The Tales from the Michigan Fleet series takes a darker turn in Run Aground, when Rich and friends with benefits and perks Liam disappear after attending a landside hoverboard tournament. Given his Hastings "soldier mod" background, (and the party responsible for the kidnapping) there is little hope of being able to find, let alone rescue him. (Hastings have an ethnoreligion where they believe they are all made in Mar's--Roman god of war, not the planet--image, and that they are the "Player Characters" in a gamified universe--and everyone else is an NPC.

Brides in the Dark is a "modern fairy tale" that plays on a much older category of folktale: the Swanmay/Selkie/Other shapeshifter who must marry whoever stole the skin that enables them to change their shape. In this setting, men capture various kinds of shapeshifter fairy brides. One town goes into a forest to find their brides, another hauls their brides out of the sea. In Our Protagonist's town, men go up into the mountains, and lure their brides out of the air. (It is not explained why the men are kidnapping fairies to have their kids.

I am currently attempting to do an overhaul of the blog! This mostly involves me struggling with templates and page design until I get something that doesn't look too horrible. (My web page design chops are entirely from the 90s, sad to say.) I took out the buttons for the moment, because I need to redo the pages. I removed the category drop down for the moment, until I can figure out how I want to do that.

Honestly, barely into the new year and I am kind of ENRAGED. In November, my apartment complex was bought by a new leasing company, (hereby referred to as Leasing). A company that seems determined to make payment of rent as difficult as humanly possible for people who have some variety of subsidized housing. (Which I do. An organization I'm going to call Assisted Housing takes care of most of my rent, and I pay a smaller amount.)

So a long while back (in internet terms) there was a kerfuffle about Older SF/F Fans recommending older books that they had read as kids…to kids, and not say people with a special interest in Old As Balls SF/F. This was generally held to be a Bad Idea as many of the really old books…did not age so well. Either because of depicted technology not going in the direction it did in the current era, or because of social and cultural differences that might make reading difficult or outright upsetting for a modern reader.

Ninety-four percent of participants in a new study stood firm in their trans identity after five years, and "detransitioning" is rare.

At the beginning of the month I had some housing issues come up. This was related to my apartment complex changing hands, and the former leasing company screwing various things up. (From what I am able to understand of the situation.) This resulted in my not being able to pay the rent due to complications involving "welp, I can't pay online, because the company that helps me pay rent can't send the check," followed by "hi, we're the new leasing company, enjoy your five day notice!" And then, "so you have to pay the entire amount of the rent plus late charges, or else, with the money you don't have." (Situation has resolved, and my sister was able to help me with rent.)