(no subject)

Jul. 21st, 2025 09:39 am
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin
Happy birthday, [personal profile] coughingbear and [personal profile] kerk_hiraeth!

Summer of Horror and other fun things

Jul. 20th, 2025 10:13 pm
sholio: airplane flying away from a tan colored castle (Biggles-castle airplane)
[personal profile] sholio
[personal profile] summerofhorrorexchange revealed today! I got an astonishing 15K(!!!) Biggles fic (!!!) which I won't be able to properly start reading until tomorrow, but I cannot WAIT, it looks amazing and I'm dying to read it!

Obligatory reminder that I have a fic in the exchange as well. Deeply mysterious, hid my tracks amazingly as usual. And there is a lovely selection of other horror fic as well!

Earlier today, before all of that, I posted yet another Murderbot TV-verse fic, System // Handshake (2500 wds, gen, post-canon). Summary is spoilery for the finale; it's loosely springboarded off another fic I'd read earlier.

There's also this seriously adorable short interview with the whole Murderbot cast (link goes to Tumblr) in which they talk about playing the Bitter/Sweet game from the show on the set. HOW ARE THEY SO CUTE, I DIEEEEEE

And, longer and more serious, but I really enjoyed watching this David Dastmalchian interview; he talks about the show, as well as some of his other projects (Dune; comic book writing) and is so adorably excited about the show and invested in it.

Culinary

Jul. 20th, 2025 07:44 pm
oursin: Frontispiece from C17th household manual (Accomplisht Lady)
[personal profile] oursin

This weeks bread: a loaf of Dove's Farm Organic Heritage Seeded Bread Flour, v nice.

Friday night supper: penne with bottled sliced artichoke hearts.

Saturday breakfast rolls: eclectic vanilla, strong white flour - perhaps just a little stodgy.

Today's lunch: kedgeree with smoked basa fillets - forgot the egg due to distractions and basa cooking rather more slowly than I had anticipated, still quite good - served with baked San Marzano tomatoes (we entirely repudiate the heretical inclusion of tomatoes in kedgeree but they are perfectly acceptable on the side), and a salad of little gem lettuces quartered and dressed with salt, ground black pepper, lime juice and avocado oil.

[ SECRET POST #6771 ]

Jul. 20th, 2025 02:04 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6771 ⌋

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


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 31 secrets from Secret Submission Post #969.
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.

ST: Strange New Worlds 3.01 and 3.02

Jul. 20th, 2025 07:16 pm
selenak: (Discovery)
[personal profile] selenak
In which it's time for the charming nostalgia show again.

While the season opener resolves last season's cliffhanger, episode 2 makes one of Peter David's inventions canon )
[personal profile] bluerosekatie posting in [community profile] smallfandomfest
Title: odd weather we're having
Author: bluerosekatie
Fandom: Bionicle - All Media Types
Pairing/Characters: (use full names rather than initials or nicknames)
Rating/Category: Gen
Prompt: Bionicle - All Media Types, Turaga Metru, The first winter on the island
Spoilers: N/A, besides minor references to canon
Summary: So what made this happen? Why is it freezing in the desert?
The answer, unwelcome as it was, came to mind fast – Makuta. He’s broken his deal with Vakama – or we’ve lost track of time, and it’s been a year already.
Notes/Warnings: Archive-locked to avoid AI scraping.

Read it on Ao3 here!

New Community for Fan Writers!

Jul. 20th, 2025 09:33 am
g_uava: (Timeranger | Naoto x Tatsuya)
[personal profile] g_uava posting in [community profile] fictional_fans
[community profile] fan_writers comm - for meta about writing



Come on over to [community profile] fan_writers geek out about writing! Some posts shared in the comm:
- "Where I Need to Be": A discussion on your preferred writing environment.
- "Links to Writing Meta": Writing meta from AO3 and Dreamwidth.

Seeking beta for MASH fic

Jul. 19th, 2025 01:05 pm
nocowardsoul: young lady in white and gentleman speaking in a hall (Default)
[personal profile] nocowardsoul
Is anyone willing to beta a MASH fanfic, not quite 2000 words? It's written like an episode so half is BJ and Potter and half is about Hawkeye and Charles (and Hornblower). I can't return the favor because I can never think of things to say about fic.

[ SECRET POST #6770 ]

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:25 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6770 ⌋

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


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 38 secrets from Secret Submission Post #969.
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.

[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #970 ]

Jul. 19th, 2025 02:16 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets
[ SECRET SUBMISSIONS POST #970 ]




The first secret from this batch will be posted on July 26th.



RULES:
1. One secret link per comment.
2. 750x750 px or smaller.
3. Link directly to the image.

More details on how to send a secret in!

Optional: If you would like your secret's fandom to be noted in the main post along with the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret. If your secret makes the fandom obvious, there's no need to do this. If your fandom is obscure, you should probably tell me what it is.

Optional #2: If you would like WARNINGS (such as spoilers or common triggers -- list of some common ones here) to be noted in the main post before the secret itself, please put it in the comment along with your secret.

Optional #3: If you would like a transcript to be posted along with your secret, put it along with the link in the comment!

Foundation: 3.02

Jul. 19th, 2025 06:02 pm
selenak: (Default)
[personal profile] selenak
I had an extremely busy week for rl reasons, but am now up to date with the most visually gorgeous sci fi show currently on tv. (The possible competitions being on hiatus. Or cancelled, grr, argh.)

Spoilers want more time )

Some v misc things

Jul. 19th, 2025 03:47 pm
oursin: Brush the Wandering Hedgehog by the fire (Default)
[personal profile] oursin

The Case of the Missing Romani American History:

The history of Romani Americans is missing. Although the experiences of other marginalized and immigrant American groups are now well-represented in mainstream historical scholarship, Romani Americans remain absent from American history. This absence has detrimental effects to Romani Americans who are placed outside historical time. It also harms scholars whose work could benefit from the placement of Romani people in the histories they tell.

***

A ‘new Canterbury Tale’: George Smythe, Frederick Romilly and England’s ‘last political duel’:

In the early hours of 20 May 1852, six weeks before polling in that summer’s general election, two MPs travelled from London to woodland outside Weybridge in a bid to settle a quarrel provoked by the unravelling of electioneering arrangements in the double-member constituency of Canterbury. Frederick Romilly, the borough’s sitting Liberal MP, had issued a challenge to his Canterbury colleague George Smythe, whose political allegiances fluctuated and who had notoriously been embroiled in four previous prospective duels. The pair, accompanied by their seconds, who were also politicians, exchanged shots before departing unscathed. None of the participants faced prosecution but neither Smythe nor Romilly was re-elected.

A challenge to a duel was in fact by this time a common-law misdemeanour, and killing one's opponent counted as murder, though apparently there were few prosecutions in either case. It is perhaps disillusioning to the readers of romantic fiction to discover that politics seems to have figured so heavily as the casus belli.

***

Do not foxes have the right to enjoy the facilities of the public library system? London library forced to briefly close after fox 'made itself comfortable' inside - this was a London library, rather than the London Library.

***

Two entries in the People B Weird category:

Sylvanian Families' legal battle over TikTok drama:

Sylvanian Families has become embroiled in a legal battle with a TikTok creator who makes comedic videos of the children's toys in dark and debauched storylines. The fluffy creatures, launched in 1985, have become a childhood classic. But the Sylvanian Drama TikTok account sees them acting out adult sketches involving drink, drugs, cheating, violence and even murder.

(What next, Wombles porn?)

And

I'm 16 and live entirely like it's the 1940s (I bet he's not eating as though rationing is still in force, what?):

"I liked the clothing, how they dressed, and the style," Lincoln explained. "Just the elegance of how everyone was and acted... with the time of the war, everyone had to come together, everyone had to fight, and everyone had to survive together.
"Most people back then said it was scary, but it was quite fun to live then, and they could go out, help each other and apparently there's not that much stuff today that is similar to what that wartime experience was."
Lincoln said he loved the music of the time, including Henry Hall, Jack Payne and Ambrose & His Orchestra.
The teenager's wardrobe was also entirely made up of clothes from the era, which he said he preferred to modern-day clothes.
He even cycles on a 1939 bike when out and about researching and finding items for his collection.

We wish to know whether he gets woken up by a siren in the middle of the night to go and huddle in the nearest air-raid shelter. Singing 'Roll out the Barrel'.

Books Received, July 12 — July 19

Jul. 19th, 2025 08:53 am
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Four works new to me. three novels, one TTRPG supplement. Two appear to be fantasy, one SF, and one is a mystery (by an author famous for their fantasy). Two appear to be stand-alone and two are series.

Books Received, July 12 — July 19



Poll #33375 Books Received, July 12 — July 19
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 38


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

The Bloody and the Damned by Becca Coffindaffer (April 2026)
12 (31.6%)

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sea Wardens of Cothique by Dave Allen, Dominic McDowall, Michael Duxbury, Jude Hornborg, Naomi Hunter, Steven Lewis, Simon Wileman, et al (4th Quarter, 2025)
1 (2.6%)

Boy, With Accidental Dinosaur by Ian McDonald (February 2026)
18 (47.4%)

Enola Holmes and the Clanging Coffin by Nancy Springer (February 2026)
11 (28.9%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
27 (71.1%)

[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] fffriday
On Monday I finished The Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow, about a trio of sisters in the American city of "New Salem" in Massachusetts in 1893 who take it upon themselves to revive witches' magic.
 
The Once and Future Witches dovetails historically with the movement for women's suffrage, creating some parallels between seeking the right to the vote and seeking the right to practice magic. I would have liked to have seen this carried more through the latter half of the novel, but I suppose I can see why it wasn't, particularly given it would be another nearly thirty years before the passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. The suffragettes played a long game. 
 
The core focus of the novel is sisterhood, both blood and otherwise. Harrow presents a beautifully wounded and layered portrait of siblinghood in the relationship between the three protagonists: Bella, the oldest; Agnes, the middle child; and Juniper, the youngest. Raised without a mother (she passed birthing Juniper) under the thumb of their abusive and alcoholic father in rural poverty, all three girls learned early on what they would do to ensure their own survival. And while there is great love between them, there is also great hurt, and by the start of the book, the three are not on speaking terms. Harrow did a great job with the complexity here, and watching their relationships develop and begin to heal was very enjoyable. 
 
 

[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] fffriday
Oof. Today I threw in the towel on Margaret Killjoy's The Sapling Cage because I'd rather be alone with my thoughts than sit through another three hours of this book. This is a fantasy book about a "boy," Lorel, who disguises herself as her female friend to join a witches' coven (She's a transgirl, but her journey on that understanding is part of the book, and she refers to herself as a boy for much of the story.)
 
First, I will say that I think Lorel is a protagonist written with love; clearly Killjoy wanted her to be relatable and sympathetic, and someone eager for a trans fantasy protag may be willing to forgive the book's many weaknesses for that. That said...
 
I was shocked to realize this book is not categorized as Young Adult/Youth literature. Lorel is 16 at the start of the book and she's very sixteen. She makes all the sorts of stupid, immature mistakes you would expect from a teenager, which makes her a realistic character, but also deeply frustrating to read as an adult, particularly since the first-person narration puts us right in her head. The book feels young even for a sixteen-year-old; it reads more like a preteen novel about teenagers.
 
The book itself feels incredibly juvenile, both in prose and in narrative. The writing is simplistic, the narrative barely there, and the worldbuilding painfully thin. The book infodumps on the reader constantly, going into detail about things that are then never relevant again and don't connect into any kind of overarching picture of what this world is like. Reads very much like the author just throwing a bunch of things she thought were cool at the reader without actually thinking about how they would impact her world or the characters in them.
 
 

all arms and legs

Jul. 18th, 2025 08:12 pm
musesfool: Wonder Woman against a backdrop of flames (walk through the fire)
[personal profile] musesfool
I mentioned I've been reading a bunch of DCU/PJO crossovers, and mostly I like it when nobody is related to the Waynes and no Waynes are secretly demigods and it's just Percy et al in Gotham and rolling with their weirdness (or vice versa, I guess, but I haven't seen any like that yet), though I have enjoyed those other types. For me, the big key to making the crossover work, aside from the fact that I want it to so I'm primed for it (i.e., buy the premise, buy the joke), is how Wonder Woman is handled (and to a much lesser extent, Wonder Girl), even more so than Aquaman and Atlantis.

Like, for me as a reader, you can't pretend that the Batfamily is totally ignorant of the Greek pantheon or demigods if you've got Diana around. And I realize that some folks are basing their Batfamily stuff on other people's fic (I'm not making that call - some of them state it outright in their notes), which may not contain any info on Wonder Woman or the Amazons etc. but Wonder Woman is not an obscure superhero! Even if you ignore the retcon that she's a daughter of Zeus (and you should! Even the comics have walked that back, though I can see why it might be interesting to work into this kind of crossover), she was made of clay and had life breathed into her by Greek goddesses.

I mean, it complicates things to some degree, because where was she during all of Percy's adventures, but 1. she was in space/another universe etc., or 2. she'd been stripped of her powers for trying to help, or 3. she was back on Themyscira, and unaware, or, or, or... And those are just off the top of my head. Mostly I've seen Percy and friends angry that she didn't participate and that's a fine way to go, but like, I feel like something has to be said, even if just in passing, unless it's set very very early in Batman's career and he hasn't met her/she isn't public yet. And the ones I've found so far are not set in that timeframe, because the fun of the crossover is having all the kids interacting with each other and with Bruce.

Anyway, I'm always interested in how other people make crossovers work, because for me, skipping over most of the nitty-gritty of trying to make incompatible worlds/magical systems etc. work together is the way to go - choose one or two details to set the vibe and handwave the inconsistencies.

***

Profile

nocowardsoul: young lady in white and gentleman speaking in a hall (Default)
nocowardsoul

July 2025

S M T W T F S
  12345
6789101112
131415161718 19
20212223242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jul. 21st, 2025 09:57 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios