![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
dailyprompts_feedYou don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
― Octavia E. Butler
bbcnewsworld_feedbbcnewsworld_feedbbcnewsworld_feed![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dolorosa_12yarnofariadne, and it's a great one: favourite folktale or fairytale, and why.runpunkrun posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
gluten_freeCurrent Ingredients: semisweet chocolate (sugar, unsweetened chocolate, cocoa butter, soy lecithin [emulsifier]), palm oil, brown sugar, potato starch, sugar, tapioca starch, water, rice flour, invert sugar syrup, contains 2% or less of egg, natural flavor, sea salt, baking soda, guar gum, xanthan gum.
sasha_feathershakalooloo posting in scans_daily
bbcnewsworld_feedbbcnewsworld_feedjesse_the_k...here's an excellent use-case: feed your strong passphrase text as a prompt to an image generator
from the passphrase string "fabulous tattoo Harvey", Reddit user u/waydomatic and ChatGPT made ( this cheerful example )
The LLM thinks Harvey is a muscular white guy wearing a skimpy purple Speedo; arms, shoulder and upper chest covered in rose tattoos. He flexes his right arm and flashes a big white smile under his handlebar mustache. Of course he's wearing a rose crown.
Saving the generated image would certainly be more secure than writing down the password.
scalziwhatever_feed
A personal story to begin: I was a film critic at the Fresno Bee newspaper when Strictly Ballroom came out in 1992. My review of it was an unqualified rave, and I said something along the line that people who loved old-fashioned movie musicals should go out of their way to see it. Then, on opening day, I took my friend Kristin to see the film at a matinee showing at the Fig Garden theater, which was at the time the “high-toned” theater in town.
I didn’t expect there to be much of an audience for a small Australian film about ballroom dancing on a Friday afternoon, but the theater was packed, and mostly with older folks. Kristin and I took our seats and as we did so an older gentleman in the row in front of us, who I assure you did not know I was there, turned to his seatmate and said, “If John Scalzi is wasting my time I am going to find him and kick his ass.”
That’s when I knew that this entire audience was there because I, as the local film critic, has promised them a good old-fashioned time at the movies. And if they didn’t like it, and found out I was there, there was going to an actual geriatric riot as they tore my body apart, slowly, and with considerable effort, limb from limb.
Reader, my ass was not kicked.
And this is because, while Strictly Ballroom is, actually, not at all an old-fashioned movie musical, the vibe, the feel, the delight and, yes, the corniness of an old-fashioned musical is indeed there — that deliriously heightened space where nothing is quite real but everything feels possible, including the happy ending that’s just too perfect, and you know it, and you don’t care, because you’ve been there for the whole ride and that’s just where it had to go, and you’re glad it did. That’s what Strictly Ballroom nails, just like the musical extravaganzas of old. All it’s missing is the Technicolor.
Plus! It was the feature film debut of Baz Luhrmann, the Australian filmmaker who has gone on to give the world some of the most movies of the last 30 years, including Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and The Great Gatsby. Everything that made those movies the gonzo experiences they were is here, in primordial, smaller, and much less expensive form. Luhrmann could not yet afford more here. But he was absolutely going to give the most with what he had, which was three million dollars, Australian.
And also, a humdinger of a story about Australia’s delightfully weird ballroom dancing subculture, where men dress in tuxes with numbers attached to them, swinging around women wearing dresses that look like they skinned a Muppet and added sequins. The introductory sequence, filmed in documentary style, introduces us to Scott Hastings (Paul Mercurio), a ballroom dancer whose path to the top of the field is all but assured — until, that is, Scott does the unthinkable: He starts improvising, and adding… new steps!
Which is just not done, ballroom dancing has standards, after all. Paul’s act of insurrection costs him, to the consternation of those around him, including his mother. But Paul is a rebel! He doesn’t care! He wants to dance his new steps!
No one believes in Scott and his new steps except for Fran (Tara Morice), a gawky beginner to the ballroom dancing scene, yes, but one who has some moves of her own from outside the ballroom world. Scott is intrigued, first by the steps and then for other reasons. Naturally Scott and Fran will be beset on all sides by disapproval of parents, institutions, the expectations of others, and ultimately, their own selves. Will they live a life in fear? Or will they dance their way to that promised happy ending?
It’s not even a little bit of a spoiler to say that there will be a happy ending — this movie was not made in the early 70s, after all, where the rebellion against cinematic norms would have dictated that everyone in the film would have been hit by a train or something. The interest of the film is how it gets to the happy ending. The answer is, with a lot of comedy, a lot of dancing and a couple of not-surprising-in-retrospect twists that are, the first time you see them, nevertheless a bit of a surprise. Scott is a classic pretty boy dancing rebel, Fran is a classic ugly duckling, and the two of them ultimately have their big dancing scene that we’ve been waiting for the whole film, which totally feels earned, even if it’s all a little ridiculous, in a good way.
And to be clear it really is all ridiculous, in a good way. Baz Luhrmann, who also co-wrote the movie (based on a play he put together, which in itself was based on his own experiences in the ballroom dancing scene) is not here for your cynicism or your snobbery. He knows the ballroom dancing world is something that can look silly and even foolish from the outside, but if you’ve decided to put yourself on the outside, that’s a you problem, now, isn’t it? It’s clear Luhrmann has deep affection for the scene and the people who are in it, and if the characters in the movie are a little too into it all, wrapping themselves up in it to the exclusion of much else — well, what are your passions? What weird little insular groups do you belong to? Speaking as someone who is extremely deep into the world of science fiction, and its conventions and its award dramas, which are in their way no less ridiculous (and also has had its own movies parodying its scene, more than one, even), not only am I not going to cast the first stone, I am going to claim a kinship. We are all a part of a ridiculous scene, and if we are not, we’re probably really boring.
I love that Baz Luhrmann loves ballroom dancing here, and lets us see his affection with an unwinking eye. I love that Scott is serious about his new steps as a way to crack open the moribund field he loves. I love that Fran unreservedly wants to be part of Scott’s revolution. I love that, in this small, bounded nutshell of a universe, this is all life-and-death stuff. I love that we see it all portrayed with a light touch, great comedy, and some genuinely fantastic dance scenes.
In fact, I will say this: Strictly Ballroom is, in its way, an absolutely perfect movie. Is it a great movie? Is it an important movie? Is it an influential movie? Honestly requires me to say “no” in all those cases. But those are not the same things! For what Strictly Ballroom is, it is genuinely difficult for me to imagine how any of it could have been done a single jot better. Everything about it works as it should, and does what it is meant to do. Everyone in the cast is delightful being the characters they are. In a movie about ballroom dancing, there isn’t a single step out of place, even the steps that are out of place, because they are meant to be where they are.
How many movies can you say that about? That you look at them and say, “yes, you one hundred percent did the thing you set out to do”? There are damned few, in any era. There is a reason this film received not one but two fifteen-minute standing ovations at the Cannes Film Festival, and won a bunch of awards around the world, and still holds up thirty-some-odd years after it was released. It’s because it’s a perfect little jolt of joy.
As a coda, another personal story: A few years ago I was in Melbourne for a science fiction convention, and as I was in my taxi from the airport, we passed a theater showing Strictly Ballroom, the musical. Well, I knew what I was going to do with my evening; I went and bought one of the few seats remaining (in the balcony! Center!) and enjoyed the hell out of the theatrical version, nearly as much as the cinematic version. Then, walking back to my hotel, I tore a muscle in my leg stepping off a curb and had to go to a hospital to have it dealt with.
It’s possible if I had not gone to see Strictly Ballroom that night, I wouldn’t have torn my muscle. But I did, and I don’t regret it. It was worth it.
— JS
spiralsheeplsandersonfalenaI've never been a huge fan of Supernatural the show, I watched the first four seasons with my husband but that was his pick. I also don't like RPF as a general rule. The less I know about the lives of the actors whose work I like, the better, as far as I'm concerned. No shade to those who enjoy RPF, it's a me thing. However, I love RPF AUS. They're basically original fiction with faces I can easily picture in my mind, you know? And a lot more tropetastic than most published romance.
That's why, over the years, I've enjoyed a few selected stories from the Supernatural RPF fandom, mostly J2 (Jensen/Jared for the uninitiated) but not only.
A Kept Boy by poisontaster. 200K words. This is a massive, massive novel; it doesn't get more AU than this. It's set in an alternate version of present day America where slavery is a thing. It's Jensen/ Jeffery Dean Morgan but the full list of characters is as long as my arm. I don't even know all of the actors, and frankly I don't care. I took them as OCs. It contains very disturbing themes, of course, consent is problematic to say the least, but the world-building and the character arcs are carefully thought out and it never delves into pain porn, imo. I must say that it contains the best depiction of therapy in fiction I've ever come across. Seriously, Jensen's therapy sessions and his emotional growth are the highlight of the story for me. Thankfully, it exists also in podfic form, by superstitiousme.
If AKB is too dark for you, let's go to the other end of the spectrum: Starstruck, by pandarus. This is a J2 movie based on Notting Hill. It's hilarious and definitely lighter but it still hits all the emotional beats to be a super-satisfying rom-com. Better than the original, imo. The excellent pandarus, who by now you should all know is an amazing performer too, recorded the podfic of her own story and it's as brilliant as you might expect it to be.
Do I Seem Bulletproof to You? by fleshflutter. 96K words. This is a classic in the J2 pairing and a great example of hooker!fic, a time-honoured trope. The author left fandom and the fic is a bit hard to find, but I linked to a place where you can download it in different formats. I've only ever listened to the wonderful podfic by cath, unsurprisingly.
Screw You, We're From Texas by makeit_takeit. 75K. This is the only story among these recs where the R in the acronym RPF plays a substantial role. Basically it's an AU of Jared and Jensen's lives if they'd never made it as actors but stayed in Texas and had 'normal' lives. To me, the great sense of place is one of the strengths of the fic. The scope of the fic and sheer amount of growth the two characters experience are astounding.
The Pitt
I'm not a big fan of AUs for this fandom because the medical setting is integral to my enjoyment of the show, but when the authors are talented and get the characters, I'll read anything...so after the best sports AU, let me give you a historical one. tightly knotted to a similar string by lirazel. 12k words. Mel/Frank. Victorian governess AU, as in Mel is Frank's children governess in England. I was sceptical going in...but lirazel totally won me over. This was lovely.
smbc_comics_feed
Hovertext:
We just have to get locked into the Federation and then we can run back to the basement.
oursinLondon Pride has been handed down to us:
Busiest Thoroughfare of the Metropolis of the World - review of book on the history of The Strand.
Over 250,000 images of London from the collections at The London Archives and Guildhall Art Gallery
***
Heritage endangered:
The Royal Society of Medicine is putting some of its rarest books and photographs up for sale at Christie’s this month. Is this a case of medical negligence? Screaming. The GMC should strike them off.
Rare piece of Australia's Indigenous history captured on camera in the desert
According to a local anthropologist in Broome, the photos were taken by a nurse who was volunteering at the La Grange mission.
In his opinion, the images are extraordinary — one of the rare moments of "first contact" on the Australian continent to be captured on camera.
The originals were donated to a Catholic Church archive, which is not accessible to the public.
But it turns out there are copies. On a dusty CD buried in the boxes of an elderly author.
And at this I can only fall on the floor, weeping and going 'the horror, the horror': [S]ome AI chatbots (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, Bard and others) may generate incorrect or fabricated archival references.
***
Gender and learning:
The Real Way Schools are Failing Boys - though possibly, just de-emphasise competition, for starters???
Estrogen levels predict enhanced learning (at least in rats....)
