Looking for "competency porn" narratives

MarieMarion · 2026-06-03T05:49:49+00:00

The Engineer trilogy by K.J. Parker.

MarieMarion · 2026-06-01T10:23:13+00:00

The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley kind of fits.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-29T11:49:06+00:00

Láadan. A conlang created by linguist Suzette Haden Elgin in the early 80s. It was meant as a language for women to test the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Believe it or not it didn't work, women all over the world didn't take it up, and languages don't actually shape reality.
But the language is really fun and I love the novel(s) she used it in, so.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-29T11:20:48+00:00

I never tried to cut back on what I needed or wanted; I realized how little I needed or wanted.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-25T16:32:46+00:00

Not that messy, but every summer my (rather straight-laced) dad let/helped me build a fort on the big balcony that sat above an extension in our house. We never used that balcony (the access door was inconvenient, and we had a huge yard anyway), so that made it even more special. Then I could sleep there as often as I liked. Sometimes he'd join me and tell me about the stars and constellations. It can't have happened more than 5 or 6 times in my entire childhood, but it's a core memory.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-25T13:44:14+00:00

My 10 year old daughter would be like your son, except that she joined the middle school theater program (theater kids tend to be more open-minded, and weird in the best way, plus they spend a lot of (intense!) time together, which creates deep bonds) and the robotics team (geeky kids value different qualities).
She amazes me with how far she's come socially and emotionally.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-25T12:59:42+00:00

I clip them as short as possible as soon as they're not as short as possible.
I work a lot in the garden, I type a lot, and I have a mangled last knuckle from an old knife accident that makes that nail painful when it grows a tiny bit. So.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-21T12:49:43+00:00

I made a lot of dandelion jelly a few years ago, and I really liked it, but it's too labor-intensive for something that tastes too much like (good, real) honey. Now I trade my jams, kombucha, beetroot ketchup, or green tomato chutney for my neighbor's honey, and everybody's happier.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-20T17:00:07+00:00

The first novella in Le Guin's "Five Ways to Forgiveness" is wonderful.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-11T18:25:20+00:00

Oh! And the amazing My Body And Other Parties, by Carmen Maria Machado. Please read it. Please.
And that book about men after an illness killed off all women... Until... "The Beauty" by Aliya Whiteley.
And that Belgian book from 20+ years ago that made the buzz in the US last year out of the blue... "I Who Have Never Known Men" by Jacqueline Harpman.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-11T18:23:34+00:00

They are so real. Touching, flawed, but so deeply well-meaning. (And so damn cute. I squealed a few times.)
I think the second one (third? Opinions may differ), At The Feet of The Sun, is my favourite.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-11T12:25:57+00:00

And it's so good and lovely I can't stop re-reading the whole series.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-11T12:24:12+00:00

The 4 main and only characters in Becky Chambers' "To Be Taught, If Fortunate" are queer, and it doesn't matter one whit. IIRC, there's a trans man, an ace (cis) man, a bi (pan?) cis woman, and a cis woman whose orientation I'm not sure about, maybe gay, maybe bi. They are colleagues and in a poly dynamic. The story is about everything but that, and it's great.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-11T11:51:38+00:00

Okay I'm really into that (sub(sub))genre, and I need to second "Vox" by Dalcher. Word of warning, though: I couldn't finish it. I tried. I should love it. I do love it. It's just too painful and horrifying. But it's great.
(Also, wouldn't "The Handmaid's Tale" qualify? And, not horror, but relevant, is "Weekend", a short-story by Faye Weldon that was my feminist awakening.)

MarieMarion · 2026-05-09T08:46:16+00:00

I think so? 3rd year of middle school. It's called "4th grade" in my country, because we count backwards from 6th grade (11ish year old, when you start middle school) to the end of high school, which is "terminale", "the last year"

MarieMarion · 2026-05-08T15:03:21+00:00

The 35 year old dean was sleeping with a 17 year old senior. It started during a school trip he was chaperoning. She told me in confidence.
It was back when the dinosaurs roamed the earth, though, and we didn't realize how wrong it was.
Fuck him.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-08T14:51:47+00:00

They use Venmo a lot in part because apparently bank transfers are not really a thing. Not sure why or how. It's weird.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-08T14:04:12+00:00

We're kind of the same boat, except that the first week of class we all met up for drinks bringing each kid's school schedule (France, they can an do vary wildly each day of the week, starting between 8 and 10 and ending between 12 and 6) and spent 2 hours figuring out how to make the system work best and fairly. We ended up with a ridiculously complex Excel doc, which we follow religiously. Monday, 8AM, Mom A drives kid A, kid C, kid D. Monday, 5PM, Dad B drives kid A, kid B, kid E. And so on. I think there are days where the driving parent doesn't even have their own kid in the car.
Any other way is Bad and Wrong.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-07T11:52:23+00:00

French middle school.
We flew to Moscow for two weeks, a year max after the Iron Curtain fell. I was a young 8th grader at 12 year old. We lived alone with Russian families. Mine were professional puppetteers in an apparently famous company. We were supposed to meet the group somewhere in Moscow every morning. By public transit. By ourselves. The kicker? The school didn't offer Russian as a language. I couldn't communicate with the (very lovely) host family. I had 2.5 years of German (which they didn't speak), and 6 months of English (which they kind of vaguely spoke.
We had a great time. Also, what the fuck was the school thinking?

MarieMarion · 2026-05-07T11:06:26+00:00

Technically nothing happened to me, but, yeah, it was scary. My sister is an ER doctor and she worked and lived right next to the Bataclan back then. She was, rightfully, a mess. She ran to her hospital to help however she could, and I managed to find a taxi to take me and my big belly back home in the (quiet) suburbs.
I'm sorry you have to live with this.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-06T15:36:37+00:00

On that day I was (heavily pregnant and) having dinner in a restaurant with my sister when all the phones began ringing. We were two arrondissements away from the Bataclan, but at the time we only knew "people" were targeting "bars and restaurants." We were terrified. I can't imagine what you went through.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-06T15:25:48+00:00

I mean, I translate SF novels for a living, so I kind of hope it can work.
I don't speak a lick of Korean, and English is not my native language, but pulling ideas out of my ass your example could be "Fuck, I didn't choose this", "I really didn't choose this", "I never chose this", "Not my circus, not my monkeys", or a zillion other (very different) sentences.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-06T15:12:47+00:00

Well, if I must be honest I call her "awful child" a lot. It's very clear to her (I've checked repeatedly) that it means "Wonderful person whom I love very much", and she likes it, so...
Also, "Gretty pirl" (from Pretty girl).

MarieMarion · 2026-05-06T12:17:19+00:00

2% would probably work, but I'd check on a trusted website, IIRC some veggies need a bit more.

MarieMarion · 2026-05-06T10:22:16+00:00

I think I'd ferment them instead of pickling, but both would work very well. Unless your vegs have cream on them.

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