klb: (Default)
podklb ([personal profile] klb) wrote in [community profile] pod_together2025-06-19 09:11 am

Icebreaker Week: Day 4

  1. Suggest ways that the podficcer(s) might be involved in the writing process that would work well for you.

  2. Suggest ways that the writer(s) might be involved in the podficcing process that would work well for you.

  3. If one or more group members become unhappy or uncomfortable with how the collaboration is going, what are your preferences for how it would be handled? (For example, a preference that your partner(s) tell you right away if something bothers them, a preference that they give you some time after telling you something heavy for you to process and respond, etc. Please note that for any conflict that cannot be resolved within a single conversation, we STRONGLY ENCOURAGE coming to the mods for support and not allowing things to escalate! Participants should also all feel welcome and encouraged to come straight to the mods without having talked to their partner first if that feels safer/better!)

  4. What is the maximum project length that works for you? Is there a period of time where your partner will not be able to contact you for many days? Is there anything else along these lines that you want to let your partner know about in advance?
klb: (Default)
podklb ([personal profile] klb) wrote in [community profile] pod_together2025-06-18 07:31 am

Icebreaker Week: Day 3

We're at the halfway point of icebreaker week!

If you're finding that you're not able to answer the whole set of questions within a day but think they'd be valuable to go through, please feel free to spread the five days of icebreaker questions out across more than 5 days to fit your schedule.

This next set of questions is geared towards helping partners get more familiar with each other's work and creative process.

  1. Why do you create fanworks? What does it mean to you?

  2. Share a piece of a fanwork you're particularly proud of (a page or so of a written work, a few minutes of an audio work) and explain why you're proud of it.

  3. Read/listen to your partner's shared fanwork, and give feedback about what works for you about it.
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
Lanna Michaels ([personal profile] lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-17 09:08 pm

Murderbot through 1.6



1.6 sure was a combination of "funny" and "I cannot look at the screen". So there's that. It's still entertaining but I may be getting to the point where I have to fast forward through my extreme embarrassment squick going on with Ratthi when it comes to Pin-Lee.

The situation: Arada and Pin-Lee are married. Arada wants to bring Ratthi into their relationship; they've had a third in their relationship before and it hasn't worked out. Pin-Lee isn't really into the idea, it's being heavily pushed by Arada. Pin-Lee then eventually agrees to it for Arada's sake.

Here's where it gets to the part where I just keep having second-hand embarrassment: Ratthi doesn't know this. Ratthi thinks that both Arada and Pin-Lee are equally happy to have him in the relationship, and he's really really into this relationship. He seems to want this to be permanent and is just really happy with it. And he keeps having interactions with Pin-Lee where Pin-Lee is very uncomfortable and doesn't want to be having these interactions with Ratthi, but, crucially, has not said any of this to Ratthi. Ratthi has no way to know that Pin-Lee isn't as into him as he's into them.

And so we keep getting these moments where Ratthi doesn't fucking know that the person he's trying to have a good faith relationship interaction with does not want this, but yet has never said anything about it.

Somebody please break up Ratthi from Arada/Pin-Lee for the sake of everyone. Or maybe Pin-Lee can actually say something, rather than seemingly 1) being content to suffer in silence for the sake of the Arada/Pin-Lee relationship (Arada has never said Ratthi was a necessary addition to the Arada/Pin-Lee relationship for the sake of its continuance), or 2) expecting someone in this relationship to read their mind and magically divine their discomfort and break it up for them.

I suspect this was added to the show for narrative reasons, including mirroring with the Sanctuary Moon stuff (still delightful, still clear that everyone involved in that is having the time of their life), but zomg. It is excruciating.

petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
petra ([personal profile] petra) wrote2025-06-17 09:47 pm
Entry tags:

Short Star Wars podfics of my work by sisi_rambles et alia

[Podfic] Unrestrained passion (14 words) by GodOfLaundryBaskets, sisi_rambles, LittleRedRobinHood, Aether
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala/Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader
Characters: Anakin Skywalker | Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala
Additional Tags: Limericks, Poetry, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic
Summary:

Podfic (00:02:28)

Author's Summary from Petra:
A limerick cycle for Obi-Wan, Anakin, and Padmé.



*

[Podfic] Rewind, rewind, rewind (14 words) by GodOfLaundryBaskets, sisi_rambles, LittleRedRobinHood, Aether
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: 212th Attack Battalion Members (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Characters: 212th Attack Battalion Members (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Drabble, Democracy, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic
Summary:

Podfic (00:01:44)

Author's Summary from Petra:
Waxer asks a cogent question on a long, cold night.



*

[Podfic] Natural philosophy (17 words) by sisi_rambles, AppleSapling
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Anakin Skywalker
Additional Tags: Aubrey-Maturin Fusion, SOLAR SHIPS, Triple Drabble, Not quite high Patrick O'Brian pastiche, But leaning that way, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic
Summary:

Podfic (00:02:57)

Author's Summary from Petra:
Obi-Wan came into Anakin's cabin just in time to see the monkey-lizard he'd carefully collected slump to one side and fall off of the table.



*

[Podfic] Rewind, rewind, rewind (14 words) by GodOfLaundryBaskets, sisi_rambles, LittleRedRobinHood, Aether
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: 212th Attack Battalion Members (Star Wars: The Clone Wars) & Obi-Wan Kenobi
Characters: 212th Attack Battalion Members (Star Wars: The Clone Wars), Obi-Wan Kenobi
Additional Tags: Drabble, Democracy, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic
Summary:

Podfic (00:01:44)

Author's Summary from Petra:
Waxer asks a cogent question on a long, cold night.



*

[Podfic] The Sun would not have risen (17 words) by sisi_rambles, AppleSapling
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Luke Skywalker
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker
Additional Tags: morris dancing, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes, Multivoice and Collaborative Podfic
Summary:

Podfic (00:01:07)

Author's Summary from Petra:
Luke follows in his father's footstep-hops.



*

[Podfic] Mindtrick (13 words) by sisi_rambles
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi/Elan Sleazebaggano
Characters: Obi-Wan Kenobi, Elan Sleazebaggano
Additional Tags: Podfic, Podfic Length: 0-10 Minutes
Summary:

Obi-Wan runs into a hookup.

pandarus: (Default)
Fay ([personal profile] pandarus) wrote2025-06-17 04:34 pm

Book Review: All of us Murderers

(Thanks to NetGalley for access to an advance copy of All Of Us Murderers in exchange for an honest review)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/All-Us-Murderers-Kj-Charles/dp/1464227527

While the adage that you should never judge a book by its cover is generally good advice, in the case of “All Of Us Murderers” the cover art is an excellent guide to the contents of the book: a gloriously over the top piece of escapism created as a love letter to the genre.

Cover art

This is an unrepentantly gothic confection, and it was, as anticipated, a wittily tropetastic delight rife with nefarious villains, misty moors, blood-drenched ruins, cursed fortunes, wide-eyed nubile heiresses and mysterious ghostly figures, ALL of which our hero (a precious ADHD cinnamon roll, and - provided one doesn’t find The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name to be a source of wickedness - very much the white sheep of his unpleasant family) is desperately trying to avoid, bless him.

Zebedee Wyckham is the impoverished grandson of a successful gothic novelist, and having found himself once again between jobs he has unwisely accepted an invitation to pay a visit to a wealthy uncle whom he hasn’t seen in decades - only to find himself trapped in the most ghastly houseparty since…well, since the LAST hilariously ghastly (and murderous) house party to grace the pages of a KJ Charles novel.

Finding that the lover whom he inadvertently ruined a year ago is now working as his uncle’s secretary comes as a mortifying shock, but this is the least of the unwelcome surprises that his uncle’s faux-gothic home has in store.

Zeb may be the innocent Cinderella figure amongst the variously unpleasant scions of the Wyckham family, but he’s no fool: having grown up on the works of Mrs Radcliffe, Horace Walpole and his own respected ancestor, Zeb can spot a gothic novel cliche at fifty paces and he has absolutely no intention of ending up sacrificed on a pagan altar, walled up in a cellar, drowned in a well or otherwise disposed of: think “Scream”, but make it gay and a period piece.

He is, in short, the polar opposite of Austen’s Catherine Morland: far from imagining spectral figures and dark secrets where none exist, Zeb is a pragmatic soul with a kind (if battered) heart who wasn’t born yesterday & has no interest in rushing headlong into danger if it can possibly be avoided.

Can Zeb escape the unwelcome attentions of the various spectral figures, blackmailers, marriageable heiresses and spider-filled rooms that await him at Lackaday House, and persuade his bitter ex to forgive him for past offences?

(Of course he can! This isn’t LitFic! You know that the starcrossed lovers will escape the villains’ clutches in the nick of time, foil their iniquitous plans, and finally achieve their happily ever after - but it’s still *thoroughly* enjoyable watching KJ Charles get them there.)
klb: (Default)
podklb ([personal profile] klb) wrote in [community profile] pod_together2025-06-17 07:12 am

Icebreaker Week: Day 2

Day 2's icebreaker questions are related to group work!

  1. What strengths will you bring to the group?

  2. What things do you struggle with when it comes to group work? (And, if you want, how can your partner help you with these things?)

  3. What are you hoping for from this collaboration experience? What would your dream version of pod_together collaboration look like?

  4. What's one thing your partner(s) could say or do that would feel really good to you? (For example, compliment your fanwork, offer to help with organization/beta/cheerleading, reach out to you to say hi every few days, etc.)
klb: (Default)
podklb ([personal profile] klb) wrote in [community profile] pod_together2025-06-16 06:50 am

Icebreaker Week: Day 1

Hello lovely participants,

The start of a partnership is always so exciting as you and your partner(s) figure out how you'd like to work together! Icebreaker week is designed to support that process, with a combination of fun and helpful getting-to-know-you questions. They've started some incredibly useful and productive conversations in the past, and we hope they'll do the same for you now!

These exercises are optional, but we hope they'll help both those groups that were assigned and the ones that formed on their own. We encourage group members to stay in contact with each other this week, answering as many questions as they are comfortable with.

Today's questions are geared towards helping group members learn a bit more about each other, personally and fannishly.

  1. Name as many books, movies, TV shows, animes, comics, celebrities, etc. that you can think of that you have felt or feel fannish about.

  2. List three to five things you enjoy in stories (e.g. a kind of trope, story line, etc.). List three to five things that you do not enjoy in stories.

  3. What communication methods and interaction level did you put in your sign-up, and why did you choose them? (If you did group sign-ups, you may want to look at those questions on our matchmaker sign-up form and then answer them for your partner). It could also help to describe the communication level you don't want——what sort of communication patterns would feel uncomfortably high/uncomfortably low for you, and why?

  4. What are three facts about yourself (fannish or otherwise) that you haven’t already mentioned?
lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
Lanna Michaels ([personal profile] lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-15 09:41 pm

"And Though The Static Walls Surround Me." (Vorkosigan Saga) G



Title: And Though The Static Walls Surround Me.
Author: [personal profile] lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 11 of Are You Out There, Can You Hear This?
Rating: G
A/N: The title is from Are You Out There by Dar Williams.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Miles is hanging out with mercenaries. Gregor has a headache and would rather be listening to the radio. Or: Warrior's Apprentice in radioverse.


ExpandLet's do the time skip again! )

roga: coffee mug with chocolate cubes (Default)
Roga ([personal profile] roga) wrote2025-06-13 11:13 pm

(no subject)

I am so, so over this thing ugh. But am safe, as are family. Someday I will write real posts again I hope, le sigh. PS I am also on bluesky these days, not posting much, but more then here.

Hoping for as easy a weekend as possible to all.
philomytha: Biggles pulling Angus from the water (Biggles drowning rescue)
philomytha ([personal profile] philomytha) wrote2025-06-13 12:11 pm

Biggles retrouve von Stalhein

So last year I got a couple of the French Biggles comics for my amusement, but I haven't written any of them up properly. This one is probably of most interest to at least some of you, being a proper Biggles vs von Stalhein adventure with a fairly lively plot (the other one, promisingly titled Biggles contre von Stalhein, actually only has a little bit of EvS, admittedly commanding the palace guard in a South American revolution where Biggles is on the side of the revolutionaries, but with only a few appearances in the story). Anyway, I gave my French a workout to read them. This one, incidentally, is the one where the drawing of EvS with that colourful cravat comes from: the artist has clearly heard that he's a snappy dresser and is having fun with it. It's also the one where Biggles and EvS very nearly get shipwrecked together. In general the plot only makes sense if you don't think about anything at all, but it is very well equipped with explosions, vehicular adventures, dramatic escapes, chases and secret bases, so who cares :-D

ExpandBiggles retrouve von Stalhein in detail )
petra: A cartoon penguin standing in dandelions thinking, "Dandelion break." (Bloom County - Dandelion Break)
petra ([personal profile] petra) wrote2025-06-12 08:35 pm

US Politics: Transcending parody

After illegally ordering the National Guard and the Marines to violently end protests in California, 47 went to the theatre to see Les Misérables.

Can we please fire the people scripting this season of the United States of America? Some of these choices are so asinine I think they're consulting genAI for their scripts, and no one is editing them.

Oh, wait, that's what the politicians are doing to make fucking laws.

I'm going to go read amnesia fic now and think, "I wish that were me."
petra: CGI Obi-Wan Kenobi with his face smudged with dirt, wearing beige, visible from the chest up. A Clone Trooper is visible over one shoulder. (Obi-Wan - Clones ftw)
petra ([personal profile] petra) wrote2025-06-11 09:32 pm

Make an ass out of u and me - Star Wars story on the theme of "Obi-Wan: Virgin and/or Whore"

Make an ass out of u and me (1431 words) by Petra
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars - All Media Types
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Obi-Wan Kenobi & Anakin Skywalker, Depa Billaba/Obi-Wan Kenobi/Shaak Ti/Quinlan Vos, Aayla Secura & Anakin Skywalker
Characters: Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Aayla Secura, Quinlan Vos, Shaak Ti, Depa Billaba
Additional Tags: A+ Jedi Pedagogy, Polyamory, POV Outsider
Summary:

Anakin has the most boringly perfect master in the entire Jedi Order. Some masters go on interesting missions; Obi-Wan does diplomatic missions where he sits at a table and says, "Hm, well…" a lot till he gets his way. Some masters have showy, dangerous lightsaber styles; Obi-Wan does Soresu, which is as purely defensive as anything anyone has ever devised. Some masters are fully-rounded people who drink and laugh and dance; Obi-Wan stays in with his three best friends and talks about philosophy all night, because he is a perfect Jedi, and so are they.

lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
Lanna Michaels ([personal profile] lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-10 08:12 pm

"And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him." (Vorkosigan Saga) R



Title: And If You're Under Him, You Ain't Getting Over Him.
Author: [personal profile] lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Pairing: Ges Vorrutyer/Aral Vorkosigan, Ges Vorrutyer/Serg Vorbarra
Rating: R
A/N: The title is from New Rules, sung by Dua Lipa, written by Caroline Ailin, Emily Warren, and Ian Kirkpatrick.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Ges Vorrutyer has ex-boyfriend problems.


ExpandThis has languished in Scrivener since 2019... )

lannamichaels: Astronaut Dale Gardner holds up For Sale sign after EVA. (Default)
Lanna Michaels ([personal profile] lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-09 10:31 pm

not complaining about the weather too much????

Somehow we got a spring this year -- after so many years of maybe a week between winter and summer -- and I am so so so happy and relieved. Summer is certainly icumen in, but we have had spring. An actual spring. Yay.
petra: A blonde woman with both hands over her face (Britta - Twohanded facepalm)
petra ([personal profile] petra) wrote2025-06-08 07:33 pm
Entry tags:

Neurodivergent reward cycle

My brain reward cycle is fucked, and the longer I think about it, the more I recognize that it's always been this way.

Case in point: I performed recently after preparing for 5 months.

My mother said, "It went well! That must feel good."

Me: "..."

It didn't. It never really does, not unless someone else gives me external validation.

Whenever I do something hard, my brain's response is, "Well, I did it, so how hard could it have been?"

This applies to excelling academically (which I have done frequently), excelling at my job (which I have done on occasion), every type of performance I've ever undertaken (and there have been a lot), every form of art/craft I've ever done (writing, knitting, crocheting, etc.), and helping friends.

Mostly I just feel relief that it's over, and my brain isn't going to give me the constant round of "You should work on [thing]!" anymore. Nah, the shoulds will switch to something else, but at least it'll be new at first.
grundyscribbling: white stars on a light blue background (stars)
grundyscribbling ([personal profile] grundyscribbling) wrote in [community profile] innumerable_stars2025-06-08 10:40 am
Entry tags:

Call for Fandom Promo Post Volunteers

Calling all fans of our "small" fandoms! Many people are aware of Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and Rings of Power. But there are many more fandoms in Innumerable Stars, and we have a special place in our hearts for the small fandoms.

Last round's promotion of the "small" fandoms was a success. We not only had more nominations for those fandoms, we also had more fanworks for them! So we are planning to do another round of promo posts this year - ideally fresh ones, not just recycling last year’s posts.

We're looking for volunteers willing to write a promo post for one or more of the fandoms on our small fandoms list - meaning any fandom with less than 100 works posted to AO3. We'd also be very excited if anyone wants to promo the fandoms newly added this round - unlike the others, they don't have any posts from previous rounds to fall back on if there are no volunteers.

The promo posts will be posted on Tumblr and Dreamwidth to get people looking at the fandoms in advance of nominations. Your post should answer the following in your own words:
  • Summary - what is this fandom about?
  • Why should I check out this canon?
  • Where can I get this? (The mods are able to assist somewhat with this.)
  • What fanworks exist already? (We have links to the tags on AO3, but people who are into the fandom can probably add a bit more - you probably know better than we do if there is more to be found and where.)
  • Optional: provide an image (The image must be either your own work, or a stock photo/other image that allows posting - no copyrighted images, please.)

Note: If you would like to suggest a fandom to be added to Innumerable Stars, now is the time! We are open to adding fandoms based on material written by Tolkien or media adaptations thereof. (Musicals, operas, movies.) We do not add new fandoms once nominations open.

Our small fandoms list is below. Bolded fandoms are new this year - we really need promo posts for these fandoms! The links in most cases go to the works for the fandom on AO3; in a few cases, they go to the work itself. Please note the numbers were accurate at the time the list was compiled, but it's possible more works may post before nominations begin.

ExpandFandoms List )
marina: (Erik's got his helmet on)
Marina ([personal profile] marina) wrote2025-06-07 07:59 pm
Entry tags:

a brief buy joyous update

Welp, I've started a new job! It has happened!

Expandboring financial things )

*

I've only had 1 day of work at the new place, due to holidays and the fact that I was sick for the past 10 days (boo!!!) and asked to postpone my start date by a few days.

But it definitely feels like a level of fancy tech that I've never personally experienced before, with an actual HR department that made sure I'd have all my equipment ready for me on the first day, and a little welcome sign, and some company merch.

There are things I definitely haven't figured out yet, like how to best get to the office to deal with my disability/health issues, especially considering the fact that the laptop I got is much heavier than anticipated (my previous company replaced some of the laptops shortly after I joined and I managed to get in on the deal and get a really great, light computer).

The office itself is really nice, even though the building is sadly in the middle of a construction zone. My previous work was in an extremely central downtown area where you were close to a bunch of greenery and shops and restaurants. This place is tragically kind of isolated in a sea of dust and hazard signs.

I haven't figured out the dynamics of my team/department/org so much yet, but everyone I've met has been nice, and my boss seems to be a pretty great guy, according to reports. He's also been nothing but kind and respectful towards me.

So, overall first day was pretty overwhelming but nice. Tomorrow will be my first day of work-from-home, and I plan to spend most of it reading a ton of documents. And then Tuesday we're having some kind of all-day workshop for the entire team that means I'll need to get super early to the office, even though the workshop will be virtual. But you know, if it wasn't literally my first week I might find a more sensible way to do it, but since I'm extremely new and this seems to be the expectation, I'll be there with bells on lol.
petra: Barbara Gordon smiling knowingly (Default)
petra ([personal profile] petra) wrote2025-06-07 12:15 am
Entry tags:

Recommendation: love is an affliction by WerewolvesAreReal, ST:TOS Hanahaki Disease

I deeply enjoyed reading a Star Trek: The Original Series story in which Hanahaki is nonfatal and limited to Vulcans. I enjoyed it all the more because I didn't read the tags beyond noting that it's General Audiences and No Warnings Apply. Having now read the tags and finished the story, which ends hopefully, I recommend that you give the story a try if the idea of Spock coughing up flowers of unrequited love appeals to you -- but page down and skip the tags, unless there are common pairings in the fandom that you need to avoid.

love is an affliction
skygiants: Autor from Princess Tutu gesturing smugly (let me splain)
skygiants ([personal profile] skygiants) wrote2025-06-06 08:18 pm

(no subject)

A while back, [personal profile] lirazel posted about a bad book about an interesting topic -- Conspiracy Theories About Lemuria -- which apparently got most of its information from a scholarly text called The Lost Land of Lemuria: Fabulous Geographies, Catastrophic Histories by Sumathi Ramaswamy.

Great! I said. I bet the library has that book, I'll read it instead of the bad one! which now I have done.

For those unfamiliar, for a while the idea of sunken land-bridges joining various existing landmasses was very popular in 19th century geology; Lemuria got its name because it was supposed to explain why there are lemurs in Madagascar and India but not anywhere else. Various other land-bridges were also theorized but Lemuria's the only one that got famous thanks to the catchy name getting picked up by various weird occultists (most notably Helena Blavatasky) and incorporated into their variably incomprehensible Theories of Human Origins, Past Paradises, Etc.

As is not unexpected, this book is a much more dense, scholarly, and theory-driven tome than the bad pop history that [personal profile] lirazel read. What was unexpected for me is that the author's scholarly interests focus on a.) cartography and b.) Tamil language and cultural politics, and so what she's most interested in doing is tracing how the concept of a Lemurian continent went from being an outdated geographic supposition to a weird Western occult fringe belief to an extremely mainstream, government-supported historical narrative in Tamil-speaking polities, where Lost Lemuria has become associated with the legendary drowned Tamil homeland of Tamilnāṭu and thus the premise for a claim that not only is the Lemurian continent the source of human origins but that specifically the Tamil language is the source language for humanity.

Not the book I expected to be reading! but I'm not at all mad about how things turned out! the prose is so dry that it was definite work to wade through but the rewards were real; the author has another whole book about Tamil language politics and part of me knows I am not really theory-brained enough for it at this time but the other part is tempted.

Also I did as well come out with a few snippets of the Weird Nonsense that I thought I was going in for! My favorite anecdote involves a woman named Gertrude Norris Meeker who wrote to the U.S. government in the 1950s claiming to be the Governor-General of Atlantis and Lemuria, ascertaining her sovereign right to this nonexistent territory, to which the State Department's Special Advisor on Geography had to write back like "we do not think that is true; this place does not exist." Eventually Gertrude Meeker got a congressman involved who also nobly wrote to the government on behalf of his constituent: "Mrs. Meeker understands that by renouncing her citizenship she could become Queen of these islands, but as a citizen she can rule as governor-general. [...] She states that she is getting ready to do some leasing for development work on some of these islands." And again the State Department was patiently like "we do not think that is true, as this place does not exist." Subsequently they seem to have developed a "Lemuria and Atlantis are not real" form letter which I hope and trust is still being used today.
lannamichaels: Brachos 2a, caption: "There's a debate about that" (daf yomi)
Lanna Michaels ([personal profile] lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-06 01:58 pm
Entry tags:

[Daf Yomi] Maseches Shevuos perek 1-4



Notes on the first 4 prakim of Tractate Oaths, of which two of them were not about oaths at all.

ExpandRead more... )