jack

oursin

Happy birthday,

jesuswasbatman!

pennyarcade_feed

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/11/26/x-mas-days-of-future-past

New Comic: X-Mas: Days Of Future Past

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2025/11/26/x-mas-days-of-future-past

sholio

I read this book over the last couple of days on

sheron's recommendation as bedtime reading, which backfired occasionally because I couldn't actually fall asleep due to needing to know what happened next. I had already read a couple of MacIntyre's WWII books back when I went through my phase of Read All The WWII Spy Things that I got into via Agent Carter, and I had bought this and a couple of other MacIntyre books at some point that I never read. Anyway,

sheron has been reading this recently and sending me excerpts. Example:

In the West, of course, blood is donated by members of the public. The only payment is a cookie, and sometimes a cup of juice. The Kremlin, however, assuming that capitalism penetrated every aspect of Western life, believed that a “blood bank” was, in fact, a bank, where blood could be bought and sold. No one in the KGB outstations dared to draw attention to this elemental misunderstanding. In a craven and hierarchical organization, the only thing more dangerous than revealing your own ignorance is to draw attention to the stupidity of the boss.

So obviously I had to read this book.

This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, KGB station chief and spy for the British, but it's also about the waning days of the Cold War in the late 1970s through the mid-80s. I found it fascinating on that level alone, because the world I grew up in (born in 1976) was obviously very heavily shaped by the events of this time period, but it would be a few years yet before I was old enough to pay attention to the news or politics. So it's truly fascinating to see this as a window into events that created the life-shaping politics I actually did follow as a teen and young adult. And it's also simply a fast-paced, engaging, very readable story of relatable people getting caught up in world events and life-threatening danger. If parts of this were a spy novel, it would be almost too fantastic to be believed.

( Spoilers for actual historical events, so not that spoilery )

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

Comment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.

Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!

Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.

Go!

delphi

Fandom 50 #30

Untitled Fix-It Comic by

yeehawpim
Fandom: Panfandom, Doctor Who, Avengers, Sherlock
Medium: Comic
Length: 6 pages
Rating: SFW
My Bookmark Tags: drama, happy ending, au: canon divergence, writing

Description:

A black-and-white cartoon comic follows its creator from their teenage years reading fic in a classroom, through glimpses of canon moments from Doctor Who, The Avengers, and Sherlock, to the experiences of other fans and back to the now-older creator as they muse on their changing opinion of fix-it fic.

( Transcript of Comic Text )

Yeah, this got me. I'm a sucker for a good fix-it fic, and it's a storytelling impulse that I feel warmly about in general. I've especially been thinking about this topic lately—and some of the related canon moments—thanks to a bit that hit home in

JessieGender1's recent Star Trek Strange New Worlds Is a Centrist Space Fantasy video essay that talked about the storytelling worldviews in which change requires a body count and about the narrative incorporation of ungrievable lives. (Two recs for the price of one in this post!)

This comic is sweet and touching, with great pacing and choice of visuals. I especially love the spot where we see darkness giving way to light and the shots of people writing. It gave me some fuzzy feelings about fandom and encouraged me to open back up a fix-it draft of my own.

alias_sqbr

There was an obviously computer-printed "hand-written" letter in our letter box from someone claiming to want to buy houses in "your suburb" which emphasised multiple times that the house can be in any condition and that they're not a real estate agent.

So they're obviously targeting easily-fooled people who want to sell their run-down houses but find the process scary and are vulnerable to the promise of some random stranger just giving them a big pile of cash as quickly and easily as possible.

Now that itself could be the scam: offer unfairly low prices and know your target is unlikely to complain. But idk it feels like part of a scam scam not just a sincere if shady attempt to actually buy people's houses. I tried looking up real estate scams but it's all about scams aimed at people buying houses, which makes sense, since that's the more natural situation where you can take people's money and run.

I guess it could be one of those nigerian prince type scams: Offer a high price for the house, well above market value, make the seller think they're the one taking advantage of a dumbass woman, but oh no she needs a little deposit first to handle some unexpected fees, if you could just help out with a tiny proportion now she'll be able to pay the full amount any day now...

Either way, I reported it to consumer protection, since they might be able to do something with the phone number.

troisoiseaux

Read Kalivas! Or, Another Tempest by Nick Mamatas, which is mostly a sci-fi retelling of The Tempest in which the Caliban character is the last "free-range", un-augmented human, living on an island off of post-apocalyptic California under the thumb of the Master and his daughter M, who owe their tech-implanted immortality and wizardry to the inventions of Kalivas' mother, known as the Sorceress of Silicon Valley before the aforementioned apocalypse. ( ... ) Shades of Piranesi, mostly in the sense of being a narrative from the POV of a character who - let's say - describes recognizable things in an unrecognizable way (although Kalivas' world is distinctly more off-putting than Piranesi's beloved House) and also in the sense that Piranesi itself reminds me of The Tempest;

sabotabby drew comparisons to Jenny Hval's Girls Against God, which I can also see, particularly in the novel(la?)'s last section, at which point the story doth suffer a sea-change, into something rich and strange, as it were. (Sorry, I think I'm funny. The last section is, like, a semi-separate story in the form of a meta script? In a completely out-of-context #spoiler: Charlie Chaplin is there, kind of?)

Currently reading The Tatami Galaxy by Tomihiko Morimi, also weird: in four different timelines, a disaffected Japanese college student joins four different clubs, finding himself equally disappointed in each one. (Presumably? I'm only through the first two.) This really clicked for me when, in the second section/timeline, I caught that characters, scenes, and even specific sentences were repeating from the first; I also really like how, as a book in translation, it has a narrative voice that's recognizably idiomatic, even as the actual idioms sound unusual in English— "a rose-colored campus life" and "a black-haired maiden" are repeated a lot.

simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2025

Akimbo (adjective)
akimbo [uh-kim-boh]

adjective
1. with hand on hip and elbow bent outward: to stand with arms akimbo.
2. (of limbs) splayed out in an awkward or ungainly manner: After the strenuous hike, she sat on the floor with her legs akimbo.
3. (of limbs) fully extended in opposite directions: The dancer warmed up with his arms and legs stretched akimbo
4. to one side; askew; awry: He woke up from his nap, hair akimbo: They wore their hats akimbo; He woke up from his nap, hair akimbo.

Related Words
jagged

See more synonyms on Thesaurus.com

Origin: First recorded in 1375–1425; late Middle English in kenebowe, from unattested Old Norse i keng boginn “bent into a crook” ( i “in,” keng, accusative of kengr “hook,” boginn, past participle of bjūga “to bend”)

Example Sentences
“Lay an egg, lay an egg, lay an egg!” her brothers teased as they watched her sink low, knees akimbo.
Read more on Literature

For Season 1, he gave Mark S. that burden, except Mark is holding a group of other Marks, limbs akimbo.
Read more on Los Angeles Times

A beat kicks in, and three women stand arms akimbo, bouncing their hips like a Motown girl group.
Read more on New York Times

The comedian then proceeds to hop ecstatically across the stage with one leg akimbo: “That song was penned with a toucan’s beak dipped in ink while riding a zebra side-saddle.”
Read more on Los Angeles Times

But the visible satisfaction of the model’s pose — arm akimbo, hand jauntily on hip, bottom thrust out with confidence — also marks a forceful break with the passivity of the female nude.
Read more on New York Times

earthspirits posting in

historium

Fandom: Dark Shadows (1966)
Main Characters: Dr. Julia Hoffman, Gerard Stiles, Daphne Harridge, Barnabas Collins, Eliot Stokes. Other DS characters also feature in this story + original characters.
Relationships: Gerard / Daphne and Julia / Barnabas
Eras: 19th Century, 20th Century + Parallel Timeline
Title: Midwinter
Chapters: 2 & 3 / ?
Rating: Mature - Chapter 3 has a romantic scene of consensual lovemaking. Also featured is a devoted same sex couple.
Chapter 3 TW: Angst, suspense, references to past deaths, mysterious happenings and danger.
Word Count thus far: 6,640
Note: This story features some spoilers for DS 1970 / 1971 and 1840 storylines.
Summary for Chapter 2: On her first night at Collinwood, Julia is threatened by a mysterious evil.
Summary for Chapter 3: Collinwood has always been a place of mystery and secrets. When Julia meets Gerard Stiles and the rest of the Collins family, she also learns more of its dangers.

Links:
Chapter 2: archiveofourown.org/works/73731971/chapters/193193056#workskin
Chapter 3: archiveofourown.org/works/73731971/chapters/195188531#workskin

Current Mood: creative

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 moving picture record, 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 slides 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 on this site, I thought about him more than any other character from that sometimes surprisingly faithful adaptation. His bare wrists, his shocked hair. His actor had such a knack in the role for the liminal, death seems on some level too definite to believe.

Current Music: Jeff Tweedy, "Enough"

questionable_content_feed

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5709

she's a smart* cookie

*not actually smart

http://questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=5709

rivkat

Quinn Slobodian, Hayek’s Bastards: Race, Gold, IQ, and the Capitalism of the Far Right: ( it's always racism )

Corinne Low, Having It All: What Data Tells Us About Women's Lives and Getting the Most Out of Yours: ( self-help from an economist )
Cory Doctorow, Enshittification: Why Everything Suddenly Got Worse and What to Do About It: ( Doctorow in fine form )
Tim Wu, The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity: ( Another account of enshittification )

Kim A. Wagner, Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History: ( written by the victors )

Mary Roach, Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy: ( strange but true )

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.

luzula

Poll #33879 Proper lifting technique

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 24

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
4 (16.7%)

No
20 (83.3%)

When in life did you learn this?

View Answers

0-20 years old
10 (41.7%)

20-40 years old
8 (33.3%)

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
2 (8.3%)

I might know it, but I'm not sure if I'm doing it right?
5 (20.8%)

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??

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.)

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.

yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

Comedic trends have come and gone, but some have changed how comedy is done. Do you have any thoughts about which comedy shows might have been particularly influential?

Or which comedies have influenced your own sense of humor?

pennyarcade_feed

https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2025/11/25/harlan-ellison-did-not-like-me

20 years ago Harlan Ellison said I was "a superannuated teen-age golem with a slack jaw, a slow manner, a typical pointless surliness at a world unwilling or unable to accept him as Superlative, and on sum a twerp easy to dismiss" and I am still very proud of that.

Here's "The Story".

-Gabe Out

https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2025/11/25/harlan-ellison-did-not-like-me

regshoe

[DVD commentary meme]

For

phantomtomato, a DVD commentary of my The Longest Journey fic 'The Circle at the Centre'.

( I have tried not to be too silly with this one... )

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.

Network

(no subject)

X-Mas: Days Of Future Past

The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre

Just One Thing (26 November 2025)

REC: Untitled Fix-It Comic by pim (Panfandom Meta)

Curious what the scam is with a real estate "letter" we got

Reading Wednesday (on Tuesday)

Tuesday word: Akimbo

Midwinter - Chapters 2 & 3 Mature Dark Shadows (1966) Alternate Universe Tale

Is your heart hiding from your fire?

Anh Gets Something

Nonfiction

[ SECRET POST #6899 ]

Life skills I ought to have learned earlier

emotional support coding

Shroud, by Adrian Tchaikovsky

TV Tuesday: Ha, ha?

Harlan Ellison did not like me!

DVD commentary: 'The Circle at the Centre'

Oddments