The Fiction Treehouse

And for whenever someone mistakenly tells you that humans can only hurt nature -

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We've done the research on how to make a good education system and it's been put into practice irl via Finland, who has one of the best education systems in the world and it was built almost entirely using US research.

But mostly I am reblogging to say that @randomitemdrop ’s tags win the internet:

So some fanartist drew a “sexy” (read: booby) version of a (cartoon) character who is traditionally very non-sexualised. Fans of the character got mad about it because it’s kind of groundbreaking how that character is written and portrayed and this art totally ignores the entire point of the character. They demanded the art be deleted. In response to that other people said, well what the fanartist did may be distateful but they have every right to draw what they’re into. The two sides fight for days and each starts a harassment campaign and even report their “opponents’” accounts.

So far so typical. But things eventually come to a head and they decide that this will be settled by votes - not through a poll. Through donations to a children’s education charity via each side’s portal. Whoever can get the highest amount of donation wins.

Screenshot via Alejandra Caraballo @esqueer.net on bluesky

Tldr Amnesty International, global human rights organisation, published a report called 'A growing threat: the anti-rights movement in the UK'. In it is detailed, amongst others, a whole bunch of transphobic groups and organisations, including Beira's Place, JK Rowling's trans exclusionary sexual violence support service. JK Rowling threw a shit fit and got Amnesty to take the report down by threatening libel. This was obviously not enough, because you can't appease a fascist, so now she's going to bankroll a bunch of lawsuits anyway through the JK Rowling Women's Fund.*

You can read an archived version of the report here, please save it and share it.

So first of all: let me tell everybody how things went with the new glasses.

Briefly: they're brilliant. The new varifocals work way better than earlier versions of them have routinely done. (This is apparently secondary to the way my eyes continue to change shape as I get older. It continues to make me snicker that I'm getting Iess nearsighted as I age. "So," I said to my Eye Lady, "if I can manage to live to, like, a hundred and twenty-five, I'll be twenty-twenty?" She gave me sort of a cockeyed look. "Well... you'll still be astigmatic. As for the rest of it, let's see how things go...") The reading glasses are no good for the computer: they6're genuinely just for reading. ...But this is okay, because the varifocals work fine for computer work. So THAT whole business has turned out more than satisfactorily... and thanks once more, from the bottom of my heart, to all those who helped out. ❤️

And get this. I went out to lunch after picking the new glasses up, and in the middle of lunch found myself paper-outlining a paranormal police procedural trilogy. (headclutch) So that went well. ...And no, I can't tell anybody anything about the plotting on these: it's too soon. But this looks like something of a change of writing voice (and thematic material) for me: darker than usual, maybe a touch grittier. We'll see how this group of works sets itself up as work gets going. (Other works further along in progress are in front of these right now, but that's fine. Giving things time to mature is never a problem.)

Anyway: typically enough, some other unexpected health junk that had been behaving itself during the spring then started kicking up cranky in June and over the last couple of weeks. (eyeroll) I don't want to get into more detail than necessary about this, but it's an outgrowth of the internal problems that have made me give up long-distance travel. It's required a goodish outlay of cash, and has resulted in me falling behind on my rent.

My landlord is being really easygoing about this, but nonetheless I'd very much like to get caught up on this before it gets any worse. (As being behind this way, I'm finding, is increasingly interfering with my work... especially as that's now become so much easier to get to grips with due to the new glasses.)

So it seems to me that this is a good time to repeat the Summer Reading Sale over at Ebooks Direct!

I imagine lots of people here know the drill. Everything's cheap, and the ebook bundles are all being held at their lowest price points for the duration (meaning specifically the "All The Wizardry" bundle, the Middle Kingdoms series bundle, the LGBTQ Pride collection, and the Feline Wizardry bundle—Even our "Give Me Everything You've Got" collection, which is the whole ebook store in one package, has had a bit knocked off.

So could I get folks to reblog this post so that people who might not have caught one of these sales before can do so now if they want to? Please & thank you!

And additionally: for those who're already up to the gunwales in ebooks and don't need any more, but still want to help out with the rent situation—if you'd like instead to drop something into my Ko-Fi, it'd be very welcome. And if you feel like doing this, I thank you very much in advance! 🙂

...So that's the news from Lake Wobegon for the moment. ...Now to slip outside and give the potted plants a potful or so of water as an evening drink. They've been suffering from the (unusual-for-us) local heat wave, there's a wildfire watch on (leading to a ban on selling portable BBQs), and we're also having a ban on watering things with a hose at the moment. (sigh) One thing after another...

okay this has actually led me down the rabbit hole of the beanie baby environmental impact, and apparently the big problem is that they used to be stuffed with PVC pellets. the science in all that is REALLY over my head, but from what i can tell from wikipedia and some googling around, that's actually a suuuper nasty plastic to have your little kid potentially gnawing on. like, "may release noxious chemicals and give them lifelong respiration problems" nasty.

These companies are convincing people to buy as much useless, plastic crap as possible, crap that can't be reused (because it isn't useful in the first place) and won't be recycled (not that recycling them would even do much).