literature.cafe

Basically, title.

As always with a well-known universe, the scope is quite large: discussions, fan arts, pictures, crafts, essays...

What would you prefer?

Ryland Grace is the sole survivor on a desperate, last-chance mission—and if he fails, humanity and the earth itself will perish. Except that right now, he doesn’t know that. He can’t even remember his own name, let alone the nature of his assignment or how to complete it. All he knows is that he’s been asleep for a very, very long time. And he’s just been awakened to find himself millions of miles from home, with nothing but two corpses for company. His crewmates dead, his memories fuzzily returning, Ryland realizes that an impossible task now confronts him. Hurtling through space on this tiny ship, it’s up to him to puzzle out an impossible scientific mystery—and conquer an extinction-level threat to our species. And with the clock ticking down and the nearest human being light-years away, he’s got to do it all alone. Or does he?

• Amazon
• Kobo
• B&N

Link to the artist portfolio: https://www.artnet.com/artists/jean-claude-gotting/

The 35 characters who appeared in all 7 books are:

Harry
Hermione
Ron
Ginny
Neville
Fred
George
Dumbledore
McGonagall
Hagrid
Molly
Hegwig
Fang
Nearly Headless Nick
Seamus
Dean
Snape
Malfoy
Crabbe
Goyle
Percy
Peter Pettigrew
Vernon
Petunia
Dudley
Katie Bell
Parvati
Flitwick
Madame Pomfrey
Professor Sprout
Lavender
Peeves
Filch
Mrs Norris
Fat Lady

Always seems funny to use spoilers for a book released almost 20 years ago. Which makes me thing, does the Star Wars fandom still practice spoilers for events that happened in the 80s original trilogy? Anyway

The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted ‘whoa!’ Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street.

“We’ve got ’em now!” cried PC Anderson excitedly. “That’s a dead end!”

Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.

There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour’s chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crashing towards them like some growling, luminous-eyed predator.

There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like, towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall, tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.

“Get off the bike!” he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.

They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.

“No helmets!” Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. “Exceeding the speed limit by – by a considerable amount!” (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) “Failing to stop for the police!”

“We’d have loved to stop for a chat,” said the boy in glasses, “only we were trying —”

“Don’t get smart – you two are in a heap of trouble!” snarled Anderson. “Names!”

“Names?” repeated the long-haired driver. “Er – well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…”

“And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,” said the boy in glasses.

“Oh, OUR names, did you mean?” asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. “You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”

“Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little —”

But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staring past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.

For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than —

“Drumsticks?” jeered Anderson. “Right pair of jokers, aren’t you? Right, we’re arresting you on a charge of —”

But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.

The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying – actually FLYING – up the alley on broomsticks – and at the same moment, the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.

Fisher’s knees bucked; he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher’s legs and fell on top of him, as FLUMP – BANG – CRUNCH – they heard the men on brooms slam into the upended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.

The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.

“Thanks very much!” called Sirius over the throb of the engine. “We owe you one!”

“Yeah, nice meeting you!” said James. “And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!”

There was an earth-shattering crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle’s turn to rear. Before the policemen’s disbelieving eyes, it took off into the air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.

London and Edinburgh are obvious choices, but I'm curious if someone has other suggestions.

I also found the article linked that seems interesting: https://whimsysoul.com/harry-potter-places-to-visit-in-real-life-filming-locations-book-inspiration/

I noticed a library that has ethernet ports, which I must say is quite impressive. So many libraries strictly expect people to use wifi which has downsides:

• many (most?) wifi NICs have no FOSS drivers (ethernet is actually the only way I can get my FOSS laptop online)
• ethernet is faster and consumes less energy
• wifi radiation harms bees and other insects according to ~72 studies (update: separate discussion thread here which shows the research is heavily contested)
• apparently due to risk of surrounding households consuming bandwidth, 2FA is used (which is inadvertently exclusive at some libraries)
• enabling wifi on your device exposes you to snooping by other people’s iPhones and Androids according to research at University of Hamburg. Every iPhone in range of your device is collecting data about you and sending it to Apple (e.g. SSIDs your device previously connected to). From what I recall about this study, it does not happen at the network level, so ethernet devices attached to the same network would not be snooped on (and certainly SSID searches would not be in play).
• (edit) users at risk to AP spoofing (thanks @NoneYa@lemm.ee for pointing this out)

I don’t know when (if ever) I encountered a library with ethernet. Is this a dying practice and I found an old library, or a trending practice by well informed forward-thinking libraries?

BTW, the library that excludes some people from wifi by imposing mobile phone 2FA is not the same library that has ethernet ports, unfortunately. If you can’t use the wifi of the SMS 2FA library then your only option is to use their Windows PCs.

There was a post earlier about recommendations for books for a Harry Potter fan (which since then since then been removed), so I open this one instead

In a dimly lit laboratory, Dr. Adrian Kellerman peered into the translucent chamber holding the alien specimen. Its otherworldly form seemed to writhe with a subtle sadness, as if it carried the weight of forgotten galaxies.

As the experiments progressed, the alien's eyes, deep pools of cosmic sorrow, reflected a profound longing for the home it might never return to. Driven by scientific curiosity, Kellerman's relentless probing delved into the creature's essence, unraveling the mysteries of extraterrestrial biology.

Yet, with each experimentation, an echo of despair resonated within the sterile walls. The alien's estrangement deepened. Kellerman, consumed by scientific zeal, failed to grasp the emotional turmoil he inflicted. The alien bore the weight of interstellar solitude, its cosmic essence tinged with an ineffable sadness, a silent lament for the distant realms it could never reclaim.

One day, as the experiments reached a critical juncture, the alien emitted a haunting, ethereal lament—a plea for release from the cold grip of human inquisition. Kellerman, momentarily shaken, pressed on, oblivious to the profound consequences of his relentless pursuit.

In the final moments, as the alien's essence dissipated into the cold void of the laboratory, a single tear shimmered in its eye—a tear that held the collective sorrow of uncharted galaxies, lost in the unfathomable depths of scientific ambition. And with that tear, the extraterrestrial visitor perished, leaving behind a lingering melancholy in the heart of an oblivious scientist.

Would love feedback and critique.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/C2FUzsVIc58/?igsh=cnk1dm1zMHNyMTl1&img_index=1

Hello everyone,

I saw recently another post on Lemmy which was fairly negative towards fans of the HP universe (some people announcing that they would block other people because those are HP fans)

I guess we can all agree by now that JKR's transphobia is bigotry and should be condemned.

However, that still does not say what do to with that universe that we love.

I found an interesting article on that topic: https://www.popsugar.co.uk/entertainment/harry-potter-fans-jk-rowling-transphobia-essay-49214964

I guess the most important part is

Still, there may be a way to enjoy Harry Potter as a trans person or ally. Over the years, many fans have found creative ways to engage with the series's magic while also acknowledging its creator's bigotry. In her paper "Transformative Readings: Harry Potter Fan Fiction, Trans/Queer Reader Response, and J. K. Rowling," Jennifer Duggan, an associate professor of English at the University of South-Eastern Norway — says that it's possible to interpret the text of Harry Potter itself in ways that would certainly horrify its writer. "My central thesis—one which has also been argued by other academics like Thomas Pugh and David Wallace — is that the Harry Potter novels are deeply queer," she tells POPSUGAR. "I mean this in both senses of the term: they champion nonnormativity through the contrast of the 'perfectly normal' Dursleys and Harry, and they are, at their heart, a story about a boy with an 'abnormality' (as the Dursleys call his magic) who comes out of his cupboard under the stairs and discovers and finds and affinity for a hidden, colourful, queer world. I take this argument further to argue that the novels are easily read through a trans lens, since there is a focus in many of the books on shapeshifting, including several cross-gendered transformations."

Fandom, she adds, can provide spaces where Harry Potter fans can explore the series's queer undercurrents while celebrating their own sexualities. "From what I have observed, I have concluded that for the most part, the Harry Potter fandom continues to offer queer and trans fans a positive space," she tells POPSUGAR. "The two main trends I have seen in fan works are an 'answer hate with love' reaction, in which fans focus on trans positivity, and so-called 'spitefic,' which are works that are framed as revenge on Rowling for the hurt she has caused. These works are usually trans-positive, too. That said, I fully understand why some fans feel they can no longer engage with the texts in any way."

Link to the research paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10583-021-09446-9

Seems an interesting way for me to re-appropriate the universe, what do you think?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237195

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6237131

Fedipunk means a story in a universe, in which the era of dezentralized social networks is already there, with all its potential consequences - or we see the transition to it.

From what I read in earlier posts and my own thinking I propose the following ones (new suggestions are of course welcome):

• Planet Magnon by Leif Randt (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• Mars Trilogy Book 2 by Kim Stanley Robinson (collaborative government strategies)
• Half-Built Garden by (socialism, distributed social network, decentral communities)
• His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman (decentral factions, openings between different parallel universes which begin to merge, remote communication over magic substance)

Chapter 6 is available now on @medium

You can catch-up with the entire series on this list“ElderTree: Chronicles of Fire & Fate“ on Medium: https://medium.com/@damienlawless/list/396935107db5

#fantasy #fiction @fiction @everydayfiction

Hey, this has some pretty good deals 👀