Reading

The women of Andor - Bix

I'll start off being honest: I did not relate to Bix. She's a great character and a complicated woman, but she wasn't my favourite.

That said, there is such awesome writing on this show because this was a different character yet again. An ordinary person who never signed up for the Rebellion, but got dragged into it because of who she knew. Tortured because of an ex. And then wanted to fight back.

( Bix in Season 2 )

(A lot of this discussion is about my preference for the Jyn/Cassian 'ship.)

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Steering the Craft: Chapter 1, the sound of your writing

A while ago I bought a copy of Steering the Craft by Ursula K Le Guin, "A revised and updated guide to the essentials of a writer’s craft" since people keep reccing it. I read through to the first exercise and then Got Stuck. But I am going to have another go now I've thought some more about what kinds of writing I actually like doing (eg fanfic), and try and keep notes as I go.
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Thoughts about the kinds of fiction I like creating

Something I've been poking at lately is the fact I genuinely don't seem to enjoy writing original prose fiction, even though I enjoy creating fanfic, original visual novels, visual novel adaptations, and original art (and fanart). I definitely don't think it's lacking as an artform! It just doesn't fit my brain so well to make it. And I guess to some extent I also am less drawn to it as a consumer of fiction? That's harder to untangle and not so much the point of this post but I'm going to ponder it later.
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The women of Andor - Dedra

For an Imperial, Dedra is surprisingly popular in STAR WARS fandom. It's because she (and other Imps) were written as people first, with their own compelling motivations and plot lines. "Andor" truly showed how everyday people can be accessories to fascists even when they don't think they are. They think they're doing the right thing and by the time they realise they are oppressing others (do they ever realise?) they're so far in that this seems normal.

Where Dedra stood out is that she is the only woman we've seen with this rank, or level of power. High-ranking women in the Empire are few and far between.

( Dedra in Season 2. )

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Have I mentioned that Beehiiv is kind of obnoxious

Like, they're not too bad to use but my god the vibe is atrocious. I picked them for my newsletter cos they're free and (unlike Substack) not, to my knowledge, actively in bed with nazis. But goddamn.

Their latest "guide to growing and monetizing creator-first businesses" email started with "I recently listened to a podcast where MrBeast discussed how switching from voice actors to AI-powered software to translate one of his videos for a non-English-speaking audience created an admittedly worse product but improved the audience retention rate", a sentence near-perfectly designed to make me cringe away from my screen.

I guess the naked amoral capitalism is in some ways less gross than the "app for independent voices" thinly veiled amoral capitalism of Substack etc but urrrgh.

(now to decide if I want to crosspost this to the newsletter lol)

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Pondering contacting local Australian politicians

This post on tumblr suggested contacting local politicians whenever you're in the mood to shout at someone online for being wrong on the internet, and it occurred to me that might actually work for me, if only as a way to divert my occasional FIGHT ME mood away from getting me in trouble. I've tried contacting politicians before when I was feeling like Being Productive and it felt overwhelming and depressing.

I haven't actually done it yet but I looked up some information! So I'll summarise what I've found here for anyone who might find it useful, further advice/info definitely appreciated!
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F/F Romance Visual Novel Rec: Love Curse

Love Curse is probably my favourite purely f/f romance novel I've played to date. It's not quite on par with my favourite otome (since that's a much larger genre with more to pick from), but still better than the average.

Watch on YouTube

It's a well made Chinese game about a 20 year old lesbian college student who suddenly gets cursed to find her soulmate or die, and ends up falling for one of four different women in her life while she navigates uni, work, relationships, and the supernatural. The love interests and romances are enjoyably varied, and are a fun mix of sweet and a little messed up, with a choice of both fluffy happy endings and darkly romantic bad ends with tragedy/controlling yanderes/implicit hatesex etc.
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