(no subject)

Jul. 7th, 2025 01:15 pm
thawrecka: (Default)
[personal profile] thawrecka
Dinner Conversation (549 words) by thawrecka
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (TV 2022)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Disa (The Rings of Power)/Durin IV (Tolkien)/Elrond Peredhel
Characters: Disa (The Rings of Power), Durin IV (Tolkien), Elrond Peredhel
Summary:

Disa has an idea. Durin and Elrond can only follow.

ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem came out of the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] rix_scaedu. It also fills "The Harder They Fall" square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by [personal profile] janetmiles. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

Read more... )

Restful day

Jul. 6th, 2025 10:40 pm
silver_chipmunk: (Default)
[personal profile] silver_chipmunk
I woke up a bit after 10:00, then went back to sleep til about 11:30. Then I got up and had breakfast and coffee.

I puttered online awhile, then I cleaned the cat pan. Then I did something I was originally planning to do next month, but decided to do now instead, I ordered a new computer. The one i was originally going to get directly from HP was no longer available, so I went to the site for Best Buy. I found what I think is the same computer, on clearance, for less, and I put it on my Best Buy card. This computer is literally falling apart, and on Wednesday one of the USB ports stopped working. The new one will be delivered the 14th. It's smaller than this one, 14' instead of 17' but it's cheap.

After that I went to the Starsky and Hutch creative work session by Zoom. That was fun. And I actually wrote a little bit. The Kid called briefly while I was on.

That ended a bit after 6:00. I put clothes on and took the bag of kitty litter and the empty box out, and walked around the block.

Then I Teamed the FWiB. We talked about an hour and a half. Then at 8:30 I called Middle Brother. He is doing fine, went swimming and had a barbeque on the 4th of July.

Then I had dinner and went to the bedroom to play solitaire. [personal profile] mashfanficchick called and we talked about tomorrow.

At pet feeding time I came out and fed the pets and started here.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. New computer coming.

3. Middle Brother OK.

4. Ricky posted about the cottage.

5. Starsky and Hutch fandom.

6. Clean litter box.

Poem: "No Such Thing as Finished"

Jul. 6th, 2025 06:18 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Damask smiling over their shoulder (polychrome)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This poem is spillover from the July 1, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from [personal profile] jake67jake. It also fills the "He's all hat and no cattle." square in my 7-1-25 card for the Western Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by [personal profile] janetmiles. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.

Read more... )

Works revealed!

Jul. 6th, 2025 09:42 pm
aat_mod: A drawing of a bidding paddle that says "max bid" with motion lines to imply it's being thrust up to bid. (Default)
[personal profile] aat_mod posting in [community profile] auctionsasthreatened

Works revealed!

Slap your eyes on all the stuff we made here!

Late treats still need to meet all work requirements.

We've turned off the mod queue for the collection so we don't need to check works anymore, but you should still be making stuff we would accept.

What's next?

  • Use the #recommendations channel on the discord to share some recs of stuff you found in the collection!
  • In the next week or two, we'll post a wrap up post that will include stats and other stuff!

PS: you can leave us a note at the feedback post still! We'll read it before writing the wrap up post. Even very short feedback telling us if you enjoyed the event is useful feedback.

coffeeandink: (utena (fairytale ending))
[personal profile] coffeeandink

Ghost Quartet is a band: Dave Malloy on keyboard, Brent Arnold on cello, Gelsey Bell and Brittain Ashford on various instruments, and everyone providing vocals. Ghost Quartet is a song cycle, a concert album performed semi-staged, a mash-up of "Snow White, Rose Red," The One Thousand and One Nights, the Noh play Matsukaze, "Cruel Sister", "The Fall of the House of Usher", the front page photo of a fatal train accident, and a grab bag of Twilight Zone episodes. The ghost of Thelonious Monk is sometimes invoked, but does not appear; whisky is often invoked, and, if you see the show live, will most certainly appear. "I'm confused/And more than a little frightened," says (one incarnation of) the (more-or-less) protagonist. "It's okay, my dear," her sister/lover/mother/daughter/deuteragonist reassures her, "this is a circular story."

Once upon a time two sisters fell in love with an astronomer who lived in a tree. He seduced Rose, the younger, then stole her work ("for a prestigious astronomy journal"), and then abandoned her for her sister, Pearl. Rose asked a bear to maul the astronomer in revenge, but the bear first demanded a pot of honey, a piece of stardust, a secret baptism, and a photograph of a ghost. (The music is a direct quote of the list of spell ingredients from Into the Woods.) Rose searches for all these ingredients through multiple lifetimes; and that's the plot.

Except it is much less comprehensible than that. The songs are nested in each other like Scheherazade's stories; you can follow from one song to the next, but retracing the connections in memory is impossible; this is less a narrative than a maze. Surreal timelines crash together in atonal cacophany; one moment Dave Malloy, or a nameless astronomer played by Dave Malloy, or Dave Malloy playing Dave Malloy is trying to solve epistemology and another moment the entire house of Usher, or all the actors, are telling you about their favorite whiskies. The climax is a subway accident we have glimpsed before, in aftermath, in full, circling around it, a trauma and a terror that cannot be faced directly; the crash is the fall of a house is the failure to act is the failure to look is the failure to look away.

There are two recordings available. Ghost Quartet, recorded in a studio, has cleaner audio, but Live at the McKitterick includes more of the interstitial scenes and feels more like the performance.

In Greenwood Cemetery, there were three slightly raised stages separated by batches of folding chairs, one for Dave Malloy, one for Brent Arnold, and one for Gelsey Bell and Brittain Ashford, with a flat patch of grass in the center across which they sang to each other, and into which they sometimes moved; you could sit in the chairs, or on cushions in front of the first row, or with cheaper tickets you could sit in the grass on the very low hills above the staging area, among the monuments and gravestones, and, presumably, among more ghosts. The show started a little before sunset; I saw a hawk fly over, and I could hear birds singing along when the humans sang a capella. It was in the middle of Brooklyn, so even after dark I couldn't see stars; but fireflies sparked everywhere.

Now Collected in One Post

Jul. 6th, 2025 08:50 pm
senmut: a bright blue tribal seahorse (General: Tribal Seahorse)
[personal profile] senmut
Unwanteds (41367 words) by Sharpest_Asp
Chapters: 30/30
Fandom: Original Work
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Original Female Character(s), Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Original Universe, Superheroes, Post-Apocalypse, Rebuilding, Asexual Character(s), Queer Relationships, Magic-Users, Future Technology, Age Difference
Summary:

In the aftermath of the Collapse, life finds new ways, making new paths, and there are heroes rising from the ashes --

-- just as villains remain to tear it all down again.



Content Notes: Fascism as history and antagonist, liberty with cultural mythology, comic-book level violence

Author's Note: This universe has been built from the ground up with many influences of pop culture and history. It was began in 2005. I posted the last main part of the story in 2023. There is a prequel and sequel both forming in my plans for the future. When I began crafting it... we were not so far down the fascism slide in real life. I very nearly did not touch it again after 2016. Ultimately though, I needed to let the good guys win.

On Dreamwidth, must join comm (Click and scroll to the bottom for the beginning. SqWA account needed to read it in chaptered format at link above)

Today in sweater-knitting news

Jul. 6th, 2025 06:34 pm
teaotter: (Default)
[personal profile] teaotter
I am knitting the simplest possible* bottom-up sweater, and today I reached two simultaneous milestones:

1. I finished the main torso of the sweater to the point where I divide for the armholes.

2. I finished exactly one third of my total yarn.

Is that an appropriate amount of yarn to have used to this point? Will there be enough to knit the entire sweater? I HAVE NO IDEA!! One of my reasons for knitting a simple sweater is to give myself an idea of a yarn baseline. I want to find out what is the least amount of yarn I can use and make a sweater.

*Simplest possible for me, and yes, I am aware of the irony there. But it's stockinette, in the round, I'm really very close to the stitch and row gauge called for in the pattern, and I'm only making really very very few modifications as I go. (Just the ribbing depth and the body shaping and the total length and the sleeve-cap type and probably the sleeve shaping as well.) Practically no modifications at all!

I'm very happy with it so far, and am looking forward to seeing what happens with the rest of it. :D

Local Weather

Jul. 6th, 2025 09:06 pm
michaelboy: (Default)
[personal profile] michaelboy
You are in fingertips wrinkled by water
but how is that so?

You travel in places I've walked
and more by letting go.

How can one miss somewhere they've never been
yet believe they know?
summerofhorrorexchange: silhouette of killer (Default)
[personal profile] summerofhorrorexchange posting in [community profile] videogamefanworks
Hi folks! We have some pinch hit requests for our exchange Summer of Horror that include video games. Fandoms are listed below. Claiming and more info at the post here. Thank you!

PH 3 - Psychonauts (Video Games), Higurashi no Naku Koro ni | Higurashi When They Cry, Umineko no Naku Koro ni | When the Seagulls Cry, Mortal Kombat (Video Games 1992-2020)

PH 12 - 還願 | Devotion (Video Game), Deadly Premonition | Red Seeds Profile, Charade Maniacs (Visual Novel), 7'Scarlet (Visual Novel), Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses

PH 15 - Cult of the Lamb (Video Game), Mass Effect Trilogy

PH 16 - Fallout 4

Round 152 Has Ended

Jul. 6th, 2025 08:01 pm
xandromedovna: purple unicorn with rainbow mane and text "usurpationcorn is pleased" (usurpationcorn)
[personal profile] xandromedovna posting in [community profile] fic_rush
Well I dunno about y'all but I had a blast this Round! *ba dum psh* Glad to see everyone made it, please sound off it the comments with what you did! And of course, three cheers for our inimitable Mod Squad:

[personal profile] xandromedovna, WerebunniesBane
[personal profile] thedarlingone, Rainbow Fairy Godpenguin
[personal profile] inkstone, Dumpling Procurer
[personal profile] falkner, Elegant Flower and this Round's Champion Usurper!

Daily check-in

Jul. 6th, 2025 08:36 pm
mecurtin: Icon of a globe with a check-mark (fandom_checkin)
[personal profile] mecurtin posting in [community profile] fandom_checkin
This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Sunday, July 6, to midnight on Monday, July 7 (8pm Eastern Time).

Poll #33329 Daily check-in poll
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 11

How are you doing?

I am OK
9 (81.8%)

I am not OK, but don't need help right now
2 (18.2%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
3 (27.3%)

One other person
5 (45.5%)

More than one other person
3 (27.3%)



Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

SI/AI/UI

Jul. 6th, 2025 07:44 pm
l33tminion: (Default)
[personal profile] l33tminion
Sandy Island Camp was nice this year, though Melissa and Simon unfortunately had to punt mid-week after kid got an ear infection and had some spectacularly rough nights. Erica was very independent-minded about getting to activities by herself. I really enjoyed dancing with her at the camp dances. The weather was pretty good. Saw some interesting wildlife, including a pileated woodpecker and some extremely successful spiders.

I didn't get as much reading done as usual. Too much distraction. I did read two books:

Polostan by Neal Stephenson - It was all right, but felt much less substantial than a lot of Stephenson's other books, in part but not just because it's much shorter. It's meant to be the start of a series, so maybe the publishers persuaded him to split up what would've been a much longer book. If so, I think it probably suffers for it.

Connectome by Sebastian Seung - Pretty good popular science introduction to the study of neural connectivity. Though the book might be a bit out of date, as it is from 2012. I wonder if there's a good more recent take on the subject, and I wonder whether any light will be shed on that by analogy from some of the more recent AI neural net stuff (especially the work on AI interpretability).

On a related note to that second book, I also finished the animated TV series Pantheon. Really good, probably one of the best sci-fi shows in recent years (and it's in really good company, even among animated shows specifically). If you have a hard time with time-skips in stories, you'll have to hold onto your butts at the end of this one. But I think it justifies it, it's a story about the singularity and it's fitting that the epilogue feels like taking a gravitational assist past a black hole. The ending is poignant and hopeful and tragic, and the choice that the protagonist, Maddie, considers at the end is fascinating. (Also David is best dad.)

On another related subject, this essay, The Void, contemplating what's really at the center, conceptually, of these new AI chatbot models has been sticking with me. (Also worth reading the follow-up here.)

SGDQ is this week, so that's fun! Erica is heading out for grandparent time with Julie's parents for the next two weeks, starting tomorrow. A lot is going on.

Tiny Plastic Souls

Jul. 6th, 2025 07:46 pm
kalloway: (Destiny Impulse)
[personal profile] kalloway
There often comes a point when I'm building a model kit that I realize that ah, I am being watched right back. There is a tiny plastic soul* in there of some sort, and sometimes not quite the one I'm expecting.

The last month or so of model kits/gunpla! )

*which is not to say I think that my kits are actually-alive in any way, this is more in the fun way that my aunt and I used to leave offerings of jellybeans for my grandmother's porcelain doll collection so they wouldn't eat us in our sleep.**
**at least I think we weren't serious about that.***
***I should probably email my aunt.

A bit of free-writing

Jul. 7th, 2025 11:59 am
landingtree: Small person examining bottlecap (Default)
[personal profile] landingtree
In the last while I've been doing very little long-form writing, but I have been doing a bunch of sitting down at the table and seeing what I can write before standing up again. This began as deliberate automatic writing. It's interesting for me to read back over as I lose my memory of the exact thought process that produced it, and what had been a vivid map of that thought process goes partly dry and inexplicable, like a dying leaf. I will not share any of this because it would be dry and inexplicable to anyone else from the beginning. However, it did sort of nudge me imperceptibly closer to normal writing until I suddenly went 'I think this is now just me writing fiction again in the usual way.' I will post here a few of the bits toward the story-er end of this process. They are still not guaranteed to make sense or to resolve like stories, and to prove this, I will start with one that doesn't.

~

Dragon didn’t know what he was getting when he ordered that leg from a human. It’s a huge crystal structure all chain-hung and shivered by light and wind. The guru who lived in it fed her followers on meat she got from somewhere - they said she cut off pieces of her own flesh and grew again whole. I don’t believe it but it’s not as though I ever caught the delivery vans. I never ate there, though they say it tasted fine – better than fine.

There was a little village nearby that predated her structure and hadn’t changed much in relation to it. The cultists needed no supplies and the villagers weren’t friendly, having other gods. There, they made clothes by growing lichen on statues. You could order a dress for your granddaughter, hoping you’d have one and she’d be about such-and-such a size. Or you could get lucky. They were expensive but not that expensive – the village had such fields of statues in all different body-forms that it wasn’t a luxury reserved for kings. How they treated the lichen and got it off the statues in strong, supple condition, with the beautiful, wild patterns hiding in the green and grey, was a secret you could only have learned by staying there ten years and learning every part of the process – and no one in the village, taken away from all that lived-in expertise, could have set the thing up again! Just one of the nutrient paints had its own maker with her own handed-down teachings. Not secret, but hidden in day-to-day life.

So this was how things stood before the dragon came: the new cult with its cathedral-sized beauty of glass, and the old village where doctors weren’t trusted. The dragon turned up at the structure to eat human meat because it had been told that there, it was encouraged. Having slept through an age of the world, it wasn’t sure how things stood, and it was more cautious than some of its brethren, having the idea that humans had become a lot more dangerous in the meantime (and in that it was correct). It was less large than the structure but certainly no single person could have done it much harm, for even its eyes dwelt behind a membrane like iron, and the throat – that tunnel proof against fire – was the very toughest part of it. Dragon throats last while all the rest of the insides have rotted away, hanging in the skeleton and the suit of scales.

After some surprise and a lot of running about, the guru’s followers called her out of trance, which displeased her but she agreed it had been the right move when she saw the dragon. She agreed to give the dragon what it wanted and withdrew to her holiest chamber, where, allegedly, she butchered her own leg on a chopping block without ever shedding a drop of blood and then grew back upon herself layer upon layer like the fastest of lichens. And she emerged with the meat, which was perfect and not quite like anything – I had seen it and imagined a Pegasus, or one of the great birds. The dragon ate. And then asked for more.

Now, the sacrament could not become a dragon-feeding factory, so the guru said no. And so the dragon – why, no one knows – abandoned its patience and advanced after the guru when she withdrew into the structure of chains and glass. The noise could be heard for miles.

Whatever contest followed had no victor. The cathedral’s remains lie strewn now, tarnishing and scratched, over all that field, along with a few pieces of the dragon – though not as many as you would expect. No worshippers gather there, though now and then some sad pilgrim passes. The locals still grow their lichen finery and to them, it seems, what happened was only as memorable as that time someone’s uncle got indiscreetly drunk and proposed marriage to three people in a single evening.
garryowen: (trek kirk ouch!)
[personal profile] garryowen posting in [community profile] fancake
Fandom: Star Trek AOS (Reboot)
Pairings/Characters: Kirk/inappropriateness, hints of Kirk/Spock
Rating: Teen +
Length: 3,235 for the fic, 23 minutes for the podfic
Creator Links: [livejournal.com profile] insaneidiot [archiveofourown.org profile] reena_jenkins
Theme: Working Together

Summary: The crew of the Enterprise is subjected to a compulsory seminar on Inappropriate Workplace Behavior, and Jim Kirk finds this to be particularly challenging.

Content notes: In addition to Kirk being inappropriate in the ways one might expect from canon, the seminar leader is stereotyped in a way that might be considered offensive.

Reccer's Notes: I'm reccing both the story and the podfic here because the story is only on LJ, and the writer does not seem to be active anymore. The podficcer, however, is still around, and the pod is hosted on AO3, which may be more accessible for some. It is also the way I first encountered this story.

Now that we have all that out of the way, I can gush about how hilarious this story is because Jim Kirk + Starfleet bullshit is fertile territory, and I always laugh really loudly when listening to the podfic. Jim is so deeply wounded by any attempt to rein in his obnoxiousness, inappropriateness, and mouthiness. The best thing about this fic, though, is Jim's relationship with his crew. Throughout the seminar, we see the dynamics play out, and it becomes clear that the seminar was put together for a very different kind of workplace and a very different kind of crew. As Jim puts it: "All the team unity and 'synergy' exercises in the universe aren’t going to build real trust or strong relationships amongst a crew."

As you might expect, Jim gets kicked down a couple notches by the seminar leader, but the tables turn in an unexpected way by the end of the seminar.

Reena, as usual, does a wonderful job with the podfic.

Fanwork Links: Wrote the Book fic at LJ and Wrote the Book podfic at AO3