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Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 11:12 pm
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Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 09:36 pm
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 02:19 pm
When I start building a world and the plot of a book, things don’t always go quickly. In some cases I can visualize a whole world and start writing right away. But those instances tend to be rare, simply because these days what I’m working on are often notions that I’ve been thinking about and poking at for a couple of decades or so.
That’s the case for Vortex Worlds. I’ve approached it from several angles and been thinking about it for a very long time. The notion of a time/multiverse refuge in a quasi-Western, nineteenth-kinda century setting has been niggling at me ever since the early twenty-teens, when we were driving through the southern Willamette Valley. I got a flash of native elders confronting a white settler using a forbidden mechanical sickle bar mower—and turning into wicker/wooden forms in that field when the settler refused to comply.
Only then I wasn’t thinking about the time-travel multiverse elements. Those crawled slowly into my story notions as I worked on what eventually became the novella Bearing Witness. And even then, the concept really hasn’t gained flesh until recently.
What happened between now and then?
A lot of research. I also had a notion for an alternate history version of Pacific Northwest settlement by white Europeans that was loosely based on a proposal by Dr. John McLoughlin toward the end of his tenure as the Chief Factor for Fort Vancouver. McLoughlin approached the first US settlers with an idea of establishing an “Oregon Country,” independent from both the US and Great Britain.
Well, we know how that turned out.
However, I kept throwing magic and unicorns and other stuff into the mix, and gave up on it after a few short stories in that world. I…still might do something with it, unconnected to Vortex Worlds, but that makes it maybe next up on the list (we’ll see if Vision of Alliance’s sluggish sales perk up, that might be enough for me to turn to Book Two of that trilogy).
Anyway. Back to Vortex Worlds. One of the theories teasing at my brain has been this “what if Alice Clarissa Whitman had not drowned at age two?” notion. She was the daughter of early missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, born early in their time at Waíilatpu near what later became the city of Walla Walla. Her parents withdrew significantly from their mission after her death, and turned instead to helping US settlers instead of missionizing the local peoples for Christianity. It’s a possible turning point in history because Alice Clarissa was friendly with the Cayuse peoples; loved as the first white child born in their land. She spoke their language as well as English. Would she have suffered the same fate as her parents? Would she have died of measles? Or would she have ended up like a couple of orphaned girls who were adopted by the Whitmans, then orphaned a second time by their deaths, doomed to bouncing between so-called “adoptive” parents who basically treated them like indentured servants, up until they married?
Not that Alice Clarissa became a part of this world until recently. Before then, when I was drafting Bearing Witness, I was thinking more about a different path, where horrific nasty supernatural stuff tied to a multiverse and a battle for the control of the multiverse made the leadup to the US Civil War even bloodier and more awful. I visualized a group of escapees from the mid-nineteenth century bouncing from universe to universe, trying to escape the Soulers who not only killed the body but devoured the soul. Of course, not all of them were in political accord, which led to the opening that provided the foundation for the story of Bearing Witness, which I ended up serializing on Kindle Vella, then releasing as a novella a few years ago.
Even then, though, I buried seeds of a bigger world in Witness. Jesse Pruitt and his wife Tianawis—and Tianawis is head of the Kalosin Council of Women, the native people who control and protect the Kalosin refuge. Jesse is a Wild Colonist, a magician with the ability to manipulate the portals that transport people through the multiverse. Wild Colonists operate separately from the other two sources of magic—Federal Magicians and Preacher Magicians. Wild Colonists are independent wild cards—along with the Kalosin people.
Buried even deeper in Witness is the story of Jesse’s mother Abigail Caine Pruitt, who operates a null site within Kalosin. I don’t delve further into that part of the world in Witness, but I knew that Abigail’s story was significant.
Well, now it’s time for that piece. However, at the same time, I also had Alice Clarissa. I wrote a short story where a clone is substituted for her two-year-old drowned self, and she is raised by aliens and trained to be a Time Corps interpreter. Oh, I sent the story out to a couple of markets, but…it wasn’t that well-received, probably in part because I was still struggling with what this would turn Alice Clarissa into.
I’ve figured that piece out, and am revising that short story into something that’s much better than the original piece. This appears to be one of those books where the worldbuilding foundation ends up resting on assorted short stories, so writing these stories is part of that overall revision. Not sure yet whether these backstory short pieces will become a part of the book or if I’ll end up putting them out as related short stories as teasers/reader magnets.
Interestingly, instead of what I’ve done for worldbuilding in the past, I’m exploring this world through related short stories/outtakes. It’s something I started doing with the Martinieres and—well, for me it’s a sign that the world is starting to come to life. It’s a much slower process than sitting down with an easel and scribbling out notes to myself but—life is chaotic at the moment, so this slower process seems to fit what I’m doing.
Kalosin is a fascinating world, and I have oh-so-much to learn about it yet. Especially given its solitary status in the multiverse of Vortex Worlds. I’m nowhere near ready to start writing a chapter synopsis yet, but…it will happen. Eventually. After over thirty-two books to my credit, I’ve learned to trust the process. Sometimes it comes fast, other times it comes slow.
But the story eventually arrives. And I’m fascinated by this journey.
Right now I’m promoting a bundle on Itch that features several of my women characters with agency. If you haven’t read my work before, it’s a good introduction to several of my series. $18.90 for ten books, or 50% off of individual books. Check it out!
https://itch.io/s/181380/joyces-womens-history-month-special-sampler
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 07:20 pm
How is it that fairy tales persist? In the Big Idea for The Witch of Prague, author J.M. Sidorova suggests that it might be because they are malleable and can be made to fit more times and places than just their own. To what use has the author put them here? Read on.
J. M. SIDOROVA:
When I think about a Big Idea of a novel, what comes to my mind first is more of a premise, an inceptive sprout from which the novel had grown. In this regard, The Witch of Prague grew out of a common fairy-tale archetype: an old hag gives a magic gift/poison apple to a young girl; think Sleeping beauty, forests, and castles. Except in this case, the archetype was invoked by true stories my Mom had told me about her young adulthood.
Thus, forests became the Cold War era Eastern European bureaucracies, castles became government departments, and the relationship between the hag and the young girl became complicated, as I, in the act of reimagining the fairy tale, subverted the heck out of it.
That said, this novel took a long time to become what it is now; it evolved in fits and starts while a sizeable chunk of my life was going by and the world was changing, and as a result it became a repository of symbolic representations for the ideas that are not new but have been important for me to unpack and highlight.
There is the Hunt of a Unicorn that, historically, fronts a host of contradictory ideas about power asymmetries between women and men; and then there is a Stag Hunt, which, as an example of a game of trust (or, more broadly, public goods game theory, like it’s better known cousin, the prisoner’s dilemma), stands for a balance of trust/cooperation vs. predation/competition in a given society.
There is also the Orwellian idea that authoritarian regimes not just restrict speech and writing, but, far more insidiously, they warp the very meaning, usage, and purpose of words, of the language itself. My main character, Alica, who’s grown up with mild dyslexia, is primed against such shenanigans because she’s always thought words were treacherous and out to get her, and one of her ways of fighting back was to invent an imaginary friend, a live typewriter with spider legs and word-swatting pincers.
So many different symbols, in other words, that at some point even I, their compulsive collector, felt that it was too much. And my awesome editors, Rachel Sobel and Huw Evans of Homeward Books, were of the same opinion: wait, is the Stag the same as the Unicorn or not? Author, explain thyself! So I went on an editing rampage, and I think I fixed things, and now all symbols are there to serve the story.
But the big — or at any rate the permeating — idea that I would like to foreground since we are talking speculative fiction here, is what constitutes magic in this book. I think if one creates an alternative, fully magic-enabled reality for one’s tales, one can give a reader an escape, a full-on suspension of disbelief and all that, and that is fine. But if one instead injects bits of fantastical or magical into our viscerally recognizable reality, one gives a yearning, gives flickering moments of disassociation, of belief, “what if it were real?” It’s like magic comes to you, instead of you taking a vacation to go see magic.
And of course, so many works of speculative fiction do one approach or the other or anything in between. I personally, prefer the latter end of the spectrum over the former. So, what I was trying to do in The Witch of Prague was to have seemingly small, tenuous even amounts of magic within a historically accurate reality, and I was interested to work with this premise: what if magic was generated from scratch under certain unique constellations of circumstances and human lived experiences and emotional states, for instance, extreme trauma or enduring hope or devotion?
It wouldn’t be by anyone’s design, and it would be hard to predict what or who would become the magic’s “carrier” once it was produced. It would be a sort of undomesticated, involuntary magic for which no one really knows the rules or capabilities, though one could make assumptions or jump to conclusions according to one’s beliefs or character, in trying to harness it to one’s own benefit.
If we agree that as humanity, we have always been “producing” magic in our stories, histories, and self-narratives (“it was a miracle that I survived!”) as a matter of belief or metaphor, to help us parse reality or even just to communicate it — then my premise in this novel simply takes this fact and implements it. Literally and physically.
The Witch of Prague: Asterism|Homeward Books
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 02:51 pm
Today is cloudy and cold. At least the howling wind stopped.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
Many of the plants that were sprouting have died from the hard freeze. :/ Some still look fine though. At least some of the sprouts in my jug and tub greenhouses have survived.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I've seen a large flock of sparrows and two male cardinals.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I am done for the night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches.
I put out water for the birds.
Many of the plants that were sprouting have died from the hard freeze. :/ Some still look fine though. At least some of the sprouts in my jug and tub greenhouses have survived.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I've seen a large flock of sparrows and two male cardinals.
EDIT 3/17/26 -- I did more work around the patio.
I am done for the night.
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Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 12:27 pm
Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "anything goes." I will be checking this page periodically throughout the day. When people make suggestions, I'll pick some and weave them together into a poem ... and then another ... and so on. I'm hoping to get a lot of ideas and a lot of poems.
Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing series with recently created landing pages: Artists of Destruction, Coracle Shores, Crystal Wood, Strike of the Thunderbirds, The Wandering (on the Serial Poetry page), Iron Horses, Peculiar Obligations, Not Quite Kansas.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: National Crafting Month Bingo 3-1-26
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.
What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?
Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.
In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.
( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )
Stuck for ideas? You can find prompts by ...
* browsing planned poems for Aquariana and the Maldives, The Big One, Broken Angels, Calliope and Vagary, Officer Pink and Turq, Pips and Joshua, or Shiv. (Some of these I've already done, so they're not all up to date, but others I haven't done yet.)
* browsing my Serial Poetry page for favorite threads or characters.
* browsing series with recently created landing pages: Artists of Destruction, Coracle Shores, Crystal Wood, Strike of the Thunderbirds, The Wandering (on the Serial Poetry page), Iron Horses, Peculiar Obligations, Not Quite Kansas.
* browsing my QUILTBAG list, Romantic Orientations in My Characters, Sexual Orientations in My Characters, Gender Identities in My Characters, or My Characters with Disabilities for favorites.
* naming a poetic form you'd like to see written.
* picking a prompt from my current bingo cards: National Crafting Month Bingo 3-1-26
* picking some from the Bingo Generator prompt lists.
* looking up fun tropes on Fanlore.
* choosing an unusual word.
* plugging a favorite topic into your search engine and choosing a picture that looks interesting.
* anything short. I could especially use short poems today as other prompts are likely to run long.
* standalone ideas, if you're a fan of that rather than series.
What Is a Poetry Fishbowl?
Writing is usually considered a solitary pursuit. One exception to this is a fascinating exercise called a "fishbowl." This has various forms, but all of them basically involve some kind of writing in public, usually with interaction between author and audience. A famous example is Harlan Ellison's series of "stories under glass" in which he sits in a bookstore window and writes a new story based on an idea that someone gives him. Writing classes sometimes include a version where students watch each other write, often with students calling out suggestions which are chalked up on the blackboard for those writing to use as inspiration.
In this online version of a Poetry Fishbowl, I begin by setting a theme; today's theme is "anything goes." I invite people to suggest characters, settings, and other things of any type. Then I use those prompts as inspiration for writing poems.
( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )
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Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 09:58 am
March 17th marks the first day of the Trans Rights Readathon. As their carrd explains, “The Trans Rights Readathon is an annual call to action to readers and book lovers in support of Trans Day of Visibility (TDOV) on March 31st. We are calling on the reader community to read and uplift books written by and/or featuring trans, non-binary, 2Spirit, and gender-nonconforming authors and characters.”
In the spirit of the Trans Rights Readathon, we wanted to bring your attention to our books that feature trans main characters and/or were written by trans creators. And, we wanted to do something tangible!
Duck Prints Press will donate $50 to the Trevor Project in mid-April to support their crisis intervention and suicide prevention work with queer youth. AND, for every one of the above books you buy from our webpage or itch.io between now and March 31st, we will increase that donation by adding 20% of the net we earn from those sales to the amount we donate!
We hope you’ll consider reading some of our work as part of your Trans Rights Readathon read-a-thoning. Want to know more about them?
Learn about the eligible books!
Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)
Duck Prints Press presents 22 delightfully fluffy, happy, odd, snug, and cozy stories about queer characters pursuing academic excellence! From field research shenanigans to cooking adventures, from space station education departments to eldritch libraries, creators brought their vivid imaginings to life in these charming fantasy and science fiction stories. Settle into your favorite research carrel or prepare to read on the sly under your desk as you join us for Scholarly Pursuits: A Queer Anthology of Cozy Academia Stories.
Lightbringer by boneturtle (non-binary author)
I’ve never heard this story told outside our village, but my friend, it’s about you as well as us. Your life is also forfeit to the Lightbringer who mended the chaos, and the chaos which breathed the Lightbringer to life.
In a lonely valley where darkness laps at the ragged shore of reality, there rests a village where the people are reborn each time they die. Though they’ve forgotten their past lives, they faithfully maintain their ancient festival to coax the light back whenever the darkness takes hold.
In this village where no one visits, a man named Ashe arrives. Beloved, yet cursed to be forgotten by those he holds most dear, he waits in the ever-growing darkness for someone who may never return. The villagers beg him to give up, to play the part of the Lightbringer and marry someone else.
Then a new stranger arrives, one who may hold the key to breaking this cycle of darkness once and for all.
Scrap Metal Angel by Nicola Kapron (trans man main character)
Reality, tiny and fragile, is cut off from the sea of chaos and nightmares that surrounds it by seven Gates. One of them is open—and has been since the Stone Age. Through that opening, strange creatures and energies slip through. Some are malevolent. None are harmless. And all of them must be kept a secret.
Every hidden magical world needs a shadowy clean-up crew. Adrian Somer is a Gatekeeper, sworn to protect the cosmic Gates, to defend reality from the unknown entities that exist beyond them, and to help those whose lives are affected by magic.
When a grieving sorceress starts punching holes in reality to try and resurrect her murdered fiancé, Adrian must turn to a ghost from his past in order to save the city, and perhaps the world—even if that means digging up someone he thought was safely buried: the twin brother he killed eight years ago.
To Drive the Hundred Miles by Alec J. Marsh (trans man main character, trans author)
Serendipity, WA is filled with Christmas cheer, beautiful mountain views, and trans man Will’s feminist Wiccan family. Home for the holidays, he avoids their clumsy attempts at support by hiding in the local coffee shop and flirting with Bea, a friend from high school.
The beautiful landscapes can’t make up for the the realities of being queer in a small town, and Bea wants out. Will grabs for a prosperity spell, and finds a new way to connect to the magic he’s become estranged from. New romance and optimism get them through the holidays, ready to face their next problems.
A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)
With this third installment in our Queer Fanworks Inspired By… anthology series, we set out to explore the truth by which we at Duck Prints Press live: that a classic work without a single canonically queer character must be in want of a very LGBTQIA+ makeover! “A Truth Universally Acknowledged: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice,” with 21 short stories and 20 full-page color artworks, is just that. 38 creators have contributed to this project, drawing inspiration from Pride and Prejudice’s characters and story to create delightful, thoughtful, intriguing, and (of course) very queer fanworks and Pride and Prejudice-inspired original works. For this collection, we encouraged our creators to focus on Sapphic/wlw relationships and/or transgender and genderqueer interpretations for their inspiration, though those are definitely not the only types of queer we’ve fit into this diverse collection.
And Seek (Not) to Alter Me: Queer Fanworks Inspired by William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)
In “And Seek (Not) to Alter Me,” 16 authors and 15 artists have come together to create an exquisite, full-color collection of artwork and stories inspired by William Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing.” We encouraged contributors to stretch their imaginations, think outside the box, and put their own unique—and queer—twists on Benedick, Beatrice, Hero, Claudio, Don Pedro, and the whole gang! In true Shakespearean fashion, our creators utilize gender, sexuality, romanticism, and a host of costume changes to tell unique artworks and stories—some featuring original characters, some characters from the play—that show Shakespeare’s work in a whole new light.
Add Magic to Taste Second Edition (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)
For this gorgeous re-issue of Duck Prints Press’s debut anthology “Add Magic to Taste,” 18 authors have come together to produce new, original short stories uniting four of our absolute favorite themes: queer relationships, fluff, magic, and coffee shops! Our diverse writers have created an even more diverse collection of stories guaranteed to sweeten your coffee and warm your tart. This edition also includes the 16 microfics originally written for our Kickstarter extra Mini-Morsels!
Aether Beyond the Binary (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)
How would Earth look if the very atoms around us were suffused with magical aether? How would our lives be different if this aether was discovered last year, or last century, or last millennia? How might the people who lived with this magic explore their gender identities? These are the questions we posed to the 17 authors who contributed to “Aether Beyond the Binary.” Their inventive answers comprise this must-not-miss collection about magical realms, adventures and mysteries, new chances and well-earned endings, and characters as gender-diverse as the worlds they inhabit.
Many Hands: An Anthology of Polyamorous Erotica (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)
For those who love their short stories spicy, welcome to Duck Prints Press’s debut explicit anthology. In this collection of brand-new stories, we celebrate many flavors of polyamory. Orgy? Yes please! Ménage à trois? C’est magnifique! Foursomes and moresomes? Delighted to attend! We asked our 15 contributors to blow our minds with their fun combinations, unusual settings, favorite trope usage, and (of course) super sexy smut—and they didn’t disappoint. From a vampire free-for-all to a heartfelt reunion, from surprise soulmates to enemies-to-lovers, this collection has polyamory in lots of scrumptious varieties that lovers of erotica won’t want to miss!
Aim For The Heart: Queer Fanworks Inspired by Alexandre Dumas’s “The Three Musketeers” (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors and artists)
“Aim For The Heart” features 20 stories, each up to 5,000 words long, 19 full-page art pieces rendered in black-and-white or grayscale, and a 12-page comic. Our contributors have delved into their imaginations and the intricacies of Dumas’s novels to tell new stories and create new images. They take us from the depths of deep space to the streets of 17th century France to the modern day, with a healthy dose of fluff and feels along the way. Every creator has shared their vision of these beloved characters, some with fanfiction and fanart, others with original pieces, and all with a heaping dose of inspiration.
She Wears the Midnight Crown (trans and non-binary characters, trans and non-binary authors)
“She Wears the Midnight Crown” is one of our two paired masquerade-themed anthologies. It features 17 stories exploring wlw relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!
Our contributors stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.
“He Bears the Cape of Stars” is the companion to this anthology, featuring 17 mlmstories.
He Bears the Cape of Stars (trans characters, trans and non-binary authors)
“He Bears the Cape of Stars” is one of our two paired masquerade-themed anthologies. It features 17 stories exploring mlm relationships developing, growing, and changing while the characters attend or participate in masquerades!
Our contributors stretched their imaginations to present innovative stories exploring what a masquerade can be…and, of course, tell rich, engaging tales of wonderful queer folk finding love, companionship, acceptance, the queer platonic relationship of their dreams, or the found family they deserve. The collected works feature characters in all the colors of the Pride rainbow, queer and genderqueer, and these diverse individuals inhabit worlds ranging from science fiction settings where everyone must be masked to breathe, to fantasies where no one wears a literal mask but everyone shows the world a false guise, to iterations of the real world where some people lean into deception.
“She Wears the Midnight Crown” is the companion to this anthology, featuring 17 wlw stories.
Note: only books purchased from duckprintspress.com and itch.io will count toward the donation!
In mid-April, I will post an accountability update with our total donation amount and proof of donation! (Same as I’ve done for our Pride Bundles every year.)
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Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 06:45 am
It's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Tags:
Tuesday, March 17th, 2026 12:02 am
The good news: I finished both of my fics for ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
pokepodproject! I got the second one fully typed three minutes before midnight 😮
The bad news: While I managed to get my Unown K story posted to the Into the Unown collection on AO3, the connection is timing out and not letting me post my Unown A story 😢 Hopefully AO3 will be back up for me soon, so I don't miss the posting deadline! (Even more hopefully it's not just my computer being fussy...)
The other bad news: Tumblr is imploding again! We'll see if this is the thing that finally kills the site.
pokepodproject! I got the second one fully typed three minutes before midnight 😮The bad news: While I managed to get my Unown K story posted to the Into the Unown collection on AO3, the connection is timing out and not letting me post my Unown A story 😢 Hopefully AO3 will be back up for me soon, so I don't miss the posting deadline! (Even more hopefully it's not just my computer being fussy...)
The other bad news: Tumblr is imploding again! We'll see if this is the thing that finally kills the site.
Monday, March 16th, 2026 04:00 am
Monday, March 16th, 2026 09:55 pm
Oh no babby Anh :(
Monday, March 16th, 2026 05:30 pm
The Kotlin Crisis: Earth’s first mass extinction may have been far worse than previously believed
Fossils of the first sea creatures, long assumed to have vanished before a major mass extinction about 550 million years ago called the Kotlin Crisis, have now been found and are providing new details about that time period.
This discovery transforms what once looked like a routine species decline in Earth’s early history into what may be the first catastrophic extinction in animal history.
Second, actually, after the Great Farting Oxygen Event changed the atmosphere from reducing to oxydizing -- almost everything died, except a few archaea that found anoxic refuges and a few organisms that figured out how to use oxygen. But most people forget about that one.
( Read more... )
Fossils of the first sea creatures, long assumed to have vanished before a major mass extinction about 550 million years ago called the Kotlin Crisis, have now been found and are providing new details about that time period.
This discovery transforms what once looked like a routine species decline in Earth’s early history into what may be the first catastrophic extinction in animal history.
Second, actually, after the Great Farting Oxygen Event changed the atmosphere from reducing to oxydizing -- almost everything died, except a few archaea that found anoxic refuges and a few organisms that figured out how to use oxygen. But most people forget about that one.
( Read more... )
Monday, March 16th, 2026 04:29 pm
Today is cloudy and frigid, spitting snow and howling wind. :/ It stormed last night.
I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus several cardinals.
I put out water for the birds.
I fed the birds. I've seen a small mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, plus several cardinals.
I put out water for the birds.
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Monday, March 16th, 2026 11:16 am
These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:
Poem: "Colorful Opportunities"
Tool Use
Cyberspace Theory
Birdfeeding
Science
Today's Adventures
Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange
Wildlife
Creative Jam
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Pictures
Communities
Safety
Today's Adventures
Gardening
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Follow Friday 3-13-26: Love
Friday Five
Crafts
Birdfeeding
Ethnic Studies
Community Thursdays
Poem: "To Understand Water"
Cyberspace Theory
Science
Today's Adventures
Safety
Birdfeeding
Science
Prairie Moon Order
Select Seeds Order
Hard Things
Linguistics has 44 comments. Philosophical Questions: Pregnancy has 60 comments. Safety has 54 comments. Wildlife has 48 comments. Food has 67 comments.
There will be a Bonus Fishbowl on Tuesday, March 17 with a theme of "anything goes." Think back over your favorite ideas that haven't fit a prompt call yet; you can suggest whatever you want in this one.
marchmetamatterschallenge is running this month. See my tracking post and the first check-in post.
The weather has been erratic here. We've had warm days. Yesterday was cold with howling wind, then pouring rain; today it snowed a bit and is still howling wind. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. Red-winged blackbirds have been singing overhead. Currently blooming: crocuses, snowdrops, winter aconite, miniature irises, daffodils, squill.
Poem: "Colorful Opportunities"
Tool Use
Cyberspace Theory
Birdfeeding
Science
Today's Adventures
Urbana Free Library Seed Exchange
Wildlife
Creative Jam
Birdfeeding
Philosophical Questions: Pictures
Communities
Safety
Today's Adventures
Gardening
Birdfeeding
Crafts
Follow Friday 3-13-26: Love
Friday Five
Crafts
Birdfeeding
Ethnic Studies
Community Thursdays
Poem: "To Understand Water"
Cyberspace Theory
Science
Today's Adventures
Safety
Birdfeeding
Science
Prairie Moon Order
Select Seeds Order
Hard Things
Linguistics has 44 comments. Philosophical Questions: Pregnancy has 60 comments. Safety has 54 comments. Wildlife has 48 comments. Food has 67 comments.
There will be a Bonus Fishbowl on Tuesday, March 17 with a theme of "anything goes." Think back over your favorite ideas that haven't fit a prompt call yet; you can suggest whatever you want in this one.
marchmetamatterschallenge is running this month. See my tracking post and the first check-in post.The weather has been erratic here. We've had warm days. Yesterday was cold with howling wind, then pouring rain; today it snowed a bit and is still howling wind. Seen at the birdfeeders this week: a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches, a mourning dove, and a fox squirrel. Red-winged blackbirds have been singing overhead. Currently blooming: crocuses, snowdrops, winter aconite, miniature irises, daffodils, squill.
Monday, March 16th, 2026 10:01 am
This Sunday, A Big Gay Market is back in 2026 and back in Troy at the Mount Ida Preservation Hall from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. I’ll be among more than 30 vendors there with our awesome wares (vendor list here!). I hope you’ll come say hi if you’re in the area.
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Monday, March 16th, 2026 06:45 am
It's challenge time!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished!
Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
Tags:
Monday, March 16th, 2026 04:00 am
The Girl Genius comic for Monday, March 16, 2026 has been posted.
Sunday, March 15th, 2026 10:01 pm
This is the freebie for the March crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by the "tape" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America.
"Colorful Opportunities"
Tape is a material
that is always full of
colorful opportunities.
It can make borders and
frames on scrapbook pages.
It stripes the handles of
tools for easy identification.
It flags pages for future reading.
It makes cute cutouts for
decorating boxes and books.
Tape holds hobbies together.
crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by the "tape" square in my 3-1-26 card for the National Crafting Month Bingo fest. It belongs to the series Arts and Crafts America."Colorful Opportunities"
Tape is a material
that is always full of
colorful opportunities.
It can make borders and
frames on scrapbook pages.
It stripes the handles of
tools for easy identification.
It flags pages for future reading.
It makes cute cutouts for
decorating boxes and books.
Tape holds hobbies together.
Tags: