The Wordsmith's Forge

dialecticdreamer is hosting Magpie Monday with a theme of "recovery and rebuilding."

Most of my readers are familiar with the way this works: send a prompt, I write a gentle fiction story (I warn for swear words, implied violence, sex, et al) and if I were any good at embroidery any more, I’d embroider “EARNED happy ending” instead fo “Home, sweet home,” and have it framed. With those very loose limitations, ask for the story that you, the reader, want to see.

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This poem came out of the May 6, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from janetmiles, nsfwords, see_also_friend, lone_cat, chanter1944, and readera. It also fills the "Caught Red-Handed" square in my 5-1-25 card for the Colors Fest Bingo. This poem has been sponsored by janetmiles. It belongs to the Dr. Infanta and Kraken threads of the Polychrome Heroics series.

Warning: This poem contains intense and controversial topics. Highlight to read the more detailed warnings, some of which are spoilers. It includes drawbacks of superpowers, vulgar language, allusions to mad science, necessity and difficulty of studying supervillain bodies, sensitive data, reference to past educational neglect, discrimination based on type of superpowers, kidnapping and coersion, data theft, vague reference to terrorizing and killing unprincipled mad scientists, abuse of supervillains, pickpockets, irresponsible and violent use of superpowers, arrogance, bullying, and other mayhem. If these are sensitive issues for you, please consider your tastes and headspace before reading onward.

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Thanks to a donation from fuzzyred, there are 18 new verses in "Babes in the Pineywoods." Bo-Art and Creamjeans interact more with the Pineyspooks.

Today is Speak Your Language Day.  If you know multiple languages, use all of them!  If not, grab some fragments such as quotes or words that don't translate, and do something with those.

Celebrate Speak Your Language Day with Translated Books from Around the World!


Some of my works feature languages other than English.

"Hanes" / "History" is bilingual in Welsh / English and won me an award.

"Shumáad Delineha" / "Space Flight" is a bilingual poem in Láadan and English.

Clay of Life has bits of several Jewish languages.

Fiorenza the Wisewoman uses some Italian.

Frankenstein's Family has pieces of multiple European languages.

Hart's Farm has mostly Swedish excerpts but also a few others.

The Origami Mage is Asian and features mostly Japanese bits.

Thanks to a donation from lone_cat, you can now read 6 new verses of "The More Bizarre It Gets."  Another teleporter arrives to take Whitevan to That Guy.

florianschild is talking about reviving the sunshine_challenge.  Join the discussion here. 

Here is my card for the Color Fest Bingo over in allbingo. The fest runs from May 1-31. (See all my 2025 bingo cards.)

If you'd like to sponsor a particular square, especially if you have an idea for what character, series, or situation it would fit -- talk to me and we'll work something out. I've had a few requests for this and the results have been awesome so far. This is a good opportunity for those of you with favorites that don't always mesh well with the themes of my monthly projects. I may still post some of the fills for free, because I'm using this to attract new readers; but if it brings in money, that means I can do more of it. That's part of why I'm crossing some of the bingo prompts with other projects, such as the Poetry Fishbowl.

Underlined prompts have been filled.


COLOR FEST BINGO CARD

local color	black and blue	true colors	blue law	white noise
shades of grey	chase rainbows	all that glitters is not gold	shrinking violet	little brown jug
splash of color	little black book	WILD CARD	caught red-handed	yellow jack
the green stuff	golden opportunity	silver-tongued	pale imitation	war paint
paint a picture	grey area	riot of color	red hot	color coded

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, May 6, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Ethical Supervillains." I'll be soliciting ideas for supervillains, superheroes, supernaries, blue-plate specials, wild young things, tricksters, contraries, rebels, adventurers, damsels/gentlemen in distress, mentors, historians, explorers, partners, teachers, leaders, teammates, ethicists, psychologists, folklorists, activists, queerfolk, other responsible rebels, using superpowers, building gizmos or super-gizmos, doing magic, breaking rules, refusing to stop just because solving a problem is illegal, exploring new territory, upsetting predictions, inventing things, trusting your best enemy, twisting tropes, flipping stereotypes, expecting the unexpected, researching, revising theories, parenting, teaching, adventuring, asking for help and getting it, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, experiments changing paradigms, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, other fantastic activities, supervillain lairs, Triton Teen centers, SPOON bases, the forest primeval, underwater, underground, liminal zones, schools, kitchens, campfires, libraries, laboratories, apothecary shops, makerspaces, farmer's markets, foreign dimensions, other phantasmagoric settings, radical activism, radical trust, The Care and Feeding of Supervillains, gizmos or super-gizmos, zoomwagons, zipcycles, dirgecraft, dendropolycarbonate, magical artifacts, quests, enchantments, potions, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, inventions that change everything, time travel, travel mishaps, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, weird food, secret ingredients, supplements that turn out to be metagenic, intercultural entanglements, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

The Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia is about live happy lesbians in a quirky fantasy world.

Monster House is suburban fantasy with a diverse household, where the line between truth and fantasy isn't always clear.

The Moon Door explores a women's chronic pain group and lycanthropy.

Not Quite Kansas has a helpful demon.

One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis follows Shaeth as he works on becoming the God of Drunks.

Polychrome Heroics has ordinary humans, supernaries, blue-plate specials, superheroes, supervillains, primal and animal soups all trying to get along and figure out how to make a functional society.  Antimatter & Stalwart Stan are a cross-cape couple, and Antimatter essentially does science-based magic.  Aquariana knows Steel, a supervillain whale; and the Kraken thread crosses this one with Thalassia.  Berettaflies shows Stylet trying to clean up his act some.  The Big One features several supervillains helping out during and after the earthquake.  Calliope stumbles into partnership with the supervillain Vagary.  Cuoio and Chiara are principled supervillains. Dr. Infanta is a supervillain or superhera depending who you ask.  Fortressa is a supervillain with an all-female team.  Officer Pink features centaurs and mystic shifters.  Pain's Gray belongs to a gang of supervillains in Motor City.  Shiv is surprisingly ethical despite his rough past. In Trichromatic Attachments, Tarnish is a supervillain.

Quixotic Ideas is contemporary fantasy where magic integrates with modern life in positive ways.

Or you can ask for something new.

Boost the signal to reveal a verse in any open linkback poem.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

A friend tipped me to this piece of science fiction with very classic tone. It's been a long time since I've seen anything like this, and I love it.

You’re not supposed to do it, of course, but it’s not unheard of for parents to try to ensure good destinies for their daughters by timing their conception carefully. Most hatchings take place under somewhat clear skies, so the gods that bear witness to the young larvae and claim them for their paths are stars. And stars are notoriously regular in their habits, for the most part; if you want a sturdy and caring daughter born under Zimma, or a strong leader under Yorlu, then it’s all a matter of timing.

But there’s always a gamble.

Today, April 26th, is Lesbian Visibility Day, and we’re celebrating it with our favorite lesbian books! We asked our contributors about their favorite books featuring lesbian protagonists and collected an awesome list of 26 titles. Some are new and some have previously appeared on our 2024 list and two 2023 lists, because we love them that much! The contributors to this list are: Shea Sullivan, Nina Waters, Neo Scarlett, Shadaras, Linnea Peterson, Shannon, boneturtle, S. J. Ralston, Dei Walker, E. C., and Adrian Harley.

Imagine how much the bigots in charge must hate this. Then go spend money on lesbian books. :D

On my end, see The Adventures of Aldornia and Zenobia or Walking the Beat for series about live happy lesbians.  Find more of my QUILTBAG characters here.