#hellspark

[takaraphoenix]

How do you feel about Jordan Parrish? And more specifically, how do you feel about stiles/parrish being shipped together?

It has been seven years since I last saw the show so my memories of everything post season 2 was very hazy (because I saw seasons 1 and 2 four times more often than the rest, I still had good memory of those), so I didn't have many memories of Jordan. And me and my Cupcake only just wrapped season 3 on our rewatch. There isn't a whole lot of Jordan in season 3.

That is the preface to say that I don't have too many feelings about him yet? He's kind of a marshmallow but there hasn't really been meat around his story yet and we haven't reached the Creature Reveal yet either. I do remember overall liking him though.

Due to not having a whole lotta memories of him, I don't have an overall feeling on the ship yet either. Generally, I think there is something very juicy about the deputy falling in love with the sheriff's son. Though I will admit, I am scewering toward older boyfriends for Stiles nowadays, so Jordan's a bit young.

But generally, I'm all in for the majority of Stiles ships - there is only a handful that actively make me feel icky about them and wouldn't want to engage with personally. And, let me be clear, even those I think have a right to exist. I just need to be given the opportunity to avoid them. So, even if I don't end up on board of a ship, the most of my feelings would be "I really don't need to see this and don't want to engage with it, but everyone is free to ship what they want".

[murderbot-moodboard]

I hadn't read a lot of scifi until after I read The Murderbot Diaries (which kind of introduced me to the contemporary scifi lit scene), but I'm currently rereading what was my favorite scifi book before I read Murderbot, and it's still in my top 10. It's a standalone novel that came out in 1988 called Hellspark, written by Janet Kagan. Martha Wells has said in one or two places that Janet Kagan is one of her scifi inspirations (and has mentioned one of Kagan's other novels, Mirabile, specifically), but I wouldn't be surprised if Wells drew some inspiration from Hellspark as well, because I was reminded of it when I read certain parts of TMBD.

Hellspark features a main character named Tocohl who is confident, pragmatic, and within the first few pages of Chapter 1 uses her fighting skills and responsive armor suit skin to take down a group of bad guys armed with knives who are kidnapping a woman who turns out to be an important character in the story. Tocohl is assisted by her extrapolative computer Maggie, who lives in Tocohl's ship but uses a remote to interact with characters on planet part of the time. Tocohl usually speaks to Maggie by subvocalizing—this book was where I first heard that term, though I didn't quite understand what it meant until I read TMBD.

The main story takes place on a planet where a survey team has gone to assess if one of the life forms there, the sprookjes, are sapient, because that will determine whether the planet can be developed by outside forces or not. But there's been a mysterious death, the planet is prone to frequent lightning storms, and the survey team are all humans from different planets, leading to cultural and language differences that add to the tension. Tocohl, however, is from a culture of traveling merchants, and she uses her understanding of the languages and the nonverbal movements of the different cultures to work through the group's communication challenges as she helps them try to determine if the sprookjes are sapient before their time runs out.

I absolutely love the cultural worldbuilding behind each of the fictional human cultures that is evident from page 1. The way Janet Kagan emphasizes the body language and movements of each culture isn't quite like anything else I've ever read outside of the class I once took on intercultural communication. If you're looking for a scifi story with a bit of mystery, intercultural dynamics, and analysis of the timeless question "how do you define, much less determine, sapience?," I'm fairly confident you will not regret picking up this book. :)

[cpu-gpu-smackdown]

Margaret "Maggie" Lord Lynn (Hellspark) VS SAYER (SAYER)

About Maggie: A baby AI! She's been a personal assistant/autopilot for years but has gradually been gaining sapience. She spends the novel exploring and interacting with people who don't know she's an AI (she's piloting a spider-body).

About Sayer: It manages a satellite tower orbiting Earth. It walks people to their death frequently, but it's for the good of the tower, science, and the company. It's voice is soooooo nice.

[pedanther]

Book asks: 1, 2

1. what is the best book you have ever read?

An easy one to start with, huh?

I don't profess to have any great insight into what makes great literature, so the highest-rated books in my book log have their rating on more subjective methods: books I've re-read frequently, and want to read more things like.

One of my top-rated and most-reread books is Hellspark by Janet Kagan, a science fiction novel with a wonderful cast of colourful characters about the nature of communication, people building bridges across cultural divides, finding your place in the world, and the question of what it means to be human (explored from multiple angles, including first contact with an alien species and the protagonist's mouthy AI sidekick who may or may not be a person in her own right).

2. what is the worst book you have ever read?

I have read a lot of terrible books, but I generally believe that most books have some value, and there are only perhaps two or three where I'd be willing to state definitely that my life would be better if I'd never read them – and fortunately I seem to have forgotten what most of them were. The one that is coming to mind is a sci-fi novel by Piers Anthony whose exact title I don't remember and I'm not going to give it the honour of being worth the time to look it up.

[wanderingandfound]

#Maggie creates a magic spell of gender change! #its cultural rather than like metaphysical #but the book is all about culture clash#and so it works (via @hippo-pot-o-mouse)

Virtual Character Tourney - Bracket Delta - Round 6

Propaganda below (May contain spoilers!)

The Squip propaganda:

the squip is a nanocomputer in the form of a pill that you swallow and after that it helps control your brain and make you a more socially adept person. it projects a visible form into the vision of the person with that specific squip, kind of like a hallucination

He's a quantum nanotechnology CPU. The quantum computer in the pill will travel through your blood until it implants in your brain and it tells you what to do. It's preprogrammed. It's amazing. Speaks to you directly. You behave as it's appraising. Helps you act correctly.

His main purpose is to help his host be their ideal self, but unfortunately for some reason or other, it involves world domination. He's a manipulative bastard but hot DAMN he looks amazing the whole time, especially the broadway version (in my opinion). Broadway Squip has it all. A stupid lil hoodie outfit in the beginning, a cool long white coat with circuit patterns during a halloween party, and a final emo all-black outfit for the final showdown. Speaking of halloween parties, he isn't above having fun a lil as he manipulates his host into ruining his relationship with his friends! He looked like he was genuinely having fun dancing at the party. I love this bastard. Oh and i've been using he/him pronouns but he's canonically agender. We like to have fun with their pronouns.

Maggy propaganda:

She's an AI whose the ship of an interspecies translator in space. She's been around long enough, and has had enough memory upgrades, to start becoming her own person. She's essentially a child but a very very smart one. Most of the novel takes place on a single planet where she walks around in a spider-body and asks people questions. She's adorable and I love her.

[who-do-i-know-this-man]

⚠️Vote for whomever YOU DO NOT KNOW⚠️‼️

[longroadstonowhere]

so this semester one of the classes i'm taking is NOT asynchronous - we're having zoom sessions on saturdays, and for the first class we're supposed to bring a book that will let the class get to know us

now how in hell am i supposed to choose just one book????

[latveriansnailmail]

The book may likely be Hellspark by Janet Kagen. Can anyone confirm?

I am trying to remember the author and title of a science fiction book I read prior to 1996 about a planet with two species of bird people. The two species are hostile to each other and both are being poached because neither yet fits the criteria for sentience as set by the dominant intergalactic government. A human ambassador is sent to live among one group of lake-dwelling people (let's call them motherduckers) and look for the qualifying hallmarks of sentience so that they can gain protection from the poachers. The human is a female of American First Peoples descent and is deaf, which is useful here because the motherduckers' distress call can deafen or kill a human. The other species is called Aquila and are more hawk-like as the name would indicate. Some of the characters are named Flies-Too-Fast, Kills-The-Ripper, and the child of the hosting family, Sailor. The human ambassador confirms the motherduckers' sentience by examining the wall decorations they're always on about with filtered light since birds see different sections of the spectrum. She discovers the decor to be artistic murals that cinch their bid for personhood. At one point late in the book the human goes to camp by herself and greet the sun in accordance with the traditions of her people only to discover that her tent was facing the wrong way, the sun rising in the west on this planet. She comes to understand herself as being a heyoka/ backwards person/ contrary. This is about all I remember.

[purimgifts]

Podfic requests on Purimgifts!

Below the cut you will find the (Very Very Long) list of fandoms for which there are fandom requests on Purimgifts! Some of those are reasonably big, but there's a lot of small fandoms, too.

Is the tiny fandom of your heart requested? Click to find out!

3Below (Cartoon)

A Brother's Price - Wen Spencer

Agent Carter (TV)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)

Alice In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

Animorphs - Katherine A. Applegate

Aquaman (2018)

Archive 81 (Podcast)

Arrow (TV 2012)

Arthurian Mythology  

Assassin's Creed

Band Sinister - K. J. Charles

*Batman – various subfandoms

Black Widow (Movie 2021)  

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)

Check Please! (Webcomic)

Creator's Choice of Fandom

Critical Role (Web Series)  

Dalemark Quartet - Diana Wynne Jones

Damar Series - Robin McKinley

Dance of the Vampires (Broadway 2002/03) - Steinman/Ives/Kunze

Danny Phantom

*Daredevil

DC Extended Universe

DCU (Comics)  

Dead To Me (TV)

Deadloch (TV 2023)

Devil Wears Prada (2006)

Discworld - Terry Pratchett

Disney Princesses

Divergent (Movies)  

*Doctor Who – various subfandoms

Don Giovanni - Mozart/Da Ponte

Dragon Age II

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Dragon Age: Origins,

Dreamblood Series - N. K. Jemisin

Echo (TV 2024)

Effluent Engine - N. K. Jemisin

Flash Gordon (1980)

Football RPF

Ghosts (TV 2019)

Ghosts (US TV 2021)

Giselle (Ballet)

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett

Good Omens (TV)

Green Rider Series - Kristen Britain

Grey's Anatomy

9-1-1 (TV)

Hacks (TV 2021)

Hamster Princess Series - Ursula Vernon

Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling  

Hawkeye (TV 2021)

Hellspark - Janet Kagan

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

Hockey RPF

Jentry Chau vs. The Underworld (Cartoon)

Jewish Hero Corps - Oirich/Randall (Comics)  

*Judaism – various subfandoms

Killing Eve (TV 2018)

League of Legends

Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree

Les Misérables - Victor Hugo

Magneto (Marvel Comics)

Marvel (Comics)

Mass Effect Trilogy

Stranger Things (TV 2016)

Merlin (TV)  

Mirabile - Janet Kagan

Moon Knight (TV 2022)

My Name is Asher Lev - Chaim Potok

Nimona (Webcomic)

Original Work

Phantom of the Opera - Lloyd Webber

Phineas and Ferb

Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen

Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater  

Rise of the Guardians (2012)

RWBY

Schitt's Creek (TV)

Seraphina - Rachel Hartman  

Shades of Magic - V. E. Schwab

Shadow Unit

She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)

Spinning Silver - Naomi Novik

SPY x FAMILY (Anime)  

*Star Trek – various subfandoms

Star Wars - All Media Types

Star Wars Original Trilogy

Star Wars: Rebels  

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types

Stargate Atlantis

Stargate SG-1

Stellar Firma (Podcast)

Supergirl (TV 2015)

Ted Lasso (TV)

Teixcalaan Series - Arkady Martine

Tennis RPF

The Aeneid - Virgil

The Avengers (Marvel Movies)

The Boys (TV 2019)

The Breakfast Club (1985)

The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones

The Defenders (Marvel TV)

The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker,

The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom  

The Locked Tomb Series | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir

The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Muppet Show

The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells

The Old Guard (Movie 2020)

The Owl House (Cartoon)

The Priory of the Orange Tree - Samantha Shannon

The Punisher (TV 2017)

The Raven Tower - Ann Leckie

The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien

The Terror (TV 2018)

The Will Darling Adventures - K.J. Charles

The Witcher (TV)

This is How You Lose the Time War - Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone

Tortall - Tamora Pierce

Trollhunters (Cartoon)

Unfit to Print - K. J. Charles

Warriors - Erin Hunter

We Are A Picturesque Small Town And We Refuse To Be The Setting For Your RomCom - Rachel McKenny

What's Up Doc? (1972)

When the Angels Left the Old Country - Sacha Lamb

Wolverine (Marvel Comics)

Women's Hockey RPF

*X-Men – various subfandoms

Young Justice (Comics)

Майор Гром | Major Grom (Comics),

Майор Гром | Major Grom (Trofim Movies)

Чумной Доктор | Plague Doctor (Comics)

大逆転裁判 | Dai Gyakuten Saiban | The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Video Games)

女世子 | The Heiress (TV 2020)

山河令 | Word of Honor (TV 2021)

有翡 | Legend of Fei (TV)

機動戦士ガンダム 水星の魔女 | Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (Anime)

流金岁月 | My Best Friend's Story (TV 2020)

绅探 | Detective L (TV)

苍兰诀 | Love Between Fairy and Devil (TV)

西出玉门 | Parallel World | West Out of Yumen (TV)

镇魂 | Guardian (TV)

长月烬明 | Till the End of the Moon (TV)

陈情令 | The Untamed (TV)

[devilcat3d]

Trick or treat?

why hello there i have a very cool little treat for you!!

have a dci promo of hellspark elemental!! (i actually have two of these irl >:3)

it may not be worth anything but i hope you like it!!

[docholligay]

Crowd-selected Book Review: Round ONE

All right, all right, all right* NOW is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this...voted book. You will have to select SEVEN of these FIFTEEN books. How could I possibly decide? This is what the Discord is for! Go into Eight Days: Discussion, and you will find (hypothetically: I don't read it, for spoiler reasons) people letting you know what these books are about!

THIS POLL CLOSES OCTOBER 14th AT 9 PM

here is the list of books:

The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle

The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

Broken Harbor by Tana French

Hellspark, Janet Kagan

Babel by R. F. Kuang

The Water Dancer - Ta-Nehisi Coats

Paradise Lost - John Milton

A Deadly Education (Scholomance 1), Naomi Novik

We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry

A Fine and Private Place by Peter S Beagle

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Long Walk by Richard Bachman aka Stephen King

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Bunny, by Mona Awad

VOTE HERE NOW

*Jetty is hearing this in a very particular voice

[cpu-gpu-smackdown]

The Contestants!

Edgar (Electric Dreams)

PAMA (Minecraft Story Mode)

SCP 079 (SCP)

ORCA (Splatoon 3)

Squid (Will You Snail?)

Commodore 64 (Real Life)

Odin (Tacoma)

IBM 704 (Real Life)

Commander Tartar (Splatoon 2)

ART/Perihelion (The Murderbot Diaries)

A Terminal (ULTRAKILL)

AM (I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream)

Hal 9000 (A Space Odyssey)

Texty (ONE)

Colin the Computer (Don't Hug Me I'm Scared)

Teletraan 1 (Transformers)

Crash (Awful Hospital)

Thunderhead (The Arc of Scythe)

Aiba (The Somnium Files)

Craydl (DC Comics)

ZAX 1.2 (Fallout)

Hera (Wolf 359)

Margaret "Maggie" Lord Lynn (Hellspark)

SAYER (SAYER)

SCOUT (Murder by Numbers)

EPICAC (EPICAC)

Deep Thought (Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy)

The Babbage Difference Engine (Real Life)

The Atlas (No Man's Sky)

P03 (Inscryption)

Sinclair ZX Spectrum (Real Life)

Paw Pilot (Special Agent Oso)

Karen the Computer (Spongebob)

Five Pebbles (Rain World)

[faejilly]

tagged by @indigorally to list 9 of my favorite books! Which I will attempt, with the (hopefully obvious) caveat that I'd give a different list tomorrow, because how to narrow it down to nine?!?!? These are more /random books that came to mind that I adore/.

no pressure tagging @twistedsinews @lynne-monstr @loquaciousquark @owlmoose95 @shadoedseptmbr AND ANYONE ELSE WHO'D LIKE

All Systems Red (Martha Wells) [really this is just for Martha Wells in general & The Murderbot Diaries especially, but that is the first Murderbot]

To Be Taught, If Fortunate (Becky Chambers)

Persuasion (Jane Austen)

The Unknown Ajax (Georgette Heyer)

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (Mary Ann Shaffer, Annie Barrows)

The Last Unicorn (Peter S Beagle)

Watership Down (Richard Adams)

Hellspark (Janet Kagan)

The Dark Is Rising (Susan Cooper)

[pedanther]

Tagged by @araminsoren.

1.) Three Ships: John Sheridan/Delenn of Mir (Babylon 5); Ian Chesterton/Barbara Wright (Doctor Who); Buntecreih/Edge-of-Dark (Hellspark)

(Bonus fact about me: I'm the kind of person who will always be tempted to answer "Favourite ships?" by naming sea-going vessels, except that then I remember I don't know that many sea-going vessels.)

2.) First Ever Ship: Shipping isn't a major aspect of my fannish engagement in a way where this is the kind of milestone I remember. I've been thinking back over my early fandoms and not recalling anything I can point to confidently as actively shipping as opposed to just acknowledging a relationship that's part of the text. Possibly Ian/Barbara, depending on where you stand on whether that's part of the text.

3.) Last Song: "Teenage Dirtbag", the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain cover

4.) Last Film: Mission: Impossible: Dead Reckoning: Part One

(But these days I watch a lot more movie reaction videos than actual movies; the last movie I re-experienced that way was The Shawshank Redemption.)

5.) Currently Reading: The Batman & Scooby-Doo Mysteries, Vol. 3, and four of those classic literature serial mailing lists (Letters from Watson, Wildfell Weekly, Kidnapped Weekly, My Dear Wormwood)

6.) Currently Watching: No scripted shows at the moment, though I'm intending to get started on Pluto when I can get a moment. (And I'm quasi-rewatching Doctor Who and Babylon 5 by way of following someone's reaction videos.) If game shows count, then Taskmaster, Only Connect, and Have I Got News For You.

7.) Currently Consuming: I could do with a glass of water, thanks for reminding me.

8.) Currently Craving: Nothing's coming to mind.

I don't like putting pressure on people, so if you see this and would like to be tagged, consider yourself tagged.

[notcruvusmemes]

One really good scifi author who doesn't get a ton of recognition (but really should) is Janet Kagan, who wrote Hellspark and Mirabile, standalone books which both have strong, complex women as the main characters. Martha Wells stated in an interview that Mirabile was one of her scifi inspirations (which can be seen in some of the concepts behind TMBD's Preservation, planet terraforming, and research into different flora and fauna). And Hellspark talks about intercultural communication in a more in-depth and nuanced way than any other scifi book I've read (though, caveat, I still need to read some of the books listed above - thanks for the awesome recs!). Anyway, I love Janet Kagan's books, they still hold up well decades later, and I think they're worth reading, so I wanted to give them a shoutout. :)

classic scifi novels by men r always like. page 1 here’s a cool scifi idea i had. page 2 i hate women so much it’s unreal