northie

I can answer the badge element of your question with confidence (hopefully). You get badges for doing various things on site - visiting GA consistently, commenting, posting things, being followed, how many years you've been a member. It's possible for pretty much all members to get at least some badges. Clicking on the 'Recent badges' section of your Profile's Achievements area (towards the top on a laptop view) brings up all the badges you've been awarded. Most of them are self-explanatory. See part of mine as an example: As for ranks, Myr can correct me as necessary. My understanding is points which count towards rankings are earned mostly (entirely?) from interactions in the Stories part of the site. That can be posting stories (and chapters), reviews, and most commonly, making and responding to comments. Any member can grow their reputation but Authors can tend to have an advantage. As a general example, I'm 7,001 points short of progressing to my next rank (10).

He has for many people. He is a character I still love. Thanks for reading!

What a lovely selection. For Pride, yes, but also published on today's Pulse anniversary. They all radiate acceptance, hope, universality, and how we are part of nature, not divorced from it. 🌈😘

Yep, without question. Let's hope the next few years start movement in the opposite direction. It's going to take a while for any improvements to feel bedded in. Thanks for reading. I hope your 'infection' continues. 🤨😄

Prompt Team Event/Contest - More information to come. This is new. 👀 Or at least, it's new to me. *rubs hands* 😊

Congrats, @WolfM. Well deserved.

You'll not be surprised to learn that currently the third skyscraper speaks to me the most. 🤨😄 Learning about a universe driven by chance and implacable determinism is fascinating but your version is more gentle, more focused on things we can get our heads around. 😘

I was thinking about this a couple of weeks ago when an ARC (advance reading copy) made me sit and shake my head in disbelief. In the first few chapters, the action regularly stopped, completely stopped, while the character's past history was recounted. This, to me, was telling taken to the nth degree. I would've learnt so much more about the characters if their past history (the relevant bits) came out in other ways. As in most rules about writing, there's a good point to be made but it's not a cast iron 'thou shalt not'. Different things work for different writers. I agree with Gary @Headstall , as long as it serves the story and so draws in readers, go with your gut. My example above absolutely didn't serve the story and drove this reader to give it a very lukewarm review.

Thank you for these. Your survey of apple varieties made me smile. Some I recognise; others are new to me. However I wholeheartedly agree with your disdain for Red Delicious (Pink Lady, I think they're called here). As tasty as a mouthful of damp cotton wool. 'The apple of my eye' is the epitome of how you take a mundane subject: apples, and turn it into a hymn of praise and love. So you and so a pleasure to read.

Martha Wells The Murderbot Diaries My rating for the series: 4.5 (out of 5 stars); individual stories vary from 3 to 5 stars I went through a phase of reading sci-fi in my teens but very little since. When one of my Goodread's acquaintances posted a rave review of the latest instalment of The Murderbot Diaries, I read the review, shrugged, and passed on. Then someone else did the same. This time, I both read the review and wandered off to see what all the fuss was about. Martha Wells certainly attracts a large coterie of devoted fans. I find my tastes don't often coincide with what's 'hot'. Anyway, it's a title that lingered in my memory. When Audible UK offered the first four novellas for free (if you're a paying member), I took the plunge. You might say, the rest was written in the stars. Yes, it's sci-fi, but with the sci-fi comes added snark, starkly relevant societal critiquing, and the joy of watching someone discover emotions, the ties of friendship, and what they mean. It's also diverse - a nothing-to-see-here acceptance of sexuality, gender, and family structure which comes with humans of every natural hue. Murderbot's existence has been as an enforcer, an overseer, a guard-for-hire for the corporations who, in Wells' universe, own entire planets and sometimes the populations who inhabit them. Certainly these corporations employ workers on terms that are barely above being a serf. Then one day, it hacks its governor module (another form of serfdom) and gains its freedom. This where the series starts. Murderbot is still working. As a human/bot construct, it has the capacity to experience emotions. Emotions are weird. Frightening. Too closely tied to the stupid humans it has to guard. To pass the time, it now consumes endless hours of human-produced entertainment. One side benefit is the very gradual insight it gains into how humans interact and why. In the first novella, All Systems Red, its employers are academic planetary surveyors, humans from outside the Corporation Rim. They are different. Very different. They talk to Murderbot, treat it as if it matters, and try to involve it in their lives. They refuse to abandon it when everything goes wrong. From such a kernel comes this first story and the other six, full of adventure, mystery, discovery, humour, bad guys and good guys, and a touching, profound core. Highly recommended.

Or indeed, over breakfast, just before you set out for work... 🕷🕷

Well, more thanks than usual for persisting. 🤨😊

👍👍 That's what I like to read. 🤨😊

Oh, wow! 👀😄 Thanks, Cia. Not to be read if you're an arachnophobe. Otherwise enjoy this early slice of horror/humour. 🕷🕷

The seasons of a lifetime with a companion. One who might not be able to talk with you but who otherwise was perfect. Love without conditions. Thanks for this poem which in its way is also perfect.

So much verse! Of the haiku, 1, 8, and 14 spoke to me the most, though I recognise the deep feelings that permeate 5 and 6. 14 is so true - there are so many invertebrates and small plants just waiting to be discovered and admired. 'Secret' with its hard-earned self-knowledge is one to be read and re-read, understanding where you are now and where a variation of the same journey has taken me.

That you manage to produce verse every April always strikes me as a minor miracle. That you're doing so this year, feeling somewhat less than wonderful, is more so. And each piece is considered, worked upon, and recognisably yours. Number 4 is my favourite - 2 Tik-Tok length videos are conjured up, the cinematography focused, sympathetic, and filled with your admiration and love. Bravo. 😘

That must've been amazing. Thanks for reading. 😊

OK... Satan writing poetry. 👀🤨 They do it pretty well, if you don't mind the gloating and revelling in people's troubles. 😄 Thanks for this - a fun read and good on you for taking on the challenge.

I think we all have memories of that one elusive day when the weather was Elysian perfect (or so we remember it 🤨😄).

Thanks, Gary! I'm glad it connected with you. 😊

It is always a privilege to be invited into your memories. This is no exception. In fact, it drew me closer because what you describe is way outside my experience. 'which make to tease and tempt and tantalize' - my favourite line, I think. The repeated 't's slow everything down, making you savour every single word.

This sun of ours Succumbs to winter's Never-ending dark, dank Blast This sun of ours Freshly burnished Gleams brightly with renewed Hope This sun of ours Plays hide and seek with Gentle clouds and billowing Rain This sun of ours Conjures up that single Legendary summer's Day This sun of ours Surrenders to livid, towering Skies, heralding floods to Come This sun of ours Glows, satisfied with Nature’s Ripened bounty nearly Done Thi

Poem written for the 2024 Poetry Antho.

Personification is one of my favourite prompts. You can have such fun and it really makes you think about how whatever you've chosen would act, think, feel.