I’ve Got Another Question For You (sorry For Asking So Many Questions About The Young Wizards Series).

Fun fact of the day

A remarkable new study on how whales behaved when attacked by humans in the 19th century has implications for the way they react to changes wreaked by humans in the 21st century. The paper, published by the Royal Society on Wednesday [17 March 2021], is authored by Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, pre-eminent scientists working with cetaceans, and Tim D Smith, a data scientist, and their research addresses an age-old question: if whales are so smart, why did they hang around to be killed? The answer? They didn’t. Using newly digitised logbooks detailing the hunting of sperm whales in the north Pacific, the authors discovered that within just a few years, the strike rate of the whalers’ harpoons fell by 58%. […] Before humans, orca were their only predators […]. It was a frighteningly rapid killing, and it accompanied other threats to the ironically named Pacific. From whaling and sealing stations to missionary bases, western culture was imported to an ocean that had remained largely untouched […].

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Headline and text published by: Philip Hoare. “Sperm whales in the 19th century shared ship attack information.” The Guardian. 17 March 2021.

Catching a sperm whale during the 19th century was much harder than even Moby Dick showed it to be. That’s because sperm whales weren’t just capable of learning the best ways to evade the whalers’ ships, they could quickly share this information with other whales, too, according to a study of whale-hunting records. […]

“At first, the whales reacted to the new threat of human hunters in exactly the same way as they would to the killer whale, which was their only predator at this time,” study lead author Hal Whitehead, a professor of biology at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, told Live Science. “[The sperm whales] all gathered together on the surface, put the baby in the middle, and tried to defend by biting or slapping their tails down. But when it comes to fending off Captain Ahab that’s the very worst thing they could do, they made themselves a very large target.”

The whales seem to have learned from their mistakes, and the ones that survived quickly adapted — instead of resorting to old tactics, the whalers wrote in their logbooks, the sperm whales instead chose new ones, swimming fast upwind away from the whalers’ wind-powered vessels. […]

The whales communicated with and learned from each other rapidly, and the lessons were soon integrated into their wider culture across the region, according to the researchers’ interpretation of the data.

“Each whale group that you meet at sea typically comprises two or three family units, and the units quite often split off and form other groups,” Whitehead said. “So, what we think happened is that one or two of the units that make up the group could have had encounters with humans before, and the ones who didn’t copied closely from their pals who had.“ 

Sperm whales are excellent intel sharers: Their highly observant, communicative nature, and the fact that each family unit only stays in larger groups for a few days at a time, means they can transmit information fast.

As studies show, that information could be news on new threats, new ways to hunt or new songs to sing.

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One example of whales’ extraordinary information sharing abilities involves lobtail feeding, in which a humpback whale slaps its tail hard against the water’s surface, submerges to blow disorienting bubbles around its prey, and then scoops the prey up in its mouth. Researchers first observed this tactic being used by a single whale in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in 1980, before it spread throughout the regional population in just 10 years.

Whale culture also extends far deeper than innovative ways to feed. “Sperm whales are divided into acoustic cultural climates,” Whitehead said. “They split themselves into large clans, each with distinctive patterns of sonar clicks, like a dialect, and they only form groups with members of the same clan.”

Different whale clans each have different ways of singing, moving, hunting and looking after their calves. These differences are profound enough to even give some clans a survival advantage during El Nino events, according to Whitehead. […]

In the 20th century, whales, especially the 13 species belonging to the category of ‘great whales’ — such as blue whales, sperm whales and humpback whales — found themselves pursued by steamships and grenade harpoons that they could not escape. These whales’ numbers plummeted and they soon faced extinction. […] [T]hey still face the growing destabilization of their habitats brought about by industrial fishing, noise pollution and climate change.

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Headline, image, caption, and text published by: Ben Turner. “Sperm whales outwitted 19th-century whalers by sharing evasive tactics.” Live Science. 19 March 2021.

Today’s Cards Against Errantry card!

Like this card? Wish you could use it in a real-life game with fellow cousins? Then make sure to get your badge (and reserve your room) for CrossingsCon 2016.

This is literally my favorite ever. Best post. Good.

King Arthur: I actually think he was probably not a wizard. But he definitely knew about wizardry and did his best to support it.

Gawain: Definitely a wizard. DEFINITELY a wizard. Specializes in liaising with nonhuman species living on earth, go-to diplomat when aliens show up.

Kay: Nope, Kay’s...

So You Want To Be a Wizard: All This for a Pen? and A White Hole Dies

Deep Wizardry: UNDER THE SEA/WITH YOU AND ME/AND YOU’RE GONNA DIIIIIE!

High Wizardry: I Wanna Be a Wizard Like My Big Sis! (Creates New Species)

A Wizard Abroad: So You Want to Learn About Irish...

Hello! I was wondering if you’ve shared your ao3 account? Like, have you acknowledged “this account is mine,” or do you keep it personal? Totally respect if you keep it under wraps I just wanted to know if I’m missing something. Hope my wording of this makes sense!

No, it's OK, I get it. You're asking "Have you publicly ID'd a given AO3 account as yours?"

No, and I'm not going to. Because it contains fanfic I've written for pleasure—exactly as I started writing it in my teens—and I have no desire to have that publicly connected with me.

Leaving the usual legal concerns aside—and not being even slightly concerned that a judge would fail to find the fiction "transformational", if the truth came out in a court of law—a significant part of this effort is about answering the question: "What would happen if people read fiction of mine and they didn't know Diane Duane was responsible for it? What would their reaction be?" That urge to discover whether the fiction stands on its own, without the inevitable shadow cast by the reputational backstop, still comes up for me in some moods. When the itch has come up, I've scratched it. And all I can say is that, by and large, the results have been satisfying.

Frankly, it's a ton of fun. There's no one to satisfy (at the most immediate level) except me and the local embodiment of the Creative Urge. No one will ever accuse me of "just churning [this] out for more $$$$", because there is no $$$$. And there's room to stretch further and harder than I might normally do in my public work (because there's more forgiveness for failure: and in the arts, I think, failure is absolutely one of the most effective ways to grow). Whatever comes back to me in return for this work—and it is work, some of the hardest I've ever done—is in the form of raw appreciation. So, people, on behalf of my colleagues, let me just say: comment on AO3 fics, yeah? You don't have to be fulsome about it. A word or two will do. And bestow kudos where you may. It's all an AO3 fanfic writer asks.

...And of course some people will say: "Are you off your rocker? You're traditionally published for decades, you have awards, you've been on bestseller lists, how can you not be sure that what you're doing's any good?" ...But you know, no writer is sure all the time. All of us wake up in the middle of the night some time(s), thinking "I'm not sure I've still got it..." and squeezing our eyes shut in terror of future reviews that will contain the horrible conjecture that Maybe We Never Really Had It To Start With. When you've spent a significant portion of your lifetime making stuff (up) out of nothing, the horrible suspicion that maybe it really has been nothing all the time—I mean, nothing nothing—is unavoidable.

So sometimes some of us want to go out in disguise (and I don't mean paid pseudonymic work: that proves nothing in this particular arena) and see how we fare. I know other traditionally-published writers who've done this—names that would surprise you—and who, by and large, have done it for the same reasons. We are the dark figures, cloaked, sitting in the shadows of some of the more prominent fandoms that express themselves on AO3; eyes glinting in the firelight, enjoying the reactions for the stories we've got to tell.

It's not bad here, in the shadows. For one thing, you're in a better position to appreciate the figures moving in the light. There's a lot of extraordinary talent on AO3 (and elsewhere in the online fanfic world), sharing stuff with us out of their own hard work and from their own urge toward grace. It's a privilege to read them. (Some of them are better writers than I am. I appreciate them: and comment, and leave kudos, because that's how appreciation is concretely shown. And I take notes.)

Beyond that, there's nothing much to add except that I have no plans to stop. And also: that I think kindly every single day of the very small and exclusive group of people who know "who" I am on AO3, and have kindly kept that data to themselves. Your confidence honors me, friends. May the Work do you honor in return. :)

And now: I owe you all an update, so you'll have to excuse me while I get on with it. :)

BTW, I finally did this

A number of people have suggested it over the last while... and finally I thought "WTF, why not?"

Ko-fi

Support Diane Duane on Ko-fi! ❤️. ko-fi.com/dianeduane

Support Diane Duane On Ko-fi. Ko-fi lets you support the people and causes you love with small donations

So if folks want to contribute to what's going on around here without buying ebooks, here's a way! ...And if you're in the UK and have been feeling annoyed by not being able to assist in that way, well, here's an option for you, as Ko-Fi doesn't care about Brexit in the slightest.

(And thanking all of you in advance, for those of you who choose to support.)

...This setup isn't particularly customized as yet. I really need to get a page banner sorted out, and do some other stuff. Give me a week or so and it'll probably have wizards and dragons all over it. :)

...Anyway, thanks again to those who suggested this.

book character fancast for repfest: #5

Xolo Maridueña as Kit Rodriguez, Young Wizards by Diane Duane