jack

Motheater, Linda H. Codega, 2025 fantasy novel. Some neat stuff here but it could have been half the length, the emotional throughline was a muddle, and sometimes the language got so figurative as to feel more like word salad, like, just did not seem to actually mean anything. And while generally I would say lesbians make everything better I thought the ship felt forced. But I would have forgiven that for less repetitiveness and stuff like describing magical lights as like "a swarm of living lightning bugs". (Um, bugs *are* living.) Some good moments though and I liked all the words I had to look up. Might have been pretty good in the hands of a much more aggressive editor. (Some interesting resonance with Metal From Heaven re sapphic women in veins of ore and giant stompy endings... coincidence or part of some larger trend/trope?)

chazzbanner

Fun read-- Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me, by Mimi Pond. It's a graphic novel that I bought on Kindle and read on the web (Kindle Cloud Reader).

Here's something of interest:

Turkeys of UMN

as seen in the New York Times!

-

chazzbanner

I spent much of the day feeling like it should be Sunday! It took me a while to figure out why.

I took my car in for an oil change (and filter replacement) - at 8:00. Then I went to Gigi's, about a block away, to have coffee and read in comfort. The garage seems to have overbooked today, probably because of the upcoming holiday, so I didn't get to pick up my car until 9:40.

Sunday, eh?

A weather system is moving it; the less I say about it now the better. :-0

-

but_can_i_be_trusted posting in

vocab_drabbles

Title: 'Out of Time'
Fandom: The Legend of Zelda (Spoilers for 'Breath of the Wild')
Author:

but_can_i_be_trusted
Rating: G
Word Count: 100
Characters/Pairings: Princess Zelda, Link
Warnings: None
Notes: Crossposted to

100words
Summary: Link is weakening with every step he takes.

( Out of Time )

sovay

I had just been thinking about Jack Shepherd because he was one of the founding members of the Actors' Company which had sparked off in 1972 with Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, whose memoir I was re-reading last night. He'd left the company by the time of their adaptation of R.D. Laing's Knots (1970) and thus does not appear in the 1975 film which seems to have been their only record in motion, leaving me once again with strictly photographic evidence of this sort of reverse supergroup experiment in democratic theater. (Shepherd at far right resembles a pre-Raphaelite pin-up in jeans, but I like to think if I had Caroline Blakiston's arm round my shoulders I wouldn't look that brooding about it.) Then again, I missed most of his film and famous television work, too: my reaction to his death is derived entirely from his astonishing Renfield in the BBC Count Dracula (1977), who holds more than a candle to the icons of Dwight Frye or Pablo Álvarez Rubio, a heartbreakingly weird and human performance of a character who may not be entirely sane in a world with vampires in it, which doesn't mean he's not to be trusted about them. I loved how much of his lucidity can be missed between his Victorian hysteria and his careful impersonation of a reformed lunatic which is not always and for good reason convincing. I loved his kiss of Judi Bowker's Mina, not his master's initatory drink, but a damned soul's benison, the offering of his life. Not just because he became my default horror icon, I thought about him more than any other character from that sometimes surprisingly faithful adaptation. His actor had such a knack in that role for the liminal, death seems on some level too definite to believe.

Current Music: Jeff Tweedy, "Enough"

senmut

AO3 Link | Following the Fortunes of War: Chapter 4 (100 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: TOS - Dreadnought! - Diane Carey, TOS - Battlestations! - Diane Carey
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Piper/Sarda
Characters: Piper, Sarda, Judd "Scanner" Sandage, Merete AndrusTaurus
Additional Tags: Friendship, Slice of Life, POV First Person
Summary:

Various stories, following the friends from their novel adventures

Even I have my limits on 'winging it'. Scanner had been inventive, but we still had deteriorating dilithium crystals and were in, to use a Terran saying, B.F.E. near Gorn space.

I didn't lose my temper, something Sarda reassured me across our bond was for the best. I left the bridge, went down to our poor engineer, found Dyson had beat me there.

"Tell me what to do; Sarda has the conn."

"Aye aye captain," Skellus said, giving me tools and directions.

It was going to mean minimal power, and Scanner had saved us, but we'd get back to base.

lovelyangel

Yesterday I was shopping in the Nike Company Store, as I wanted to check out the new Nike Pegasus Premium shoes, and I was surprised by some music that started coming over the overhead sound system.

I was thinking that’s TWICE! And a recent song... maybe “Strategy”? Then, a moment later... ah, no! It’s “Do not touch” by MISAMO! Amazing! I could never have imagined a MISAMO song being played in a store in the United States.

(Admittedly, Nike works hard to keep up with current trends, especially in music. Their store music is on point, moreso than most places. Vibes are pretty important in sales.)

Last Friday, MISAMO announced their first full album, Play, would be released on February 4, 2026. MISAMO continues to up their momentum (somehow, in spite of being in the middle of a TWICE World Tour).

Tangentially related, today CDJapan notified me of the reissue of the Sound Collection of Gunbuster. I have the first two Gunbuster CD releases, but I don’t have this third release. The content of this 3-disc set has a big overlap with the first two CDs, but there is some material which is on neither. I was eager to place the preorder... but...

I realized the release date for the Gunbuster CD set, January 28, 2026 – just a few days before the MISAMO album release. The MISAMO Play album is not yet available for preorder. If I wait until it is, I can order the Gunbuster and MISAMO releases at the same time, and get them in a single shipment (coincidentally in time for Angel’s Month). I am now waiting... waiting...

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6899 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 21 secrets from Secret Submission Post #985.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

bluerosekatie posting in

smallfandomfest

Title: Animate Objects
Author: bluerosekatie
Fandom: Tron (movies)
Pairing/Characters: Gridbug/Bit
Rating/Category: Gen, Other (genderless creature shipping)
Prompt: Tron (movies), Gridbug/Bit, Animate Objects
Spoilers: Set post-Tron (1982) but nothing major
Summary: A bit runs into a gridbug, and an unlikely romance blossoms.
Notes/Warnings: Fic is archive-locked to avoid AI scraping.

Read it on Ao3 here!

kellan_the_tabby

[Major Tom is meatloafed in the cat stroller, one forepaw tucked underneath him, the other stretched out in front. His lovely amber eyes are half-open, ears and whiskers alert.]

Yes, this is still all about al-Barran Champions! Look, there’s been stuff.

Possibly Tom wore himself out with all the shouting Friday, because halfway through Saturday he settled down enough that he was willing to spend most of the afternoon in the stroller. It was very pleasant, & also MUCH quieter.

[A closer view of his handsome face. His eyes are gently closed.]

He napped a lot, even when the local pack of trans kids decided to spend the afternoon in my booth trying to set things on fire. (You know you’re the Cool Grownup when … )

I took him for a couple walks in the stroller, too, just to get him out & about some, & maybe used to all the noise & bother. He did okay, but didn’t want to go too far from the booth.

But mostly, he napped.

[Tom has flopped over to sleep on his side, head resting against the edge of the stroller.]

& best of all, we had cuddles. Tom’s rarely in the mood to hold paws for long, so this was extra-precious.

I love my great big tomcat.

[A very close view: one of Major Tom’s forepaws is resting on my finger. His toes are curled just a tiny bit, because he was holding on.]

He’s so very good. He’s the goodest.

originally posted on Patreon; support me over there to see posts a week early!

luzula

Poll #33879 Proper lifting technique

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 16

Did you, or did you not, learn the proper technique for how to lift heavy objects with minimal injury/strain in school?

View Answers

Yes
2 (12.5%)

No
14 (87.5%)

When in life did you learn this?

View Answers

0-20 years old
6 (37.5%)

20-40 years old
7 (43.8%)

40-60 years old
0 (0.0%)

60-80 years old
0 (0.0%)

80-100 years old
0 (0.0%)

I still don't know it
1 (6.2%)

I might know it, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right?
3 (18.8%)

I did not learn it in school. When I check the current PE curriculum, it sure looks like it's included. So either 1) it was not in the curriculum when I was in school, or 2) it was in the curriculum but my teacher did not cover it, or 3) they covered it but I did not learn it. I've known for a long time that you should not lift by bending your back and done my best to avoid this, but I only learned now that this is not all there is to it! You should not lift with your knees. You should lift by keeping your back and stomach braced and your spine straight (but hinged forward) and lift mainly with your butt (your knees can also bend if they need to, but the main bending should be at your hips). I am practicing it now, but it takes time to ingrain something like that.

I also did not learn, and am only beginning to learn now at the age of 47, the proper position/technique for doing common workout things like pushups, squats, etc. *facepalm* How can you go so long without learning such things, and without realizing that there is indeed a hole in your knowledge??

spikedluv

TV Talk:

9-1-1: On hiatus until Jan 8.

Matlock: No new ep this week; new eps return Dec 4.

Tracker: Good ep! ( spoilers )

TV News:

The Pitt: Is coming to TNT on Dec 1!! They will air three episodes each Monday through the month of December. I’m finally going to be able to see it!! I’ve already got it set to record.

ysabetwordsmith

To restore trust in government, this Belgian town opened a lottery that elects 30 random citizens to power. It's working.

In 2019, Ostbelgien, a town in Belgium with about 80,000 residents, took a gamble on a new approach to governing: The city’s parliament voted to establish a permanent Citizens’ Council and Assembly, giving randomly-selected citizens the power to make decisions.

Gosh, I never expected to see anything like that on Earth. It's something done on the Common Ground colony in my science fiction. They have elected seats too. Now I have to wonder if politicians will start keeping fish to demonstrate their grasp of ecology.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Today is cloudy and cool. It rained again last night.

I fed the birds. I haven't seen any activity today.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 11/25/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 11/25/25 -- I did more work around the patio.

EDIT 11/25/25 -- I started chopping down the pile of berry canes to put in the firepit, and filled one trolley. There is still a lot left.

As it is getting dark, I am done for the night.

Current Mood: busy

yhlee

Lee Brodie's Starting FORTH, on the Forth programming language; m5stack Cardputer v.1.1 running ryu10's M5CardForth (Github)

I have Forth (programming language - see e.g. Leo Brodie's Starting Forth) running on this smol M5stack Cardputer v.1.1 (ESP32-S3) courtesy of ryu10's M5CardForth, which is also faster than my spending the next decade teaching myself ESP32-S3 assembler. :)

Next step: write a very smol choose-your-own-adventure-style text adventure in Forth.

Next step after that: ???

Next step after that: Considering porting either the Shuos Academy text adventure WIP [1] or Winterstrike (originally written for Failbetter Games for StoryNexus, which will be sunsetted by Jan 2026) to M5CardForth for the CardPuter because I am a TROLL. It could be a dumbass household game experience. :) :)

Heck, I could port some version of turnabout's fair prey or The Amiable Planet (Twine) to this! I love the thought of making TINY parser IF / text adventures for this smol device.

(All of these are my games. I give myself permission?!)

[1] I was writing/coding this for Choice of Games but we mutually agreed to cancel the contract because I was flooded out that year and it was no longer a doable workload alongside...finding new housing etc. I still have like 60% of the codebase already written in ChoiceScript and outline, though! I'd have to refactor but hell, I'd have to refactor anything. I can pretend it's pseudocode. :)

(I need a break from the current schoolwork, what can I say.)

cupcake_goth

- My endoscopy and colonoscopy came back all clear, yay!

- I expected to sleep after coming home from the procedures. AHAHAHAHAHAHA no my body didn't want to cooperate. And I certainly didn't sleep during the hours of drinking the prep solution. I ended up being awake, with the exception of the procedures, for something like 36 hours. 0/10, do not recommend.

- The Madwoman in the Attic, during her usual meandering around the internet, found this fabric. She told me how many yards I needed for the high collar dress, and I gleefully bought some. Glow in the dark bats!

runpunkrun

A post-Earth society ruled by giant corporations called Concerns whose only goal is to spread vat-grown wage slaves out across the galaxy to exploit resources for profit.

A frozen moon shrouded in eternal darkness and heavy gravity populated by sightless creatures who evolved to live in both.

Like many of Tchaikovsky's novels, this is a story told from two perspectives: the humans whose pod has crashed on a hostile alien planet they can barely make sense of, and the locals who encounter a seemingly idiotic Stranger (a "savant clown beast") that bumbles around, communicates in grunts, and doesn't know enough to come out of the ammonia-methane rain.

The world building and the alien design are, of course, meticulous. The interaction and cobbled together understanding between the humans and the aliens was my favorite part because only the reader knows the full story. Unfortunately the humans, in their duress, aren't all that interesting. The middle sections that focus on them in their pod feel the weakest and, because of that, overlong, but the story picks up again in the last third.

I spent most of the middle in mild agony, thinking there was only one way this story could end, but then I remembered this is Adrian Tchaikovsky, and he doesn't write those kind of stories.

Contains: blood, violence, threat of genocide; no work-life balance.

oursin

We perceive that there does not appear to be any gender-confusion, or relationships with military helmets, connected with this particular tortoise, or maybe no-one noticed: Gramma the Galápagos tortoise, oldest resident of San Diego Zoo, dies at about 141. Not quite old enough to have met that there Charles Darwin, then.

***

Reversal of Fates: Access Through Photographs can be a Counterbalance

Ongoing digitization and cataloging work not only serves the interests of scholars and manuscript communities—it also creates crucial, publicly-accessible provenance records that provide an increasingly robust bulwark against manuscript theft and trafficking.

Sing it.

***

Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy:

“A lot of that music from that era, the record companies did not keep backups. They were all destroyed, almost all. And it’s all up to the record collectors. They’re the ones who kind of saved the music from that era,”
....
Superior to a random recording uploaded to YouTube with no accompanying information, the database includes things like where the song was recorded and when, as well as lists of musicians and composers who worked on the songs.

***

I think I may have mentioned at some time the phenomenon of the 'monkey walk': Before Tinder, there was the Monkey Parade… . Though some recent works read for review incline me to think that one reason for the decline not mentioned in that piece was the rise of the coffee-bar - indoors in the warm with a juke-box, and the site of massive 50s moral panic around The Young.

***

Statue to 'remarkable' woman who escaped slavery:

A statue to a "remarkable and brave" woman who fled slavery and torture in the US has been unveiled in the fishing town in northern England where she found freedom.
Mary Ann Macham spent weeks hiding in woods in Virginia before stowing away on a ship, eventually arriving in North Shields in the early 1830s.
She was taken in by a Quaker family, married a local man and remained in the town until she died aged 91.

muccamukk

1. xkcd just made me cry (continuation of the cancer posts, which no one involved currently has.)

2. Mom gave me a ball of really pretty white yarn, which is wool with a bit of a halo, and maybe sport weight? Could be finger weight? Unsure? It's large enough to make a scarf, and I'm wondering if anyone can suggest a pattern that's: a) VERY EASY, b) maybe has a little bit of lace? I can do very basic lace, as long as it doesn't have too many steps.

Current Music: Luke Evans - "Bridge Over Troubled Water"

osprey_archer

All of Gene Stratton Porter’s books are An Experience, and The Harvester is no exception. At the beginning of the book, the Harvester has just posed to his dog (his sole companion) his yearly question: shall I get married this year?

He is appalled when the dog signifies a resounding YES! So he sits on his stoop, staring over the lake and sulking about how he’ll have to go COURTING and put on clean CLOTHES and she probably won’t like his CABIN, when out of the moonlight on the water a vision appears: a beautiful girl, glowing in gold, who floats across the lake to him, plants a kiss on his lips, and disappears.

Charged with this vision of the Girl, the Harvester begins to build a proper house for her. “Going to get married?” the builders ask. “Yep!” says the Harvester, who has not yet met the Dream Girl in the flesh.

(A sidenote: the Harvester and the Girl do eventually get names, but the narrative mostly refers to them as the Harvester and the Girl and so will I.)

The Harvester, by the way, is named for his profession of gathering medicinal herbs from the woods. Over the past decade, he has slowly transplanted to his woods medicinal herbs from the surrounding area, so the whole forest is one great medicinal garden where these plants can grow to their full medicinal potential in natural conditions.

But to return to our story. A few months later, the Harvester at last catches sight of the Girl at the local railway station! After a protracted search, he finds her staying at the home of her uncle, the Harvester’s most perfidious neighbor. To rescue her from this uncle (and after suggesting various other solutions to the problem of getting her away from this uncle, like sending the girl who is very ill to the hospital), the Harvester asks the Girl to marry him.

“YES we are going in for some FORCED PROXIMITY” I shrieked, and OH BOY ARE WE. The Girl moves into the Harvester’s house! The Harvester promises that she shall be free until she comes to love him! The book is about as forthright as a book in 1911 can be that this means the marriage will remain unconsummated until the Girl feels a reciprocal, passionate sexual love for the Harvester.

But the Girl’s ill health catches up with her. She is sick with Fever, that convenient early-20th century literary disease so conducive to hurt/comfort. In her delirium only the Harvester’s touch can soothe her. (GSP knows what the people want and she is GIVING it to us.) He strokes her hands and tells her of the beautiful life of the woods, tethering her to this world with the sound of his voice! When medicine gives her up for dead, he cures her with a natural elixir made from the medicinal plants grown on his land!!!!

The Girl is now passionately attached to him, and during her convalescence there’s lots of cuddling and hand-kissing. But she’s still not sexually attracted to him. At this point her mother’s relations conveniently appear, and she’s whisked off to a round of Society in Philadelphia, at which point the Harvester wearily confides to his friends that she loves him but she doesn’t LOVE love him, at which point they roundly scold him: doesn’t he know that a good girl won’t LOVE love him till after the wedding night? It’s up to him to teach her what passion is!

This is a common nineteenth-century idea, and GSP both kind of embraces and repudiates it. On the one hand, there’s all this cuddling and hand-kissing and face-kissing and that times the Harvester gives her a single passionate kiss on the lips just to show her the difference between that and the kiss of sisterly affection she gave him, and what can you call that but coaxing along the growing tendrils of the Girl’s sexuality?

But in the end, the Harvester’s decision to let her go and see if absence will make the heart grow fonder is vindicated. The Girl does come back to him from Philadelphia: she did realize, on her own, that she now passionately loves him, and it does give her that flush of warm sensation that he tried to describe. She comes to him through the moonlight, sitting by the lake, and at last plants her kiss on his lips.

Network

Motheater

and stuff

not Sunday

[Challenge #171: Assiduous] The Legend of Zelda: 'Out of Time'

Is your heart hiding from your fire?

30 in 30: Star Trek Novels

Delights from Japan

[ SECRET POST #6899 ]

Fanfic, Tron (Movies), Gridbug/Bit, Animate Objects

cats: in which a stroller is declared Acceptable

Life skills I ought to have learned earlier

TV Talk: Tracker

Politics

Birdfeeding

emotional support coding

(no subject)

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

Oddments

Two Things

Book Review: The Harvester