cellio | Network

Tuesday, July 7, 2026

Doff (verb, noun)
doff [dof, dawf]

verb (used with object), doffs, doffed, doffing
1. to remove or take off, as clothing.
2. to remove or tip (the hat), as in greeting.
3. to throw off; get rid of: Doff your stupid ideas and join our side!
4. Textiles.
a. to strip (carded fiber) from a carding machine.
b. to remove (full bobbins, material, etc.) from a textile machine.

noun
5. Textiles.
a. the act of removing bobbins, material, etc., and stripping fibers from a textile machine.
b. the material so doffed.

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Origin: 1300–50; Middle English, contraction of do off; cf. don

Example Sentences
"Long before the civil wars, men and boys were expected to doff their hats, indoors or out, whenever they met a superior," he says.
From Science Daily • May 7, 2026

The sellout crowd, which had long been on its feet, continuing cheering, eventually drawing Kershaw back out onto the field to doff his cap in appreciation.
From Los Angeles Times • Jul. 3, 2025

When they arrive, there is a ceremonial greeting, where the Lords doff their black bicorn hats and the Commons representatives acknowledge this by bowing.
From BBC • May 25, 2024

“Courage Hats” wants a little too forcefully to guide us into “deep” places where we will doff our hidey-hats to reveal our true selves — abstract concepts for the literalizing peewee set.
From New York Times • May 20, 2022

We were required to doff our hats as the warder walked by.
From "Long Walk to Freedom" by Nelson Mandela

starandrea

♥ mixed language

I was watching a Chinese vlogger open some mail and she was like, "If you can guess what's in this, leave a comment," and I immediately thought, "yi ben livre." Which is a combination of French and Chinese that I blame on Language Jones because youtube had just shown me a thumbnail of his video "Stop Mixing Languages." (And he speaks French, which I assume was the connection my brain made, since when I started learning Chinese it was ASL that I kept substituting with, probably because it was my most recent non-native working language.)

♥ language in dreams

The other funny thing about that is that it's a reminder of how differently we think, since I know a lot of people don't think in words and I definitely do. The other day I saw a discussion of dreaming in non-native languages, and several advanced language learners seemed convinced this phenomenon is either imaginary or "bogus" (not sure exactly what they meant by that), despite multilingual people assuring them it's real and normal. I remember my glee the first time I woke up and realized I'd been dreaming in Chinese. But I know a lot of people don't remember their dreams, either, so it must just be different brains with different experiences.

♥ AI face editing

Relatedly, I hadn't noticed any AI face editing until tonight, when I was watching my one of my favorite Taiwanese vloggers and suddenly thought, "wait, that's not a real face shape." (China has a relatively extreme "beauty filter" culture, and constant exposure to it may make people more likely to slide across the line from "very idealized" to "straight up anime" face without realizing it.) I googled AI face editing, and now I can't stop noticing people's teeth. I hope that passes quickly.

♥ AI face editing and faceblindness

Oh, but also, I found a helpful English video about a Chinese demonstration of AI face editing (the comments were definitely from non-Chinese viewers), and it included a demonstration of live AI face-swapping at the end. I'm faceblind, which I didn't think about at all until the face-swapping demonstration, because the face-editing was very clear to me. I could easily see the difference between the edited and unedited faces. But I could not see the difference between an original face and a face swap. It was amazing: the narrator would be like, "here's a Tom Cruise face swap" and I was like, "it's the same guy," and then the narrator would be like, "and here, obviously it's Scarlett Johannsen" and I was like, "what obviously; what are you talking about, it's obviously the same person."

So anyway, I don't know what that means, except that there's something different about AI face editing that's visible to me as a faceblind person in a way face-swapping isn't. (By comparison, I mean, I've never recognized editing without a comparison until tonight, and this wasn't "that face looks edited" or even "that face doesn't look real," but literally "that's not a normal human face shape." It looked perfectly real, it just wasn't biologically possible.)

♥ training with the pup

Finally, Daphne and I met with a dog trainer today, and as I told Marci, "I was impressed by him." She was like, "That's not a reaction you usually have to men." I know. So rare. (I often get along better with old men, and he says he's been training for 50 years, so maybe the pattern holds.) On the strength of our first meeting I agreed to a few "private" classes rather than a group class. No money was exchanged until the end of today's session, so I don't want to gush until we meet again, but he did everything right in the initial evaluation.

dialecticdreamer

Unwanted Update
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 2
Word count (story only): 761
[1 pm on Wednesday, 29 November of 2017]

:: Jules has to handle a glitch in his waiting job… or is it a glitch? Part of the Lodestar story arc in the Polychrome Heroics universe. ::

Jules parked his new surrey in the garage, patting his father’s motorcycle, or at least the custom cover fitted over it, on the way to the door into the utility room. His phone chimed with a text.

Then another.

Then three or four more.
( Read more... )

Current Mood: aggravated

petrea_mitchell

If you want to horrify a long-time programmer today, casually mention that the SCO Unix lawsuit is somehow still ongoing.

Didn't the parties settle like five years ago? some may ask. And they would be correct, but apparently the latest owner of SCO still thinks it can invalidate that.

questionable_content_feed

https://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5868

ysabetwordsmith

This is today's freebie. It was inspired by a prompt from

gs_silva. It also fills the "Ambiguous Situation" square in my 6-1-26 card for the Hazbin Hotel Fest. This poem belongs to the series Schrodinger's Heroes.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

starandrea

I have several pictures of the "coyotes," but none at the top of my camera roll, so I searched my photos for "wolf" (since that's what these coyotes look like to me). My photos turned up an actual Irish Wolfhound, whom I don't remember meeting at all, along with several pictures of Mimi running, which I found hilarious and charming.

Then I searched for "coyote," and lo, this picture came up.

( coyote and friends )

One of our neighbors has two cardboard "coyotes" that she puts by the river to keep geese from coming up on the banking. Apparently real coyotes move, so the geese are more convinced by this ruse if the coyotes are not in the same place every time they pass by.

The same neighbor also has a hammock, hence my explanation, "She says the rent to sit in the hammock is to move the coyotes, so I moved a coyote."

(I first encountered the coyotes years ago, at night, while I was out walking with Mimi by flashlight. I genuinely though we had come upon a live animal and I quickly scooped Mimi up and backed away. Mimi was completely unworried, which I admitted after the fact should have been a clue.)

mxcatmoon posting in

vocab_drabbles

Title: Destruction or Salvation?
Fandom: Miami Vice
Author: Cat Moon
Rating: PG
Words: 954
Characters: Sonny Crockett, Orlando Jordan
Summary: When Sonny Crockett pays a visit to Orlando Jordan of the Broward County PD before heading out on his vacation, it only leaves Orlando with more questions than answers as he wonders about the bond between his old friend Rico and Rico's partner. Clearly, something is not quite right there. As for Sonny, it was something he needed to do.

( Destruction or Salvation? )

billroper

I ordered an uncirculated set from the mint (and paid a really extortionate price for it), because I wanted the 250th anniversary special designs. They are really nice. The standout piece, which I wish was on a denomination that circulated more, is the half-dollar. The Statue of Liberty motif is really well executed and it is one of the prettiest coins that the mint has put out in years.

johno_1960

WHAT DO WE HIT, AND HOW DO WE HIT IT
YOU NEED TO PRACTICE
SWING AND SWING AND SWING
YOUR SHOULDERS GET SORE
BUT THEN YOU REST
YOU NEED TO GET USED TO THINGS
REPETITION IS A FRIEND
YOU MAY NEVER SUCCEED
BUT YOU WORKED ON IT
THE WORK IS THE THING
THE WORK IS WHAT YOU LOVE
THE RESULTS ARE NOT WHAT YOU
EXPECTED
BUT YOU CAN'T PREDICT WHAT THESE THINGS
WILL DO FOR (TO) YOU
FALL IN LOVE WITH THE SOUND
WHEN YOU DO CONNECT
BOOM. OUT OF HERE

ysabetwordsmith

... is repeating itself. This post compares Washington, D.C. with occupied Berlin from the perspective of someone who's seen both.

Never forget.

Current Mood: busy

atlas_obscura_places_feed

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hastings-museum-koolaid-exhibit

Hastings prides itself on its status as the birthplace of Kool-Aid.

Hastings, Nebraska is where Edwin Perkins invented Kool-Aid. To honor his delicious invention, the local museum has dedicated half of a floor to the drink’s history. Kool-Aid: Discover the Dream is a nostalgic and comprehensive collection of all things Kool-Aid. The only thing missing is a chance to actually imbibe the drink itself.

Kool-Aid’s precursor was Fruit Smack, a flavored syrup. Perkins, tired of how easily the glass bottles containing the syrup leaked and broke, decided to ditch the watery aspect of the sweet mixture and instead create packets of powder. He was inspired by Jell-O. Perkins debuted the drink, which was originally called Fruit-Ade, in 1927. And its popularity only rose during the Great Depression, when Perkins lowered the cost of a packet to 5 cents and grew profits beyond what he’d made at twice the price.

The Kool-Aid exhibit at the Hastings Museum of of Natural and Cultural History is full of information about the drink’s beginnings and various marketing strategies. It includes old packaging and advertisements, as well as discontinued Kool-Aid related products like bubble gum and sherbet packets. Visitors follow a fiber optic ‘river’ of the drink that flows throughout the museum’s lower level. People can even catch a glimpse of the original Kool-Aid Man suit, though they shouldn't expect it to burst through any walls.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/hastings-museum-koolaid-exhibit

rebeccmeister

(with a nod to Yogi Berra because that one's a favorite)

It's always a little funny to travel to a different place and thereby be confronted by one's self. Arriving here in Tucson, I had something of a flurry of little to-do list items, like visiting every possible different food source location to stock up on miscellaneous groceries.

Some of the items couldn't get tackled until today, in the heat of the day. First, I took my bike over to a local bike shop to see if they can fix the bad wheel truing job I did on my rear wheel (it has an annoying hop). I really should have told them to go ahead and do a proper headset adjustment for me, but my brain might have been a little baked.

Bikeless, I walked over to a credit union to do a shared branching check deposit. Then I walked home.

Kind of hot out there.

The advantage of walking is it's easier to look at stuff, as compared to biking around. Behold, an old church:

The disadvantage of walking, of course, is that it's stupidly hot out there. Every little patch of shade matters.

This sign was reminiscent of a sculpture in that Arvada sculpture garden, except it just had one message:

(The Arvada one:)

Interesting train underpass along Stone Ave. Lots of signs to indicate this underpass floods regularly. Not right now, of course. It's quite dry currently. That's making it harder to find leafcutter ant colonies, but we'll keep at it.

Tucson has some phenomenal murals, like this one, which was tricky to photograph:

Yes, that's a javelina, tortoise, and hare riding bikes in the back.

When we're not out hunting for ants, I'm gradually managing to convince myself to work on the various projects I've brought along. I did not try to bring along the bike parts chandelier; instead, I have a knitting project to work on, and some books to read, and some manuscript-writing projects that I definitely need to tackle.

It is really nice to have a kitchen right here, so I can easily get a drink from the fridge and make myself a fresh lunch on the spot. We have to do a lot of driving to and from the field sites, though.

vivdunstan

Hoping to get out in the garden one late afternoon / evening later this week. Every other day it's been hot enough this year (we are much cooler than in southern England, or even south Scotland) it's not been a good day, or I've had yet another cancer-related medical appointment! I'm thinking of having a chilled Aperol Spritz cocktail when I'm out there. Plans!

sovay

I had no idea until last night that the runaway success of Lock Up Your Daughters at the Mermaid Theatre in 1959 had produced a small boom in Restoration musicals upon the London stage, or at least for two months in 1963 it produced Paul Dehn and James Bernard's Virtue in Danger, a musical translation of John Vanbrugh's 1696 The Relapse which despite a comedically impressive cast including Barrie Ingham, Patricia Routledge, John Moffatt, Patsy Byrne, and Alan Howard fizzled out as a curiosity with an original cast LP. As a musical, it does feel thin on the ground in that most of its songs are glosses on the Vanbrugh, but every now and then it comes up with a minor gem like the devastatingly sincere "I'm in Love with My Husband," the conditional yearning of "Let's Fall Together," or the sweetly clueless "Why Do I Feel What I Feel?" which last is stuck disastrously in my head. It's the catchiest tune in the show and the likeliest to have escaped containment—nothing else in the score rang any bells with me, but this one may have made it as far as Standing Room Only—and its debt to Rodgers and Hart is honorably discharged, but I still couldn't stop thinking of Tom Lehrer.

Current Music: Barrie Ingham, "Why Do I Feel What I Feel?"

vivdunstan

More than a bit exasperated at yet another outsider to the interactive fiction game community, coming along with yet another (unwanted by the IF community) AI-driven thing, that exploits the creative work of hundreds of authors, including myself, and has to be told that this is not ok.

dorktower_feed

Posted by John Kovalic

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/07/07/20058/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=20058

Most DORK TOWER strips are now available as signed, high-quality prints, from just $25! CLICK HERE to find out more!

Dork Tower is kept going by a delightful Patreon community! Want to help? Then consider joining the DORK TOWER Patreon and ENLIST IN THE ARMY OF DORKNESS TODAY! (We have COOKIES!) (And SWAG!) (And GRATITUDE!)

https://www.dorktower.com/2026/07/07/20058/

https://dorktower.kovalic.com/?p=20058

swan_tower

Following on last month's re-release of The Writer's Little Book of Naming, The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes is back out in the world!

A white background with the text "The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes: Tips and Tricks for Taking (and Ignoring) Advice," by Marie Brennan, author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent. In the center is a red circle with a diagonal line through it (the symbol for "no") with the words "thou shalt not" inside.

A white background with the text "The Writer's Little Book of Platitudes: Tips and Tricks for Taking (and Ignoring) Advice," by Marie Brennan, author of the Memoirs of Lady Trent. In the center is a red circle with a diagonal line through it (the symbol for "no") with the words "thou shalt not" inside.

“Show, don’t tell.” “Murder your darlings.” “Write every day.”

Certain pieces of advice are widespread in the writing community — but what do they really mean? And are they nuggets of universal wisdom, or do they only apply to some writers in some circumstances? Award-winning author Marie Brennan tackles these old saws, dissecting each one to see what purpose it might serve . . . and when you should toss it aside.

And starting next month, there will be a brand-new Writer's Little Book -- stay tuned for news on that . . .

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://www.swantower.com/2026/07/07/the-writers-little-book-of-platitudes-returns/)

snickfic

David Lowery Tackling Adaptation of Horror Novel ‘The Fisherman’ for Focus (Hollywood Reporter). You guys!! Lowery directed Mother Mary, which I didn't love but which had style for days, and The Fisherman feels like exactly the kind of surrealist psych/cosmic horror blend that he could really sink his teeth into. Here for it.

Also in movie news, Park Chan-Wook is making another English-language film, and it's a western! Starring Matthew McConaughey and Pedro Pascal. Put it in my eyeballsssss.

"Couch to 5k for Reading", an 8-week event for building up a reading habit. There are three tracks, depending on your goals. I am tentatively doing track 2 but with harder reading material (classics or nonfiction). Bummer it's on Substack though. :/

Okay so did everyone but me know that Ty Olsson and DJ Qualls (Benny and Garth on SPN) got married?!?! Turns out there WAS a gay romance on the show. Just, you know, not any of the ones people shipped.

Also learned this week that there was a Supernatural "Valentine's Day Special" comic book complete with T&A cover. Published this year, 2026!! These things are never good, and yet I'm so tempted.

The Oasis reunion doc teaser trailer is out. Guys, they titled the doc Don't Look Back in Anger. Here are some gifs from the trailer. My demise is imminent omfg.

james_davis_nicoll

The current Skeleton Crew ruleboo plus a Legion of adventures.

Bundle of Holding: Vast Grimm

scalziwhatever_feed

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/07/the-big-idea-april-davila/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=61477

The action of writing does not require artistry, but the artistry of writing requires action. That action being sitting down and actually doing it, even if it is hard. Writing coach April Dávila is here today to introduce some new methods that are sure to get you focused and motivated so that you can, as her book is titled, Sit Write Here.

APRIL DÁVILA:

What Chopping Onions Taught Me About Writing

As a writing coach, I’ve spent the last several years working to convince writers that we can do hard things (like finish a novel) without all the agonizing. My conviction on this point stems from an experience I had many years ago with a big pile of onions, which sounds odd, I know, but allow me to explain.

In 2009, I attended my first week-long silent meditation retreat. The only respite from the unending quiet was a daily talk given by the instructors. One afternoon, the lecture was about how mindfulness can help us discern between pain and suffering and I was not getting it. Pain and suffering. One follows the other like day follows night. To be in pain is to suffer. I suffer when I’m in pain. End of story.

After the talk, I walked down to the kitchen for work duty. Every attendee at the retreat had a chore, and I’d volunteered, along with five other silent meditators, to help chop vegetables for dinner. The head cook poured out a box of onions and told us to start dicing.

I wasn’t done cutting the first onion when my eyes began to sting. As I started in on the second onion, tears streamed down my face. The woman beside me sniffled. The man across the table turned away, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. Pretty soon I could hardly see. My eyes burned and the discomfort edged into real pain, and yet I found myself giggling at the absurdity of us all standing there crying over our cutting boards.

One by one, the other choppers started to chuckle too. We stood there with tears streaming down our faces, laughing and turning away to catch our breath, to blink away the sting, to try and compose ourselves. With no success.

Then it struck me: the pain was real. My eyes genuinely hurt. But I was not suffering. I was, in fact, having fun.

Had I been in a different, less aware state of mind, I might have spun up a story about how I’m just not cut out for kitchen work. The tears could have confirmed that it was too hard, too painful. I might have quit. Instead, I kept right on dicing, tittering with my fellow yogis as we tried to cut onions we could barely see.

As a writer, I think about those onions a lot.

Because here’s the thing about writing: it is genuinely hard. And here’s the real kicker: writing only gets more challenging as you get better at it. Before I cared about diction and imagery and precision of language, I could slap together any few thousand words on instinct and call it a story.

These days I take the time to whittle away at ideas until the words on the page actually say what I mean. That requires deep focus, real effort, and sitting with a lot of uncertainty. It’s hard, and (especially when difficult feedback or rejection comes into the picture, as it inevitably will for all writers) it can even be painful.

You can tell yourself that the pain is a sign that you’re just not cut out to be a writer, that it’s too hard and maybe you should quit. You can bow down to that little voice in your head saying you’re not a real writer, this is going nowhere, you should be doing something useful. Or you can recognize those thoughts as your brain’s natural response to discomfort, then carry on and keep writing.

Learning to observe your thoughts without getting hijacked by them (which is essentially what meditation trains you to do) is tremendously helpful when it comes to sitting with a difficult scene, quieting the inner critic long enough to get a first draft down, and recognizing the difference between “I’m stuck” and “I’m anxious about what people will think if I put this idea on the page.”

My book, Sit Write Here, is a practical guide to using mindfulness meditation to write more and suffer less. Not to write more easily (necessarily) but to stop adding unnecessary anguish on top of an already demanding craft. In each chapter I pair a meditation practice with a stage in the writing process, from getting the first draft done, to surfing the waves of accolades and criticisms.

If you’ve ever struggled with writer’s block, if you tend to beat yourself up for not writing more, or if you want to write more compelling prose in fewer drafts, this book is for you. Agonizing over our writing is a habit. And like all habits, it can be changed.

You can do this hard, beautiful thing. Probably without crying.

Though if onions are involved, all bets are off.

Sit Write Here: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop

Author’s socials: Website|Instagram|Facebook

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/07/07/the-big-idea-april-davila/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=61477

richincolor_feed

Posted by K. Imani Tennyson

http://richincolor.com/2026/07/new-releases-457/

https://richincolor.com/?p=20233

A number of books coming out this week that have a little bit of something for every reader in your household.

King of Lost Dreams by Nevin Holness
Atheneum Books for Young Readers

The magical underbelly of London is no longer under threat from the malevolent daughter of Death after she was vanquished during an epic nine-night. But in her wake, certain truths have been unearthed that have left Malcolm, Eli, Sunny, and their friends fractured and desperate to lay the past to rest.

For Malcolm—a boy grappling with his inherited death magic—confronting his past means facing heartbreak, realities he isn’t yet ready to acknowledge, and perhaps even first love. On the other hand, Eli, a silver-tongued thief with no memories of his past, is more determined than ever to uncover his lost identity and find out once and for all where he came from, unless his past catches up with him first…

Something is lurking in Eli’s dreams, giving teeth to his nightmares. And when Malcolm finds a mysterious letter in the ruins of a former magical sanctuary full of its own secret histories, he and their friends set out to find a hidden key that may just be the answer to all their problems. If they want a chance against the shadow that’s been hunting Eli, they’ll need to learn the magic of their ancestors and go back to the very beginning: when magic first arrived in London.

Book cover of Free Girls. A young Black woman is sitting on the hood of a red car. She is looking up to the sky. Another Black girl is leaning on the driver side door. Two other young Black woman are on the passenger side at the back. The sky is pastel pink, orange, and lavender.

Free Girls by Kristen McCallum
Flatiron Books

Sixteen-year-old Jasmine Cooper is back after twelve months at Guiding Hearts Home for Troubled Girls, and nothing is the way it was. Her mom has remarried and now there’s a big new house, a shiny new family, and a fancy new school. Jas feels completely out of place, and things only get more complicated when her mom insists that her “fresh start” include hiding the truth of where she’s been and cutting off people from her past.

As Jas settles into her new life bonding with her seemingly perfect stepsister, making a close-knit group of besties, and maybe even falling for the cute girl in class, it starts to feel like her second chance might actually be real.

But when a friend from the detention center reaches out to reconnect, Jas worries that everything she’s built could fall apart. How long can she keep her past a secret? And how many times can she spin the truth before she forgets who she really is?

Coming Out Perfect #1 by Richard Mercado
Graphix

When Kevin’s parents ignore his attempts to come out of the closet, he devises a plan to become more like Raymond, the popular gay kid at his high school. After all, if Kevin can do everything perfectly, too, then people will have to pay attention to him.

But life under Raymond’s wing isn’t easy: a dress code, new things Kevin can and can’t do, and even abandoning his old “uncool” friends. Perfection comes at a cost, and Kevin must decide whether it’s worth the sacrifice.

Hallie’s Rules for a Recovering Romantic by Jessica Lewis
HarperCollins Children’s Books

Hallie loves romance, but it doesn’t seem to love her back. Her six-time broken heart can attest to that.
So when Hallie has the chance to attend a prestigious academic summer camp, she sees an opportunity not just to better herself, but to reinvent herself. Into a new Hallie who will succeed where the old one failed—in school, friends, and especially love.

First, a fresh start—which means no romance, all summer. If Hallie’s fortitude is immediately tested by Julia, her gorgeous camp roommate with an uncrackable icy shell, then all the better! Reinvention is never easy!
Yet as Hallie and Julia get closer, Hallie’s heart is in more danger than ever. With the prospect of real love on the line, can Hallie trust that New Hallie won’t make the mistakes that she did? Or is Julia looking for someone else—the unfiltered, unaltered, real Hallie?

Wish You Weren’t Here meets I Think I Love You in this sweet, summer rom-com, where plans go wonderfully astray, the best rules are broken ones, and love might actually be just around the corner.

Deathless (Fateless #2) by Julie Kagawa
HarperCollins Publishers

Sparrow and her companions have been left with an impossible task: slay the immortal Deathless King, whose magic siphons the very life of the world to sustain himself.

The answer may lie deep in the past, when those who would become Deathless Kings stormed the sanctuary of the goddess of Fate, in an attempt to remove their threads from the Weave and become immortal. They broke off a piece of the goddess’s loom and hurled it to the earth, where it still lies at the center of a dangerous wasteland called the World Scar.

For any chance against the Deathless King, Sparrow and her companions must brave the World Scar and reach the loom, which would grant the power of a goddess. But the journey is fraught with danger, and the powerful Deathless King determined to find them.

And if the loom is reached—what will the power of a goddess do to a mere mortal? Sparrow has no choice but to find out.

The Bad Boyfriend Curse by Farah Heron
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Meera Noorani has spent her whole life playing it safe.

Raised by her single mom, she’s had to—especially in love. After all, it has been proven, generation after generation, that all Noorani women are cursed to have partners who ruin their lives.

And though she tried her best to avoid it, Meera’s fate comes a-calling, and within the span of a week, she’s broken up with, arrested, and then shipped to small-town Canada, where she’ll be completing her community service under the watchful eye of her mom and her new stepdad.

Meera’s spent her whole life being good, and this is the thanks she gets?

If she can pose a threat to Mom’s perfect new life, though, maybe she can get back to the city. And there’s no better way to do that than date one of her fellow teen delinquents. Noah has got the piercings, tattoos, and rumors to prove that he’s the town’s most infamous bad boy…but when the bad boy isn’t actually bad, what’s a girl meant to do?

http://richincolor.com/2026/07/new-releases-457/

https://richincolor.com/?p=20233

the_siobhan

Got down another 250 words last night and the story is finished. I'm going to give it a couple of days of rest then I'll go in and look for the usual grammar errors, perspective shifts, and repeated words.

Tonight is movie night with the GF so I may not get any words down but we'll see. Sometimes I can't go to bed right away after walking in the door. (But heaven help me if I open a bottle of wine. 2000 words later and I'm thinking, well if I go to bed now I can get four hours of sleep before my next meeting tomorrow...)

Day 7 Tally

ysilme

Day 6 Tally

sanguinity

badly_knitted

sylvanwitch

trobadora

cornerofmadness

dswdiane

shippen_stand

ysilme

the_siobhan

( past tallies )

Let me know if I have missed your name at any point. And don't forget you can jump in (or out) at any time.

oursin

Oxford, 1920. For the first time in its 1,000-year history, the world’s most famous university has admitted female students.

This would be rather startling to the ladies who had studied as home students, at Somerville, Lady Margaret Hall, St Hugh's and St Hilda's, before women were admitted to Oxford degrees which was what actually happened in 1920 -

- and those ladies who were still around were there to collect the degrees they were now entitled to.

I am so hoping that this is a blurb produced either by AI or by some intern at the publishers who has not actually read the book but has gathered that it is about women going to Oxford in 1920?

Because if the book is written in some apprehension that there were No Female Students among the dreaming spires before 1920 I hope the author is visited in her sleep by the shades of all, or at least some of, the women who were, who included some notoriously stroppy and acerbic characters.

This is even more egregious than the historical romance which posited a daughter of an Oxford prof at a date of obligatory celibacy for College fellows, which is a bit niche perhaps, but Women's Struggle for Education is surely well-documented???

(Come on down, Vera Brittain, The Women at Oxford: a fragment of history)

In further Did Not Do The Research, or at least have a Brit-Picker, JD Robb Stolen in Death has significant plot around theft of Important Jewels - from the Tate in London, wtf, surely you meant the V&A....

ysabetwordsmith

Starting now, the Poetry Fishbowl is open! Today's theme is "Don't add to the casualty list in an emergency." 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.

I picked this theme for today from the selected list of themes, because of the violent storms that swept through central Illinois in late June. Here's my post about Tornado Alley moving from the Great Plains through the Midwest to the Southeast.

Among my previous poems that mention tornadoes or other violent storms are "A Tornado of Thought," "Windswept," "Know What You Stand For," "Better to Meet Danger," "In Growth, Reform, and Change," and "Nature's Great Masterpiece," and "The Pequot War."

Established settings in Tornado Alley: Omaha Reservation and Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska (Polychrome Heroics), Stillwater, Oklahoma (Polychrome Heroics), Waxahachie, Texas (Schrodinger's Heroes), River City and Ava and Bluehill, Missouri (Polychrome Heroics), Onion City and Urbanburg, Illinois (Polychrome Heroics), Easy City, Louisiana (Polychrome Heroics), Ninovan, Tennessee (Daughters of the Apocalypse), Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center
for Elephant Conservation in Florida (Daughters of the Apocalypse).

I'll be soliciting ideas for first responders, troubleshooters, activists, rebels, Women Who Run with the Saberteeth, explorers, refugees, runaway youth, housemates, siblings, parents, teachers, clergy, police, soldiers, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, failure analysts, ethicists, other people who get into dire situations, running into a fire while others are running out of it, rescuing people, protesting, rebelling, planning, panicking, throwing in the towel, escaping, running like you stole something, adventuring, divorcing, teaching, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, war zones, disaster areas, wastelands, trails, sailing ships, distant lands, the forest primeval, prehistory, liminal zones, schools, homeless shelters, prisons, hotels, churches, sharehouses, campfires, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where disasters happen, cataclysms, natural disasters, climate change, the end of the world, S-risks and X-risks, unhappy relationships, PACE your planning, protest rallies, travel mishaps, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, supplements that turn out to be mutagenic, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Currently eligible bingo card(s) for donors wishing to sponsor a square:

Hazbin Hotel Fest Bingo Card 6-1-26

Winterfest in July Bingo Card 7-1-26

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has some serious challenges between the Galactic Arms.

The Bear Tunnels introduces modern principles to people in the past, in hopes of preventing genocide.

A Conflagration of Dragons features the Six Races struggling to survive as the dragons take over more and more territory.

Crystal Wood is about how the mass death of trees can wreck civilization.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse has people trying to find enough resources to survive, when former cities are unsafe.

The Moon Door explores a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy.

Not Quite Kansas deals with demons, magic, and other mayhem.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks after quitting as the God of Evil. Addiction always has the potential for disaster.

Path of the Paladins includes some really awful situations due to divine politics and mortal foolishness.

Peculiar Obligations deals with Quakers, pirates, and organized crime.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. Among the more relevant threads are Berettaflies, the Big One, Dr. Infanta, Iron Horses, Officer Pink, Shiv, and Trichromatic Attachments.

Schrodinger's Heroes has a lot of situations that can destroy things, up to and including whole dimensions.

The Wandering is a series about fantasy time travel where people loop back within their own lifespan.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: creative

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Poetry Fishbowl Open!

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