Dawn Revisited by Rita Dove

Sep. 4th, 2026 10:58 pm
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[personal profile] conuly
Imagine you wake up
with a second chance: The blue jay
hawks his pretty wares
and the oak still stands, spreading
glorious shade. If you don't look back,

the future never happens.
How good to rise in sunlight,
in the prodigal smell of biscuits -
eggs and sausage on the grill.
The whole sky is yours

to write on, blown open
to a blank page. Come on,
shake a leg! You'll never know
who's down there, frying those eggs,
if you don't get up and see.


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[personal profile] conuly
Me: What do you think the word apocalypse means, exactly? No, nevermind, I get it, you think it means zombies.

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We are less than halfway through book 10, and there are two more books to go, and to be honest I am not sure how he's gonna get out of this without authorial assistance and a few blatant ass-pulls. But I digress.

He's caught by the big bad, who is terrifying on a deep personal level due to longstanding trauma, and the man gives him a speech: "Work with me, or I'll use mind control to force you to do my bidding anyway".

And obviously he could never have gotten away with it, first because the villain is smarter than your average bowl of tapioca but also because the author really wants for him to be in deep shit right about now - but why does he have to go out defiantly? Why can't he just say "Wow, you really got me backed into a corner here?" and then, I don't know, lie? It's not like he's so committed to honesty, either. He lies all the time! Lies, misleads people, makes plans that involve betraying multiple at the same time so they all kill each other instead of him... he is not an honest or trustworthy person. But now, now he's gonna stand on his principles and admit to it?

Geez.

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which introduced me to Roost, in which your messages are carried at the speed of bird.

And today I discover that there's another one!

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Summer Grass by Carl Sandburg

Aug. 31st, 2026 05:38 am
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Summer grass aches and whispers.

It wants something; it calls and sings; it pours
        out wishes to the overhead stars.

The rain hears; the rain answers; the rain is slow
        coming; the rain wets the face of the grass.


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Dammit, this show isn't supposed to make me have feelings. But suddenly, feelings are being had!

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Dear writers of the world

Aug. 28th, 2026 02:59 pm
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[personal profile] conuly
Please check sunrise/sunset times before you have your protagonist woken up at an ungodly hour by the sunrise in the middle of a London winter.

The sun doesn't rise in NYC at 6am on Christmas Day, and London is further north than we are - up by Calgary, actually - so they get even less winter sun than we do. (Not even counting the cloud cover, which I'm just going to assume is... well, you know, busy doing its London thing.)

Like, c'mon, it's basic factchecking.

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Went to The Reality Shaper concert

Aug. 24th, 2026 09:18 pm
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[personal profile] conuly
Aaaaaaaand got to hear my fave song from the audiodrama live, plus they had creme brûlée, so yay.

But now for two days of rushing around on not quite enough sleep, eep!
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[personal profile] conuly
If it's freshman year of high school, and both in canon and in your fic the protagonist meets his girlfriend freshman year of high school, then he cannot talk yet about how he "always" spends his summers at her family's lake house. He hasn't done that yet! He can't even say that in summer after freshman year because at that point, it's only happened once.

If your protagonist has been at their job for three weeks, their boss can't complain that they take every third Friday off. Yes, you remember very well that this was a running complaint by the time the series started, but your fic is a prequel and that hasn't happened yet.

Please. Think a little. All I'm asking here.

(These examples are made up in my head, but it comes up a lot.)

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Window by Spencer Reece

Aug. 22nd, 2026 11:10 pm
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O New York City!
Your sky is sharp.
Saw the light grow
and fill in January
with a Delft blue,
clear as Vermeer
at the Frick: clarity
I love most of all.
City I could marry.
A brilliant violet
streaks the edges.
Uzbekistan market,
I taste your mint,
meat and beets.
Couldn’t sleep again.
The cut hyacinths
hold a musty scent.
All these shadows
by Jasper Johns.
I hear the traffic
on 6th. The air clean.
The snow like felt
upholsters the streets.
I look out, I look up.
I am at the height
of the cross now—
so close I can touch it.
My mother is dead.


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As always, the second team is my favorite. The third... okay, I want to hate Larkin because of what he said to his sister that time, but every time he opens his mouth it's just painful. Somebody needs to hug him.

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Aaaaaaaand our basement flooded

Aug. 20th, 2026 04:28 am
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(Also, this seems to be the first actually cool night we've had all summer. I seem to remember them being more common?)

Either the basement flooded solely due to an inordinate amount of rain or somebody has moved the antiflooding sandbags from the basement door to the outside.

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Oh ew. Ew, ew, ew!

Aug. 19th, 2026 07:53 pm
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