Tootfinder

Day 30: Elizabeth Moon
This last spot (somehow 32 days after my last post, but oh well) was a tough decision, but Moon brings us full circle back to fantasy/sci-fi, and also back to books I enjoyed as a teenager. Her politics don't really match up to Le Guin or Jemisin, but her military experience make for books that are much more interesting than standard fantasy fare in terms of their battles & outcomes (something "A Song of Ice and Fire" achieved by cribbing from history but couldn't extrapolate nearly as well). I liked (and still mostly like) her (unironically) strong female protagonists, even if her (especially more recent) forays into "good king" territory leave something to be desired. Still, in Paksenarion the way we get to see the world from a foot-soldier's perspective before transitioning into something more is pretty special and very rare in fantasy (I love the elven ruins scene as Paks travels over the mountains as an inflection point). Battles are won or lost on tactics, shifting politics, and logistics moreso than some epic magical gimmick, which is a wonderful departure from the fantasy norm.
Her work does come with a content warning for rape, although she addresses it with more nuance and respect than any male SF/F author of her generation. Ex-evangelicals might also find her stuff hard to read, as while she's against conservative Christianity, she's very much still a Christian and that makes its way into her writing. Even if her (not bad but not radical enough) politics lead her writing into less-satisfying places at times, part of my respect for her comes from following her on Twitter for a while, where she was a pretty decent human being...
Overall, Paksenarrion is my favorite of her works, although I've enjoyed some of her sci-fi too and read the follow-up series. While it inherits some of Tolkien's baggage, Moon's ability to deeply humanize her hero and depict a believable balance between magic being real but not the answer to all problems is great.
I've reached 30 at this point, and while I've got more authors on my shortlist, I think I'll end things out tomorrow with a dump of also-rans rather than continuing to write up one per day. I may even include a man or two in that group (probably with at least non-{white cishet} perspective). Honestly, doing this challenge I first thought that sexism might have made it difficult, but here at the end I'm realizing that ironically, the misogyny that holds non-man authors to a higher standard means that (given plenty have still made it through) it's hard to think of male authors who compare with this group.
Looking back on the mostly-male authors of SF/F in my teenage years, for example, I'm now struggling to think of a single one whose work I'd recommend to my kids (having cheated and checked one of my old lists, Pratchett, Jaques, and Asimov qualify but they're outnumbered by those I'm now actively ashamed to admit I enjoyed). If I were given a choice between reading only non-men or non-woman authors for the rest of my life (yes I'm giving myself enby authors as a freebie; they're generally great) I'd very easily choose non-men. I think the only place where (to my knowledge) not enough non-men authors have been allowed through to outshine the fields of male mediocrity yet is in videogames sadly. I have a very long list of beloved games and did include some game designers here, but I'm hard-pressed to think of many other non-man game designers I'd include in the genuinely respect column (I'll include at least two tomorrow but might cheat a bit).
TL;DR: this was fun and you should do it too.
#30AuthorsNoMen

I don’t suppose there are any Wii Fit U mods that bring back the missing minigames from Wii Fit Plus right?
I guess they chose only the ones they thought were the best ones to bring back which is fair enough I guess, but some of the ones I like are missing
I’d be very cool if they kept everything from Wii Fit Plus, PLUS the new ones in U
(don’t really wanna get plus on wii mode bc then it’ll be two separate games and leaderboards and stuff, and then I probably won’t want to switch between both modes during a playtime and also I’d probably forget to switch for minigames that are available in both places)
#WiiU

Doea anyone know of any organizations in the greater Seattle area working to eliminate, or at least oppose the further proliferation of, unnecessary urban lighting? One of my favorite places to go in the city at night is now full of street lights. The whole reason I loved it is that it was *dark* and you could look out across the water without glare everywhere.
Not every beachfront bike path needs to be lit up like a sports stadium. It's a waste of electricity, contributes to light…

like I feel like I should take an Adderall to sort things out but I'm trying to figure out if I even have enough things to sort that it'd be worth it bc like Nothing Has A Place To Go rn until I acquire Places and I can't go do more laundry bc I can't afford it rn so like??

What was A practical skill very important when you were a teen (12-18), that is still still very useful today but most current teens no longer are able to do?
Think concrete stuff like remounting a bicycle chain, not abstract stuff like critical thinking.
For me it was definitely going to places without modern navigation aids.
Just look at a map and write down the rough route and asking directions if I couldn't find it.
And if I needed a train, I'd just look at t…

TIL from my Italian coworker that Italian TV broadcasts Trading Places every Christmastime and if it didn't happen it would be like, national news https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/why-do-italians-watch-trading-places-every-christmas.html<…

Trading Places: An unexpected Christmas tradition in Italy
It wouldn't be Christmas in Italy without Una Poltrona per Due on tv. Italy is home to some of the world's oldest and most spectacular Christmas traditions that have illuminated and enriched the Italian festive season for centuries. It also has some more unexpected modern-day traditions and few...

Any sufficiently advanced disaster preparedness is indistinguishable from revolutionary dual power. This essay is a bit of a transition between the theory I've written earlier, and more concrete plans.
Even though I only touched on my life on the commune, it was hard not to write more. These are such weird spaces, with so much invisible opportunity. But they're also just so unique and special. For all the stress and uncertainty of making sure you stayed on Lorean's (the head priestess), there were also those long summer nights with the whole community (except the old lady) gathered around a fire, talking and drinking. There was almost a child-like play to the whole time.
There were so Fridays I'd come home with a couple of gallons of beer from the real world, folks would bring things from the garden, someone would grill a steak, everyone who didn't cook would clean up, and we'd just hang out and have fun. So many evenings I'd go over to Miles place with a guitar, or with his guitar, and we'd pass it around over a few beers, talking about philosophy, Star Wars, or some book or other. It's hard not to write about the strange magic of that space.
My partner and I bonded over similar experiences, mine on a weird little religious commune in California and theirs as a temporary worker at Omega Institute. Both had exploitation, people on weird power trips, frustrating dynamics, but also a strange magic and freedom. Both were sort of fantasy worlds, but places that let us see through this one, let us imagine something that something else is possible behind the veil.
There are many such veils.
Perhaps it's fitting that this is more meandering, as a good wander can help the transition between lots of hard thinking and lots of hard working.
https://anarchoccultism.org/building-zion/evaluating-options
Editing feedback (especially typos, spelling, grammar) is always welcome, as are questions and even wider structural advice. I've been adding the handles of folks who provide feedback to the intro in a "thank you" section. If you do help and wouldn't like to be added, please let me know.

Once upon a time, in Canada of all places though you wouldn't know it now, direct science outreach was part of the National Research Council, producing a freely sent quality periodical direct from the scientists themselves that a teen like me would instantly devour, although in all my years I never met anyone else who so much as even knew about it.
https://www.canadiana.ca/view/oon.00001_197402/1