who only by moving can balance

Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/04/28/the-big-idea-marie-vibbert-3/

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Though humans have a strong desire to be an individual, slightly stronger is our innate need to not be alone. Humans are not solitary creatures, so why do we try so hard to act like we are all just individuals with no ties or connections to those around us? Author Marie Vibbert wonders if we wouldn’t all be better off as a hive mind in the Big Idea for her newest novel, Multitude.

MARIE VIBBERT:

Over 11,000 tons of discarded clothing lie in the Chilean desert. These are garments that never sold, from low and high brands, and almost entirely made of petroleum-based fabrics: rayon, polyester, acrylic. It’s a major environmental problem. The clothes catch fire, leak chemicals and microplastics, and just… keep coming.

Meanwhile, in Scotland, they are looking for new, industrial applications for wool because this renewable clothing resource that doesn’t spontaneously combust sits rotting in warehouses, unable to compete with the subsidized price of polyester.

Humanity has a problem. A communication problem that creates wasted effort and wasted resources. Food being thrown out while people starve. Diseases like cholera running rampant when their cures exist. I could go on and on with examples. Why can’t we put our efforts where they are needed? Why do our systems dictate so much cruel irony?

When you look at humanity as a whole, we are tearing ourselves apart, starving ourselves, killing ourselves. We don’t seem to understand that we are us? 

These were my thoughts going into a project whose first note was: The Borg, but friendly?

I thought it would be a short story. Something quick. Get in and get out. A hive mind comes to Earth, tries to communicate with humans as a hive, fails, and sees what a mess we are. Nudge the reader toward empathy, toward seeing problems between “us” and “them” as an insufficient definition of “us.” I figured it’d hit about 2,000 words long. But the more I thought about it, the bigger the problem became. How to show the perspective? How to encompass humanity and then move the camera back to show us in perspective?

How do we look, to a hive mind? What would they expect?

Humans are, in many ways, a collective creature. A single human can no more build a skyscraper than a single ant can build a mound. Even writing a novel is a collective act, when you consider that this language that I am using is a vast collection of consensuses on symbols, meaning, and parsing. English, on a certain level, is a stack of inside jokes passed down and expanded every generation.

Beyond that, every work of fiction builds on and reacts to those that came before. I am writing in a genre, science fiction, defined by all the works labelled as such, and in turn defined by the pressures and uncertainties of our society that caused the first authors to write things not of this world, the first readers to like that and want to emulate it, and on, and on. 

I was on a panel at WorldCon on Hive Minds in Science Fiction when it occurred to me that an assumption I hadn’t seen tackled yet was that collectivism automatically meant a repression of individuality. It seems an easy conclusion? If my family votes democratically on dinner, my individual desire to eat nothing but spaghetti every night is subordinated. Yet, the four of us are still individuals as we enjoy my spouse and child’s preferred chicken and rice.

Why wouldn’t a hive mind contain room for the individual? Does a Borg stop loving spaghetti once it absorbs the thoughts of thousands of chicken fans? Wouldn’t it be more of a conversation than a dictatorship? If it’s truly collective, why would there be dictators? And, come to think of it, don’t we, as large groups, change our opinions over time? Americans once ate more chipped beef on toast than chicken fingers. We thought the Edwardian S-bend corset and the mullet were a great ideas. We went from loving elephant leg jeans to skinny jeans. Collectively. Like an individual goes through phases of loving fly fishing or obsession with one particular series of books, societies go through a group fondness for orange or dark wood paneling. 

At the risk of making this blog post nothing but rhetorical questions, why do we assume innovation is a characteristic of the individual? Why do we assign conformity to the collective alone?

I tried to imagine myself a hive-member. Many advantages came immediately to mind. I wouldn’t have had to gamble on picking a college major; I’d have access to the needs of the society around me to help find work that was needed. I wouldn’t be competing for the access to share my stories, I’d just tell them, and my hive would hear them and like them or not.

Competition is not just the “healthy” activity of small businesses or inventors, of students seeking academic awards. It’s also war. All around the world, humans are killing humans so that they can avoid sharing resources. Humans are defining others, drawing lines around some of their siblings and excluding others, to limit access to resources. Yet to a non-human observer, we are one species, one sprawling community, alike in our needs and wants and behaviors.

And humans can be so kind, too.

In 2023, I had to travel to New York City because I had to get a Visa to attend my first Hugo awards as a nominee, and as I sat in Central Park waiting for my appointment, admiring the unnatural warmth of the post-climate-change day, I saw a middle-aged man patiently leading a group of elderly people. He looked so happy. I dashed off four pages in my journal about him, imagining his life taking care of elders. I wondered why my science fiction stories weren’t as easy or as fun as simple character portraits. I enjoyed the flashes of lives I’d seen in short stories by Mary Grimm or Maureen McHugh, or the prose poems of Mary Biddinger.

I used to love to climb into a character’s head and walk around, show her worries and fears and daily chores, and then I’d show my work to science fiction writers and be told I had no plot, or perhaps I was “just” a poet. Because of this critique, I chose to wall off the desire to write the way that came most naturally, eschewing character-study and stream-of-consciousness in favor of sentences that “did something.” (My own term.) I began to focus on ideas, on technology, on concrete consequences and violent action.

Eventually, I got pretty good at it, good enough to feel its limitations.  I opened up my old “plotless” stories and found them not so plotless, after all. Rather, they reflected my own sense of helplessness as a teen and early-twenties writer, and that point of view was uninteresting to the science fiction editor of the 90s and 2000s, who focused on competent characters moving the plot by choice.

At the young age of 47, I revised one of those 20-year-old “plotless” stories and sold it to a market paying the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Association’s professional rate of eight cents a word. Not to brag. (Yes, to brag). In some ways, the genre itself has moved on from rigorously espousing action and certainty from its heroes, but also, I had learned how to structure a story through the mechanics of action, and this helped me see the similar structuring of non-action-based stories.

Part of the literary legacy my writing depends on is science fiction’s desire for logical, action-driven plots, but the origins of this project are the literary flash fiction piece, rooted in character and moment, and my desire to return to it, now that I have proven myself in the plot mines. 

Which brings us back to the beginning: How better to show the individual in the collective of humanity than through a series of very short point of view pieces? The result is an introspective novella I wrote in thousand-word chunks around other projects. More than any other book I’ve written, I feel naked in its pages, exposing my deepest, most personal self. I felt free to do this because it was something I thought would never sell: too literary, too experimental.

Well, I sent it to Apex Books and they disagreed. I hope you enjoy, and be kind to my Space Cephalopods. 

—-

Multitude: Amazon|Barnes & Noble|Bookshop

Author socials: Website|Bluesky|Instagram

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/04/28/the-big-idea-marie-vibbert-3/

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Posted by Athena Scalzi

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/04/28/moseying-around-cincinnatis-asian-food-festival/

https://whatever.scalzi.com/?p=60350

I still have more posts to do over my trip to Colorado (I cannot seem to get through that dang trip!), but I wanted to post about my experience at Cincinnati’s Asian Food Festival because it just happened this past weekend and I thought some fresh content was a good way to get me into a writing mood.

I was so excited for this festival. I had it on my calendar for two whole months prior because I couldn’t wait for it. I told multiple friends about it out of excitement. I ended up going with Kayla, Brad, and Bryant, and we went on Saturday, since it’s only a two-day festival and Saturday just worked better for everyone instead of Sunday.

The Cincinnati Asian Food Festival has been going on for fifteen years, with this past year surpassing 125,000 attendees, and they have over 60 different vendors. Most of these are food and drink vendors, but there’s also some other goods for sale and even a ZYN station set up, just in case you really needed your nicotine fix.

I am sad to say I didn’t have a super positive experience at the festival, despite my initial excitement for it. As you can imagine from hearing the words “125,000 attendees,” it was very crowded. On one hand, I’m happy that something like an Asian Food Festival would be a popular event and that all these businesses are getting a ton of traffic, but on the other hand, when you cram that many people into a three block radius, it gets very difficult to walk around.

Long lines impede the flow of foot traffic (what little flow there is) because they jut right out into the street everyone is trying to walk down, every line to order is at least twenty minutes long and then you have to wait to actually receive your food. If you’re with your friends you will absolutely lose them in the crowd unless you’re literally holding hands. You will get shoulder checked by multiple people and almost kick a pug you didn’t see. There is absolutely nowhere to sit and eat or even stand and eat. There’s also almost no shade.

For what it’s worth, these issues are not limited to just the Asian Food Festival. This is pretty much all food festivals ever. And I go to a fair amount of them. I’m honestly very tired of these issues, and I feel like the Asian Food Festival just so happened to be the straw that broke the camel’s back. You can’t have a literal food festival and then have nowhere for people to eat. You need to figure out better line control so people can actually differentiate between the line and the sea of people, and where the end of the line is.

At one point, I ordered something and then tried to move to the “pick up” area to wait for my food, but it was so intensely packed that I couldn’t move from the ordering spot. I tried to step to the side in the other direction but was met with another wall of people. The cashier ended up telling me to move, and I got frustrated because I was actively trying to, but there was nowhere to move to! Like, yes I am well aware of the line behind me, I promise I’m not just standing at the register for fun.

I mean look at this!

Imagine trying to get through this if you have a stroller, or are in a wheelchair? You’re gonna have to run someone over if you want through. There were so many points where literally just nobody was moving. Like a traffic jam, but just people standing completely still and there’s no way around anyone. So you just stand there and wait a few minutes until you can continue taking tiny-half-shuffle-steps and try not to step on the back of the shoes of the person in front of you.

Also, I know you’re probably thinking that I just happened to go during the busiest time. Well, it was open from 11am to 10pm on Saturday, and I got there at 11:45am and left at 7pm. So I was there for a hot minute. I’m sure 9pm might’ve been less crowded, but I’m also sure a lot of places would be sold out or closing down for the night by then to prep for Sunday.

Okay, so now that I’ve gotten my population qualms and lack of seating issues out of the way, let’s talk about the actual food and drinks I got.

Oh, I almost forgot, parking in a public lot nearby was $30. So, that fucking sucked. And, yes, there’s more financially savvy options of taking the bus or walking, but I live two full hours away from the Court Street Plaza where it was held, so yeah, I need somewhere to park my dang car.

It always takes me a couple passes of everything to figure out what I want to try first. I knew I wanted to start off with a coffee, and Lotus Street Foods had a Thai Iced Coffee for six dollars:

Bryant so kindly modeled my beverage for me because I was holding the actual food item I got from Lotus. Here’s their Asian fried jerky for nine dollars:

I actually really liked the flavor of the jerky. It had a sticky, sort of sweet glaze, but it was definitely hard to bite through and chew. Wasn’t quite the same texture as jerky but wasn’t the same texture as regular meat. The rice was unfortunately cold and extremely bland. Great flavor on the meat though!

For the coffee, I would’ve liked a little more condensed milk in it. It wasn’t quite creamy enough for my taste and was just a little too plain coffee-y flavored. I like a sweeter, creamier coffee though, so I know I’m not the best judge of coffee when it actually tastes like coffee. I just think the balance was a little off. And for what it’s worth this wasn’t my first time trying this drink, so I have some sweeter ones I’ve had in the past to compare it to.

Kayla really wanted to try the elote from LALO Chino Latino, especially since it wasn’t listed on their online menu that it was going to be offered:

She said it was totes delish last year, but sadly this elote missed the mark this time around so bad that she barely ate half. She let me try a bite and yeah, it was rough. The corn itself was cold and had no flavor, and was tough and almost rubbery in texture. It felt like something you shouldn’t actually be chewing on. The sauce was lackluster, and honestly if the corn itself isn’t good then the dish isn’t going to be good no matter what you put on top. So that was unfortunate.

However, I did get the Vietnamese Birria Beef Taco from them for six dollars, and their horchata coffee, also for six dollars:

I didn’t finish the Thai coffee, so I was hoping this horchata coffee was going to be the redeeming caffeine fix of the day. While I did like the horchata coffee better than my first coffee, I can confidently say it was totally lacking in horchata flavor. There were some notes of cinnamon in there, but I would not go so far as to label this as “horchata” coffee. Kayla got one too and agreed that it’s more like if you added a little bit of cinnamon to a regular latte. So that was a little disappointing.

As for the birria taco, it was so good! I know you can’t see the inside, but there was plenty of tender birria, and the cilantro and onion on top was nice and fresh. The consommé had a lot of good flavor, the outside was golden brown, and I was wishing I had got a second one.

The next place I stopped was Evolve Bake+Shop. Though it was only about 1:30, this stand was almost completely sold out of baked goods. By the time I did another once through the street, they were sold out and had gone back home to bake more goodies for Sunday. The owner was so sweet and apologetic, but honestly I’m thrilled for them that they sold out so quick. I managed to get my hands on two of their few remaining cookies: their gluten-free ube crinkle cookie, and their strawberry matcha oatmilk cookie for four dollars each:

I actually didn’t know until I looked them up on Instagram for this post, but all their baked goods are 100% vegan/plant-based! It’s nice to know there are some vegan options at the festival.

I shared the ube cookie with everyone, and the consensus was that it was pretty good, but the gluten-free aspect of it made the mouthfeel just a little bit odd. Gluten-free stuff tends to have that sort of sandy texture sometimes. But it was dense and had good flavor.

As for the strawberry matcha cookie, I had that all to myself (as I am writing this post) and it was the bomb dot com! It’s super moist and soft, and has a great balance of sweetness and earthy matcha flavor. I think these cookies were well worth the four dollars. Evolve also won Best Desserts for the third year! I’m glad for them.

For years, it has been a dream of mine to try Tang Hu Lu. If you don’t recognize the name, I’m willing to bet you’ll recognize it when you see it. It’s hard to mistake the glassy, shiny, iconic strawberries on a stick. I got this Tang Hu Lu from Tenji Sushi for ten dollars:

I was a tiny bit disappointed by the presentation of this, because the pictures they had of it showed it having mandarin orange slices and more grapes, so only getting one grape and no orange slices was a bit of a letdown, but honestly I can’t be too mad because these strawberries were so good. They were juicy and sweet and perfectly firm without being that hard unripe texture. If you’ve ever had an urge to eat glass shards and not get hurt, this is the perfect food for you. The glassy sugar coating shatters apart and crunches so damn good, sort of like rock candy. I do think ten dollars was a lot for four strawberries and one grape, but at least I finally got to try the street food I’ve always wanted to.

There was no shortage of different Asian cuisines that were represented at this festival, including Indian dishes. Kayla ended up getting these chicken lollipops and cheesy naan bites from Khaao Macha, who were the Best of Yums winner last year:

I didn’t try the chicken, but Kayla said it was good (I did sniff it and it smelled like Taco Bell’s mild sauce packets). I did try some of the naan and it was definitely yummy. I mean, you really can’t go wrong with cheesy naan. The chicken was ten dollars and you got two of them, and the naan was seven dollars. I would say the naan was sizeable for the price, and good for sharing.

At this point, we took a little break on food and watched some of the free entertainment on the main stage:

I think taiko drums are cool so this was really awesome to see, and then there was a Nepali dance performance right after this. It was very neat to see different culture’s traditions and performances. I like that the entertainment is free and they have such a variety of performances.

Back to snacking, I finally got to try my most anticipated item from the online vendor menu, Chhnagnh’s Pot Ang (roasted corn with sweet coconut sauce). I also tried their lemongrass beef skewer, and Kayla got their chicken skewer. The skewers were six dollars each and the corn was seven.

I can honestly say I’ve never had Cambodian food before, but this looked very promising. I absolutely loved the corn, it was roasted so perfectly and had great flavor. The coconut sauce wasn’t really giving coconut, but it was sweet and creamy so at least it added some texture and flavor, and weirdly enough the green onion went really well with it all. It just added a nice fresh component without overpowering anything flavor-wise.

Kayla let me try her chicken skewer and it was pretty good but the chicken was just a little dry. The beef was so delish though. It had just the right amount of lemongrass flavor in it without being overwhelming and was very tender and warm. This was my favorite savory food I tried all day.

The last thing I ate was from Fusako, and I hate to totally bash a place, but y’all. What I was presented with was egregious.

Here’s the menu on their truck:

This looked so good and impressive. Everything looked filling and decked out in garnishes and sauces and I had high hopes. I got the Mexican street corn gyoza, which was supposed to be crispy fried dumplings stuffed with sweet corn, with cotija cheese, a chili-lime aioli, lime zest, and green onion. Sounded amazing. Here’s what I got for eight dollars:

Two tiny gyoza, covered in a mess of sauce and corn, with no lime zest or green onions in sight. It looked so haphazardly thrown together. It was totally cold and the gyoza were tough instead of crispy. The entire thing lacked flavor, and the wait was so long. I was really disappointed.

I hated to leave on an L, but it was getting late.

Oh, and earlier in the day I had a really terrible yuzu mule for ten dollars.

In total, I spent $88 dollars before tip (I bought Kayla’s chicken skewer and a Thai coffee for Bryant), and usually I just chose the 15% tip option but I’m not gonna do all that math. We’ll just say around a hundred bucks.

Overall, I just wasn’t really impressed with the food or drinks I had gotten throughout the day. There were some good things but my experience overall with how crowded it was and the prices and lack of seating just kind of made for a less than ideal experience. They clearly need to open up more blocks for the festival to spread out.

I always get so excited for food truck festivals, and I keep being let down by them. Is it me? Am I the problem? Am I just not cut out for the food truck lifestyle? I hate waiting in lines and I hate standing to eat. I don’t prefer fast, casual service, and I usually like my food to come on real dishes. Oh no. Maybe it is me.

Huge shout out to the Library Square public library for keeping me from having to use a Porta-Potty. Very happy to use actual toilets and wash my fucking hands. And get some AC for a second.

I am glad I got to experience something new and hang out with my friends, but I think I won’t return next year unless they implement some kind of crowd management or cap tickets.

What sounded the best to you? Have you been to any of the previous years of the festival? Let me know in the comments, and have a great day!

-AMS

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/04/28/moseying-around-cincinnatis-asian-food-festival/

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