starless @starless@pixie.town

1. Perfume date (poly friendly)
About two weeks before your date, choose an online perfume shop that offers samples. I usually find a little etsy shop.

Then, each person picks out 3-5 for each other without letting the other person see (easiest to do by leaving the room in person). Then, place the order.

Once the package arrives, plan for dinner 'in'. If you have memory issues, it can be helpful to bring a list of which perfumes you chose, and to bring up the list of the fragrance notes for reference. Have dinner, and do whatever prep you need for dessert. Then open the package of perfumes together and take turns giving them to each other.

Sometimes they smell nothing like how you'd expect, but you'll get to experience that together, and it's really sweet.

Suggested food: any, but maybe not something particularly pungent.

@antiall3s@kolektiva.social sending solidarity. I had an access need or two before the pandemic, and wound up in that same "caught covid too early to know if it was covid at the time" situation. It really sucks to not "be sure" while navigating long covid.

The blasé attitude folks take towards their own health and the health of their friends and loved-ones just blows me away. We have so many more tools now! Rapid antigen tests (free), rapid PCR tests, slow PCR tests (free!), filtration improvements, stats on outdoor transmission, stats on different kinds of masks, community wastewater viral load testing, and effective vaccines...

And instead, many people seem to want to pretend the last three years didn't happen, and to move back to when our culture was a hotbed for communicable diseases. It's disappointing that in three years, we got two changes: masks in doctor's offices and zoom funerals.

It's exhausting just to think about.

@f0x @Are0h @blindscribe layer zero uses open collective, it's worked well for us (USA-based).

@rolltime ugh, I relate.

Honestly, that file emptied when that relationship was done. Looking back, it's such a relief to realize that emotionally fraught editing and re-editing and scrapping and re-composing is stuff I was doing to compensate for their near-zero allocation of emotional energy.

I haven't found myself in that process (at least with friends/loved ones) in at least a year, and it's fantastic.

Anyways, best of luck, that stuff isn't fun.

@fack glacial, maybe? Monolithic?

@noyovo@rage.love most of those seem to be things from Scott and not her, or conflicts that seemed to be pretty "in person"/con-oriented in nature. I didn't find any quotes or actions, aside from the lack of moderation around her blog post, that really stood out as deplorable.

What did you see that concerns you? Maybe I'm missing something here.

@noyovo@rage.love maybe I'm missing something, though?

@noyovo@rage.love yeah, I get that. It's been fourteen years, and it doesn't look like she said anything racist, but rather failed to moderate racist discussions on her blog post.

To me, this is a distinction worth making, and is why I say she is unlikely to be a good moderator, but could be a good user.

@Shrigglepuss I might hesitate before blocking Bear immediately.

It sounds like she would make a terrible moderator, and inaction on her part caused the comments section of something she'd written to get super toxic in 2009.

The world has changed in the last thirteen years or so, and in light of some of the other work she's done in shifting the needle in sci fi lit fields, I think it might be worth holding space for her to have grown, as well.

I would advise a block at the first sign of red flags, though, especially around race stuff. But that's just my take here.

IMO, Bear played a substantial role in shifting science fiction literature (and the surrounding older fandom community) out of a space where all characters were white, Christian men, and into a space where the characters at least looked different, even if she is still writing from the perspective of a white woman. She's not perfect, but I do think she's tried to make stuff better, and has made an impact particularly on what is or isn't assessed as "publishable". That's just my take, though, and I have read a lot of her stuff.

It also seems like her emotional bandwidth tends to stay kinda 'used up', like she gets emotionally overwhelmed kinda often. Which isn't an excuse, but idk, it might give context? I get the impression that when that happens, she doesn't tend to head online.

My read is that she'd make a bad moderator, but might be a fine user. We met briefly a while back and she seemed emotionally drained and physically tired, but polite. I imagine with her cancer, she is maybe more drained now than she was.

I can't speak to Scott Lynch; the things I'm seeing on him are more concerning. While I understand they're married, they do appear to be two different people, and it seems like they should be moderated as such.