Snowflake Challenge Friending Meme

Snowflake Challenge Friending Meme

The post-Snowflake Friending Meme has been such a rousing success that we’ve made it a permanent fixture here at the Fandom Snowflake Challenge, so come and make some new friends!

Just copy and paste the template into a comment; include as much or as little info about yourself as you want.



( Read more... )

Rose and Bay Awards

Today is the last day to nominate works and patrons for the 2023 Rose and Bay Awards in crowdfunding! They celebrate excellence in cyberfunded creativity. If you have not already nominated, please do it now.

Voting will be February 1-28.

These are the handlers for the 2023 award season:

Art: fuzzyred Nominate art! (6 nominations)
Fiction: nsfwords Nominate fiction! (5 nominations)
Poetry: fuzzyred Nominate poetry! (3 nominations)
Webcomic: ysabetwordsmith Nominate webcomics! (5 nominations)
Other Project: ysabetwordsmith Nominate other projects! (7 nominations)
Patron: nsfwords Nominate patrons! (5 nominations)

Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, February 7, 2023

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, February 7, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Untranslatable Words." I'll be soliciting ideas for linguists, translators, interpreters, historians, diplomats, refugees, explorers, partners, teachers, clergy, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, alien or fantasy species, failure analysts, ethicists, activists, rebels, other people who get into interesting linguistic situations, translating, interpreting, reading, researching, revising theories, conversing, traveling, inventing languages, parenting, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, troubleshooting, improvising, adapting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, bartering, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, asking for help and getting it, testing boundaries, coming of age, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, expecting the unexpected, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, libraries, laboratories, meeting rooms, ruins, liminal zones, trading posts, port cities, schools, churches, supervillain lairs, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, farmer's markets, starships, alien planets, magical lands, foreign dimensions, other places where languages mix, alphabets, pictograms and other symbols, lost languages, ancient tomes, mysterious texts, misnomers and mistranslations, recordings, the record that breaks the record player, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, the buck stops here, trial and error, intercultural entanglements, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Bear Tunnels features numerous tribal languages.

Clay of Life is Jewish fantasy with occasional bits of Hebrew or Yiddish.

The Daughters of the Apocalypse spans a variety of languages, including a split before Before and After English.

Eloquent Souls presents a setting where soulmarks are common, but they don't always appear in the same language.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman is Italian fantasy with bits of Italian.

Frankenstein's Family features two scientists running a valley in historic Romania, with languages including Dacian, English, French, Hungarian, Romanian, and Latin.

Hart's Farm is a free love community with a few really exotic characters, set in Sweden with occasional tidbits from other languages.

Not Quite Kansas includes demonic and angelic writing.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society. It spans a wide range of languages including Arabic, Dhivehi, English, Esperanto, French, and several tribal ones.

Or you can ask for something new.

I have a linkback poem, "Changing Your Nature" (4 verses, standalone).

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Birdfeeding

Today is cloudy and quite cold. I think it was 22°F the last time I checked.

I fed the birds and put water out.  I've seen a flock of sparrows, several mourning doves, a male and a female downy woodpecker, and a starling.

Poem: "By Candlelight"

This poem came out of the January 3, 2023 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from fuzzyred. It also fills the "You know my methods." square in my 1-1-23 card for the Public Domain Day Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by nsfwords. It belongs to the series Hart's Farm.

Note: This poem is kinky, and not safe for work at most jobs.

( Read more... )

Read "Green Skies G.T. - January 2053"

"Green Skies G.T. - January 2053" is an epistolary story by nsfwords featuring the log entries of a sentient building.  I find this adorable.  :D

Poem: "Vedriti"

This poem came out of the April 5, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompt from dialecticdreamer and siberian_skys. It also fills the "Vedriti (Slovenian): To shelter from the rain either literally or metaphorically." square in my 4-1-22 card for the Untranslatable Words fest, and the "Ace Verse" square in my 4-4-22 card for the Genderplay Bingo "AU" fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred. It is a crossover between Polychrome Heroics and Schrodinger's Heroes.

( Read more... )

Notes for "Vedriti"

Here are the notes for "Vedriti."

( Read more... )

Poem: "In the Creation of Life"

This poem was written outside the regular prompt calls. It was inspired by the "Motherlode" square in my 11-1-11 card for the Drabble Fest Bingo. It has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred.


"In the Creation of Life"


When the baby is born,
so is the mother.

Before that moment,
the mother never existed;
she too is created anew

in the creation of life.

Poem: "Mismatched Cats"

This poem came out of the September 6, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from mama_kestrel.


"Mismatched Cats"


Cats are mighty hunters all,
Their camouflage superb,
Concentration so advanced
That nothing can disturb.

Tabby in the forest glen
Or gray beneath a hedge
Come to deal swift death to prey
Upon the twilight's edge.

Still what blends in one place, may
Not go so well elsewhere.
Little can be done about
Calicos on the stair,

Orange coat on summer grass,
Or white in woods, but oh --
Nothing is less stealthy than
A black cat in the snow.

Poem: "The Swan-Road Wanderers"

This poem is spillover from the April 5, 2022 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from jake67jake. It also fills the "movement" square in my 4-4-22 "Aspects" card for the Genderplay Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with fuzzyred.

( Read more... )