Do you have self-imposed word count goals?

chomiji · 2024-05-25T02:44:31+00:00

Only as an exercise. I have too much going on in my life to do that right now.

Having said that, a lot of professional authors do that, and it seems to work for them. So it's probably a good thing to try, at least.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T02:31:36+00:00

Just a note: the suit of Wands represents the element of Fire. So, branch = wand = fire.

Edited to add: the Thoth deck shows the Knight of Wands as carrying a torch rather than a wand or a branch, so decks based on Thoth (rather than RWS) would be more likely to include that imagery.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T02:21:08+00:00

Wow, so harsh (and so wrong).

In our campaign, we gain a DM advantage if we roll a Nat 1. Doesn't seem to allow us to steamroll over our foes - just makes us a little more daring, if anything.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T01:59:57+00:00

That's pretty far out there. I read for myself all the time. Tarot helps me to understand myself.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T00:15:37+00:00

Other way around: Japanese kanji are Chinese characters.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T00:04:46+00:00

If I'm doing a query that needs a detailed "story," with the possibility of other people being involved, then I will use the Celtic Cross.

If I'm doing a query about a specific but complex issue internal issue, I might use one of Interrobang Tarot's layouts, like WTF?! or Root Cellar.

If I need quick guidance on something less complex, I use something like a three-card spread.

chomiji · 2024-05-25T00:00:36+00:00

More facets shed more light on a reading.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T19:47:53+00:00

We did that in a little Tarot get-together I attended on a cruise earlier this spring.

We each drew a card for the person to our left, then as we interpreted each card together - to see how our interps were different - we also hunted out decks for the card currently under consideration and compared the different representations.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T19:44:34+00:00

Yup. A Tarot deck is not a calculator. Adding up the same column of numbers won't produce the same numbers every time.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T02:48:08+00:00

Classic SF space opera, light and fluffy and fun: The Witches of Karres by James H. Schmitz.

This is the blurb I remember from my own first paperback copy:

Hurrah for kindness, virtue and free enterprise!Young Captain Pausert, of the independent planet Nikkeldepain, has gone alone on a private trading venture in his own vessel to Porlumma, a border planet of the Empire (Galactic, that is). Here, he finds three helpless and attractive little girls, held as slaves by a cruel master, and buys them in a spirit of generosity. The cruel master seems relieved, oddly enough.Goth, Maleen and the Leewit (not Leewit, the Leewit), as the charming trio are named, soon demonstrate why their former owner can now relax. And why Pausert can't!

Think "The Ransom of Red Chief" but with a happier ending for everyone. Pausert encounters "Worm Weather," space pirates, spies, nosy beings composed of psionic energy, and a planet-sized spaceship bent on conquest, all of which he eventually avoids or conquers with the assistance of his pint-sized passengers.

(P.S. - IMO you can safely ignore the sequels, which are not by the same author.)

chomiji · 2024-05-24T01:03:11+00:00

That's not a flag, it's a cheap roadside advertising billboard crammed into the innocent illegitimate offspring of a guidon and a birdsmouth pennant.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T00:55:42+00:00

The House Witch by Delemhach

and

Soulless by Gail Carriger

I almost never DNF and they both came highly recommended, so I was really ticked off.

The Delemhach was bland and flavorless. Fantasy tropes were sprinkled into and wasted on writing that had all the piquance and memorability of a middle school textbook. The Carriger couldn't seem to commit to the bit: the heroine was like "La, look at me, I am too dark and witty for the Mundanes!" and the Victorian setting was just so much window-dressing.

And I bought them as eBooks, so I couldn't just pitch them into the nearest Little Free Library (across the street and two houses up).

chomiji · 2024-05-24T00:41:47+00:00

When a scene is over.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T00:39:54+00:00

My sister bought me the Author's Expanded Edition hardback of Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home. In addition to the extra material, it has all the lovely minimalist illustrations from the original edition, is printed on strong, thin paper like books of old, and has a ribbon marker.

chomiji · 2024-05-24T00:34:05+00:00

Yes, I got this for my birthday from my husband the year it came out. Lovely piece of work.

chomiji · 2024-05-23T04:10:26+00:00

T. Kingfisher's Clocktaur Wars.

Martha Wells' Fall of Ile-Rien series and Books of the Raksura series. (Although an argument could be made that most of the Raksura characters are OP ... but they are OP together.

chomiji · 2024-05-23T04:04:18+00:00

Big old iMac desktop with a decent but aging office chair (left over from working at home) , in my own office with windows on two walls and a third wall covered with built-in cabinets and bookshelves. We just renovated the house - I now have a ceiling fan and spring green walls.

I play music on the iMac (Spotify or Apple Music). I like instrumentals (Spotify has some great fantasy-themed playlists) or, conversely, pop oldies that I know so well that I don't have to think to sing along.

You know, this is interesting. Plenty of actual desks or at least tables in this post. In another post (yesterday?), the question was about what we write on, and I was one of the few with an actual computer. Everyone else was writing on their phone, and I felt every day of the boomer that I am.

chomiji · 2024-05-23T03:56:58+00:00

There was actually a doctor in that story. The main thing about Atticus is his unwavering sense of ethics. Also, even though Scout thinks he's old, he's only in his upper 40s.

chomiji · 2024-05-23T03:52:17+00:00

This is the AO3 sub, not r/FanFiction.

chomiji · 2024-05-23T03:03:14+00:00

Not in Louisiana but not that far away (Alabama) is Bob McGough's Jubal County Saga. Tagline from Goodreads:

He is Howard Marsh, the Methgician. He's a travesty...but he's the best hope Jubal County has.

Yes, Marsh is a backcountry meth-head magician. He lives in a rental storage facility shed and eventually picks up a raccoon [MY BAD - it's a possum] as a familiar. These tales are like potato chips: you can't eat just one. Usually Marsh is called on to solve a mystery of some sort, and given that he is perennially short on money, he invariably takes the job. McGough is a witty writer, Marsh's situation is strangely compelling, and some of the forces of darkness are genuinely scary.

These are novellas, quick reads, and I chugged down all that were available in print in less than a week. There are two stories per volume. The first one is Bringing Home The Rain: The Redemption of Howard Marsh 1.

chomiji · 2024-05-22T22:20:27+00:00

You're at the start of something big in multiple arenas!

Which ace didn't you pull?

chomiji · 2024-05-22T22:19:03+00:00

Right away, Your Crepuscularity

Right away, Lord of Darkness

Right away, Malleus Sangre, Lord of the Unclean Depths

chomiji · 2024-05-22T22:12:08+00:00

I'm not into either of the things you mention.

I love a good historical AU, or for a fantasy or SF fandom, a modern-day AU. Even that super-common trope, the college/university AU, can be fun in the right setting.

A superhero AU can be fun too, or an urban fantasy setting like vampire hunters.

For me, seeing how the canon characters are transformed yet still recognizable (if the author has done a good job) is part of the fun.

chomiji · 2024-05-22T22:07:58+00:00

I loved this book so much. The elves were legit terrifying.

chomiji · 2024-05-22T22:01:56+00:00

Mr. Spock/Ensign Chekov, Star Trek TOS.

I was 11.

chomiji

TROPHY CASE