Open Thread: Orange

Because trees aren't the only things with leaves and orange is my favorite color.

If anyone is wondering what the writing in the background is, it says, "Veterans Memorial Bridge" except in all caps, which I chose to selectively lowercase.

This is the South Portland side which is in almost exactly the same place as the original Veterans Bridge (just far enough to the side that they could build the new one before knocking down the old one), unlike the Portland side where the relocated landfall to a place colloquially known as, "Why the Hell would you ever put it there!?"

I swear I'll try to get next week's open thread up on the right day.

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~~Friday~~ Saturday Recommendations! What have you been reading/writing/listening to/playing/watching lately? Shamelessly self-promote or boost the signal on something you think we should know about - the weekend’s ahead of us, so give us something new to explore!

And, like on all threads: please remember to use the "post new comment" feature rather than the "reply" feature, even when directly replying to someone else!

Sleeping Beauties: Part 3, Epilogue

When Magda Dubcek learned what had happened to Anton—the blood on her bedroom carpet told most of the story—she bitterly regretted her vote to come back. “What a mistake I have made,”

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 16-17

The one gay man in this novel is dead (killed by the Bad Guys a few pages back), and this is what happened to the queer ladies. Don't ever speak to me about King again. [Note: In the epilogue, the remaining Bad Guys will have happy endings because everyone covers up what they did. No one will ever receive any punishment for killing the gay man, the sapphic couple, or the Black rape victim.]

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 12-15

“You don’t have a single medical doctor in there,” Terry said, “and you don’t have any PAs you can call, because I seem to remember that they’re both women and they’ll be in cocoons by now. So, bottom line, you’re not examining her, you’re just holding her—” “Holding onto her,” Frank growled. “—and listening to what she tells you—” “Swallowing it, you mean!” Frank shouted. “Be quiet, Frank.”

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 9-11

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapter 8

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 6-7

But men fought more; they killed more. That was one way in which the sexes had never been equal; they were not equally dangerous. So, yes, Lila thought it was probably a good plan. Merciless, but very good. A world re-started by women had a chance to be safer and fairer. And yet . . . “I don’t know.”

Lila feels that a world rebooted with all the men dead/gone and (white) women in charge would be more peaceable. I groan. Magda has gotten the old indoor plumbing to work again. Two things: It's winter, months or years or decades later, and the pipes haven't all burst? And it's not heated. Cold indoor plumbing isn't hot indoor plumbing. OH AND MEN ARE BURNING YOU AND YOU COULD DIE AT ANY TIME. That too.

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapters 4-5

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part Two: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Chapter 4-5

(Tweet Link) Update: Lila is living in a tent covered in ice in her front yard rather than in the house itself because the house has painful memories. You know what else the house has, King? Insulation in the walls. She's perfectly comfortable in the icy tent. This is very cozy. Sometimes she leaves the tent to get a new book. By the way, it's raining. Love to walk in the icy rain for a book and then warm up in my ice-covered plastic tent. One time, I camped out and it was, like, 58 degrees Fahrenheit and I nearly died of exposure even with a fire. Seriously, kids, you can die from hypothermia at, like, 60 degrees F. Depending on individual and circumstance. Be careful.

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapter 3

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part Two: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Chapter 3

(Tweet Link) Okay, because several people are asking "how would the women even think to look for the dead people (which we still don't know if they're in the Sleeping World or not)", a breakdown:

1. Lila (the sheriff) personally shot the wife of one of her deputies, whilst that wife was in a zombie rage. Lila felt tremendous guilt over it. She hasn't thought to look for her here or ask the earlier women if they saw her.

2. Women are still awake in the outside world at this three month stage in the dream world. That means they're trickling in slowly. Those "new" women would know about the Burnings (it's all over the news) and would be able to tell the women what men are doing.

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapter 2

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part Two: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Chapter 2

(Tweet Link) Midway through this novel, someone in my mentions brings up the upcoming book The Power in which women develop electricity magic. According to this review in Strange Horizons, transgender and intersex people are ignored. Per this review in the NYT, the powers are XX chromosome based. Again.

Cis people, I love you, but please stop obsessing about chromosomes. It's weird and it isn't socially relevant. You cannot tell someone's chromosomes by looking. There isn't, like, chromosomal privilege and chromosomal prejudice. "XX chromosome" doesn't mean "women+". You cannot just replace "women" with "XX chromosome" and work around trans existence that way.

Sleeping Beauties: Part 2, Chapter 1

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part Two: I'll Sleep When I'm Dead. Chapter 1

(Tweet Link) Twitter is breaking the threading in my unreasonably long live-tweet, so this is Part 2 for Sleeping Beauties by King and King.

The first page of Part 2 shows us Lila in the sleeping world, so I assume her job will be to argue mankind's case to the women? I'm already losing the last dregs of my interest, because is this why King punted and made Clint innocent of adultery? Because if it goes "yes, I once thought men are awful but it turns out my egotistical emotionally distant husband didn't cheat" then ungh.

Even Picard--who did this premise better 20 years ago--didn't defend humanity by finding one faithful man in Sodom. Clint can't work as an innocent, not narratively-speaking. If he'd been a hypocritical adulterer and then had an epiphany, he'd show bad men can get better. As it is, if he's an innocent man wrongly accused of infidelity, he's just a Not All Men, and women know Not-All-Men exist. It's not a secret!

Sleeping Beauties: Chapters 18-20

The witch-woman pressed her face against the bars, her eyes never leaving Maura’s. “Kiss me quick. While there’s still time.”

Sleeping Beauties: Chapter 17

The idea caused a flush of guilt to heat his face. A wild idea came to him: What if Evie Black was male? What if his wife had arrested a guy in drag? But no. When Lila arrested her, Evie had been buck naked. Presumably the female officers supervising her intake had seen her that way, too.

I. am. going. to. scream. We cannot claim "ignorance" at this point. We just fucking can't. They clearly know trans women exist. *deep breaths* I don't know where to start with this. I am so goddamn vexxed.

Sleeping Beauties: Chapters 13-16

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part One: The Auld Triangle. Chapter 13-16

Chapter 13 begins and we return to your regularly scheduled apocalypse, where people are looting the local CVS for wakey meds. This puzzles me. Is that a thing most folks would do in this situation? You... you have to know that's not going to work, right? Wakey meds will get you another day, tops, and I'm not saying that's nothing but I'm not sure I buy immediately shooting the CVS pharmacist. (A thing that happens!)

Jared (teenage cinnamon bun) is driving the girl he loves to a grocery store to buy illicit speed drugs from an illicit speed drug dealer. Given that the illicit speed drug dealer is a woman, I find it very optimistic to assume she won't be hoarding her supply for herself. Money isn't exactly useful once you've slipped into a coma. The rest of Chapter 13 is sweet and painful and poignant and tearful.

Sleeping Beauties: Chapters 6-12

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part One: The Auld Triangle. Chapter 6-12

To answer a question from last time, the women re-cocoon after they kill. There's also apparently no agency in their murdery actions. [Note: I found this very disappointing, especially since the premise is building up to women having the agency to decide whether to rejoin the world of men or not.] They keep calling the phenomena "Aurora", by the way, when "Mothface Flu" is right there. Mad cow disease, swine flu, bird flu--we name diseases after vectors or we use a scientific name. We don't use Disney names!

It has been pointed out to me, further, how unlikely it is that a bunch of adult cis men would remember the Disney princess. Like, it's fine to name the novel "Sleeping Beauties", but I think it's a stretch to sell us a world where dudes agree to call them that. Imagine if books grew out of their noses and they read all day, god, they'd call it the Belle Flu. Which one of you is writing a mermaid plague where we all catch the Ariel? I want to go to there, dammit. Mother runs into a hospital clutching a be-finned fish-baby singing a solo. "Help, help, my baby can't seem to burp properly!"

Sleeping Beauties: Chapters 3-5

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part One: The Auld Triangle. Chapter 3-5

(Tweet Link) Update: Chapter 3 is where the horror starts and Stephen King is good at horror so Chapter 3 is good so far. Rejoicing! (Also, I peeked at the reviews and a bunch of men are angry that this book is "man hating" so that helped my flagging interest.)

Eve pretty clearly is the Christian mythological Eve, which fixes a lot of my issues with her? Like, once you're a mythological figure in the flesh, you're not misrepresenting mentally ill people. Be as manic pixie as you want. (Oh god, I think the women are literally being mothballed. I think they're being stored in cocoons so... I'm not sure. Eve can kill the men?)

Sleeping Beauties: Chapter 2

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts.

Sleeping Beauties, Part One: The Auld Triangle. Chapter 2

(Tweet Link) The next page is "Chapter 2". I... I am having OCD problems with the Cast of Characters and it's kicking my butt because new characters are being fired at my face. Why were they listed in this order? A main character (Clint) is on page 2 but his son ("son of Lila and Clint") is on page 1. The top name of the bunch is dead and I don't think he's going to be narratively important. Nor was he introduced first. [Note: He was not important in the slightest. The layout here is just bad.]

Chapter 2, Section 1. Tiffany calls the local dispatch to tell them about Truman's murder and that Eve blew up the meth shed. This... confuses. The dispatcher seems confused that there is a meth shed nearby. I'm confused that Tiffany would call the cops, period. I feel like the first thing a successful meth operation drills into its employees is to not call the police for things.

Sleeping Beauties: Chapter 1

"Evie doesn't trust the snake, obviously. She's had trouble with him before."

Sleeping Beauties: A Live Read Begins

[Sleeping Beauties Content Note: Trans Exclusion and Erasure, Misogyny, Violence Against Women]

Sleeping Beauties Recap: When this book first popped up on my radar, I expressed some concerns about the content on Twitter. This week, I purchased the book and read through it. As I read, I live-tweeted my thoughts on Twitter. This is a compilation and expansion of my tweets. The live-read will be spread out over multiple posts, which will be indexed here.

Sleeping Beauties, Part One: The Auld Triangle. Chapter 1

(Tweet Link) I just bought the Stephen King novel where "women disappear from the world of men" because I feel we need a trans reviewer on this. The novel is here, if you want to buy and follow along.

I'm not doing this live-read to slam King, I want to be very very very clear on that!, I just have concerns about the copy as a trans person, and I feel like the best way some of my fellow writer followers can learn how not to do the thing is by annotated example. [Note: This book has two authors, Stephen King and Owen King. Throughout the live-read I mess up and refer to "King" as a singular entity. These references will not be corrected in this compilation.]

Index: Sleeping Beauties

Sleeping Beauties

Source: Sleeping Beauties
Label: Deconstruction (Sleeping Beauties)

» A Live Read Begins
» Part 1, Chapter 1
» Part 1, Chapter 2
» Part 1, Chapters 3-5
» Part 1, Chapters 6-12
» Part 1, Chapters 13-16
» Part 1, Chapter 17
» Part 1, Chapters 18-20
» Part 2, Chapter 1
» Part 2, Chapter 2
» Part 2, Chapter 3
» Part 2, Chapters 4-5
» Part 2, Chapters 6-7
» Part 2, Chapter 8
» Part 2, Chapters 9-11
» Part 2, Chapters 12-15
» Part 2, Chapters 16-17
» Part 3, Epilogue

Note: Last updated 10/28/2017.

Utena: Nanami and Tsuwabuki

[Utena Content Note: Misogyny]

Utena Recap: Nanami is about to experience comeuppance for her bullying treatment of Anthy in the previous episodes.

Links: Froborr's excellent posts and color symbolism guide are here. My live-tweets for each watch are here. I'm watching the subtitled episodes contained in the blu-ray collection here. There is an HD remaster coming out in December that is available for pre-order here. If you wanted to watch before you buy, you could find this episode on YouTube here.

Revolutionary Girl Utena, Episode 8 and 6: "Curried High Trip" and "Take Care, Miss Nanami!"

Today I'm skipping to Episode #8 and then coming back to #6, because they were aired out of order and they make more sense in order.

Episode #8 opens with another recap of the Prince's meeting with Utena and I love so much how the whole series is slowly trolling us: the narration always asks "was that such a good idea?" when Utena wants to be a prince, and we in the audience supply a reflexive supportive "YES!!" Because, well, yes! Be a prince, Utena! Be whatever you want in your heart to be! We support you!

Open Thread: More Leaves

This time still on the trees and a plethora of them instead of one.

Open Thread: Chain Link Leaf

They call it "Fall" because the leaves fall off of the trees and, apparently, don't quite reach the ground.

Open Thread: Light and Shadow

I feel that there should be a distinct word for this phenomenon since "caustic" is way to general. There's a quality to the shapes created by light through clear waves that ought to have a name.

And sorry for having this a day late this week too.

Narnia: The Horse and His Boy

I feel like I always open these by explaining why they're late, so for once I'm doing that above all the Narnia matter so you can skip over it! So here goes: This post is late and I'm sorry.

There are reasons for this--I took a much-needed vacation that lasted for two days but mentally occupied me with preparation and packing for two weeks; I worked on Patreon stories (which are my main source of online income right now, and my highest of spoon-priorities); I played Breath of the Wild for many wonderful good hours; I became briefly sick with food poisoning from rancid shortening; I dealt with an unexpected air-conditioning outage that I'm still trying to sort out; and so forth--and I never know how long to spend on those reasons. It's not that I feel I have to justify myself (you're all incredibly understanding about delays!) but I'm always torn between "wanting to let people know what's happening in my life" and "not wanting to constantly complain".

So this post is late and here are the reasons why. I'm alive and I'm as well as someone can be in 2017, which is not very well at all but here we are. I love you all and miss you and I hope you're well.

[Narnia Content Note: Racism, Violence]

Narnia Recap: The fight against Rabadash has been won and we're doing narrative clean-up now. Aslan has briefly visited Aravis, Bree, and Hwin to convert them. Obligatory note about racism, intent, and Lewis is here.

The Horse and His Boy, Chapter 14: How Bree Became a Wiser Horse

This is a second-parter to the last post, so if you haven't read that one, I suggest doing so first here. When we last left Chapter 14 it was morning when Aslan showed up and he didn't speak with them for more than maybe a half hour? Tops?

This is in retrospect disappointing. Can you imagine Hwin's point of view? She got a whole sentence from her creator and then was ignored afterwards. Even his terrorizing of her was for someone else's benefit: Aravis and the servant girl. (When does Aslan need to know how Hwin felt being chased by him? An eye for an eye, Lion Jesus!)

   Strange to say, they felt no inclination to talk to one another about him after he had gone. They all moved slowly away to different parts of the quiet grass and there paced to and fro, each alone, thinking.
   About half an hour later the two Horses were summoned to the back of the house to eat something nice that the Hermit had got ready for them and Aravis, still walking and thinking, was startled by the harsh sound of a trumpet outside the gate.
   “Who is there?” said Aravis.
   “His Royal Highness Prince Cor of Archenland,” said a voice from outside.