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missizzyWith this weekend still being cooler than next week is going to be, I also made a run to the local small bookshop yesterday and finally got myself a copy of Tusk Love. I found it among the books recommended by the staff, complete with an assurance you don't have to have seen Critical Role to enjoy it. It still feels like this piece of defictionalization has escaped containment with how successful it's been.
I also played a lot of Sims 4 this weekend. I got Cassandra Goth married to Travis Scott, and the stress of real life weddings is certainly reflected in how difficult it can be to get a wedding ceremony to work remotely the way it's supposed to in that game. I left off today having successfully pulled off the ceremony activities, but there's no timer and it's not ending and I'm now thinking I'm going to have a real problem whenever I resume.
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crossworksI don't have any outstanding nominations! So, next is sign-ups. Shortly after opening sign-ups, I'll re-set available nominations at the tag set to let people nominate one or two more fandoms if you think of anything last-minute you really want to request.
What that means is: if it's helpful to you to check "My Nominations" at the tag set to remind yourself what you meant to request/offer, please go check that soon - that data won't be available once I change the settings to give people more nominations.
morbane posting in crossworksPlease only nominate "All Media Types" and "And Related Fandoms" tags if (as requester) you are OK with a creator using lore/characters from a wide range of parts of the franchise, or (as creator) you are confident in offering across a similar wide range. It's fine to have both a large umbrella part of a franchise and a smaller subset part of a franchise, both in the tag set.
Thanks for everyone's nominations, they're sparking amazing ideas already!
tentaclemod posting in pinchhitsEvent link: On DW
Pinch hit link: https://raremaleslashex.dreamwidth.org/2025/08/08/
Due date: August 16th, 20:00 UTC Deadline Countdown
PH 5 - [Fanfic + Fanart, Podfic] 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018) RPF, 镇魂 | Guardian - priest, Crossover Fandom, 镇魂 | Guardian (TV 2018)
PH 6 - [Fanfic + Fanart] NoPixel (Web Series), 鴨乃橋ロンの禁断推理 | Kamonohashi Ron no Kindan Suiri | Ron Kamonohashi: Deranged Detective (Manga), 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs, 吸血鬼すぐ死ぬ | Kyuuketsuki Sugu Shinu | The Vampire Dies in No Time (Anime), Runescape (Video Games)
PH 8 - [All Fanfic] Bandom, Cool Runnings, due South, Good Omens, Zootopia, Real Genius
PH 9 - [All Fanfic] Dishonored (Video Games), BioShock 1 & 2 (Video Games), Revenge (1990)
PH 11 - [All Fanfic] X-Men: The Animated Series (Cartoon 1992), World of Warcraft, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (TV 2000), Hellboy (Comics)
PH 14 - [Fanfic + Fanart] Bleach (Anime & Manga), Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends, フェルマーの料理 | Fermat no Ryouri (TV)
PH 16 - 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, Elden Ring (Video Game), 魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings, The Magnus Archives (Podcast), The Glory (TV 2022), 苍兰诀 | Love Between Fairy and Devil (TV), 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised - Geunseo, 오픈 더 도어 - 임짜달 | Open The Door - Imjjadal, 山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)
PH 17 - Crossover Fandom, Naruto (Anime & Manga), 新世界狂歡｜NU: carnival (Video Game)
PH 18 - Biggles Series - W. E. Johns, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Labyrinth (1986), Sime~Gen - Jacqueline Lichtenberg & Jean Lorrah, Devil Went Down to Georgia - Charlie Daniels Band (Song), Original Work
PH 19 - Red One (2024), Justin and the Knights of Valour (2013), Spacelords (Video Game), Original Work )
Please claim at the link or via tentaclemod@gmail.com!
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I. UPCOMING BOARD ELECTION
The 2025 OTW Board Election will be held on August 15-18, a week from today.
Elections, Communications, and Translation worked together to announce candidate and voting information. Voting instructions have been emailed to all eligible OTW members, and translated versions of voting instructions are available on the Elections website. Candidate answers to Q&A questions can also be found on the Elections website, and a live Candidate chat was held on August 2 via Discord.
II. ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN
Legal has been closely monitoring legal developments and proposals about internet age verification in the US, UK, and around the world and taking steps to ensure that the AO3 user experience will not change. They also responded to a number of user queries and dealt with a commercial company that has been using the AO3 trademark in a confusing way.
In early July, Accessibility, Design, & Technology resolved some issues and downtime related to creating bookmarks on AO3. They also deployed several releases of bug fixes and improvements, including a performance improvement for the page that administrators use to search for user accounts. Lastly, in conjunction with Systems having installed and set up new servers, they finalized some Elasticsearch upgrades. You can refer to the recent release notes for more details.
In June, Support received 3,348 tickets, while Policy & Abuse received 3,738 tickets. Their TOS Spotlight news post series has now concluded; if you missed it, we encourage you to look it over and contact Policy & Abuse if you have any further TOS questions.
Tag Wrangling continues to test processes for wrangling canonical tags in "No Fandom"—tags that aren't specific to any particular fandom—and announced some new canonical tags on July 14. More tags will continue to be canonized and announced on a regular basis.
In June, Tag Wrangling handled over 526,000 tags, or over 1,200 tags per volunteer! \o/
III. OPEN DOORS IMPORTS CONTINUE
Open Doors finished importing all fanfiction from the Harry Potter archive FictionAlley and is now processing fanart hosted on the site. You can find all imported works in the FictionAlley collection. Unclaimed works are currently restricted to logged-in AO3 users, but per Open Doors' agreement with the archivist, they will be unlocked 30 days after the import is fully completed.
All FictionAlley creators should have received one or more emails with links to claim, orphan, delete their works, or prevent the import of any additional works of theirs in the future. If you were a creator and did not receive this email, please contact Open Doors for assistance. You can also contact Open Doors if you would like to prevent future imports of your Harry Potter works specifically.
The import process for HarryPotterFanFiction.com and MuggleNet Fan Fiction are also underway. If your email address has changed since you were a member of either archive, or you would like Open Doors not to import your works, please contact Open Doors. Please refer to the import announcements for a full list of how Open Doors can assist you.
Elsewhere, Open Doors has continued their importing work on My Mongoose, an archive for The Sentinel.
IV. ELSEWHERE AT THE OTW
Communications' Con Outreach team wrapped up Capital City Comic Con in Lansing, Michigan, USA—thank you to everyone who tabled and who said hi to us! You can check out con attendees' fanwork recommendations in the convention's AO3 collection.
Fanlore's themed month for July, Fandom in Color, was a big success! They're now planning their next editing challenge, Stub September, which will be themed around animals with swords this year. Check out Fanlore's social media (Bluesky, Twitter/X, and Tumblr) for announcements about the challenge, which will run from September 8-21.
Transformative Works and Cultures is finalizing their upcoming general issue, volume 46, which will be published on September 15. Their upcoming Latin American Fandoms and Music Fandoms specific issues are still accepting submissions until January 1, 2026. Lastly, they collaborated with Communications on an OTW website page about the TWC committee, outlining the team behind the publication and spotlighting TWC's Fans of Color research prize.
V. GOVERNANCE
Board held the quarterly Board meeting on July 20 on Discord. There were 44 attendees, and minutes will be available soon on the OTW website.
Alongside preparing for the Board meeting, Board and the Board Assistants Team collaborated across the OTW and made progress on several goals, including the OTW Crisis Management Plan, OTW Procurement Policy, Cybersecurity Report, Paid Staff Transition, and researching nonprofit training resources.
Finance is wrapping up 2024 reconciliations and working with auditors for the 2024 audit.
VI. OUR VOLUNTEERS
Volunteers & Recruiting conducted recruitment for three committees this month: Communications, Fanlore, and Policy & Abuse. Volunteers & Recruiting also closed out all projects carried over from previous years and plan to start new projects this year in accordance with their 2025 roadmap goals.
From June 23 to July 22, Volunteers & Recruiting received 175 new requests, and completed 124, leaving them with 102 open requests. As of July 22, 2025, the OTW has 926 volunteers. \o/ Recent personnel movements are listed below.
New Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: Deniz (News Post Moderation Volunteer)
New Open Doors Volunteers: Kriti S (FCPP Intern)
New Support Volunteers: moonlithic, SlantedKnitting, and 23 other Support Volunteers
New Translation Volunteers: 1 Translation Volunteer Manager and 1 Translation Task Assistant
Departing Communications Volunteers: 2 Fanhackers Volunteers
Departing Communications News Post Moderation Volunteers: 2 News Post Moderation Volunteers
Departing Policy & Abuse Volunteers: 1 Policy & Abuse Volunteer
Departing Support Volunteers: Jennifer D2 (Liaison to User Response Translation), Geraldine and 2 other Support Volunteers
Departing Tag Wrangling Volunteers: demilyver, Goodwin, Ratty, and 11 other Tag Wrangling Volunteers
Departing Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteers: Ducky (Volunteers & Recruiting Volunteer) and 1 Tool Implementation Lead
For more information about our committees and their regular activities, you can refer to the committee pages on our website.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
scalziwhatever_feed
Here we are, well into August, and here is a stack of new books and ARCs to consider for the dog days ahead. What here looks good to you? Share in the comments?
— JS
scalziwhatever_feedToday, I got the urge to get some snacks from the local Asian grocery store, and so I did and I thought I’d share what I got! It’s not much, as I tried not to go overboard, but it’s a good assortment of snackies.
Here’s the small haul:
Normally I wouldn’t buy a big tub of miso, but I decided to make Half Baked Harvest’s Miso Chicken Thighs and Coconut Rice for dinner tonight, so I had a reason to buy it. Had to get some MSG, of course, that stuff rocks (can’t believe I used to think it was bad for you!). Picked out a chicken curry bun and two onigiri, one salmon and one salted plum. Definitely had to pick up some daifuku mochi with red bean paste, y’all know I love red bean filled mochi. I’ve never seen the banana shaped snack before, but I thought it was cute and figured it was worth trying. Thankfully, they had my most favorite milk tea so I bought a can of that, and also opted for their creamy coconut bun. They also had a giant package of rice crackers for cheap, so I snagged that, too. I just love how insanely crunchy and umami flavored they are.
So, yeah! Some nice snacks to start my weekend off right. I’m so excited to use the miso in my cooking tonight, I think it’ll really add some great flavor.
Like I said, I really wanted to buy more, but now I just have reasons to go back. What looks good to you? Do you like red bean paste? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
ozma914Okay, a few quick writerly things:
Haunted Noble County, Indiana is still up for pre-order at a price of $21.99, and will be officially released August 12th. If you want a signed copy from us let us know. I'm starting to get the idea that we didn't order enough, but we can get more sent fairly quickly. If you buy it elsewhere and want it signed--have a pen with you! (Kidding--we'll have a pen.)
We hope to plan some book signings for the rest of the year, and I'll post them as soon as they're confirmed. At the moment there's a slight and not dangerous medical thing to take care of, before the schedule is set.
We do plan for an author appearance September 20th at the Fall Celebration in downtown Albion (Indiana). We ordered more copies of Storm Squalls and The Notorious Ian Grant, so there should be enough of all our books.
Speaking of author appearances, I've contacted the Noble County Library about doing one sometime this month. I haven't heard back yet, but we've been up to the main branch in Albion twice before, and they've treated us very well. One was, sadly, disrupted by a sleet storm, but we don't get those often in August.
Remember Radio Red? You can be forgiven if you don't. It's a romantic comedy, published by Torrid Books in 2017. They were taken over by Start Romance, and since then the book has languished from a lack of promotion (which after eight years is understandable) and a lack of ever having its price reduced (which in my opinion is not understandable).
Our attempts to get the rights back to the Storm Chaser books took many months. To my shock, my request for a reversion of rights in this case got a response in only a couple of weeks. So one of our fall and winter projects will be editing, reformatting, and re-releasing Radio Red independently, with a new cover.
 |
| Not that there's anything wrong with the old cover; it just doesn't belong to us. |
Our other fall and winter writing projects include a Storm Chaser prequel, a Hoosier Hysterical sequel, and (finally!) finishing our photo book about the Albion Fire Department, as well as continuing to submit to publishers and literary agents. I'm betting there'll be a blog, too. Like this one.
You can preorder, order, and generally make contact here:
· Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0058CL6OO
· Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/"Mark R Hunter"
· Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4898846.Mark_R_Hunter
· Blog: https://markrhunter.blogspot.com/
· Website: http://www.markrhunter.com/
· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ozma914/
· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkRHunter914
· Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markrhunter/
· Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarkRHunter
· Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRHunter
· Substack: https://substack.com/@markrhunter
· Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/ozma914
· Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/ozma914
· Audible: https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Mark+R.+Hunter&ref_pageloadid=4C1TS2KZGoOjloaJ&pf
Remember: If you support your local author, it's a good mark in your book.
scalziwhatever_feed
Sometimes, you try your best, and it simply isn’t enough. Author Morgan Richter explores the question of “should the main character always be triumphant, even when under-skilled compared to the enemy?” Follow along in the Big Idea for her newest novel, The Understudy to see which nostalgic 1980’s underdog film inspired this idea in the first place.
MORGAN RICHTER:
I was born in 1974, so obviously I think The Karate Kid is a perfect film. This is just logic: Nothing in life ever comes close to the shimmering brilliance of the pop culture one consumes at the age of ten. This also explains why I think Duran Duran is a perfect band, and why I think Miami Vice is a perfect TV series, and why I am, even now, willing to challenge anyone who suggests otherwise to pistols at dawn.
But there’s an idea at the core of The Karate Kid that has tugged at my brain for the past four decades, an idea I ended up revisiting and remixing in my thriller The Understudy, which revolves around the malevolent backstage shenanigans that take place during the production of an avant-garde opera based on the 1968 cult film Barbarella. In my book, Yolanda, the magnetic, gorgeous, and utterly bonkers understudy for the titular role, tries her best to undermine, sabotage, and flat-out murder Kit, her drab professional rival, to snag the lead.
(The Understudy is a novel about contemporary opera, and here I’m yammering on about The Karate Kid and Gen-X nostalgia, and you might be beginning to worry that I’m getting us hopelessly lost. Fear not: I’m heading towards my point, but I’m doing it at a skewed angle. Sit back, blast Joe Esposito’s “You’re the Best” to hop onto my wavelength, and trust that I’ll get us to our destination soon.)
It takes around five years of training, give or take, to become a black belt in karate, right? Early on in The Karate Kid, our protagonist Daniel mentions that his karate background consists of “a few nights” of lessons at the Newark YMCA. After he gets clobbered by ruthless jerkass Johnny Lawrence and his vicious but well-coiffed gaggle of Cobra Kai blackbelts at his school’s Halloween dance, Daniel begs Mr. Miyagi for karate lessons so he can face off against Johnny at the All Valley Karate Championship, which, per a poster that we see multiple times in the film, takes place on…
December 19th.
So, y’know, that’s seven weeks from Halloween. At the All Valley Karate Tournament, Daniel—who now has a grand total of maybe eight or nine weeks of general karate know-how under his belt, which, just FYI, is a black belt that Mr. Miyagi outright steals from another competitor to enable Daniel to scam his way into a tournament berth—systematically kicks and chops his way through multiple brackets of highly-trained challengers and, despite sustaining a debilitating injury, triumphs over Johnny in the final match. It’s an awesome ending: Daniel holds his trophy aloft while Johnny assures him he deserves it. Freeze frame on Mr. Miyagi’s beaming face. Roll credits. Perfection.
Damn, I love that film. I’m not alone; it’s hard to resist a tale in which a charismatic underdog goes toe-to-toe with a highly skilled yet less sympathetic antagonist and emerges the victor. But sometimes you just have to think: Maybe sometimes the underdog shouldn’t win?
That was my launching point for writing The Understudy, the Big Idea underpinning everything else that happens in the book. I chose to set it in the world of New York City opera for a couple of reasons: 1) opera is a ton of juicy, pulpy, lurid fun, and 2) performing opera on a professional stage—like dancing with a world-class ballet company, or like playing an instrument in a symphony orchestra, or like, I don’t know, defeating a horde of black belts at a karate tournament—requires years of training and hard-earned skills that can’t be fudged. Pluck and star power are awfully appealing character traits, but in many fields, skill is a necessity. Despite what some of my favorite eighties films have tried to teach me, a plucky amateur shouldn’t stand a chance against a skilled pro.
My homicidal understudy Yolanda is a plucky amateur. Physically, Yolanda is any director’s dream Barbarella: She’s gorgeous. She’s overflowing with sex appeal, star power, magnetism. She has a magical laugh and a captivating smile; she’s also got phenomenal knockers. She’s a mesmerizing performer onstage. Her singing voice? Yeah, it’s fine, whatever. She’s pretty good, but she’s undertrained. She misses her high notes. Her technique is sloppy.
By contrast, Kit, the opera’s primary Barbarella, is a consummate pro. As a performer, Kit is a killer cyborg: She’s skilled, precise, meticulous, and kinda robotic. While Yolanda is beautiful, Kit is plain. Kit should be the lead just based on skill and technique, but Barbarella’s artistic director, desperate to attract fresh patrons to a fading art form, looks at Yolanda and, despite her vocal weaknesses, sees a star. Kit, with a mounting sense of incredulity, comes to realize she’s very much in danger of losing the role of her dreams to a charismatic underdog.
The Understudy is a thriller, remember, and this means that Kit is also very much in danger of losing her life to a charismatic underdog. Yolanda is willing to do whatever it takes to snatch the role of Barbarella away from Kit, up to and very much including murder. So if we push this already-strained Karate Kid analogy past the point of no return, it’s as though in the weeks leading up to the All Valley Karate Championship, Daniel poisons Johnny’s tea, crane-kicks him in front of an oncoming train, and threatens to smother him with a pillow. (I would totally watch that film.)
As someone who has a sharp brain and a strong work ethic yet has never been mistaken for a blazing ball of charisma (I used to produce the E! series Talk Soup in the late nineties, and our interns once admitted that they had dubbed me “Daria” behind my back, if that gives you some idea of my general level of pep and vibrancy), I feel a special kinship with the Kits of the world. But I realized a potential difficulty in executing my Big Idea would lie in making sure readers didn’t find Yolanda—beautiful, tricky, lethal Yolanda—more compelling or, god help us all, more sympathetic than Kit.
The key to this lay in making Kit and Yolanda more alike than different. Both Kit and Yolanda are underdogs in a sense, in that both women struggled through violently troubled pasts and have emerged more or less triumphant, albeit in radically different ways. The title of the book refers to both Yolanda and Kit: Kit, whose career progress has been hindered by her lack of star power (see that “killer cyborg” comparison earlier), was initially cast as the understudy herself, and then the production’s original Barbarella dropped out, resulting in Kit’s promotion to the lead. Kit sees this as her best and possibly last chance to move into the spotlight. To hold onto her role, though, she’s going to have to unlock new and more magnetic sides of herself. She’ll need to embrace her inner Yolanda, in fact.
May I dip back into my increasingly ill-advised Karate Kid analogy one more time? This is sort of what happens in the wildly entertaining Karate Kid spin-off series Cobra Kai, in which a present-day Johnny Lawrence, no longer the spoiled, self-assured bully of the 1984 film, flips the narrative and exposes himself as a messy, endearing failure struggling to get his life on track. The highly-trained pro becomes the charismatic underdog. One could say he, too, embraces his inner Yolanda… minus all the attempted murders.
The Understudy: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Powell’s
scalziwhatever_feedTwo weeks ago, my dad and I went to Sky Asian Cuisine down in Kettering for a special anniversary lunch there were having. It was a nine-course bluefin tuna-cutting event that was $99 a person. This sounded quite intriguing, and Sky Asian Cuisine was one of those places on my list that I’d been meaning to go try for a long while now, so I figured this would be a fun and unique experience to try out. The lunch was from 12-3, which seemed like a long time for a lunch but when you consider that it’s nine courses it really isn’t that wild.
When we arrived, I noticed the inside was really nice overall, with plenty of seating and comfortable-looking booths, but looking at pictures online it definitely seems like it’s more atmospheric at night. I did find the bar area to be especially pretty, but it had two flatscreens and y’all know how I feel about flatscreens. For this event, they had everyone sit in the same area of the restaurant and put the biggest tuna I’ve ever seen in my life in the middle of the area.
I’m about to show a lot of pictures of a dead fish, so if that bothers you, here’s your PROCEED WITH CAUTION warning.
And here’s the big fat bluefin tuna:
The photo is honestly not doing it justice, this thing was huge and everyone was standing around it taking pictures. To think that everyone in attendance would be eating from this one fish was so wild, and really made me think about how often is it that we get to see the actual animal our food comes from? How often is a meal so communal that we’re all eating from just one animal? It was very thought-provoking.
Moving on, when we were sat at our table, there was this cute little card set up:
I thought that was a nice touch. And here’s a closer look at the nine course line-up:
As you can see, not every single one of the nine courses is the actual tuna, but a majority of the meal certainly is. I actually had to look up what toro was, and while it is the tuna, it specifically refers to the fatty belly meat of the tuna, which is more expensive than the regular meat and is known for its melt-in-your-mouth qualities.
First thing first, they had to go through the process of cutting up the tuna. Here were some of the tools for the job:
Here the chefs are, hard at work carving:
A third chef was enlisted to help carry the head away:
If you’re wondering how the pictures I’m showing are so close to the action, it just so happens my dad and I got seated at the table next this table in the photo. So we had a fantastic view and picture-taking spot for the entire meal. Lucky us!
And finally, here was the result of all that hard work:
This entire carving process took a full hour. While it was happening, everyone was served complimentary sangria and a bowl of edamame, so really the whole first hour of the lunch was devoted to just socializing, having a beverage or two, and watching the masters at work. After all, it was specifically called a bluefin tuna cutting event, so it only makes sense they took their time with it. I certainly wasn’t mad about it, anyway.
The sangria they served was a white sangria which I actually prefer over red:
I really enjoyed this sangria. It was fruity and perfectly sweetened while still being refreshing. It was very peachy honestly. I went to the bar to order my dad a Coke Zero and asked the bartender if he had batched the sangria himself. He said yes and I told him it was really good, he was really friendly!
Finally it was time for our first course. I had found it strange that they were planning on serving raw tuna with tartar sauce, but who was I to question their expertise. So I was a little surprised when the first course came and there was no tartar sauce in sight:
This honestly looked like tuna in soy sauce with saffron strands on top. So I’m not entirely sure what happened here, but I definitely prefer whatever this was over tartar sauce (no shade to tartar sauce, I do think it can be a good condiment). This particular piece of tuna was incredibly tender, and the flavor of the liquid it was in wasn’t as intense and overpowering as soy sauce, it was lighter but still had a great umami flavor. I don’t know for certain that the things on top were actually saffron strands, but I do know they weren’t spicy so I didn’t think it was any kind of pepper. Long story short this first course was delicious, whatever it was.
Up next was the tuna sushi:
Two pieces of the fresh cut tuna on top of rice. I’m not an expert, but isn’t this nigiri and not sushi? Either way, it was good but not as tender as the first piece we had. I ate the first piece on its own, and then lightly dipped the second piece in soy sauce. It was good both ways. The rice was nice and soft, and I loved this particular bowl they served it in.
Our third course took a break from the ocean and moved to land with these beef skewers:
I have no idea what the dry rub sort of seasoning on this beef was, but it was seriously flavorful and really tasty. The beef was just a little fatty which both my father and I enjoy, and there was a lot of meat on the skewer. We really enjoyed this course.
For the fourth course, we totally forgot to take a picture! It was toro sushi, so like the tuna sushi but just the fattier cut of the tuna with rice instead. It was definitely as advertised with its total melt-in-your-mouth texture, and it was wild to experience just how different it really is from the regular tuna. Another great course.
At this point I decided to have some sake, and asked one of the servers if they had Hakutsuru’s Awa Yuki Sparkling Sake. Not only is it my favorite but I thought it would be perfect for this meal since it’s so light and crisp. She said they didn’t have that one but they did have Ozeki’s Hana Awaka Junmai Sparkling Sake (also called Sparkling Flower), and she told me that it’s her favorite that they have and is very similar to the one I wanted. She also said it tastes like that first day of spring when your seasonal depression finally lifts, and that sold me on it.
Much like my beloved Awa Yuki, this Hana Awaka is much lower in alcohol content than most sake, comes in a small bottle, and is super light and crisp from its slightly sweet, bubbly nature. It was excellent, and is a new favorite. Plus, look at that bottle! I’m obsessed with its design and delicious taste to match.
Next, we come back on land with these lamb skewers:
They used the same seasonings on this lamb as they did the beef, so they actually tasted pretty similar. I don’t have lamb very often, but I wasn’t a huge fan of this kebab. Both my dad and I preferred the beef over the lamb. It wasn’t bad or anything, just not quite as good as the beef had been.
For the sixth course, we were served a bowl of miso soup, and I didn’t bother taking a picture because it was just standard miso soup. Totally average, but I always appreciate a nice warm bowl of soup.
Onto the seventh course, we have soy tuna ceviche:
These pieces of tuna were torched, and here’s an action shot from that process:
Same, guy on the right, same.
I liked that these pieces were served with wasabi, but I did take some off because those were pretty huge globs. I was kind of confused though on how this could be considered ceviche, but it was still good anyways. I’m a big fan of lightly seared ahi tuna and this was pretty similar.
Finally, it was time for the dish I was most intrigued about. The truffle wagyu fried rice:
Mostly I was intrigued because I was curious how strong the truffle would be, and also because usually when I see wagyu it’s a standalone thing and not in a dish. So the answer is there was no trace of truffle flavor present. Both my dad and I agreed that we tasted approximately zero truffle. As for the wagyu, the flavor was good but the texture wasn’t great, I think just because when you cut it up into such small pieces it gets cooked too well-done to have that nice texture wagyu is prized for. It seemed like an odd thing to put in fried rice. Part of me appreciates the attempt, but the execution just wasn’t that good.
Starting to wrap up here, we have the tuna sashimi:
Out of everything we had so far, this was truly the tuna in its purest form. No rice, no sauce, just the tuna, which really made us appreciate how fresh and tender it was. Again I decided to try a piece on its own and then have the other piece with soy sauce. Simplicity is nice sometimes.
Finally, the toro sashimi:
These extra fatty pieces were so buttery and tender, and were a great end to our tuna lunch.
All in all, we enjoyed the experience. Some things were a huge hit for us, like the first course, and other things were just fine, like the miso soup and fried rice. I think for a hundred dollars a person it’s not a bad price when you consider the complimentary sangria (I had two glasses, even) and the presentation of cutting the fish, and just the curated experience as a whole. It was a lot of fun and I’m glad my dad was able to join me.
I would like to go back and try Sky Asian Cuisine for just a regular dinner sometime. The staff was very friendly, I liked the interior, and I think it’s totally worth another visit. I’m glad I could try this unique experience for their anniversary.
Which dish would you most like to try? Do you like bluefin tuna? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!
-AMS
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I found the above bit of nonsense (minus the editorial comment emblazoned at the top, which I put in myself) on a Facebook page about stoicism, and, well. One, that’s not a quote from me (I know that because I’m me, but just to be sure I checked on Google and the only place it shows up is on that Facebook page, attributed to me, which bluntly is unlikely given I’ve been terminally online for three decades), and two, that’s not me in the picture, it’s what happens when you ask an “AI” to make a picture of me, in which I am made to look like someone who thinks the problem with Curtis Yarvin is that he’s too liberal. So: a quote I didn’t say, attributed to me, attached to a picture that also isn’t me, both pretty clearly “AI”-generated.
It’s not even something I would say, philosophically speaking. I do have a widely-quoted comment about the universe that is out there in the world, which is this: “There’s a difference between the fact that the universe is inherently unfair on a cosmic level, and the fact that life is unfair because people are actively making it so.” Which, I don’t know, seems more interesting, both as a sentence and as a philosophical statement, than whatever bullshit this is. Speaking as someone with an actual degree in philosophy, I would much rather have that statement represent me than this “AI” slop.
I have frequently begged people to beware random quotes they find on the Internet, even and especially when they are attached to celebrities or other notable people, and, obviously, this is more evidence of that. Please! Critically evaluate what you see online! Even when it’s attributed to Morgan Freeman! Or the Pope! Or me! I thank you in advance for your vigilance.
— JS
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Are you a detail-oriented and highly organized individual interested in assisting the OTW Board of Directors with administrative and project management tasks? Do you have skills with graphic design, fundraising, or customer service? The Organization for Transformative Works is recruiting!
We're excited to announce the opening of applications for:
- Board Assistants Team Volunteer - closing 13 August 2025 at 23:59 UTC or after 60 applications
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We have included more information on each role below. Open roles and applications will always be available at the volunteering page. If you don't see a role that fits with your skills and interests now, keep an eye on the listings. We plan to put up new applications every few weeks, and we will also publicize new roles as they become available.
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If you have questions regarding volunteering for the OTW, check out our Volunteering FAQ.
Board Assistants Team Volunteer
Are you detail-oriented, highly organized, and passionate about supporting meaningful work behind the scenes? The Board Assistants Team (BAT) is looking for volunteers to assist the OTW Board of Directors with essential administrative and project management tasks.
As a BAT Volunteer, you’ll play a key role in ensuring smooth operations by:
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We're looking for volunteers who are proactive, driven, and committed to the OTW's long-term success.
You must be 18+ in order to apply for this role. In addition to the initial application, you will be emailed a part two to help us understand how well you understand and can complete the committee's tasks.
Applications are due 13 August 2025 or after 60 applications
Apply for Board Assistants Team Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Development & Membership Volunteer
The Development & Membership committee (DevMem) coordinates the OTW's fundraising and membership-building activities. Our primary responsibility is coordinating our biannual fund drives, although we are also responsible for communicating with donors, exploring new fundraising opportunities, and managing the voter roll for OTW elections. If you have skills or interests in fundraising, membership database management, creating promotional OTW graphics, eCommerce, or customer service, consider applying to join our committee!
Applications are due 13 August 2025 or after 30 applications
Apply for Development & Membership Volunteer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
Development & Membership Graphic Designer
The Development & Membership committee (DevMem) coordinates the OTW's fundraising and membership-building activities. Our primary responsibility is coordinating our biannual fund drives, although we are also responsible for communicating with donors, exploring new fundraising opportunities, and managing the voter roll for OTW elections. If you have skills or interests in creating promotional OTW graphics for our fundraisers, membership gifts, and donor communications, consider applying to join our committee!
Applications are due 13 August 2025 or after 30 applications
Apply for Development & Membership Graphic Designer at the volunteering page! If you have further questions, please contact us.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
kentucka posting in fandomcalendar- due: no deadline,
- fandom: multifandom,
- format: bingo,
- format: given prompts,
- format: meta,
- format: recs,
- format: remix,
- format: rewatch,
- format: varied challenges,
- frequency: monthly,
- medium: any/multi,
- medium: art,
- medium: craft,
- medium: fic,
- medium: meta,
- posting: no deadline,
- site: ao3,
- site: tumblr
sanguinity(content warning for murder and cannibalism)
Three-play cycle covering Agamemnon's not-so-happy homecoming from Troy and the cycle of murder and revenge that descends from it.
btw, this is something I quibble about while I'm reading/watching: the cycle of violence began long before the murder of Agamemnon. The first play does get into that, briefly -- Agamemnon's murder/sacrifice of his daughter, obviously, which led Clytemnestra to murder Agamemnon. A generation farther back, there's Agamemnon's father's murder of his nephew (Agamemnon's cousin), and then the father's subsequent feeding of said murdered nephew to the nephew's father (the murderer's brother) -- which is why the brother of the murdered nephew is now teaming up with Clytemnestra. Plus also some more familial murders farther back, in which a son was sacrificed and fed to the gods... Look, the family history is a mess. The point I'm trying to make here, though, is that Clytemnestra had a reason for what she did -- avenging her daughter! -- and the second and third parts of the Oresteia forget that, just treating her act as free-floating evil to be avenged. Is it worse to murder your mother, or leave your father unavenged, with no mention whatsoever that Clytemnestra had some very good reasons.
Which is to say: the going gets rough in this trilogy if you're a Clytemnestra fangirl.
(Also: I will never understand Electra. In a family where one parent is murdering daughters and the other parent is trying to protect or at least avenge them, I, as a daughter in the family, might side with the parent who was protecting daughters, not the one murdering them. But hey, maybe that's just me. "Oedipal complex" is badly named, but I see what Jung was getting at with "Electra complex".)
Anywho.
In Classical Athens, tragedies were composed and performed in trilogies, and this is the only complete trilogy still extant. Which is absolutely fascinating, because Part III is very different from Parts I and II! Parts I and II each center themselves on a murder of vengeance: Clytemnestra murdering Agamemnon (in retribution for his murdering their daughter), and Orestes (their son) murdering his mother, Clytemnestra, in vengeance for his father's murder. Very tragical, very shock-and-horror, very bloody, very parallel.
And then Part III...! Part III is a completely different thing! Part III is the question "How will this cycle of violence ever end?" and the answer is "With Athenian democracy!" And to give you a sense of how weird that is, it's as if we were watching a set of very intense plays about King Arthur and his knights, and then in act three suddenly John Philip Sousa starts playing, stars-and-stripes bunting falls from the proscenium, and we use the Power of the Ballot Box to solve Lancelot's problems. It's weird, man! We just jumped several centuries and to another polity! Lancelot is suddenly having a conversation with Uncle Sam about the virtue of democracy!
Anyway, a bunch of Athenian citizens have a vote on whether to acquit Orestes or not (they decide yes, because Dads Rule and Moms Drool), and then Athena does some pretty intense diplomacy with the Furies to talk them down into accepting a bribe instead of chasing Orestes forever.
Whew.
I will re-iterate something that I learned long ago with Shakespeare, and which holds here: I never get as much from reading a play as I do from seeing a staging. Here, I recommend the 1983 Peter Hall performances, which tried to stage the Oresteia as it would have been staged in Classical Athens: masks, entirely male cast, music and chanting, etc. The Peter Hall recordings really emphasized how parallel Parts I and II are (the reveal of the bloody tableau in both plays are exactly parallel), and there's some beautiful stuff with the net that Clytemnestra used to snare Agamemnon, coming back in part II to snare Orestes.
I will also point out something that's not obvious on the page: when the chorus is pearl-clutching about how unnaturally masculine Clytemnestra is... well. That's a man there. Wearing a dress. I can see him. It feels a bit like all the gender play in Shakespearean comedies, with a man playing a woman disguised as a man, and the text winking about it.
I will leave you with the 1983 Peter Hall stagings:
Part I: Agamemnon
Part II: Libation Bearers
Part III: Furies
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Sometimes, you have to take inspiration from wherever you are. In author Athena Giles’s case, most of that inspiration came from their time in New Zealand and New Hampshire. Follow along in their Big Idea to see how the sea contributed to the creation of their new novel, Waves Take Your Bones.
ATHENA GILES:
I wrote the opening for Waves Take Your Bones on the back of my bus ticket from Christchurch to Dunedin while solo traveling in New Zealand in 2013. Many of the early scenes were similarly written on scraps of paper, tickets, and napkins as I backpacked my way around the two islands. Minor characters and setting developed themselves while lounging in the Coromandel, heavily inspired by the landscape around me. The final scene of the book was written in the area of Shakespeare Cliff and Lonely Bay. Avoiding spoiling the ending, yes, those caves exist, and so does that rock.
Though my time in New Zealand lasted about six months and my process of writing Waves Take Your Bones took twelve years, land and seascapes remained a primary influence. As much of the setting was taken from my home in seacoast New Hampshire near the Great Bay as from the Coromandel. That classic “low tide” smell across salt marshes invokes comfort and familiarity to me more than disgust.
With each scene I wrote, my first thought was always “where are they?” When the characters looked around, what would they see? The very first scene I wrote, based on a dream I’d had, was about the Nightmare Bridge. I built the world around that point. What kind of landscape would stretch out around this otherworldly bridge? What kinds of people would live in that landscape? What are those people running from that makes them so desperate that they’d travel through this place?
The answer again came, in part, from New Zealand, where I’d (unwisely) gone to see World War Z when I first arrived in Auckland on a rainy day. What would make me trek through stinking, rotting swamps filled with biting flies to cross a bridge that shows you your worst fears? It would have to be my worst fear: zombies. So, the plot was literally built from the ground up.
The majority of the twelve years I spent occasionally finding time to work on Waves Take Your Bones was spent far from the kind of landscape that initially inspired me. I lived for four years in Chicago, then came back to New England in 2019 only for the pandemic to hit almost immediately after I got there. Throughout that time, I only saw the ocean when I envisioned the scenes I was writing. My writing was an anchor to a landscape I had no access to.
Waves Take Your Bones: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop|Space Wizard Science Fantasy
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Or the secret third option: Both! Very possibly both! I suppose we will soon find out one way or another.
Anyway, hello, everyone. How is your Wednesday?
— JS