unpopular opinions
Oct. 30th, 2025 06:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yhleeSaying that the creative process of creation/conception for a story/novel MUST START with character/goal/motivation is complete fucking nonsense. You will usually need it in the END PRODUCT (modulo weird edge cases like Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men), but that doesn't have to be the inception.
cf. composing music, where this would be like saying to a composer: you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a melody or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a harmonic progression or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with instrumentation etc. No??? You can start in any of a number of places and still wind up with music???
There are times you need to start with $XYZ because of the use case (if writing for a string quartet, that constrains your instrumentation, ranges, techniques).
But when writing music, I can START in ANY of these places (not a complete list) (and have done so at various points):
- instrumentation
- tempo
- time signature
- harmonic progression
- a rhythm
- a vibe
- key/mode/etc
- melody or leitmotif
- structure/form (e.g. theme and variations, ternary form)
- a transformation (e.g. diminution, retrograde)
- articulation(s) to feature
- trolling ("What if I rewrote Swan Lake's theme in 5/4?")
etc
You're not going to be able to tell which one from the RESULTING MUSIC as an end product.
For that matter, watching web/comic creators talk about story ideation is fascinating. A bunch of them start with "I drew this cool character, but who are they? what is their story?", which is absolutely not my process since I don't visualize, but it's a perfectly cromulent process!
cf. composing music, where this would be like saying to a composer: you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a melody or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with a harmonic progression or you MUST ALWAYS start FIRST with instrumentation etc. No??? You can start in any of a number of places and still wind up with music???
There are times you need to start with $XYZ because of the use case (if writing for a string quartet, that constrains your instrumentation, ranges, techniques).
But when writing music, I can START in ANY of these places (not a complete list) (and have done so at various points):
- instrumentation
- tempo
- time signature
- harmonic progression
- a rhythm
- a vibe
- key/mode/etc
- melody or leitmotif
- structure/form (e.g. theme and variations, ternary form)
- a transformation (e.g. diminution, retrograde)
- articulation(s) to feature
- trolling ("What if I rewrote Swan Lake's theme in 5/4?")
etc
You're not going to be able to tell which one from the RESULTING MUSIC as an end product.
For that matter, watching web/comic creators talk about story ideation is fascinating. A bunch of them start with "I drew this cool character, but who are they? what is their story?", which is absolutely not my process since I don't visualize, but it's a perfectly cromulent process!
[music] Trailures and Other Fiascoes
Oct. 29th, 2025 10:18 pmyhleeI committed a mini-album on Bandcamp of Trailures and Other Fiascoes (= "failure trailers"). Hybrid orchestra instrumental music because mopey foxmoth can't sing.
(I know voice lessons exist but for medical reasons, sore throat for over a year; singing is contraindicated.)
(This is accumulated composition/production from the past few months; I'm bowing out of a bunch of things currently due to ongoing health stuff. I don't want to discuss health details further, thanks!)
(I know voice lessons exist but for medical reasons, sore throat for over a year; singing is contraindicated.)
(This is accumulated composition/production from the past few months; I'm bowing out of a bunch of things currently due to ongoing health stuff. I don't want to discuss health details further, thanks!)
emotional support dyeing?
Oct. 29th, 2025 10:43 amyhlee
A test batch to see how the colors come out. Next I start measuring out and doing this more systematically.
Three-ply handspun wool yarn.
Supercomputing and Affirmation
Oct. 27th, 2025 08:49 pmtcpipEvery so often, there is a slight glimmer of light in my world where my usual state of driven dysthymia changes due to the affirming words and actions of others. Such an experience occurred last Friday when I organised a researcher tech talk with Dr Tomasz Wozniak, a senior lecturer in economics at UniMelb. Tomasz has recently been published, as part of an international team, in a Bank of Canada paper and in the prestiguous Journal of Econometrics on Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVARs) and time-series models that analyse the relationships between multiple economic variables to identify and isolate the effects of exogenous economic shocks. It's actually important stuff to keep people in jobs when (for example) there's a massive negative disruption to trade (hello, US tariffs).
Tomasz had been kind enough to provide a repository of his presentation, which also points out that in the course of his research and his use of Spartan he has become an editor of the R Journal and developed the R packages, bsvars, bsvarSIGNs, and bpvars. He had many extremely positive comments to make about Spartan, both in terms of the infrastructure that we offer and the support that we provide to researchers. Two comments particularly stood out; first was the effects of our optimisation of the software that we build from the source code, especially (in his case) the GNU compiler suite and the R programming language. As a result of our optimised installs, he reported that his jobs would run four times faster on Spartan compared to his own machine, despite the fact that he had faster processors. Further, he mentioned that a few years ago, after attending one of my introductory training sessions, he learned the advantages of using job arrays instead of a looping logic. Suddenly, his computational improvements were hundreds of times faster than what would be the case on his own system; we call it "high performance computing" for a reason.
This is hardly the first time that this has happened. For every dollar invested in high performance computing, the estimated social return on investment is $44 (in Japan, for example, it's c$75:1 due to alignment with national objectives). In a world where so many are in well-paid "bullshit jobs" whilst other struggle as part of the precariat class with low-paid insecure work, I have been fortunate enough to find a career that has stability and fair renumeration, interesting and challenging work, and actually produces socially useful outcomes. For almost twenty years, I have believed this with utter sincerity, but it is still very pleasing when the affirmation comes from others.
Tomasz had been kind enough to provide a repository of his presentation, which also points out that in the course of his research and his use of Spartan he has become an editor of the R Journal and developed the R packages, bsvars, bsvarSIGNs, and bpvars. He had many extremely positive comments to make about Spartan, both in terms of the infrastructure that we offer and the support that we provide to researchers. Two comments particularly stood out; first was the effects of our optimisation of the software that we build from the source code, especially (in his case) the GNU compiler suite and the R programming language. As a result of our optimised installs, he reported that his jobs would run four times faster on Spartan compared to his own machine, despite the fact that he had faster processors. Further, he mentioned that a few years ago, after attending one of my introductory training sessions, he learned the advantages of using job arrays instead of a looping logic. Suddenly, his computational improvements were hundreds of times faster than what would be the case on his own system; we call it "high performance computing" for a reason.
This is hardly the first time that this has happened. For every dollar invested in high performance computing, the estimated social return on investment is $44 (in Japan, for example, it's c$75:1 due to alignment with national objectives). In a world where so many are in well-paid "bullshit jobs" whilst other struggle as part of the precariat class with low-paid insecure work, I have been fortunate enough to find a career that has stability and fair renumeration, interesting and challenging work, and actually produces socially useful outcomes. For almost twenty years, I have believed this with utter sincerity, but it is still very pleasing when the affirmation comes from others.
Project progress
Oct. 26th, 2025 07:34 pmfred_mouseIn the interest of accountability: yes, I have worked on Eldest's quilt. Previously I was at the point of needing some more blanks drawn (done), and then 20 blocks needed sewing and then assembling. The goal was to do 2 per weekend and then assemble over a few weeks.
However! After two weekends, I have 5 blocks sewn, and one nearly done, being thus a block (and a half) ahead). I have also assembled the first four into a two by two block thus having got ahead on the assembling. Thus, I am feeling tentatively confident about minimum goal: finish top by the end of the year.
I've also attempted to progress Youngest's. Sadly, while I know I had an image that they wanted to have converted, I have not found where I filed it. That is not a this week problem though. I have only progressed Middlest's by dint of sending them another reminder that they need to actually decide on a pattern.
Other than that my craft has near stalled. I have started back on the playing the Hanon's, but only a few pieces every few days, and only the first set of 20, on loop. It does help my hands when I do, but also, I'm struggling to find the motivation.
Reading wise, I have simplified my life down to seven currently reading, mostly because Storygraph added the 'pause' option, which adequately reflects how I feel about a lot of books. One of my thoughts about the last week of the year is to set myself a goal of finishing or abandoning one book per day. Which won't be that hard, as there are several I had put somewhere sensible I found today which are all past half read. In terms of reading goals, the number of works is past the goal, because I started tracking online short fiction (if it were already there) which I kind of wish I could separate out. I'm not anywhere near the number of pages goal, but I also haven't been tracking where I'm up to, so it might be that when I sit down and capture where I'm up to I'll be much further. Whether I get there or not isn't an issue -- I've been doing a lot of academic reading and really haven't had the time/energy for fun reading.
I had another thought when I started the last paragraph, that was more than just the 'where are the two reading goals' but eh, I've forgotten (possibly: tidy the library. or do the next pass through of the library check, given that Librarything has a better way of doing it than I've previously found).
Database maintenance
Oct. 25th, 2025 08:42 am![[staff profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user_staff.png){kind=small}
mark posting in ![[site community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/comm_staff.png){kind=small}
dw_maintenanceGood morning, afternoon, and evening!
We're doing some database and other light server maintenance this weekend (upgrading the version of MySQL we use in particular, but also probably doing some CDN work.)
I expect all of this to be pretty invisible except for some small "couple of minute" blips as we switch between machines, but there's a chance you will notice something untoward. I'll keep an eye on comments as per usual.
Ta for now!
emotional support spinning
Oct. 25th, 2025 08:12 amyhlee(cross-post with more technical details: ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
prototypediablerie)
Three-ply yarns where each single is a different wool variety since I was going through and spinning up some samples. Next up will be an experiment in dyeing.
Also, the next owner of this spinning wheel is going to have to live with the aftermarket addition of Warhammer 40,000 base magnets to hold the hecking orifice hook because I keep losing them (and having to DIY new ones out of paper clips - this works quite well and is easy but also, I'm running embarrassingly low on paper clips).
prototypediablerie)Three-ply yarns where each single is a different wool variety since I was going through and spinning up some samples. Next up will be an experiment in dyeing.
Also, the next owner of this spinning wheel is going to have to live with the aftermarket addition of Warhammer 40,000 base magnets to hold the hecking orifice hook because I keep losing them (and having to DIY new ones out of paper clips - this works quite well and is easy but also, I'm running embarrassingly low on paper clips).
short story rec: Chris Willrich's "A Random Walk through the Goblin Library"
Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:07 amyhleeA Random Walk through the Goblin Library" by Chris Willrich [Beneath Ceaseless Skies]. Superlative fantasy + math short story. I am excited to FINALLY be able to shout about this now that it's published - I had the privilege of reading this in draft and I love it to pieces. :3
therapy spinning, helpy catten edition
Oct. 23rd, 2025 08:51 amyhlee
This one's headed for
helen_keeble. :3(Sorry, I need to source some purple spinning fiber! I'm running low on inherited detash wools and most of what I have is blues or neutrals.)
Cloud was VERY HELPY.
Quality Experiences
Oct. 23rd, 2025 09:11 pmtcpipI have argued for a while that Epicureanism is a refinement of Hedonism and Stoicism is an advanced development from Epicureanism; "To live, to live well, to live better" (Whitehead, "The Function of Reason"). Each of these represents a qualitative change and, as one learns in the business of Quality Assurance, that is defined as improved precision and is differentiated as a continuum of accuracy, ultimately from "high quality" to "low quality". I find that this applies to people as well as processes; inconsistent people, who fluctuate between emotive extremes, can occasionally be enjoyable and exciting, but ultimately are hurtful and exhausting and are thus best avoided, no matter who is enticing the good times are. Such people invariably are unsuccessful in life; quality requires both a degree of consistency and reflective, tested, improvement.
Over the past few days, I have been fortunate enough in life to experience a few examples of high-quality experiences. The first was an evening of music, which I attended with Kate. This was headlined by the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience, and supported by The Black Heart Death Cult and Cat Crawl. All performed with great competence in accordance with their particular style. "Cat Crawl" (who describe themselves as "a three-piece tantrum in the form of a band") provided early 1980s-style feminist punk with humour, whilst in comparison "The Black Heart Death Cult" were a gloomy-shoegaze fusion, reminiscent of the French "blackgaze" from the 2000s. Finally, the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience gave something akin to a Japanese version an extended Hawkwind space rock concert. All in all, a great night with a great variety of styles. As a radical contrast, the following day Nitul invited me to the end-of-semester Baroque Ensemble Concert from the students at Unimelb's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It was an admirable selection from Lully, Bach, Vivaldi, Schein and more, and in total included over fifty performers of music and song. I found myself, as I often do in such music, drifting off to another world.
As more culinary experiences, Kate and I attended the Melbourne Italian Festival the following day at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. The building is beautiful, but despite my heritage, I find a great deal of contemporary Italian culture pretty gaudy at best, especially in the field of fashion, homewares, and music. Of course, in food and film, it retains a very high level, the latter with a decidedly leftist influence. Apropos, last night I had the delight of being cooked for by the Minister for Climate Change Action and Energy Resources, etc, Lily D'Ambrosio, who provided an astounding Calabrian feast for some twenty individuals whilst showing off the capabilities of induction cookers. Lily deserves high praise for the quiet revolution she has led in Victoria, changing the production of electricity towards renewables and, more recently, with the phaseout of fossil fuels in domestic appliances, all with significant success. Quiet revolutions too, can be an example of quality.
Over the past few days, I have been fortunate enough in life to experience a few examples of high-quality experiences. The first was an evening of music, which I attended with Kate. This was headlined by the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience, and supported by The Black Heart Death Cult and Cat Crawl. All performed with great competence in accordance with their particular style. "Cat Crawl" (who describe themselves as "a three-piece tantrum in the form of a band") provided early 1980s-style feminist punk with humour, whilst in comparison "The Black Heart Death Cult" were a gloomy-shoegaze fusion, reminiscent of the French "blackgaze" from the 2000s. Finally, the Paul Kidney Japanese Experience gave something akin to a Japanese version an extended Hawkwind space rock concert. All in all, a great night with a great variety of styles. As a radical contrast, the following day Nitul invited me to the end-of-semester Baroque Ensemble Concert from the students at Unimelb's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music. It was an admirable selection from Lully, Bach, Vivaldi, Schein and more, and in total included over fifty performers of music and song. I found myself, as I often do in such music, drifting off to another world.
As more culinary experiences, Kate and I attended the Melbourne Italian Festival the following day at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre. The building is beautiful, but despite my heritage, I find a great deal of contemporary Italian culture pretty gaudy at best, especially in the field of fashion, homewares, and music. Of course, in food and film, it retains a very high level, the latter with a decidedly leftist influence. Apropos, last night I had the delight of being cooked for by the Minister for Climate Change Action and Energy Resources, etc, Lily D'Ambrosio, who provided an astounding Calabrian feast for some twenty individuals whilst showing off the capabilities of induction cookers. Lily deserves high praise for the quiet revolution she has led in Victoria, changing the production of electricity towards renewables and, more recently, with the phaseout of fossil fuels in domestic appliances, all with significant success. Quiet revolutions too, can be an example of quality.
AWS outage
Oct. 20th, 2025 10:11 amalierak posting in dw_maintenanceDW is seeing some issues due to today's Amazon outage. For right now it looks like the site is loading, but it may be slow. Some of our processes like notifications and journal search don't appear to be running and can't be started due to rate limiting or capacity issues. DW could go down later if Amazon isn't able to improve things soon, but our services should return to normal when Amazon has cleared up the outage.
Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.
Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.
Edit: all services are running as of 16:12 CDT, but there is definitely still a backlog of notifications to get through.
Edit 2: and at 18:20 CDT everything's been running normally for about the last hour.
shitposting: personal scariness rating of genius fictional characters
Oct. 19th, 2025 09:56 pmyhleeLook, my country is messed up so have some salutary shitposting while I attempt to cope with health/life/everything.
No particular order, define "best" as you please - I mean "somewhat plausible-sounding-ish and fun to read about."
Rated from VERY SCARY, Scary, unconcerned in terms of, hrm, threat level.
Baru Cormorant from Seth Dickinson's books: Scary.
High INT, low WIS. Scary, but doesn't achieve VERY SCARY due to too many emotional vulnerabilities.
Hanse Davion and Ulric Kerensky from BattleTech. I just don't want to be in the same universe they're scary. I'm MORE scared of Hanse Davion than Thrawn because I get the possibly illusory sense that Thrawn is civilized as a default and the vibe I get from Hanse Davion is that civilization, cruelty, courtesy are all just tools, he will do whatever it fucking takes to burn you to the ground if that's the way to win.
Hanse Davion: VERY SCARY
Ulric Kerensky: Scary, but also, clanner honor.
Ari I and II from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen: SCARIEST.
Justin: unconcerned, honestly, give him research funding and pizza and Grant and he's happy, he'll leave you be.
Conrad Mazian from Downbelow Station: Scary and they lucked out he was undone.
Flamme from Frieren: SCARIEST. I almost rate her
Scary not because she's not a terrifying genius but because she has ironclad ethics. Probably the single person on this list I'm MOST afraid of except she's also UNAMBIGUOUSLY GOOD. So she's a rarity: a female chessmaster (or anyway, they're incredibly rare in English-language USAn sf/f) and unambiguously a "good guy."
Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass: Scary. Possibly shading into SCARIEST if you add the mind control, but make Nunally cry and he segfaults.
Vladilena Milizé from 86, and how. Scary.
Thrawn: ???
Thrawn from Star Wars Extended Universe is frequently cited but I bought the Timothy Zahn book where he first? appears? extendedly? as a military? genius? for Kindle and I refuse to use Kindle anymore so I'm going to have to suck it up and buy a print copy if I can even remember the title. Anyway, I haven't read books with Thrawn doing stuff so I can't comment further.
Lord Vetinari from Terry Pratchett's Discworld: SCARIEST.
Doesn't generally come up in these discussions because bureaucracy is "boring" and Vetinari wasn't a main character in any of the Discworld books I read. (I binged them for a couple months twenty years ago, then never went back, sorry.) He's a fucking EFFECTIVE BUREAUCRAT. I don't mess with those.
Maomao from Apothecary Diaries. Unconcerned ONLY because she's easily bribed with bezoars. :3
Miles Vorkosigan: Scary.
Honestly one of the most plausible military geniuses BUT ALSO a disaster for all his subordinates. I don't want to be within a galaxy radius of him.
Hiruma from Eyeshield 21. Unconcerned mainly because I don't have ANY involvement in Japanese high school instantiations of American football and FORTUNATELY his domain of interest is VERY SPECIALIZED. :)
Both Seondeok and Misil from The Great Queen Seondeok: Scary to Unconcerned.
Laurent from C. S. Pacat's Captive Prince books. Unconcerned mainly because Good But Not Nice.
Red from The Blacklist: Scary by way of UNHINGED.
Lady Char from Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury: Scary. Sorry, I can't focus my eyes enough to dig her name out of the walls of text on various wikis. :]
Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit. So very unconcerned. I'm not a chess player. I don't have anything to worry about.
Ikari Gendou from Neon Genesis Evangelion: SCARIEST and also worst dad of the millennium.
Ted Lasso and Keely (sp?) from Ted Lasso: unconcerned, but could well become Scary in an AU. Somewhat uncommon double example of people who are brilliant socially AS WELL AS being good people; Ted Lasso or Keely with that skillset using their powers for EVIL would become horror rapidly.
Asshole Protagonists from K. J. Parker's books are generally Scary. Asshole Genius is pretty much the shtick.
That Guy from The Usual Suspects. Probably SCARIEST but I haven't watched that movie in two decades.
There are going to be comicverse examples that I'm just not familiar enough with to comment further. /o\ Or multiple characters from Re: Zero but thinking about details is too traumatic (complimentary).
No particular order, define "best" as you please - I mean "somewhat plausible-sounding-ish and fun to read about."
Rated from VERY SCARY, Scary, unconcerned in terms of, hrm, threat level.
Baru Cormorant from Seth Dickinson's books: Scary.
High INT, low WIS. Scary, but doesn't achieve VERY SCARY due to too many emotional vulnerabilities.
Hanse Davion and Ulric Kerensky from BattleTech. I just don't want to be in the same universe they're scary. I'm MORE scared of Hanse Davion than Thrawn because I get the possibly illusory sense that Thrawn is civilized as a default and the vibe I get from Hanse Davion is that civilization, cruelty, courtesy are all just tools, he will do whatever it fucking takes to burn you to the ground if that's the way to win.
Hanse Davion: VERY SCARY
Ulric Kerensky: Scary, but also, clanner honor.
Ari I and II from CJ Cherryh's Cyteen: SCARIEST.
Justin: unconcerned, honestly, give him research funding and pizza and Grant and he's happy, he'll leave you be.
Conrad Mazian from Downbelow Station: Scary and they lucked out he was undone.
Flamme from Frieren: SCARIEST. I almost rate her
Scary not because she's not a terrifying genius but because she has ironclad ethics. Probably the single person on this list I'm MOST afraid of except she's also UNAMBIGUOUSLY GOOD. So she's a rarity: a female chessmaster (or anyway, they're incredibly rare in English-language USAn sf/f) and unambiguously a "good guy."
Lelouch Lamperouge from Code Geass: Scary. Possibly shading into SCARIEST if you add the mind control, but make Nunally cry and he segfaults.
Vladilena Milizé from 86, and how. Scary.
Thrawn: ???
Thrawn from Star Wars Extended Universe is frequently cited but I bought the Timothy Zahn book where he first? appears? extendedly? as a military? genius? for Kindle and I refuse to use Kindle anymore so I'm going to have to suck it up and buy a print copy if I can even remember the title. Anyway, I haven't read books with Thrawn doing stuff so I can't comment further.
Lord Vetinari from Terry Pratchett's Discworld: SCARIEST.
Doesn't generally come up in these discussions because bureaucracy is "boring" and Vetinari wasn't a main character in any of the Discworld books I read. (I binged them for a couple months twenty years ago, then never went back, sorry.) He's a fucking EFFECTIVE BUREAUCRAT. I don't mess with those.
Maomao from Apothecary Diaries. Unconcerned ONLY because she's easily bribed with bezoars. :3
Miles Vorkosigan: Scary.
Honestly one of the most plausible military geniuses BUT ALSO a disaster for all his subordinates. I don't want to be within a galaxy radius of him.
Hiruma from Eyeshield 21. Unconcerned mainly because I don't have ANY involvement in Japanese high school instantiations of American football and FORTUNATELY his domain of interest is VERY SPECIALIZED. :)
Both Seondeok and Misil from The Great Queen Seondeok: Scary to Unconcerned.
Laurent from C. S. Pacat's Captive Prince books. Unconcerned mainly because Good But Not Nice.
Red from The Blacklist: Scary by way of UNHINGED.
Lady Char from Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury: Scary. Sorry, I can't focus my eyes enough to dig her name out of the walls of text on various wikis. :]
Beth Harmon from The Queen's Gambit. So very unconcerned. I'm not a chess player. I don't have anything to worry about.
Ikari Gendou from Neon Genesis Evangelion: SCARIEST and also worst dad of the millennium.
Ted Lasso and Keely (sp?) from Ted Lasso: unconcerned, but could well become Scary in an AU. Somewhat uncommon double example of people who are brilliant socially AS WELL AS being good people; Ted Lasso or Keely with that skillset using their powers for EVIL would become horror rapidly.
Asshole Protagonists from K. J. Parker's books are generally Scary. Asshole Genius is pretty much the shtick.
That Guy from The Usual Suspects. Probably SCARIEST but I haven't watched that movie in two decades.
There are going to be comicverse examples that I'm just not familiar enough with to comment further. /o\ Or multiple characters from Re: Zero but thinking about details is too traumatic (complimentary).
weather
Oct. 19th, 2025 11:52 amfred_mouseMy personal seasonal shift has happened. It was raining earlier, and is overcast, and I'm feeling whingey about being cold. Apparently it is 20°C, a temperature I have considered to be perfectly acceptable through the cooler seasons.
This means that I'd better remember a jumper or other warm clothing tomorrow. Last week I was being lazy and was perfectly fine in 3/4 sleeve work t-shirts; I have a blanket in the office that solves most of the slight being cool that come from being in the bottom floor where the ground is one floor up to the north.
(no subject)
Oct. 19th, 2025 10:50 amfred_mouseIn slightly surreal events, artisanat got an email from livejournal to tell them that their account is 19 years old. I haven't had a livejournal account since I committed fully to dreamwidth and decided I didn't care for crossposting, but I guess it would be heading up to 20 years old.
Which, huh.
a comic exists
Oct. 18th, 2025 01:01 pmyhleeProof copies.
Meanwhile, I've obtained a secondhand wide-format color printer locally so we'll see how setup goes.
ETA: Wide-format printer (up to 13"x19") is go! (See comments for test printouts.) I'm currently (still) setting up via Ka-Blam + Indyplanet for print on demand because I refuse to deal with fulfillment because my health is f*cked, but for DIY home zines + comics for friends & family or or prototypes or for selling locally, this should be more than sufficient.
Meanwhile, I've obtained a secondhand wide-format color printer locally so we'll see how setup goes.
ETA: Wide-format printer (up to 13"x19") is go! (See comments for test printouts.) I'm currently (still) setting up via Ka-Blam + Indyplanet for print on demand because I refuse to deal with fulfillment because my health is f*cked, but for DIY home zines + comics for friends & family or or prototypes or for selling locally, this should be more than sufficient.
![[admin post]](//www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png)
Admin Post: Admin Post: Year-End Marathon 2025
Oct. 18th, 2025 01:24 pm![[admin post]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png){kind=small}
gywomod posting in getyourwordsoutAt the end of the year, it can be tempting to give up on your writing goals. But giving up is not the Get Your Words Out way! We believe in writing. We believe in trying. We believe that any progress is good progress. So even if your big writing goals are out of reach, you can still reach a goal.
Let's set that new goal today.
Join us for the Year-End Marathon. And this is a special party, because we are inviting everyone!
Everyone—whether you're a current or previous GYWO member or have never even heard of this thing (is it a writing community? how do you pronounce "GYWO" anyway?)—EVERYONE is invited to join the 2025 GYWO writers in this marathon to the end of the year.
What Is the Year-End Marathon?
The Year-End Marathon begins Nov 1 and runs through Dec 31.
Make a pledge to write 15 Days each month (a total of 30 days) or 15,000 words each month (a total of 30,000 words).
Join other writers with the same goals on the GYWO Discord server in a set of channels exclusive to the YEM challenge where the moderators will be hosting special discussion topics and challenges for our YEM writers. YEM writers will also have access to GYWO writing sprints hosted on our Discord.
This year, we’re incorporating public, unlocked Dreamwidth discussion posts for you to participate in, as well as extra challenges and discussion posts on Bluesky, and a 30K leaderboard on Trackbear.
If you're new to GYWO, this can be a way to see if this community is right for you before our pledge drive for 2026 begins. And if you're a GYWO 2025 writer, this can be a chance to seize your goals and put in some concentrated effort at the end of the year so you can start 2026 on the right foot.
What Are the Requirements?
🤝 Like writers who sign up for the year-long GYWO challenge, you must have an account on Dreamwidth or through OpenID. GYWO usernames are based on Dreamwidth or OpenID usernames. New writers signing up for the Year-End Marathon will not have full access to the GYWO Dreamwidth community at this time, but there will be two unlocked discussion posts per month that YEM members may participate in. We hope you understand keeping our naming system consistent means the mod team doesn't have to sort duplicate usernames.
✍️ Write your words! The whole purpose of this challenge is to develop and maintain your writing life, so write something! All words and time counted toward your pledge progress must be your own work. Use of generative AI or passing off the work of a collaborator as your own is against the spirit of Get Your Words Out. See our website for an overview of what words count for the word count pledge and what activities count for a habit pledge.
🌈 Be a rainbow, not a pain-bow. We would love for you to participate in our Discord community and basically ask that you not be a jerk when doing so. Disrespect of the community and its members, along with hate speech, harassment, abuse, and endangerment may result in your removal from the community. We're pretty chill and ask that you be chill, too. (Also, if you have a problem with a member or find a conversation veering into uncomfortable territory, alert a moderator and we'll be on it as quick as can be.)
A monthly check-in specific to the Year-End Marathon will be posted for your own accountability, but attendance will not be taken and it is not a required part of your membership.
(Current GYWO writers—you're still responsible to check-in as part of your GYWO 2025 membership. Attendance is taken there, not on the Year-End Marathon check-in, so make sure to check in as usual.)
How Do I Participate?
To participate in the Year-End Marathon, complete the Year-End Marathon Pledge Form.
If you choose to join our Discord server, once your pledge has been processed, a moderator will assign you a pledge role to give you access to the YEM-exclusive area and writing sprints channel. Join other YEM writers to chat about the challenge, writing in general, and your writing life in particular.
On Discord: each week, moderators will post either a discussion topic or a writing activity for YEM writers. You can respond directly to the moderator as a reply or join in the wider discussion with other writers, depending on your comfort level.
On Bluesky: each week, moderators will post either a discussion question or writing challenge. Feel free to reply, quote post, tag us at getyourwordsout.bsky.social, or use the #gywo hashtag.
On Dreamwidth: twice a month, moderators will post discussion posts where you can talk about your progress and chat with fellow YEM participants.
All moderator-led engagement is crafted to support a wide range of writers, so whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry or you engage in horror, romance, absurdism, or fanfic we do our best to find something to support your writing life.
Have you picked your pledge for the Year-End Marathon?
Remember, your choices are 15 Days per month (30 days total) or 15,000 Words per month (30,000 words total).
Pledging for the GYWO Year-End Marathon Ends Nov 7, 2025.
Pledge for the Year-End Marathon
If you have any questions, we're happy to answer them!
For more information about Get Your Words Out, please visit our website. Pledging for 2026 will open around December 12.
Let's set that new goal today.
Join us for the Year-End Marathon. And this is a special party, because we are inviting everyone!
Everyone—whether you're a current or previous GYWO member or have never even heard of this thing (is it a writing community? how do you pronounce "GYWO" anyway?)—EVERYONE is invited to join the 2025 GYWO writers in this marathon to the end of the year.
What Is the Year-End Marathon?
The Year-End Marathon begins Nov 1 and runs through Dec 31.
Make a pledge to write 15 Days each month (a total of 30 days) or 15,000 words each month (a total of 30,000 words).
Join other writers with the same goals on the GYWO Discord server in a set of channels exclusive to the YEM challenge where the moderators will be hosting special discussion topics and challenges for our YEM writers. YEM writers will also have access to GYWO writing sprints hosted on our Discord.
This year, we’re incorporating public, unlocked Dreamwidth discussion posts for you to participate in, as well as extra challenges and discussion posts on Bluesky, and a 30K leaderboard on Trackbear.
If you're new to GYWO, this can be a way to see if this community is right for you before our pledge drive for 2026 begins. And if you're a GYWO 2025 writer, this can be a chance to seize your goals and put in some concentrated effort at the end of the year so you can start 2026 on the right foot.
What Are the Requirements?
🤝 Like writers who sign up for the year-long GYWO challenge, you must have an account on Dreamwidth or through OpenID. GYWO usernames are based on Dreamwidth or OpenID usernames. New writers signing up for the Year-End Marathon will not have full access to the GYWO Dreamwidth community at this time, but there will be two unlocked discussion posts per month that YEM members may participate in. We hope you understand keeping our naming system consistent means the mod team doesn't have to sort duplicate usernames.
✍️ Write your words! The whole purpose of this challenge is to develop and maintain your writing life, so write something! All words and time counted toward your pledge progress must be your own work. Use of generative AI or passing off the work of a collaborator as your own is against the spirit of Get Your Words Out. See our website for an overview of what words count for the word count pledge and what activities count for a habit pledge.
🌈 Be a rainbow, not a pain-bow. We would love for you to participate in our Discord community and basically ask that you not be a jerk when doing so. Disrespect of the community and its members, along with hate speech, harassment, abuse, and endangerment may result in your removal from the community. We're pretty chill and ask that you be chill, too. (Also, if you have a problem with a member or find a conversation veering into uncomfortable territory, alert a moderator and we'll be on it as quick as can be.)
A monthly check-in specific to the Year-End Marathon will be posted for your own accountability, but attendance will not be taken and it is not a required part of your membership.
(Current GYWO writers—you're still responsible to check-in as part of your GYWO 2025 membership. Attendance is taken there, not on the Year-End Marathon check-in, so make sure to check in as usual.)
How Do I Participate?
To participate in the Year-End Marathon, complete the Year-End Marathon Pledge Form.
If you choose to join our Discord server, once your pledge has been processed, a moderator will assign you a pledge role to give you access to the YEM-exclusive area and writing sprints channel. Join other YEM writers to chat about the challenge, writing in general, and your writing life in particular.
On Discord: each week, moderators will post either a discussion topic or a writing activity for YEM writers. You can respond directly to the moderator as a reply or join in the wider discussion with other writers, depending on your comfort level.
On Bluesky: each week, moderators will post either a discussion question or writing challenge. Feel free to reply, quote post, tag us at getyourwordsout.bsky.social, or use the #gywo hashtag.
On Dreamwidth: twice a month, moderators will post discussion posts where you can talk about your progress and chat with fellow YEM participants.
All moderator-led engagement is crafted to support a wide range of writers, so whether you're writing fiction, nonfiction, or poetry or you engage in horror, romance, absurdism, or fanfic we do our best to find something to support your writing life.
✅To participate in the monthly check-in specific to the Year-End Marathon, you'll need to have access to the GYWO Discord server. The link to check in for the YEM challenge will only be posted on Discord. Check-in is optional but recommended.
Have you picked your pledge for the Year-End Marathon?
Remember, your choices are 15 Days per month (30 days total) or 15,000 Words per month (30,000 words total).
Pledging for the GYWO Year-End Marathon Ends Nov 7, 2025.
If you have any questions, we're happy to answer them!
For more information about Get Your Words Out, please visit our website. Pledging for 2026 will open around December 12.
