Via #TheGuardian @ 4:12am ET on Nov 1, 2025

With #mystery still surrounding #PierPaoloPasolini’s #death, murdered at around midnight on 2 November 1975, the #poet and #FilmMaker’s warnings of #corruption and rising #totalitarianism offer a chilling message for our times

#Ostia #Rome #Italy

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/nov/01/what-did-pasolini-know-fifty-years-after-his-brutal-the-directors-vision-of-fascism-is-more-urgent-than-ever#Echobox=1761990658

#WordWeavers 2025.10.31 — What was your antagonist’s favorite childhood game?

Wow. That's a hard one since her story starts at about age 15.

Rainy Days was born to a culture where women are allowed little beyond raising children and running a household. Changing that is her story, and how she changes the lives of others makes her the antagonist. Since her mother died when she bore Rainy Days and her fraternal twin brother, Harvest Days , her family started out abnormal. She had to work for the family as soon as she was able, and because her father was kind, and her brother autistic and needed care to learn, she grew up used to, and taking intense pride in, being responsible. Though forbidden, she learned to read and write in order to teach her talented brother what he couldn't in school without disruptive frustration.

So, her childhood games?

When very young, probably songs and games related to threshing grain, growing and picking communal crops, and drying food, in addition to transporting water from the wells, making the burden bearable. Sewing and weaving games, too. Plenty of precedents in our cultural history. She likely had dolls and played family when she had moments with the other girls in the village.

Later, when teaching her brother from his magic books, they would have played word games to help memorize the words and equations necessary. When they created apparitions, maybe they played games or competed in making them do things.

I also suspect she had a sense that she also played with the sun in the sky, but thought that was a game she played only in her dreams.

It wasn't.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

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#mystery #thriller #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

#PennedPossibilities 831 — Halloween Edition: A friend suggests that your SC spends the evening in a pumpkin patch, waiting for the Great Pumpkin to arrive. Would they do it? CW: Innuendo.

For any story in the Reluctance Series, because of their lack of belief, or a tangible or even irrational supernatural, it is nearly impossible to make this work in the moral parable sense of the original Linus and Sally (Lucy's Brother and Charlie brown's sister) scenes from It's The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. HOWEVER…

One of the features of the cultures in the series is Japanese and Native American-style names in transliteration, though English names and others also historically had concrete or sentimental meanings. For example, in my universe my name transliterates to Shining Glory when properly gendered. So, it's conceivable that someone could have a name "Great Pumpkin" in-universe. Perhaps some farmer? Anyway…

I imagine, the college student SC named Flies Hard into the Dawn (nicknamed Hardboy for well-earned reasons I won't relate), might be convinced to spend a night in a pumpkin patch if asked by the right person. His major in college could be characterized as "female psychology." It's actually Men's Studies, but saying more would be spoilers…

Bolt, the MC of Reluctant Courier, if told by the Boss Mead to spend a night in said pumpkin patch (particularly if he wants to redress the prank she's pulled in the current chapter), she'd definitely ask Hardboy to accompany her. She knows his major since they live in the same apartment complex. Undoubtably, she'd do this to pry into and learn more about how he got his nickname…

Would he consent? In a hot second. He's been waiting to be asked but she's be been respecting his feelings and missing the obvious!

P.S.: @floofpaldi, Since you used my prompt, I figured I had to answer it somehow. Hope it amuses you. Please forgive that I added a little pumpkin spiciness! And yes, that's a real SC, including his names.

[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery # #sf #sff #sciencefiction
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#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory

View of the Hanging Rock, by Nicholas Caire, 1890s.

Steeped in Indigenous lore and colonial legend, the Hanging Rock formation rises dramatically from the plains near Mount Macedon, Victoria, having been formed by a volcanic eruption 6.25 million years ago. It is also an ideal place for unforgettable picnics.

#photography #mountains #australia #mystery