite and we'll see what I can manage!
Thus far, I am leaning in the Obi-Wan/Anakin + Padmé on bass direction. There may be other guest stars. We'll see! Each day is posted separately for tagging purposes.
The prompt list I am using is here. Put in a plug for your favorite and we'll see what I can manage!
Tags:
Genre Grapevine: Book Club Scams Are a Warning of Emerging AI Super-Scams [Jason Sanford - nota bene, I've been the target of such scams but have not fact-checked Sanford's specific details]
I'm sad that people are stuck in positions so desperate that they fall for this. I hope people get warned about this. I've gotten a couple of these and gotten asked about one that involved a scammer that cited that I was working with them (I was not, lol).
That said, I'm almost positive I've seen accounts of similarly structured scams from a time before modern mass telecommunications, when now you can fake up a bunch of "people" to convince greedy/hopeful/desperate marks that they've stumbled on some Good Thing and the marks can't (easily) verify those "people." You can do this in print with ~testimonials, but not at scale and not in realtime in this manner.
I'm not saying AI isn't a problem; I'm saying that if people weren't forced to desperation (or straight-up greedy), the incentive structure that enables the AI deployment to be profitable (so to speak) with this target ~audience would not be as successful. Which is perhaps splitting hairs and is the point at which I expect to be flamed off my own DW.
Very simplified but: Anytime you create an incentive A, you create a secondary incentive A' for bad actors to exploit the system to access A.
Hilarious terribad example of this: I was contacted for a blurb/etc for what sounded like an extremely unoriginal sexploitation "trans woman" sci-fi book (you know, sexbot cyberpunk sleazy noir but with a trans angle). That's not all that surprising and it's theoretically possible the book exists and was written by some human, or it exists but was written by some LLM, whatever. That's not the incentive. (For that matter, I'm not in a position to criticize a sci-fi book artistically on sleaziness grounds, please! I have published books full of genocide, rape, incest and other objectionable material. I'm a trash panda aesthetically.)
No: what was interesting from a scammer vs. mark arms race evolution perspective was that this author claimed to be (approximately, I'm writing this from memory) a trans woman in ~South Asia who was inspired by having done ~sex work. This is a clever way to appeal both to "woke" crowds and A Certain Sleazy Crowd! For ~privacy/safety reasons she could not accept interview/live call requests. This was accompanied by a SUPER fake-looking (likely AI-generated or badly Photoshopped, take your pick) Hot Asian Chick headshot.
So yes, absolutely as a trans person I know that safety/privacy are hideously important. But once incentive A exists, someone has incentive A' to piggyback on A, which is what looked like was happening here. I just blocked the email address and moved on. At this point, I've set up my email to auto-delete any email that mentions "Goodreads" or "Amazon", unless they're on a SMALL whitelist, among other countermeasures. Life is too short and I have ramie to spin!
I said cynically totelophase that I suspected that the "actual" "author" was some middle-aged white dude scammer sitting in North Dakota or, more tragically and pessimistically, some human trafficking scam farm outside the US.
I assume this is also where the fake-looking-ness is partly to screen out people who are moderately suspicious/vigilant/smart enough to avoid weird, scammy emails and/or ask around for more information, and to screen for people who are sufficiently desperate, greedy, or naive (cf. shitty obvious "tells" in phishing scams). But I'm out of field so I could be wrong.
Regardless: it's not that legislative or technological protections aren't important or necessary or desirable, it's that the underlying human problem of the incentives vs. secondary incentives is inherently intractable. :(
NOTE: I'm screening comments from non-[access] and may be scarce/slow because I'm recovering from a health thing. Thanks.
I'm sad that people are stuck in positions so desperate that they fall for this. I hope people get warned about this. I've gotten a couple of these and gotten asked about one that involved a scammer that cited that I was working with them (I was not, lol).
That said, I'm almost positive I've seen accounts of similarly structured scams from a time before modern mass telecommunications, when now you can fake up a bunch of "people" to convince greedy/hopeful/desperate marks that they've stumbled on some Good Thing and the marks can't (easily) verify those "people." You can do this in print with ~testimonials, but not at scale and not in realtime in this manner.
I'm not saying AI isn't a problem; I'm saying that if people weren't forced to desperation (or straight-up greedy), the incentive structure that enables the AI deployment to be profitable (so to speak) with this target ~audience would not be as successful. Which is perhaps splitting hairs and is the point at which I expect to be flamed off my own DW.
Very simplified but: Anytime you create an incentive A, you create a secondary incentive A' for bad actors to exploit the system to access A.
Hilarious terribad example of this: I was contacted for a blurb/etc for what sounded like an extremely unoriginal sexploitation "trans woman" sci-fi book (you know, sexbot cyberpunk sleazy noir but with a trans angle). That's not all that surprising and it's theoretically possible the book exists and was written by some human, or it exists but was written by some LLM, whatever. That's not the incentive. (For that matter, I'm not in a position to criticize a sci-fi book artistically on sleaziness grounds, please! I have published books full of genocide, rape, incest and other objectionable material. I'm a trash panda aesthetically.)
No: what was interesting from a scammer vs. mark arms race evolution perspective was that this author claimed to be (approximately, I'm writing this from memory) a trans woman in ~South Asia who was inspired by having done ~sex work. This is a clever way to appeal both to "woke" crowds and A Certain Sleazy Crowd! For ~privacy/safety reasons she could not accept interview/live call requests. This was accompanied by a SUPER fake-looking (likely AI-generated or badly Photoshopped, take your pick) Hot Asian Chick headshot.
So yes, absolutely as a trans person I know that safety/privacy are hideously important. But once incentive A exists, someone has incentive A' to piggyback on A, which is what looked like was happening here. I just blocked the email address and moved on. At this point, I've set up my email to auto-delete any email that mentions "Goodreads" or "Amazon", unless they're on a SMALL whitelist, among other countermeasures. Life is too short and I have ramie to spin!
I said cynically to
telophase that I suspected that the "actual" "author" was some middle-aged white dude scammer sitting in North Dakota or, more tragically and pessimistically, some human trafficking scam farm outside the US.I assume this is also where the fake-looking-ness is partly to screen out people who are moderately suspicious/vigilant/smart enough to avoid weird, scammy emails and/or ask around for more information, and to screen for people who are sufficiently desperate, greedy, or naive (cf. shitty obvious "tells" in phishing scams). But I'm out of field so I could be wrong.
Regardless: it's not that legislative or technological protections aren't important or necessary or desirable, it's that the underlying human problem of the incentives vs. secondary incentives is inherently intractable. :(
NOTE: I'm screening comments from non-[access] and may be scarce/slow because I'm recovering from a health thing. Thanks.
Tags:
Hemlock & Silver
4/5. One of her standalone twisted fairy tales, this one about the poisoning expert called in to figure out if the king’s daughter is being poisoned, and the strange and horrifying magical discoveries she makes.
This is good, but it finally clarified for me what is wrong with her romances. The good stuff first: a wonderfully practical, weird, obsessive, traditionally unbeautiful heroine. A series of animal companions, talking and otherwise. A genuinely creepy place to explore. A sad fairy tale under it all.
The romance: This one is not as bad as many of her others, I will say. But I finally put my finger on what’s wrong with them. It’s that she spent the first half of this book developing this woman into a vivid, quirky, peculiar, wonderful character. And the second the romance is on page, every jot of that character work vanishes and she reverts to boring and clumsy romance beats. Like the heroine coming to the conclusion, despite vast mountains of evidence, that the guy is repulsed by her. A thing that could happen? Sure. A thing that could happen with this character? I suppose, but you’d have to lay a lot of groundwork. Fundamentally, I think her heroines, which are the best part of these books, stop being themselves when it comes to romance, and I hate that.
Content notes: Past child death, past murder of spouse, creepiness with mirrors, body horror.
4/5. One of her standalone twisted fairy tales, this one about the poisoning expert called in to figure out if the king’s daughter is being poisoned, and the strange and horrifying magical discoveries she makes.
This is good, but it finally clarified for me what is wrong with her romances. The good stuff first: a wonderfully practical, weird, obsessive, traditionally unbeautiful heroine. A series of animal companions, talking and otherwise. A genuinely creepy place to explore. A sad fairy tale under it all.
The romance: This one is not as bad as many of her others, I will say. But I finally put my finger on what’s wrong with them. It’s that she spent the first half of this book developing this woman into a vivid, quirky, peculiar, wonderful character. And the second the romance is on page, every jot of that character work vanishes and she reverts to boring and clumsy romance beats. Like the heroine coming to the conclusion, despite vast mountains of evidence, that the guy is repulsed by her. A thing that could happen? Sure. A thing that could happen with this character? I suppose, but you’d have to lay a lot of groundwork. Fundamentally, I think her heroines, which are the best part of these books, stop being themselves when it comes to romance, and I hate that.
Content notes: Past child death, past murder of spouse, creepiness with mirrors, body horror.
Tags:
The Emperor of Gladness - Ocean Vuong
The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
Blue Period 7 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi
Open - Andre Agassi
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
Kings of This World - Elizabeth Knox
You Are Here - David Nicholls
Legend of the White Snake - Sher Lee
( buncha books )
The Subtle Knife - Philip Pullman
Blue Period 7 - Tsubasa Yamaguchi
Open - Andre Agassi
Hamnet - Maggie O'Farrell
Kings of This World - Elizabeth Knox
You Are Here - David Nicholls
Legend of the White Snake - Sher Lee
( buncha books )
The only two things certain in life are death and taxes. In the hangover from Yom Kippur I've just finished filling out my Report of Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, which I loathe with a passion. But death seems more significant this year.
Last night I got back from Yom Kippur services exhausted and still a bit light-headed from the twenty-five hour fast. The first thing I saw was an email from my mother about "the attack on Manchester." Amazingly it was the first I'd heard of it. The security people at the synagogue must have known but I don't think most people did. I should have realised when I saw a police car outside in the afternoon that something must have happened.
This is apparently "the first deadly attack on a British synagogue" and the deadliest attack ever on a place of worship outside Northern Ireland. (Per a useful thread by Sunder Katwala.) Also last night one (1) of my colleagues sent me an expression of sympathy, for which I was, and am, ridiculously grateful. Local and national Muslim leaders have also posted statements of solidarity, but taking the mood as a whole right now it's easy to feel (and maybe this is because I'm still exhausted, but I feel I've been exhausted for a long time) that most non-Jews are not interested in solidarity with the Jewish community right now because they don't think it's compatible, rhetorically at least, with being against what Israel is committing in Gaza. (And the ones who are, are interested for the wrong reasons.)
Hearteningly, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez did post a statement of sympathy – but most of the comments (on BlueSky! not even on X!) were variants on "Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism" or "Criticism of Israel is legitimate." I would be a whole lot more convinced by the former if comments like this didn't keep cropping up on posts about Jewish holidays and/or the death of Jews.
(Feminism isn't transphobia, but you'd be amazed how many purported feminists haven't got the memo. Being anti-crime isn't racist or anti-immigrant, in theory, but you'd be amazed by how many people use one thing as cover for the other. I could go on.)
Anyway, the other email I came home to was from Caledonian Sleeper, saying that my journey to Aberdeen this evening has been cancelled due to a storm. I managed to quickly rebook, so I'm now going straight to Inverness on Monday for my writing retreat at Moniack Mhor. It's a shame I'm going to miss my weekend in Aberdeen but maybe I needed the rest. And it doesn't seem so important right now. I would really like to wear my little magen david necklace up to Moniack Mhor but it gives me pause that so many people seem to be unable to distinguish "I am proud to be Jewish" from "I support genocide."
Like I said, I'm exhausted.
Last night I got back from Yom Kippur services exhausted and still a bit light-headed from the twenty-five hour fast. The first thing I saw was an email from my mother about "the attack on Manchester." Amazingly it was the first I'd heard of it. The security people at the synagogue must have known but I don't think most people did. I should have realised when I saw a police car outside in the afternoon that something must have happened.
This is apparently "the first deadly attack on a British synagogue" and the deadliest attack ever on a place of worship outside Northern Ireland. (Per a useful thread by Sunder Katwala.) Also last night one (1) of my colleagues sent me an expression of sympathy, for which I was, and am, ridiculously grateful. Local and national Muslim leaders have also posted statements of solidarity, but taking the mood as a whole right now it's easy to feel (and maybe this is because I'm still exhausted, but I feel I've been exhausted for a long time) that most non-Jews are not interested in solidarity with the Jewish community right now because they don't think it's compatible, rhetorically at least, with being against what Israel is committing in Gaza. (And the ones who are, are interested for the wrong reasons.)
Hearteningly, Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez did post a statement of sympathy – but most of the comments (on BlueSky! not even on X!) were variants on "Anti-Zionism is not antisemitism" or "Criticism of Israel is legitimate." I would be a whole lot more convinced by the former if comments like this didn't keep cropping up on posts about Jewish holidays and/or the death of Jews.
(Feminism isn't transphobia, but you'd be amazed how many purported feminists haven't got the memo. Being anti-crime isn't racist or anti-immigrant, in theory, but you'd be amazed by how many people use one thing as cover for the other. I could go on.)
Anyway, the other email I came home to was from Caledonian Sleeper, saying that my journey to Aberdeen this evening has been cancelled due to a storm. I managed to quickly rebook, so I'm now going straight to Inverness on Monday for my writing retreat at Moniack Mhor. It's a shame I'm going to miss my weekend in Aberdeen but maybe I needed the rest. And it doesn't seem so important right now. I would really like to wear my little magen david necklace up to Moniack Mhor but it gives me pause that so many people seem to be unable to distinguish "I am proud to be Jewish" from "I support genocide."
Like I said, I'm exhausted.
.