Friday Open Thread (with Spoonerisms)

Dear Friends,

I was feeling very moved by a very sweet tweet from someone showing off the many editions of This Is How You Lose the Time War in their possession. When I showed this to my husband he nodded sagely, and said, for absolutely no reason, "Bled and Rue."

It took me the better part of two whole seconds to understand that he was making a Spoonerism of Red and Blue, and now I'm obsessed with it. Bled and Rue! What more perfect words to describe the entanglement of these characters with each other? It feels revelatory and delicious, both accurate and generative. Even the absence of parallelism is headily appropriate: not bleed and rue, not bled and rued, but a time-slipped intersection of past and present.

Is it their folkmetal album? A pub they start together for Time War deserters? A flower that blooms once a lifetime called bled-and-rue? The possibilities spiral out like the arms of a galaxy, like strands in a braid.

Do you have any favourite Spoonerisms? Ones you've learned or ones you've stumbled into by accident? I'd love for you to share them.

A small sprinkling of other newsworthy items:

• Today marks the release of Les Oiseaux du Temps – the gorgeous French edition of This Is How You Lose the Time War. I've been really dazzled by the reception I've seen so far, and delighted to catch glimpses of Julien Bétan's translation as people tag me into quotes from it on Instagram.
• Only 5 days until my first comic drops! May 19! You can pre-order it here, get it from your nearest comic book shop, and see an extended preview of it here!
• The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) are holding a fundraising silent auction that runs until May 17, 2021 12:00 PM PDT. I really appreciate SFWA and all the advocacy and support the organization does on behalf of authors, whether or not they're members, and hope you'll check it out; there are signed books, original manuscripts, and manuscript critiques up for grabs, as well as career-coaching and author-support sessions (I highly recommend chatting with Alyshondra Meacham, in the latter category, especially if you've been thinking about getting an assistant). My own contribution is a virtual kaffeeklatsch with 4 available spots; if you're interested in a small-group chat with me in the absence of in-person conventions, you can bid on each spot separately here.