#Painters Canning Vale

[petethepainterperth]

What Are the Advantages of Hiring Residential Painters?

If you are having a big house or maybe a small house, having interior design can make it go like WOW! For that, you need to seek a professional. They offer several benefits. Here are some of the advantages that encourage hiring residential painters in Canning Vale and other places.

VERY COST-EFFECTIVE AND VALUE FOR YOUR MONEY

If you plan to paint the house yourself, you will have to buy lots of things, like ladders, paint, brushes, rollers, fillers, etc., which will make a big hole in your pocket. So, hiring professionals is a great idea to save yourself these additional costs. 

TIME-SAVING AND HASSLE - FREE

You don't have the energy and efficiency to paint the interior. However, professional painters near Canning Vale and other locations who have been dealing with this for many years are working well and doing their jobs well. Professional painters have all the necessary tools to make painting work easier and hassle-free. This will make the colour softer and faster completely. But if you are trying to decorate the room yourself, you will spend a lot of time and energy to get results that are not comparable to what professionals can create. 

DETERMINE THE RISK OF MISTAKE

Painters offering residential painting in Perth and other regions are highly trained professionals. They have been doing good graphic work for years. Since they have a lot of experience, it means that they will get the job done well. In fact, the risk of making a mistake is reduced many times. You don't want to make any mistakes when painting the interior because it will probably spoil the appeal of your home. With the help of a professional, the chances of making mistakes will be reduced and you will get the best and desired results.

So, the next time you hire residential painters, make sure to hire people with great testimonials! Because they will be able to complete the task more easily and provide a good service with the best input!

[miragepainting07]

Painters Treeby | Painters Canning Vale

Mirage Painting Services with over two decades experience provide excellent quality in the Painting trade in Treeby, Canningvale, Thornlie and Gosnells. Get in touch now for assistance.

https://miragepaintingservices.com.au/residential-painting/

[fisheito]

Oh my sweet and wonderfuul lighg ofbgmy life nurse garu descended uppn me when my tummy hurty and i *stomach punches me* thNnku beloved medical alert pupp thannk u for showing up in mu time of n re ef

[desirepaintingwa]

Essential qualities to look for in house painters

Painting gives the essence of entering a new life and breeds a new look to your home by adding warmth and peace. You can enhance the beauty of your home by getting in touch with a suitable painter who will bring in a magical feeling whenever you enter your house. Painting your home can turn out to be an extremely tiresome and time-consuming job, and leaving it to the house painters is the best decision. Here are a few qualities that you must look for when hiring house painters: 

Preparation is important: 

Little do people know that seeking help from professional house painters in Canning Vale will keep you in a win-win position. Every good painter knows the difference between good and bad quality paint and offers you mindful suggestions accordingly. They will inspect the house walls and give you an estimated number of coats each wall will require as part of the preparatory pre-painting process. 

Quality of paints used by them: 

The qualified professional painters in Willetton will enable you to be in a win-win situation. It is essential for you to ensure the quality of pain that the painter uses. Try to look for painters who have knowledge about no-VOC or low-VOC (volatile organic compounds) paints, as this will cause minimal health issues and allergy concerns to your family members. Try to look for trustworthy painters as they will use reputable brand products that last for a long time. 

Do they offer lasting results?

Ask the painter's questions about how long the paint will last. It is crucial for you to get in touch with house painters who offer guarantees on their work. Please stay away from red flags and amateur painters because their painting might result in premature bubbling and chipping of paint, giving you additional headaches before time. 

Do they have a keen eye for details?

Try to look up to qualified house painters in Rockingham, and you’re good to go. Any good painter will always go for inspection before sending the contract for attempting to go about the painting project. This will help you closely look through the painter's keen eye for details and how diligent they are towards their painting job. 

Here are a few tips that you can implement and look for suitable house painters. Word-of-mouth recommendations will also help you hire the best ones to add a fresh look to your home affordably. 

[kvetchlandia]

Elliott Erwitt Painter/Sculptor Mary Frank, New York City 1953

"There is no way to make art. I can only make palpable experience." Mary Frank

Elliott Erwitt - 1928-2023 - Ave atque Vale

[tomopri]

doodle of the aftermath that i did last night and forgot to add to this post but managed to tack onto the twt one before knocking out for the day

vale christmas. Yes, i entered the idv christmas contest. post here btw

one of my fav friend groups in idv i think. Silly as hell, all of them. yes victor is putting the star on top because his bday is on christmas

[wethepixies]

✨About WTP✨

Your questions about the project itself will be answered here! ⠀ What is We The Pixies? We The Pixies (WTP for short) is a rewrite of Disney's Pixie Hollow online multiplayer game that ran from 2008 to 2013. WTP has been in development since 2018.

WTP is not affiliated with The Walt Disney Company and/or the Disney Interactive Media Group. ⠀ Where can I play it? As WTP is still in alpha testing, you cannot play the full version of Pixie Hollow at the moment. You can give the demo a play at: https://www.wethepixies.net/ ⠀ When will new features be released? Watch the ⁠game-news channel in our Discord server for updates as soon as they happen!

We know it’s hard to wait for new game features, but please try not to nag the staff about updates. We’ll let you know when we release new features on all our socials. ⠀ When will WTP be completed? Unfortunately, there's no definite answer. WTP is a volunteer project, meaning that staff members have to find time in their busy schedules to work on it. The game essentially has to be rebuilt from scratch, which means that things may take a while to get finished.

Please be patient. We’re working our wings off to make WTP the best it can be. ⠀ When WTP is complete, will I have to pay for a membership to access all of the features? Not at all! Everything in WTP will be free for each & every player. ⠀ Will I be able to play as my old fairy from Pixie Hollow? No. WTP is in no way affiliated with Disney so, unfortunately, we cannot transfer old fairy accounts over from Disney’s game. ⠀ Will WTP be merging with other Pixie Hollow remakes? No. WTP has no plans to merge with any other Pixie-Hollow-related projects. ⠀ Will there be updates to the original game/new content? WTP’s number one priority is to bring the original game back to life. However, we are hoping to incorporate more original content (in accordance with Pixie Hollow’s aesthetic) sometime in the far future. ⠀ Will there be a website for WTP? If so, when will it be available? Yes! The team is hard at work creating an official website that reflects the magic of the original game. As the website is still under construction, we do not have an estimated time of release. ⠀ Will WTP begin accepting donations? No, WTP will not be accepting any donations. The game will be 100% funded by staff.

✨Current Game Features✨

Your questions about the current version of the demo will be answered here! ⠀ Can I make an account and save my fairy? Accounts aren't an option right now - to enjoy the demo, you'll have to create a new fairy every time or use a CaF code.

At the end of the Create-A-Fairy process, you can copy and save a CaF Code, which you can use to skip Create-A-Fairy while keeping your character's design. We suggest you save this code in a Word document so you can copy and paste it at the beginning of Create-A-Fairy next time you play. To learn more about CaF codes, click here. ⠀ What meadows can I explore? At the moment, players can explore three meadows: Dewdrop Vale, Palm Tree Cove, and Neverberry Thicket. Other classic meadows are being developed. ⠀ Where are the talent games? Only Bubble Bounce and Butterfly Painter are available for now; they are located in Dewdrop Vale and Palm Tree Cove respectively. More talent games are on the way! Can I go shopping? Yes - we currently have three stores in-game. Brook's Basics clothing store in Dewdrop Vale, Schelly's Shears hair salon in Palm Tree Cove and Harmony's Sweet Shop in Neverberry Thicket are open for business! More items and shops are in development. ⠀ I see other fairies, but I can't add them as friends! Adding fairy friends isn’t available right now, although we’re working on it!

How do I complete the tasks in my journal? At the present moment the tasks listed in your journal are merely suggestions and not something that can be completed.

Can I play We The Pixies on mobile? Yes, We The Pixies is playable on mobile.

Which browser is the best to play We The Pixies on? We The Pixies works on all browsers, although some players have run into issues on Safari, so please be sure to include which browser/device you're playing on when submitting a bug report.

What’s up with the profiles? They look like they’re missing a lot of stuff. We’re working with fairly simple profiles right now - over time, we’ll add more features. Right now, you can use profiles to report and whisper to individual users. ⠀ How will the chat system be filtered to keep the game kid-friendly? All chat messages are filtered using a whitelist of allowable words, including: meadow names, fairy name combinations, and much more. In the future, we hope to take player recommendations of words to add to our whitelist!

✨Ways to Help✨

Interested in contributing? Your questions about volunteering will be answered here!

How can I help with the current bugs? 1) I'm trying to create a fairy but the avatar isn't showing up! 2) My fairy turned white! 3) Other bug not listed above These are bugs we're working on fixing. Please be sure to send in a bug report, and in the meantime we recommend refreshing your browser to see if that solves the issue.

Can I apply to help? Fly on over to ⁠the application-links channel in our Discord server to check which positions are open as we don't announce that on any of our socials & you need to have been in the Discord for some time to apply. ⠀ I don't know anything about developing. Can I still apply to help? Occasionally, other roles such as Moderator, Artist or Sound Designer will open up. Applications for these roles will be present in the ⁠application-links channel when they are available. Developer is the only staff position that is always accepting new members. However, everyone can help the staff by reporting bugs in the demo! ⠀ How can I report a bug? To report a bug, you can fill out this official bug report form: https://forms.gle/4NPZa5Rrq1q69zT99 Please be sure to include a clear and detailed description of the bug, exact steps to reproduce the bug, and screenshots (if possible). ⠀ What do artists and developers do? Together, our artists and developers work to rebuild the game from the ground up. Individually, they do a lot, but to summarize:

Artists restore art & assets from the original game, as well as create animations and spritesheets.

Developers are responsible for game development and/or web design. ⠀ I recently applied for a position and haven’t heard back. What should I do? Responses to application forms generally go out within the week, either via email or Discord. However, if you have any questions about your application, feel free to message any of the staff members on our Discord server.

Thank you for supporting the We The Pixies project! We look forward to flying with you at wethepixies.net!

[playshrp]

plot ideas:

domeric knowing your muse from being a page in barrowtown or squiring in the vale & keeping in touch with them via letters & visits that become more difficult to share as other plots in the world progress. ( optional: we can switch canon to have him squire elsewhere. )

domeric is an accomplished painter & might paint your muse. which would take a long enough time for them to establish some sort of dynamic where they know / might forge an opinion of one another.

arranged marriage

domeric doing damage control for the horrors ramsay inflicts upon the north. this could be taken poorly because of domeric's part in the red wedding.

someone in the stark's army before robb dies knowing domeric via their experiences in war. he was not on the battlefield very often because of physical difficulties as a result of him being poisoned, but often had robb stark's ear because of his tactical mind. ( optional: domeric exchanging letters on his father's behalf with a lannister-allied force & having to do so in secret. )

domeric seeking out allies anywhere to try & oppose ramsay's claim on winterfell. it's a thing of ' i don't care if i win i just want him to lose '

domeric visiting king's landing for one of the royal weddings, all while avoiding returning north to his home & brother.

domeric holding harrenhall in his father's place / our characters crossing paths that way

[luckyy19]

GENRE: fantasy (somewhere between urban and high), more character driven than plot driven POV: Third person limited, multiple POVs, past tense STATUS: I don't even know anymore. This is technically the third draft but it's also a rewrite soo... PROJECTED WORD COUNT: between 90k-115k; first in a series THEMES: art as a tool for social change, art as the opposition to war, the innate power and beauty of humanity CONTENT WARNINGS: Addiction (moderate), alcohol consumption (moderate), blood, death, violence I'm sure there will be more added later

SYNOPSIS

Allow me to elucidate. You were found to be hiding aves from us. That’s a punishable offense, here. Doubled, considering where I found you. Holed up in the other world, thinking you were safe. What a fool you were. All of the angels are dead. At least, that's what the crown would like you to believe. But Erica Bolvade, heir to the throne of Katalxi and daughter of the ruthless Killian Bolvade, knows firsthand this is a lie. Sent to the other world--the one with no magic and warmth and humans--to hunt down angels and drag them back to face their deaths, Erica can finally begin the first step of her own plan. Most people would need time to grapple with the decision, but after the deaths of her mother and her lover at her father's hand, Erica's revenge can't come soon enough. Apollo Mack, exhausted artist and circumstantial guardian to his teenage cousin, Kaylie, has a high tolerance for the fantastical. He paints people who cannot exist and worlds that never will. He makes enough for the two of them to survive in relative comfort and wonders if he made a deal with the devil somewhere along the way. And he hears about all of the teen angst occurring with Kaylie and her friends--especially when it pertains to Gwendolyn Vale and the fate that comes with wings. He really would have preferred boy drama. As Erica's path crosses with Apollo's, they become entangled in a world of war and politics, wings and magic. Rebellion is brewing, and Erica intends to help them in whatever way she can, turning the people around her into pieces of her chess game. And somehow, she's certain, Apollo's humanity and artistry will be the key they've been missing all along.

MAIN/POV CHARACTERS

Apollo Mack: 26, artist (specifically painter, but also draws), human, charming, bisexual disaster I character intro I

Erica Bolvade: 23, Princess of Katalxi, daemonium/demon, fire magic, hard exterior soft interior I character intro I

Kaylie Waterman: 19, aves/angel (black wings), places too much responsibility on herself, believes in fate/destiny I character intro I

Gwendolyn Vale: 18, aves/angel (white wings), preppy exterior exhausted interior, can't settle on a hobby to save her life I character intro I

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

Skylar & Dylan: 18 & 18, Kaylie and Gwen's friends, humans, affectionately referred to as "the Merry and Pippin" by me except they aren't nearly as important I character intros I

Korinne: 22, banshee, mute, ex-priestess of Myra (Goddess of Death), assassin for the king, friend & servant to Erica I character intro I

Gabriel & Evander: 24 & deceased (brothers), aves (gray & iridescent), Princes of [REDACTED], magic unknown; Evander was 21 at time of death and romantically involved with Erica

Raquelle & Crimson: 20 & 19 (siblings), kelpies, nobility through their mother although their family was denounced; Raquelle acts as a lady's maid to Erica, Crimson fled and has yet to be found I character intro—Raquelle I

Alexander "Ace" & Evelynne "Eve": 24 (twins), aves/angels (gold wings), fire magic, guards of the aves heirs; Eve had her wings removed prior to FWBS and is presumed dead, Ace fled in the aftermath

Arielle: 234, ???, looks like a daemonium, manager of the "Circus of the Stars," fortune teller I character intro I

Festus: 156, ???, looks like an incubus, owns a bar in Katalxi, always smells of wine I character intro I

Selected Excerpts:

Apollo & Kaylie

Random Snippets

Apollo Reflects

Gwen's Late Night Thoughts

Erica & Apollo Chat: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

[staox]

Welcome to the Show new Towny!

Hello Hello and Howdy-do there Towny! <:o)

[If you happen to know me personally then please do not share or spread my personal information on any internet platforms, such include my address, full name, deadname, age, school, grades, grade level, voice etc. UNLESS you have my consent to it.]

Hello Hello! My name is Vale/Staox! I'm a Transmasc person that goes by he/him/they/them/it/it's/xe/xim/ze/zim!

Welcome to my blog!

I post lots of random stuff here based off my hyperfixations or whatever makes me happy! <:o) I'm in multiple fandoms aswell! I enjoy posting a vast variety of art not from one fandom specifically!!

I am an aspiring poet and an illustrator!! I have dreams that one day I will be known as a famous poet, painter, artist, and sculptor

I'm an artist and a minor so please no uncomfortable things on my page! (Please.. Kindly watch the words you use when commenting))

I'm still growing and developing as an artist!! Everyday I grow and develop into something new!! I hope you can be patient and enjoy as you watch our little art journey!!

Please, kindly, DO NOT INTERACT if you are: A proshipper/comshipper, ableist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, problematic, a toxic neurological, extremely political, a pedophile, rcta, MAP, apart of the "Art lore", etc. etc.

- Again, I'm a minor, so if you are 18 or above please do NOT send me any disgusting or extremely personal DMS

This is a safe space, so please no toxic topics here! Here, I encourage everyone to support their differences cause everyone is human, I will not tolerate in any way any disgusting and heinous words, especially if they degrade or do discriminate others.

This is a Sfw account! however I do not take art requests! (Although I will draw gore from time to time!)

I will NOT post: NSFW, Intimate stuff, anything 18+, and anything else like this

If you force me to make anything like this, I will not be afraid to permanently block you. I understand if you want or request me to do this if you are unaware, but if you are perfectly and openly aware that I am not comfortable with this, plus if you continuously request and ask me to create it after I refuse, do not expect me to be hesitant whilst blocking. Please, respect my bounderies.

My Special Interests/Hyperfixations! :

* Welcome Home

* Dhmis

* Avenue Q

* Bugbo

* Sesame Street

* Cookie run: Kingdom/Ovenbreak

* Omori

* Good Omens

* Nimona

* Captain Underpants

* Tmc/The Mandela Catalogue

* Twf/The Walten Files

* Fnaf

* The Stanley Parable

* Miracle Musical

* Tally Hall

* T.H.I.S (Tally Hall Internet Show)

* Jack Stauber's Opal

* Shop: A Pop Opera

* Ride the Cyclone (RTC)

* Sundy Stairway

* BBirthday

* The Amazing Digital Circus (TADC)

* Town Folks (my own creation! <:o))

* Trolls

Some of my favorite music artists &/or bands! <:o)

These aren't even all of them yet! (tumblr has a 10 image only thingy!!) I will list them down for you! <:o)

- Jack Stauber

- Weezer

- Will Wood/ Will Wood & the Tapeworms

- Tally Hall

- Miracle Musical

- Chonny Jash

- Elliotly

- Jhariah

- Sodikken

- 6arelyhuman

- H3artcrush

- Rebzyyx

- Laufey

- Mitski

- Mother Mother

- Scowl

- Slipknot

- Soupy Garbage Juice

- Lemon Demon/Neil Cicierega

- S3RL

- Korn

- Pleasentries

- Kikuo

- Ruben the Understander

- The Chats

- The Mountain Goats

- Mindless Self Indulgence

- Oingo Boingo

- Rio Romeo

- Marina

- Drive 45

- Lesley Gore

- Temporex

- Bo En

- Bo Burnham

- Xavlegmao

- Queen

- Lorna Shore

°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•°•

Stay safe my fellow Town Folk! I love you very much! <:o)

[alfvaen]

Novel Madness

Still reading, and apparently still blogging about it.

So this is what I read in March. Possible spoilers for the Vorkosigan Saga, and the Mercy Thompson and Peter Grant series, among others.

Jeffrey Cranor & Janina Matthewson: You Feel It Just Below The Ribs, completed March 2

So as you may recall, back in February, I had given up on Ruth Ozeki's A Tale From The Time Being, wasn't fond of Kristen Painter's Flesh And Blood, and was also not really liking the nonfiction book on Reddit I was reading.

I was somewhat tempted to just skip ahead to my reread of Memory, my favourite book in the Vorkosigan series. I mean, when I had started doing more frequent rereads, it had been after just such a string of subpar books, and I wanted to retrench and remind myself why I loved reading. Looking back in my records, I can't actually find that string of subpar books, but I can find about when I started doing the rereads--the fall of 2007, when I started doing a Wheel of Time reread, where every second book was a reread; it was the first time I reread the entire series (up to that point, which was Knife of Dreams). After that, my rereads went back to their more sporadic pace, until the spring of 2008 when I did an every-second-book reread of the Vorkosigan saga (the first of three such rereads in the next few years). And I kept doing every-second-book-a-reread for two years, at which point I slowed down to mostly every third book. By 2012 this was down to every fourth book, and there it seemed to stabilize. So it wouldn't be unprecedented for me to do my rereads more frequently, but the cycle has been stable for a while--I added in the alternation of author gender, the diversity slot, the trying-out slot…it would throw my cycle off now if I did the rereads more frequently. But don't think I wasn't tempted.

Anyway… I was looking for a male author, something that wasn't urban fantasy (because of the Kristen Painter), probably something that wasn't space opera (because Memory was still coming up)… I toyed with the idea of selecting something that might be "fun" (like John Scalzi's Agent To The Stars or the Doctor Who And The Krikkitmen book), but there were also books that I had been thinking "maybe" on for some time and hadn't yet picked up. And You Feel It Just Below The Ribs was one of them.

Many of you are likely familiar with Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor's "Welcome To Night Vale" podcast, which I discovered relatively early (by current standards--maybe around the "Sandstorm" episodes?). I've see the show a couple of times when it came through (or near) Edmonton, I try to keep up on the podcast (though mostly I fail because I can't keep up with a bimonthly podcast schedule any more), and I have read all of the tie-in novels and the script books. The novels are decent, not great, but okay. And I have also tried out a lot of the other related podcasts--"Alice Isn't Dead" and "Within The Wires" are the ones I stuck with.

"Within The Wires" was always weird, and not every season was great, but it was an interesting combination of two conceits--one, that every season was done through "found audio", which included relaxation tapes with hidden messages, dictaphone recordings, answering machine messages, and museum audio guide recordings, among others. And two, that this all took place in an alternate history where, due to an early-20th-century upheaval called The Reckoning, the new regime had taken the drastic step of abolishing the family: breaking the emotional links between parent and child by altering their memories and raising the children in communal creches. (There's also a distinct shortage of male characters in the podcast, which is fine--at some point I'd even thought that men had been wiped out entirely, but there are occasional male characters mentioned now and then. And the new season features a male voice actor for the first time.) But we've never really gotten much detail about the Reckoning, because it was too far in the past, and nobody needed to talk about it much because it was just part of their common world. (Maybe in the season where we were following a woman who was part of a secret rebel group that did raise their own children, but even then we didn't get much.) So I was very interested in the novel that they came out with, in hopes that we would find out more about what the Reckoning actually was and how the change in society came about.

It's a bit of an odd novel--it has a sort of framing story of it being a found document, and has frequent footnotes. But I'm not clear why it was done like this. The document is the memoirs of a woman who was orphaned during the Reckoning--which seems here to have been a worst-case version of World War I that lasted until 1941 and did literally engulf the entire world, possibly with a worse flu pandemic as well. (This was published during Covid so that may have affected things a little.) The author, Miriam Gregory, ended up being influential to the whole post-Reckoning New Society practice of editing memories to remove parent-child bonds. She later got involved with the mysterious Institute from the first season, and there were some hints of the plot from the third (the political thriller told through dictaphone recordings). The footnotes mostly seem to be there to try to point out places where the editors of the document found stuff they were pretty sure was inaccurate. They quoted information from the official record and mentioned when there was no evidence of something existing or having happened at all. Which, okay, maybe this was people parroting the official history even with all its inaccuracies, as a method of showing how the truth had been hidden. But supposedly the publication of this document was being done by a group which was already not following the New Society party line, so why would they be so certain that this was wrong whenever it contradicted the accepted source of truth? It's not clear, and so it seems like they're just there to undermine the story whenever it gets too dramatic. It doesn't feel like an effective technique.

Overall it was a decent book, but flawed, and I felt like it could have covered more of the world than it did.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Memory, completed March 5

I have probably mentioned before that Memory is my flat-out favourite Bujold book. It's not an easy one to recommend to other people, though, because it may only work (and certainly works much better) if you've read all the previous books first. Jo Walton has talked about the "spearpoint theory", where a tiny sharp point can be made much more effective if you've had a lot of buildup to it. This book has a shaft consisting of all the Miles books and stories that came before. Obviously Mirror Dance, of course, the immediate prequel, but it has an especially poignant revisiting of "The Mountains of Mourning", as well as the reappearance of Duv Galeni from Brothers In Arms, and robust roles for Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, Delia Koudelka, Ivan Vorpatril, and Simon Illyan, who is central to the plot. It also has one of the dullest titles in the series, though it is relevant, not least because of the reference to Simon Illyan's eidetic memory chip.

The first part is the most painful, as Miles manages to lose most of what's important to himself through an attempt to keep it from slipping away. But I love almost every scene that takes place on Barrayar. It's such a treat just to see Miles coping with day-to-day life there (my favourite bit is still the convenience-store "Reddi-Meals!"), plunged back into a life he's been neglecting for years, that it doesn't even feel disappointing when it's over a third of a way into the book before the "real" plot really gets going. Because the shaft of that spear is still building up.

In later rereads, there are some bits I find fascinating. Like the worldbuilding details about the existence of Imperial Auditors, special investigators answerable only to the Emperor himself, that actually were never mentioned before in the series. But the way the native Barrayarans explain it to one Komarran feels completely organic, and they've known it all along, so surely these Auditors have been mentioned before? Nope, they're probably something that the author pulled out of her hat for this book (there were "auditors" mentioned in the framing story of Borders of Infinity, but I think they were just regular auditors, not Imperial ones). But if feels like they've always been in the background. (Maybe, if they were, they should have been mentioned in Barrayar somewhere? Well, whatever. Good enough.) Also, there was one relationship that blindsided me first time through, but now I can spot all the groundwork being laid for it all the way through. Very deft.

Steven Barnes: Zulu Heart, completed March 12

Next, according to my cycle, it was time for a book by a "diverse" male author. As I may have mentioned before, I seem to be much shorter on those than I am on female diversity, particularly on the black authors.

I first read Steven Barnes many years ago, at least in collaboration. His book with Larry Niven, Dream Park, has long been a favourite; I recall one day, after a stressful move between cities, that I spent just rereading the book from cover to cover. The sequels never hit quite the same spot, though, which may be why, although I did occasionally buy a Barnes solo book in a second-hand store, I had never actually gotten around to reading any of them. But they were there when I needed to draw from them for this slot. A couple of years ago I read his Lion's Blood, an alternate history novel about a world where African (and mostly Muslim) nations colonized the New World (which I believe they called Bilalistan), and they enslaved Europeans. (I don't recall if there was an in-universe explanation for the change in dominance--maybe the ever-popular Hyper-Virulent Black Death--or if it just turned out that way. There was something about Alexander The Great maybe going to Egypt…) One of the main characters was an Irish man named Aidan who was enslaved as a child near the beginning of the book, and separated from his sister; the other one was a black Muslim named Kai, son of a Wakil in Bilalistan. It probably covers a lot of slave-story tropes, but race-swapped, plus there's also drama an intrigue centered around Kai's family. It was an okay book, but I wasn't particularly planning on searching out the sequel; however, last summer at the When Words Collide convention in Calgary, I saw it on a table of "free to a good home" books, and decided to pick it up. And having basically exhausted pretty much all the other possibilities, I was perforce reading it next.

Once of the principles I mostly stick to with the diversity books is that I don't give up on them. (Maybe I should have done this with the Ruth Ozeki book last month, but I guess I didn't.) It's supposed to be about broadening my horizons, approaching different kinds of stories, etc. I've always been a little hit-or-miss with alternate histories; my perception, at least, is that a lot of them tend to focus on the same things--the American Civil War, the American Revolutionary War, World War II--all American stuff. This one is, at least, a little more creative, and is very black culture focused in a way that, frankly, Barnes's other books I read really weren't.

Plotwise, though, it's only okay; some threads are interesting, some I'm less interested in, and some seem to be a little rushed, as if he was trying to squeeze in plots from a third book the publisher had nixed. The back cover blurb seems to imply that the book is going to cover this world's version of the Civil War, but given that they're still colonies of overseas nations (Egypt and Abyssinia) it's really more like a Revolutionary War. And, spoilers, what there is of it is not a major part of the story. In that sense it's almost more like Diana Gabaldon's later books where the (American) Revolutionary War is going on, and it affects our characters, but it's not primarily about the war itself. And maybe this book would have benefited from being even longer to have that increased scope.

I do worry a bit about the reversed slavery idea--on the one hand, maybe it'll give some of us white people a better feeling for what the Africans suffered under slavery if we replace them with Europeans. The concepts that stuck with me were things like having white slaves given Arabic or African names rather than names from their own culture, and also all the African cultures being treated as distinct things while all the European cultures get jumbled together. But I also picture some people pointing at this and saying, "See? They'd do just the same as us if they were in charge!" Which may be true, but of course it doesn't say that, in our world, the slaves in America didn't suffer, and we're not living in that alternate world. It means that one group may not be inherently nobler than another, but that doesn't mean that they're not deserving of justice, or equity, or reparations. (I can also picture frothing white supremacists screaming that this the what the blacks want, and turning it into a story of white victimhood. Well, I guess we can't control what white supremacists are going to froth about.) It's not a bad thing, but it seems like it can be mischaracterized. (One novel I was working on, I have a setting with an area's native inhabitants being oppressed by intrusive colonials, and I was toying with the idea of having the natives be white, but I'm afraid it'd get read as anti-immigrant rather than anti-colonial, so I probably won't.)

Natalie Zina Walschots: Hench, completed March 16

After the long and somewhat topically heavy slavery book, I decided I was in the mood for something maybe a little lighter, and it was time to get back to a female author. My wife had recommended this Hench book to me, and nudged me about it a couple of times, and I decided to give it a go. I know that technically I do have my special slots for new authors (with the "try but feel free to give up if it does not spark joy" parameters), but if I never tried a new author outside of those slots, then it would take forever me to try all the ones I'm interested in, so I decided to let myself read this one.

The book is clearly set in a world with superheroes, and of course supervillains. I've read a lot of comics--mainly Marvel comics from the 60s through to the 90s (my attempt at a comprehensive read-through on Marvel Unlimited has just inched its way to the end of 1993, so I may be a little behind on the current state of the superhero genre, apart from the MCU stuff) but fewer actual prose novels. I suspect that the modern superhero novel, with its narrower focus, is more prone to examining superheroes in more depth, and frankly most of them tend to come out on the anti-superhero side of things, and at the very least turns them into more complex, flawed characters. The Annihilation Score tended to treat them as problematic; Brandon Sanderson's "Reckoners" series treats them as existential threats (admittedly, in that setting their powers literally drive them insane); and at best, they are severely flawed people who just happen to have powers, as in James Alan Gardner's "Sparks Vs. The Dark" series. Maybe it's a generational thing--in an age where the status quo is far from kind to the vast majority of those who are Millennials or younger, who are your sympathies with--heroes who fight to uphold the status quo, or the villains who subvert it? (Which is not too far off from the logic from that gets people to vote for Trump…)

Hench shows us mostly the villain side of the story, with superheroes mostly shown as overpowered thugs and walking disasters. We're mostly concerned with Supercollider, an example of the former, whose every brush with our protagonist leaves her damaged, and his longtime nemesis Leviathan, who lifts her up and makes her feel valued. I keep wanting to draw analogues with the heroes I'm familiar with--is Supercollider basically Superman? Leviathan seems more like Doctor Doom than anybody. Supercollider's partner Quantum Entanglement (a bit of an awkward name) seems more like a combination of Invisible Woman and Shadowcat than anything else. (I'm always low-key amused at superhero naming where they just silently have to avoid the names of real Marvel or DC characters, without seeming to. In my superhero stories I mostly tend to think that the real heroes are afraid of getting sued by the corporate juggernauts who own the trademarks on the fictional ones…) It got a lot darker than I was expecting, actually, but it was absorbing and I liked it a lot.

Patricia Briggs: Silver Borne, completed March 19

I had originally been thinking of something like Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower for my next book, but after Hench I wasn't feeling like it; instead I thought it might be time for another urban fantasy. I have started so many, and finished (or even caught up with) so few--the Dresden Files, for sure, and the Kelly Meding might be the only one. I find a lot of them appealing in the abstract, but it seems like they appeal to my wife more, so she's the one who reads then, gets hooked on the series, stays caught up, buys them in hardcover, etc. She has always been more of a fan of romance, and a lot of the female-authored urban fantasy seems like it's on a spectrum to paranormal romance. (The main difference, of course, is probably whether there's a single continuing protagonist, or a different romantic pairing every book.) Anyway, I'm in the middle of a lot of series, and it seems to take a lot to get me to the state where I get hooked and have to start reading them faster, so it can be years between books for me.

Patricia Briggs has, like many, split off a side series--her main series follows Mercedes "Mercy" Thompson, but there's also a "Charles & Anna" series which crosses over, and after the last Mercy Thompson book (Bone Crossed) left me a little underwhelmed, I had started those books, so the last Briggs I read was actually side series novel Cry Wolf. Apparently reading them in alternation is not a bad idea anyway, so I went back to Mercy for this one. I even remembered most of the characters, or at least was satisfied with the author's descriptions of them (a lot of minor werewolf pack members showed up, and I couldn't tell you for sure which ones we'd seen before or had character traits before this book).

The pacing was a little weird--there's basically three plot threads which show up at different times, which aren't really connected causally but do interact with each other, and the balance doesn't always work (like pack politics dominating everything else for a few chapters until we get back to our other plots), but it was better than Bone Crossed, at least. It's unfortunate, given how much urban fantasy I read, how little I enjoy the dominance politics of werewolf packs, and particularly the touchiness of Alphas. (Oh, no, we can't meet their gaze or undermine their authority or it's a challenge and they'll have to kill us. And they can't show any weakness or others will try to kill them.)

Next book in the series will be back to Charles & Anna, anyway. I am not yet really hooked on the series, but I'll keep going for now.

Lois McMaster Bujold: Komarr, completed March 22

Back to the Vorkosigans again, for Komarr. Like her other planet-named books, it takes place entirely on the planet in question (if we allow space stations in the same system to be close enough, anyway), the troubled vassal of Barrayar. Because the only current access to Barrayar comes through a wormhole in the Komarr system, and the earlier Cetagandan invasion of the planet was abetted by the Komarrans, Barrayar ended up conquering Komarr to secure its interface to the rest of the world. (I always wondered if it was only upon conquest of a second planet that Barrayar became a true empire, but I think they had emperors before that so probably not.) They've tried to be benevolent rulers since then, but we already saw in Brothers In Arms that there are those, like Ser Galen, that want to get rid of the Barrayaran yoke. And Aral Vorkosigan acquired the sobriquet of "The Butcher of Komarr" when a group of prisoners in his custody were executed--supposedly on his orders, but in fact it was an overzealous subordinate who Aral later killed.

Miles comes along to investigate a bizarre act of destruction--accident or sabotage, we don't yet know--where the "soletta array", a group of orbiting mirrors reflecting additional sunlight onto the cold, still-being-terraformed world (the world's population still lives in domed cities), has been damaged through collision with an off-course ship. He's mostly just shadowing older Lord Auditor Vorthys, the engineering professor who's analyzing the debris, and they end up staying over with Vorthys's niece Ekaterin Vorsoisson, who is our other viewpoint character in the book. Ekaterin has a highly unsympathetic husband, Tien, who has a secret shame, a hidden genetic disease called Vorzohn's Dystrophy. He also happens to be in charge of a small department of the terraforming effort.

I guess my biggest problem with this book is just that Tien and his department turn out to be directly related to the soletta disaster. I mean, think of it--the disaster happens, and an auditor is sent to investigate it. If it hadn't happened to be someone connected to Tien, the investigation might have gone nowhere, or taken a lot longer, because they wouldn't have had that extremely gratuitous link. It bugs me every time.

So the best part of the book is probably the introduction of Ekaterin, and her growth as a character through to the end of the book, where she strikes a decisive blow. And without it, we wouldn't have A Civil Campaign (or would, at least, have a much different book). But it is a dip in what would otherwise be a five-star run from Mirror Dance.

Shaun Barger: Mage Against The Machine, completed March 27

Catchy title, eh? That's probably part of why I picked it up in the first place, though I don't remember for sure. This is in my actual "trying a new author" slot, generally with permission to give up if the book doesn't grab me.

Essentially, it seems that the world ended at some point (2020?) when the machines/AIs rose up against the humans. The mages, who had been living in secret veiled communities for centuries, were hidden and thus not affected by this, though they're pretty sure that the humans were all wiped out. At least, that's what Nikolai, a young magically-talented officer (with a traumatic past) in the year 2120, has always been told.

Meanwhile, outside the veil, a young human cybernetically-enhanced woman named Jem, who remembers the machine uprising ten years earlier (she has her own tramatic past), and who mostly escaped because they were on the way to a colony on Venus at the time, is working as a courier, escorting a rare pregnant woman (unaffected by the fertility plagues the machines spread) through the fringes of Philadelphia.

The two stories go back and forth for several chapters in what seems like an attempt to sow confusion in the reader about the inconsistencies between the two versions of the timeline, which mostly led me to conclude that either these are literally parallel worlds, or that the mages are severely misinformed about the last century of history outside the veils. Or, presumably, most of them are misinformed but the ones at the top are all in on it and keeping the secret for their own reasons.

It seems like a bit of a hodgepodge. Part The Matrix, part Harry Potter (the mages have a sport named "flyball" that seems a lot of like Quidditch without broomsticks), part Brandon Sanderson/Brent Weeks (the flavour of the actual magic system), part Children of Men, part Wool (for the sheltered society ignorant of the world outside)… But I guess that means it's not too derivative, because of the variety of sources?

The biggest problem with it, really, is that the story clearly is not finished…but, in the five years since its release, no further books have come out. The author still seems to be actively posting on Instagram, and I found a Reddit post which said that as of two years ago the sequel was finished (and apparently there are supposed to be four books total), so I hazard a guess that the roadblocks are publishing-related. Like, his editor, Navah Wolfe, bought the first book for Saga Press, but moved on, so he might be editorially orphaned, leading to Saga passing on later books, so he'd have to be looking for a new publisher, or giving up and self-publishing (or just giving up). Always awkward--ask my wife who has two self-published sequels to the books that Scholastic published twenty-some years ago, because no other publisher would take them without rights to the first two. (Diana Rowland managed it somehow, but mostly it just doesn't work.) So I may hang on to this one and await further news (which presumably he'd post on Instagram or something…)

Ben Aaronovitch: Whispers Under Ground, completed March 31

Most of the urban fantasy series out there had female authors and female protagonists; I tend to call this the "post-Buffy" wave--before that, it felt like "urban fantasy" was more like Charles de Lint, with people in and around cities coming into contact with fairies and the like. Although stuff like Tanya Huff's "Blood Ties" series was also around back then, and that's clearly very close to what we call urban fantasy these days. Anyway. There are a few male authors as well, Jim Butcher the most famous, and Kevin Hearne, but they have a different flavour to them. And then there's Ben Aaronovitch, which is different again, being very British. Which is all just a way of saying that, while I normally try not to read too-similar books too close together, this doesn't really feel very much like the Patricia Briggs book I read a couple of weeks ago.

I'm a bit behind on this series--I read Midnight Riot (the North American retitled version of Rivers of London) some time ago, and Moon Over Soho more recently but still a while ago. But my wife was just reading the latest, Amongst Our Weapons, from the library, and apparently it's full of Monty Python references (in the chapter titles, if nothing else), and my eldest son was just reading Midnight Riot (apparently he'd heard that this series's magic system is vaguely similar to the system from the Ars Magica RPG we've been playing recently), so it felt like time to revisit it. My memory is of course a little fuzzy, but my overall impression is that this book is a little more police-procedural murder mystery than the previous two. Definitely there is a murder to solve, and there is a lot of interaction with other police (and an American FBI agent). Definitely a certain amount of underground (including sewers), as the title implies (so it's not just the London Underground). I enjoyed it and will have to try to revisit the series a little more frequently.

And that's it for the prose fiction books for March. For completeness I can also add in a graphic novel I squeezed in (literally just finished it before midnight on the 31st). See, one of the podcasts I've been listening to for a while is the "Endless" podcast, about the Sandman, cohosted by Lani Diane Rich and Alisa Kwitney. Kwitney, who was a former DC editor, particularly on Sandman itself, also apparently did a series for Ahoy Comics called "G.I.L.T.", which they were shilling on the podcast, so I thought I'd give it a try. I got my library to order what turned out to be a collection of the first five issues (I guess I'm not sure if there are more, but I wouldn't be surprised). "G.I.L.T." apparently stands for something like "Guild of Independent Lady Temporalists", though I'm not sure such a guild actually turned up… Anyway, two women, 70ish Hildy and 50ish Trista, get sent back in time to 1973, though Trista wasn't supposed to come along; they try to deal with their respective pasts, linked by a creepy cult-leader type that Hildy was engaged to and Trista's mother was a follower of. They're not supposed to be able to change anything, but they're also not supposed to both go back at once, so things get a little screwy. I wasn't 100% sold on it, but it was interesting.

And now I am actually reading The Raven Tower, but that'll be for next month's post.

[petethepainterperth]

Top Things to Look for When Hiring Residential Painters

Are you planning to revamp the existing look of your property? If so, you have landed at the right place, as this blog post will help you choose the best residential painters to get the job done in no time. Proper planning and getting in touch with residential painters will help you get things done in just the right way. Doing the painting job by yourself can become a tedious job and require a lot of time and effort. Rely on professional painters will turn out to be a great decision, and here are a few things that will help you hire the best one for the painting job: 

Try to find a reliable service provider: 

Count on the professional residential painters in Canning Vale, and you’re sure to be in a win-win situation. It is easy to find the cheapest painting contractor but falling for reasonable offers will not serve you fruitful benefits. It is always best to find a painter who is reliable and is eager to offer you diligent services and colour consultancy so that you can choose the best colour for your home. 

Go through the painter’s portfolio:

Seeking help from residential painters in South Perth will turn out to be a delightful decision. One of the most important things to consider when hiring a professional painter is their expertise in getting things done just the right way. Online websites are a great way to look for residential painters and go through their portfolios to see the kind of work they have been doing in the past few years. This will give you a better insight into the kind of work you can expect from them. 

Do they offer you a warranty on their services?

Another crucial tip that you need to consider when hiring a painter is to ask for a warranty on the services. Try to find a company that offers a guarantee on the painting services as in this way you will get in touch with a trusted service provider who is confident about their work. Avoid getting in touch with companies that do not give any work guarantee and consider it to be a red flag. 

Do they stick to the given timeline?

Little do people know that it is best to seek help from residential painters in Perth, and you’re good to go. It is essential that the painter and their team have the required expertise and determination to bring your dream project to life. 

Try to implement these tips to find the best residential painter for yourself.

[miragepainting07]

Painters Thornlie | Painters Gosnells

Expert Painters at Mirage Painting Services have over with over 50 years of combined experience. Quality work at very affordable prices. For a free quote. Area covered Treeby, Canning Vale, Thornlie, Gosnells.

https://miragepaintingservices.com.au/

[apricusnights]

All there is to offer.

Location: Aurora Vale.

“Hello, we hope you’ve been enjoying the exhibits of our traveling museum. We understand that Captain Miriam Night’s log book is extremely popular but we’d like to remind you of some of the other wonderful things you can see.”

“In our “Days of The Empire” section you can see a few relics from various times throughout the Empire’s existence. Take for example this crown and robe said to have been worn by the very first emperor, Helios The First.”

“We have several journals from various rulers, as well as some wonderful things like prayer books used in the early days of the Empire. The books were only ever slightly altered until far later when Emperor Apollus renovated the Cathedral of The Sun, during which time new versions of the books were introduced.”

“Moving on we see some ancient armor and weapons from the land of Völsung including this axe which is said to be far older than most relics we have as well as posses some sort of unknown properties.”

“We have some authentic artwork from some of the greatest painters Réunion has ever known.”

“These pieces of weaponry were recovered from one of the Fulminare Islands. The strange thing is, they seem to just be cobbled together and should not in any way shape or form work. We aren’t sure what the odd symbols painted on them are supposed to represent.”

“Our Kwailai collection includes several weapons owned by the greatest warriors in Kwailai’s long history. Some of which are so legendary they inspired stores still told today. We also have tea sets, clothing, and books of poetry.”

“The desert kingdom of Calere loaned us these magnificent statues representing the various deities of the nation, carved many many years ago.”

“On loan from Nivis we have one of Empress Daria’s tiaras, several large paintings, and various log books from the founding days of the kingdom.”

“We have smaller exhibits from Crepusculum, Fae, Ricusare, and Asirel. Make sure to stop by those as well! They may be smaller but are still extremely interesting.”

“Finally make sure to stop and look at our Five Great Seas section where we show off many things found by divers, fisherman, and explorers as they travel the waves.”

“Remember, if you have a question feel free to consult our aShine app or ask the frienly staff!”

[eulcgizeme]

retired as of 8/4/24

incoming wanted spooky / supernatural plots from yours truly ♥️

For Dorian, my witch, to have a ghostie lover who doesn't know they're a ghost. He's responsible for their death and revived them, goes out of his way to either erase any memories that come back regarding their death/supernatural aspects of him or he's desperately trying to make them remember him and he's going insane.

I would love to play the ghostie boyfriend to someone, too! He wouldn't know he's a ghost or he's bound to his ex for better or worse because of a backfired spell that lead to their break up... and now they make a point of making him forget he's dead for funsies, revenge, or remorse.

Can you tell I'm obsessed with ghostie lover? Another idea is the lover is brought back as a ghost and given a semblance of a life but there are rules in place bc limits to selling the idea of being alive to a ghost. It's been a few years and they know they can't lie to them much longer.

Muse A sells their soul for Muse B but as soon as it happens, they realize they don't love them anymore and they use the deal not for their lover, but something else.

A painter medium (my muse, Monroe) who paints the dead that come to him. He's either warning someone who is alive, passing on a message to someone who is alive, or helping someone who is dead.

AND ANY PLOTS FOR MY SUPERNATURAL MUSES: Jayne Keller (water element based witch, works with hunters to kill any other supernatural being), Pope Callaway (Dreamwalker), Willow Adler (Fire element witch studying reconstructive sciences bc he burned nearly his whole house down), Vale Adler (Vampire posing as a med student), Arden Bishop (werewolf leading his family's biker gang, also kinda a mad scientiest trying to reverse the werewolf curse)

Like this and I'll come to you to brainstorm!

[kvetchlandia]

Malcolm Lubliner Painter Frank Stella 1970

"I didn't want to mask variations; I didn't want to record a path. I wanted to get the paint out of the can and onto the canvas..." Frank Stella, 1966

Frank Stella - 1936-2024 - Ave atque Vale