mapsedge | Network

Federal Ranger Cracka Buckshore's efforts to keep irate parents from lynching handsome Fodo Bathin are complicated when Cracka, Fodo, and everyone else on the planet are kidnapped and taken to an artificial universe.

Golden Sunlands by Christopher Rowley

soemand

After Catherine O’Hara's passing, we were discussing at work on how much of her work is ephemeral, for example her work on SCTV, like most comedy shows of the era.

The time when VCRs were rare, if you weren't watching you missed it, and the throwaway nature of the shows.
Notwithstanding many of the situations and jokes wouldn't fly today. While I have a soft spot for Dr. Tongue's Evil House of Pancakes; whole generations don't.

And you can easily date someone in Canada by this joke:

The scene takes place in an ancient Roman bar, where the detective, Flavius, orders a drink:

Flavius: "Give me a martinus.
Bartender: "Don't you mean a martini?"
Flavius: "If I wanted two, I'd have asked for them!"

calzephyr posting in

1word1day

Heckle

So, you think you know certain words? Their meaning is so obvious, right? Today, I present heckle, a word that's just more than a word!

Meet the heckle, also called a hackle or hatchel. It's a comb used to straighten flax or hemp fibres. Heckling is the final step in preparing these fibres before spinning, performed by hecklers, sometimes in a heckling factory or shop. The work was tough and performed by men and women--female hecklers were called hekelsteres.

Heckle in English dates to 1300 when it was a flax comb and was spelled hechel. It either came from hecel in Old English or from a Germanic source. Middle High German had hechel and Middle Dutch had hekel, both of which come from a root word for a hook or tooth.

Now, how do we get from a pointy comb to the kind of heckler we think of at protests, comedy clubs, sports matches, and speeches?

Well, although heckler originated in the mid-14th century , it escaped the realms of textile production by the 1880s when it was first used to describe "persons who harass"--that is, hecklers from Dundee, Scotland, developed a reputation for their vocal interruptions and spirited discussions. One heckler often read newspapers aloud during the work day, and the shops and factories became centres for labour activism.

Now you know!

mbarker posting in

wetranscripts

Writing Excuses 21.05: The Same, But Different

From https://writingexcuses.com/21-05-the-same-but-different

Key Points: How do you write something that feels original, but still meets readers' expectations? Genre or sequel? Sequels, structure or cast? Change one. Don't change too many things, one difference can be enough. Grounding questions may carry over. Window dressing genre or elemental genre? Keep the window dressing the same, but play with the elemental genre elements. Aesthetic driven or structure driven genres? What are the questions underlying your stories? Writing as hospitality. How do you avoid repeating your tropes? Do it consciously. Honor the fact that you are not the same person. Ask what if about your writing!

[Season 21, Episode 05]

[Mary Robinette] This episode...

[unknown] Kimi no game system... [advertisement in Japanese] [Singing Lenovo, Lenovo]

[Mary Robinette] ... of Writing Excuses has been brought to you by our listeners, patrons, and friends. If you would like to learn how to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/writingexcuses.

[Season 21, Episode 05]

[Mary Robinette] This is Writing Excuses.

[DongWon] The same, but different.

[Erin] Tools, not rules.

[Mary Robinette] For writers, by writers.

[Mary Robinette] I'm Mary Robinette.

[DongWon] I'm DongWon.

[Erin] I'm Erin.

[DongWon] And this week we're going to talk about one of... A topic that I'm deeply fascinated by, and, I think, one of the trickier things to figure out when you're talking about genre writing, when you're talking about series writing in particular. But I think it's really true of the entire publishing process. Right? And that is how do you write something that feels original, but still accomplishes meeting the reader's expectations? And that can be down to meeting the same genre expectations, that can be down to writing a sequel, that feels in conversation with the original but is its own thing and is unique. Right? I mean, again, we are creatures of pattern recognition. Right? We want certain beats, we want a certain feeling from our romance or fantasy or science fiction or mystery or thrillers. Right? Like, there's this idea of fiction being trope-y or formulaic. But those tropes and formulas are the building blocks of genre storytelling. So, how do you look at differentiating the story that you're writing from the things that came before it?

[Mary Robinette] So, I think that there's two ways to think about this. One is with sequels and one is with genre. I'm going to start with sequels first.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, when I wrote Shades of Milk and Honey, it's basically Jane Austen with magic, it is more or less a straight up Regency romance. In romance, the structure is that you write the first book, and there's a very specific romantic structure. And then when you write the second book, the structure is the same, but the difference comes from a different cast. So it's the sister of the heroine and the boyfriend's BFF. Now follow form. I didn't want to do that. So what I did for my same but different was I changed my structure, but I kept my cast. And what I see when I see people moving into sequels is that a lot of times they are keeping the same ca... The sequels that feel flat is that a lot of times it's the same cast and they are facing the same kind of problem. So it's the same and the same. And they aren't bringing anything new to it. So I think one of the things that you can think about when you are moving into a sequel is keeping the same as this is the heart and the core of this story. Those are the things that you keep the same. Because I also see that the other problem which is that someone moves into a sequel and then go the different and the different.

[DongWon] Yep.

[Mary Robinette] And it's so far away from the original that people... People go back to that sequel because they want a specific thing. And so if you remove that piece of the same, and you then... Then there's no reason for them to go back to it. So I think looking at kind of what is your intention, keep those things the same. And then, what are the places you want to kind of surprise or bring something new?

[Erin] I was thinking about, because I haven't written novel sequels, like, where I've encountered this. And I kept thinking about my time when I was writing for Zombies Run. It's interesting, because it's the same cast of people, and it's the same action. There are zombies and you are running from them. Every single time.

[DongWon] You've got one verb.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] It is a game with one action. Run. And so, something that we would find is early on the instinct would be to throw a lot of new things, to try to make each thing different. Like, there's more zombies, and they're on fire. And you're in space. No, not really. But, like, and they're all happening. And it turns out that a lot of times one difference makes a huge difference because people are like, oh, I understood how they got through everything, like, they really figured out how to run from the zombies. But now the zombies are on fire. Which is bad. And so, like, this one difference accelerates the tension, in part because you're like, they can't repeat what has already happened, so how are they going to get out of this situation this time? And so, you don't have to change everything, and, like, throw all the toys into the bin, you can just have this one thing that they can focus on, and that actually adds a lot.

[DongWon] Yeah, I mean, going to sort of MICE quotient, right, you have all these different components that make up a story, from milieu to the characters. And I think choosing one or two of these, I mean, you can do a thing where you're keeping most of these the same, and if you're doing, like, romance, you're really keeping a lot of things very similar. Or if you're doing, like, procedural mystery, then a lot of it is staying using the very popular phrase these days, standalone mysteries with series potential, you're going to want to be able to carry things through. But if you wrote the first book as a true standalone, now it's like, okay, how do I do book two? Right? And so figuring out what you want to carry over from book one, whether that is purely the setting, have new characters or pick up side characters, or you have the same cast and you're putting them in a different situation. I think those are the things that you need to start thinking about, of, like, wait, what are the things that I want to be fixed points as I'm looking forward to telling this new story?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. Like with the Lady Astronaut books, I've got Elma has anxiety, and so... But we go into space and all of that. And so in book one, we don't fix her anxiety, but she has come to a place where she accepts the choices that she's making and... But in the second book, the thing that I change isn't, oh, now she has a new problem. It's, she still has anxiety, but it's a different trigger this time. Which is often the way that things happen in real life. You're like, ah, now I have a handle on this. Oh, wait, circumstances are different. So a lot of times, just changing the context, whether it's setting your zombies on fire or sending someone to Mars, is enough to shake things for the character.

[Erin] And if you think about... Like, a lot of science fiction that, like, at least I grew up on Star Trek, it's very procedural. Like, it is...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] The same but different, like, episode after episode after after episode in the series, where it is the same cast and theoretically the same... Like, they're still part of the Federation, they're still trying to, like, seek out new worlds, but it's what's on this world? What does this alien do that we didn't expect? How are our expectations of how we can handle this shifted? And I think we, like, see a lot of that and have experienced a lot of that as watchers, as people who are engaged in science fiction. But then sometimes when it's written, it like freaks people out. It's like, nah, you cannot have... If people really love your characters, like, fanfiction will tell you, if people love your characters, they will watch them open an alternate universe coffee shop together...

[Chuckles]

[Erin] Because they just really want to be in a place with these people.

[DongWon] Well, and sometimes it's important to realize that you can wander pretty far afield.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[DongWon] Right? I mean, I'm thinking about two classic examples of 80's science fiction movies, which is Terminator and Terminator 2. Right? Which is just a complete inversion of the first story. Right? They're the same structure, in a lot of ways. Same beats in a lot of ways. But instead of the Terminator being the villain in one, now he's the hero in two. Right? Instead of Linda Hamilton's character being the victim in the first movie, she becomes this incredible badass action hero in two. So it's like, oh, what if we just flipped everything on its head, but told the same story, How does that change? Right? Which makes it a really fun, easy to grasp thought experiment as you're looking at it and being like, oh, I get what this is right away. Also, this feels like a Terminator movie, has the same tone, and it has the same body. And another example is the jump from Alien to Aliens, which is a complete genre shift. It goes from horror science fiction to action science fiction. Right? The second movie, wildly different tone, wildly different vibe, same aesthetics though. Right? It's using the same visual elements and it's still quite scary. There are still, like, horror elements to it. But the difference between there is one alien and it is picking us off one by one to oh, hey, God, there are thousands of them and... But we have a whole military unit with us. Completely different tone, but, again, same but different.

[Mary Robinette] I think... Talking about the tone also brings up a thing that you can do when you're looking at a sequel, and I'm thinking of the Gideon the 9th and...

[DongWon] Harrow...

[Mary Robinette] Harrow. That there's a big tone shift when you go from one book to the other. Because we shift POV characters...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] Because of a bunch of other things. But there are also so many grounding questions that are carried over...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] From the first book that you are still engaged with it, even though there's a lot of difference...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] In that one. But the big kind of question of sort of who am I and how do I define myself...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And pushing against systems that want to keep me in a specific place, like, that's very consistent from book to book.

[DongWon] Or, again, A Memory Called Empire jumping to A Desolation Called Peace. Right? We read A Memory Called Empire a little while ago on this podcast, but the second book takes the same characters or many of the same characters, the ones who make it through the first book, and then they put them on the bridge of a starship trying to figure out how to communicate with some very different aliens. It's a really different problem and setting. I mean, one... In the first one, we are in an epic fantasy succession sort of story, and then in the second one, we're in this Star Trek how to meet the aliens story. But, because of the same characters and the tone and the questions are the same, they are still questions about connection and communication and language in a way that the first one is, it feels of a piece, even though they are radically different from each other. Okay. We're going to take a quick break. And when we come back, I want to talk about some... Zooming out a little bit in sort of a more macro scale, How do I keep this feeling the same, while not just doing a direct sequel.

[DongWon] Okay. DongWon here. I wanted to remind you that in September, our last annual cruise will set sail from Alaska. And on February 15th, ticket prices will increase. The hosts are teaching classes on the business of publishing, world building, conversational storytelling, and game writing. You can sign up and learn more at writingexcuses.com/retreats. Hope to see you there.

[unknown] Lenovo gaming devices, like the Lenovo Legion 7I Gen 10 are engineered for victory. With powerful GPUs, ultra-responsive displays, and advanced cooling that stays chill under pressure. This back to school season, upgrade to a gaming PC that takes you from study mode to game mode in an instant. With exclusive student pricing, 10 times Lenovo reward points, and more through Lenovo's online education store. Join for free at lenovo.com. [singing Lenovo, Lenovo]

[DongWon] Okay. Welcome back. We're going to keep talking about the same but slightly different now.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] Do we get to talk about genre now?

[DongWon] We get to talk about genre now.

[Mary Robinette] [garbled]

[DongWon] I want to talk about genre now, but I also want to talk about your career planning. How to still feel like you as a writer. But let's talk about genre first. So, in terms of genre, I think a lot... Many, many years ago, Writing Excuses, before I joined the podcast, did a season that I think about all the time, that I find so useful, which is the idea of elemental genres. You sort of have your window dressing genre, which is sort of are there ray guns and spaceships or are there dragons and swords in this? And then you have your elemental genres, which is is this fundamentally a mystery? Is this fundamentally romance? Is this a story about wonder and discovery? Right? And so when I think about the same but different, I think the things that need to feel the same are the window dressing things, kind of carry through, but then the things that you get to play with more are the elemental genre things. Right? You can set a mystery inside your cyberpunk setting. But the cyberpunk setting needs to hit certain aesthetic beats and hit certain elements to feel of the same.

[Mary Robinette] One of the things that I talk about a lot and think about is that there's, I think, aesthetically driven genres and structure driven genres. So aesthetic ones are things like science fiction, fantasy, historical, Western, that there's a look and a feel and a vibe. Set dressing.

[DongWon] Yes.

[Mary Robinette] Costumes. Ray guns. And then structure driven ones are things like romance, mystery, heist, thriller... That there's certain beats that you have to hit in order to do that. And the nice thing is that you can often get your same but different by layering those things.

[Erin] I'm curious though. That all makes sense to me, but how do you know what readers, or should you care what readers are responding to? Let's say you have a cyberpunk mystery that everyone's like, wow, cyberpunks cool, but I was really into this cyberpunk detective and, like, the actual unraveling of the mystery. And therefore if you make your next book cyberpunk romance, this... People might be like, oh, yeah, that was fine, but, like, I was really hoping for more on the mystery side, less on the cyberpunk side.

[DongWon] Well, I think one thing that's really important is we're talking about aesthetic versus structural genres. I do want to flag, though, that even though it is aesthetic and we're talking about it as set dressing, the aesthetic often has a question embedded in it that's really important. Right? So talking about cyberpunk specifically, it is about a certain set of questions and issues, and I think when cyberpunk doesn't feel like cyberpunk, it is just like hackers and flashy stuff. But there's no question about like what is individual... How do we operate within an oppressively capitalistic society? Right? I think, like, one of the primary elements of cyberpunk is the punk part of it. Right? How do we DIY ourselves under corporate oligarchy? Right? I think that's a really important thing. So I think if you carry through that question from one to the other, it'll feel connected. Right? I mean, this is Blade Runner versus Blade Runner 2049. are interested in really different or have incredibly different story structures. One is sort of like... The first one being more of a detective mystery and the second one being more of this, like, more sprawling story about tevolution and inheritance. Right? But they both feel like Blade Runner stories because, not just the aesthetics carry through, the question carries through of what makes a person a person.

[Mary Robinette] Yeah. I think that that is absolutely true. And also, I think that in... You're thinking about the question, but then there's also the thing you're asking is that that may be the thing that the creator is interested in is this question. But the readers may come for something else. And so for me, this goes to a metaphor that I've talked about before, which is the idea of decorating the house. Amal el Mohtar talks about writing is an act of hospitality. So I think that when you're thinking about this same but different, which pieces do you keep, you're thinking about when you move from one house to another, there's some things you keep and there's some things you don't keep. but it's ultimately still your house. So when I did Shades of Milk and Honey, and did the next book, which was secretly a military war novel disguised as a Regency romance, I did lose readers. Because there were readers who wanted... The same that they wanted was the structure. And I lost readers. But that was a ch... And I knew I would. It was a choice I made on purpose because I... As much as I love romance, I didn't want to be trapped in writing Regency romances. So I think that you can do that, but you just have to be conscious of it and decide why you're making the change and who you want to invite into the house. And what house do you want to live in?

[DongWon] Yeah. And I think this goes into sort of the second half of the question I had, which is, as a writer, when you're thinking about your career, when you're planning out what book is next, if you're not writing a series or even necessarily writing in the same genre, how do you make sure your next book still feels like a project from you? Right? What is an Erin Roberts story, and then what also feels like one, when you're thinking about what your next story is? Right? Like, is that something you two think about actively in planning that out?

[Mary Robinette] I think about it with novels.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] I do not think about it with short fiction. With short fiction, that is the place where I am deliberately and joyfully playing all over the map.

[Erin] I think... Yes and no. Like, I think it's just like part of the story is a reflection of who you are. And so, when you think about the same but different, we are ourselves are often...

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] The same...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And always different. And I think one of the struggles when the world is moving at a pace, we'll say, and things are happening is you're changing a lot...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] And you're trying to figure out who you are and what's going on. That also changes your writing. And I think, for me, feeling beholden to a past version of myself feels like trapping myself in a relationship...

[DongWon] 100%.

[Erin] I didn't want to or locking myself in a house and refusing to move.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] Even though the neighborhood's on fire. and so I think it is... Even though who knows what the consequences of that may be.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Erin] It's better to do something that I feel is a reflection of the thing I'm trying to say and maybe I'm the only one who likes it than writing something that I think other people will want, but I'm not happy with and I feel uncomfortable in the space. I'm not being hospitable to myself.

[DongWon] One thing I look at when considering taking on a client is what is their project. Right? Is the way I think about it. And when I say project, I mean not just what is this book, but what is the big question they're tackling. Right? Are they writing about liberty and authority? Are they writing about family inheritance? Right? Are they writing about morality? There's all... Or are they interrogating capitalism? Right? Like... And I say that in a way that sounds very highfalutin, but sometimes, like, I have this question about Chuck Tingle, too. Right? Chuck Tingle is writing about how to be queer in a world, how to find joy in a world, where things are really difficult. And these are big thematic questions told in a way that is often very light-hearted and accessible. But everyone I think is interrogating a question in their fiction in one way or another. Right? Whether they know it or not, and whether they're aware of it or not. And it's not a question I ask them and that I need them to answer, but this is a question for me of can I see it and can I figure out how to support that question. Right? And... So I think to some extent that connectivity is really important from one book to the next book of being able to feel like they're still talking about the same stuff.

[DongWon] But I've also noticed something, and I'm new to doing creative works on my own. Right? I've worked a long time supporting writers, but I've been doing a thing recently in preparation for an upcoming project where I've iterated on a bunch of games really quickly. Original settings, different groups, different themes. But I keep finding myself tripping over... Like, oh, crap, I did the same thing again. Right? Oh, I put doppelgangers in this story again. I put twins in the story again. Or whatever it is. Right? Like, there's a few repeated tropes I have. How do you spot the things and resist the things that are too same-y, same-y from story to story, and keep it feeling fresh? Or do you not worry about it at all?

[Mary Robinette] I don't worry about it often when I'm drafting. And there's some things like... There's some things I do on purpose. Like, with my books, one of the things that you know is that you're going to get committed family people. Whether it's a couple or friends, that there's a strong relationship that's not threatened. You will usually know that you're going to get some pretty costumes. The thing that I notice is that I have a... And I think this is a... I have a really strong tendency to injure my characters' hands and arms.

[Chuckles]

[Mary Robinette] And I suspect that that is because as a puppeteer, that is the thing I'm most afraid of. And so that's the part of the body that I'm most likely to damage. And so I will catch myself doing that sometimes and pull it back. And other times, I'm just like, no, that's actually the appropriate part of their body to injure...

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And we're just going to...

[DongWon] We're just going to do that.

[Mary Robinette] We're just going to do it.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] So, like, it's when I look at it, I think, okay, why do I need to change this, and do I need to change it? Like, the number of times that someone actually is going to binge all of my material back to back and then write a thesis going, ah, she has broken five arms... It's unlikely to happen.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] A lot of times, the patterns that we see in our own work are because we are living with our own work, not because other people see it. And then other people will see patterns that we have no idea are there.

[DongWon] Right.

[Mary Robinette] Like, someone just pointed out that I've got three different books, one of which isn't out yet, that are essentially about... That have this through line of the cost of celebrity.

[DongWon] Interesting.

[Mary Robinette] And I'm like, oh, yeah. Elma doesn't want it, has it forced on her. Tesla in Spare Man, that was a conscious theme of that book. And then the new one, I'm like, oh, yeah. No, look, I've done that again accidentally. Huh.

[Erin] Something that I think is really exciting to do is to use the way you write as a way to push yourself. So, something that I find in... At some point, I actually did have two stories where I was like, wow, these stories are very different, different settings, but I was like seems like I'm writing a lot of stories about a person who realizes their place in the world is worse than they thought it was and lashes out as a result. Against something or someone or in some way, and so I was like, well, that's cool. But what happens after you lash out? Like, what happens, like... It's a short story, so, like it ends there, and there's, like, a lot of implication about what that might mean. But I'm like what happens after an act of, like, violence or anger? Like, what does the community... What are we left with and how do we deal with the aftermath? And a lot of the work that I'm working on now is about what do we give to each other and what do we do as... In the aftermath of, like, an act that is not a good one, but is still one that you have to live with? And I'm like, who knows? Maybe at some point I'll get sick of those and be like then what happens, like, when you want to do restorative justice?

[Mary Robinette] Yeah.

[Erin] [garbled] Like and so it actually becomes, like, this larger story of, like, how do we deal with life? As I have different things that I am interested in. And part of the reason that I push myself was, I was like, oh, I'm sick of writing the same story, but also, it was partly like maybe I do need to interrogate a little bit a harder thing for me to write. But it's something that I'm still interested in writing.

[Mary Robinette] I think that's exactly the key to writing the same but different, is to honor the fact that you are not the same person.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] And to always be like, well, what is it... I mean, science fiction and fantasy in particular is really the story about, like, what if.

[DongWon] Yeah.

[Mary Robinette] That's one of the main things that drives us. So I think doing that with your own work... It's like, well, what if I try something different? What if I push this? Even if it's not a theme or a question... What if I push this area of craft? Like, all of these things are ways to have the same but different. Because you are the same person writing it.

[DongWon] Yeah. Exactly. Okay. I think we're going to leave it there. Thank you guys so much for talking this through with me. I have a little bit of homework for the audience. This one is less of a writing exercise and more of a critical one.

[DongWon] What I would love you to do is to take two works from the same franchise, either a direct sequel or just two things in a series. Could be a TV show, could be a movie, could be a book. And then I want you to take note of did you like the ways in which they handled the sequelness? Did it feel the same but different? And then I want you to do a detailed analysis of that. Really write down, component by component, what carried over, what didn't carry over? Did it feel good to you that this thing changed, did it feel good to you that this thing stayed? Did it feel really static, did it feel dynamic, did it ask new questions? And take note of that and think about it as you plan out your next work.

[Mary Robinette] This has been Writing Excuses. You're out of excuses. Now go write.

dark_kana posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) delicious tea and ice tea ^^

2) watching another episode of Downton Abbey during lunch break

3) Going swimming this evening

silver_chipmunk

I got up at 10:00 and had breakfast and coffee. Then I puttered online til the mail got here at1:00ish I think. And the new Jonathan Kellerman Alex Delaware book, Jigsaw, had arrived.

So I took it into the bedroom and lay down and read it. All of it. Straight through, though I went to the bathroom twice, and got a snack.

And finished it. It was just as good as the rest of the series. I loved it.

Then I called

mashfanficchick to let zer know that I finished and ze can borrow it whenever I can get it to zer. Don't know if we'll be seeing each other for the next week as ze is catsitting zer friend's cats til the 11th. But we'll see.

Then I puttered on the computer til 7:00 when I Teamed the FWiB. We talked til 8:00, then I got off to go to my gaming. The GM of the Monster of the Week game we had been playing didn't feel up to running the game tonight so we played D&D, the old Caves of Chaos campaign. I had trouble with the Discord at first and had to exit out and restart it so I missed a bit but then it worked ok.

As usual we played til 10. Killed an ogre and some orcs. And some goblins. It was fun.

Then I fed the pets and had dinner and started here. And that was the day. Oh, I heard from Shipt, they are refunding the money for the item that didn't get to me yesterday. So that's good.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. Got the book.

3. Got the refund from Shipt.

4. My gaming group.

5. Friends.

6. The Discord mostly worked.

Current Mood: cheerful

autobotscoutriella

ushobwri is doing their yearly Let's Get WIP-ed Into Shape event, and I picked the Sonata sequels for mine! I'm pretty happy with what I've gotten drafted for broken beaten damned (the Daryan&Blackquill In Prison fic) so far, so I thought, why not share a few snippets along the way like I did for Sonata?

I'm an aggressive editor, so I can't guarantee that this scene will survive to the final draft intact. But I like where it's going, so I thought some of you might, too.

( 280ish words of Daryan handling going back to prison surprisingly well considering his usual (lack of) restraint )

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: the chirping of a kitten who feels she is not receiving sufficient petting

militarypenguin posting in

icons

See the rest here at

kommsussertod

greghousesgf

I went to North Berkeley today to get some fancy cheeses and baked goods for my birthday!

Current Music: Beethoven

merrileemakes posting in

common_nature

common_nature,

stonpicnicking_okapi shared their love of this comm as part of February Love Fest and inspired me to join. :)

I have been experiencing nature up close and personal thanks to some frogs. At the end of November, following a rain storm, my Partner and I could hear a frog in our tiny, ornamental garden pond/water feature. We're always so thrilled when this happens!

The next morning when I walked past the pond I saw a pile of bubbles and thought that was cool. The male frog has been making a bubble nest, like a betta fish, pining for a female to come join him (spoiler: I don't know much about frogs).

The next day I went to clean the pond (a bi-weekly feat during summer) and noticed that only only had the bubbles persisted, but some of them had developed little black dots. Oh my god, they're not bubbles they're eggs!
( Life, uh, finds a way )

pauamma posting in

linguaphiles

Assume someone with suitable field linguistics training and experience goes back in time to the PIE era, learns that language, and brings it back, passing it as a conlang. How long do you think it would take for linguists to catch on?

james_davis_nicoll

This all-new Human Gorilla Heists Bundle presents .PDF ebooks from Human Gorilla Creations that help you create tabletop fantasy roleplaying adventures of thieves and thievery.

Bundle of Holding: Human Gorilla Heists

kat_lair

***

Title: Reset
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Pairing: Rodney McKay/Radek Zelenka
Tags: Ficlet, Snow, Alternate Universe - Academia, Alternate Universe - Steampunk
Rating: G
Word count: 568

Summary: The snow falls on the courtyard, the quadrangle between the imposing stone buildings disappearing from view slowly but inexorably.

Author notes: Written for

spiralicious for

fandomtrees. This is unbetaed so if you spot a typo/mistake, you should absolutely tell me about it. Those AU tags promise more than the ficlet delivers but In My Head this is a very Dark Academia Steam Punk setting. They are building airships! The city state is rife with political intrigue! But this is just a moment of rest and pause amidst all of that...

Reset on AO3

( Reset )

***

silversea posting in

booknook

It's Wednesday! Are you reading anything?

james_davis_nicoll

Aisha's unique senses could help the empire escape the ecological crisis the empire has inadvertently engineered. Too bad dynastic security requires her death.

The Girl from the West (Kokun, volume 1) by Nahoko Uehashi (Translated by Cathy Hirano)

soemand

My wife should get her wish until about February 15, when the weather finally turns milder and whatever snow we have left for XC skiing starts to disappear. As for me, I’m perfectly happy indoors right now, sketching out my tape‑deck setup and getting ready to dive back into making mixtapes. Winter priorities, right?

I do need to shift gears soon, though, because boat‑maintenance season is creeping up on me. There’s a whole list of little fixes and tune‑ups waiting, and if I don’t get ahead of it now, spring will arrive with a vengeance and I’ll be scrambling to catch up.

dark_kana posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) Delicious homemade ice tea

2) No training this evening, can't say I mind much today

3) A friend from jiujitsu coming over for dinner

simplyn2deep posting in

1word1day

Tuesday, February 3, 2026

CAPTCHA (noun)
CAPTCHA Or captcha [kap-chuh]

noun, Digital Technology.
1. an online test designed so that humans but not computers are able to pass it, used as a security measure and usually involving a visual-perception task: Site visitors must solve the “distorted text” CAPTCHA before posting comments.

2. a computer program that generates such tests.

Origin: First recorded in 2000–05; C(ompletely) A(utomated) P(ublic) T(uring) (Test to Tell) C(omputers and) H(umans) A(part); inspired by capture ( def. )

Example Sentences
OpenAI’s safety tests for ChatGPT-4 revealed that AI has already developed the ability to scam human users into helping them pass Captcha tests.
From MarketWatch

That’s great, and I want that, but sometimes I want entertainment, style and originality too, and all of those things exist in this exciting, economical tale of a woman who can’t get past a CAPTCHA.
From Salon

In the short term, Tools for Humanity plans to generate revenue by offering its iris-based system as an alternative to security technologies like CAPTCHA, the photographic test that is used to sort humans from spam accounts.
From New York Times

The testers found that the system could potentially hire a human to defeat an online Captcha test, lying that it was a person with a visual impairment.
From New York Times

Researchers recently showed that one system was able to hire a human online to defeat a Captcha test.
From New York Times

james_davis_nicoll

I just got email from Fig's owner that Fig (who I owned from 2012 to 2017) passed away this evening. Cause unknown. My impression is Fig just didn't wake up.

silver_chipmunk

Last night after I posted here I kept looking for that knob for my ceiling light. And finally I gave up, turned aroun while sitting on the living room floor, and saw it! In the exact opposite direction from where I was looking and where it logically should have been. I figure that it must have bounced and landed on the bottom step of the step ladder, and when I put the ladder away, I moved it first before I folded it up, and when I folded it up the knob must have fallen off and rolled. So anyway, I found it.

So this morning I woke up with my alarm at 10:00, and once again rolled over and went back to sleept til 12:00. But then I got up, had breakfast and coffee, and then got the step ladder out again and fixed the ceiling light. Thank goodness.

Then I put in a Shipt order and waited for it. When It got here one of the items hadn't arrived, so I notified Shipt and they said I'd get an email but I haven't. Maybe because it was after 5:00 by then. So if I don't get that email tomorrow, I'll contact them again.

I puttered online til 7:00 when I Teamed the FWiB. We talked til I ha to go to my meeting, but then I had terrible technical difficulties getting Zoom to work. Finally did, and we had a small, but good meeting. Both M and S were there.

The Kid finally called, when I was Teaming the FWiB. We discussed the timing of the memorial service for Oldest Brother at the cottage this July. It looks like it will have to be the 18th which I'm not happy about, but we'll do the best we can. I have to let people know... tomorrow.

After my meeting I had dinner, and then went to the bedroom, and lay down an watched a video on my phone that the FWiB sent, the 25 best space movies. I don't know if I agree with the guy who did the list on everything, but it was fun watching.

And then it was pet feeding time so I fed the pets and started here.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2. Found the knob!!!

3. And was able to get the light back together without a problem.

4. My meetings and the people there.

5. The Kid finally called and we have a date.

6. Found out from

mashfanficchick that The Lincoln Lawyer starts now.

Current Mood: relieved

adafrog

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

jonw

The right thing to do seems to be to build something. 1.5G of storage isn’t going to last me very long.

Postimages has plugins. DW has an API. It seems obvious. So obvious that maybe it’s been done already and I don’t know about it?

Lily is pondering the possibilities.

Current Mood: contemplative

gs_silva

They're just talking about the various parties Maurice has run away from. They missed one - the time Cathy tried to take Maurice clubbing on New Year's Eve - but Jon doesn't know about that one.

Fatigue ate me. I'm going to go lie down for the night.

gs_silva

I always say I'm bad at marketing myself. I freeze up. It feels awkward. It feels like work. It feels like I'm testing fate to come down and punish me for being so brash. It's safer to bow my head and hope my work speaks for itself, to the very few people who bother to look at it.

All this to say there's an award here on Dreamwidth celebrating crowdfunded arts, and Alien Romance has been nominated in the Webcomics category.

Don't just click on me and leave, though, if I can convince you to look at the other nominees. Maybe there's one there you'll like better.

The other categories are:

Art (Vote here) (See nominees here)
Fiction (Vote here) (See nominees here)
Poetry (Vote here) (See nominees here)
Patrons (Vote here) (See nominees here)
Other projects (Vote here) (See nominees here)

jonw

I bought an Oura ring a few years ago. It is a 3rd generation and I believe the 4th came out a while ago. If you don’t know what an Oura ring is, it’s basically a Fitbit for your finger. It records all manner of cardiovascular data from the base of the inside of your index finger (preferred) and has extensive algorithms that try to present that data to you in a meaningful way.

I love most of it. In fact, I love all the empirical stuff but the algorithmic processing is another story.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: annoyed

james_davis_nicoll

QWP

Hey everyone,

**This year marks WATSFIC's 50th Anniversary!** To commemorate this we are releasing a new issue of our club fanzine Starsongs.

If you would like to become an officially published author, we are opening up submissions right now! Send us your **short stories, opinion pieces, open letters** [to systems, games, concepts, authors, or WATSFIC itself], **reviews of Sci-Fi/Fantasy** games, books, or other media, **your best drawings or paintings**, or whatever else you'd like to share with WATSFIC and the greater UW Community. We will endeavour to accept and print as many submissions as possible as long as they are club appropriate. If you're unsure if your idea is right for Starsongs, please don't hesitate to contact an exec and we'd be more than happy to discuss it and/or workshop it with you!

If you are looking for inspiration, you can find the 1970s releases of Starsongs on the University of Waterloo's Digital Library.

**We will be accepting submissions until the end of March, if you would like to contribute** please fill out this form here.

-# Submissions after March 31st may still be accepted, but we cannot promise anything, so please try to get any and all submission in before this deadline to ensure your work can be considered.

greghousesgf

Shame on you Pepperidge Farm. You shrunk your cookies. Milanos are about half the size they used to be.

Current Music: Cameo

james_davis_nicoll

Decades after the PCs' last adventure, an old epic foe reappears, still bent on conquest.

Time to get the band back together!

Alas, the band isn't just dispersed. All but one member is long dead.

Happily, the last surviving member is a necromancer.

springsodas

And by that, I mean I'm finally going to take the plunge and attempt to enter the streaming game.

It's been something I've been debating doing for about a year now and at this point, I think it's almost silly not to give it a shot. I've got pretty much all the tools I could possibly need at my disposal--it's mostly just about overcoming my own anxiety regarding the entire thing because... I mean, I'm a pretty introverted person and while there's a decent chance my audience might end up just being my friends and maybe a handful of my followers from my various socials, there's also a chance I may end up being successful and if that happens... well, we'll cross that bridge if it comes to it XD

I am planning to go the PNGtuber route. I have an idea for a little hedgehog mascot that I think fits my personality well; I just gotta come up with a design and make the images to stick into veadotube mini. Platform would be Twitch, of course; game plan is a combination of art streams, video games, and ones where I just chat with viewers. And really, the most important thing is that I have fun while I'm doing this. As long as I can achieve that, then the entire endeavor will be worth it.

Current Mood: determined

dark_kana posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) a day at the office with all the colleagues. Was fun, lots of talking

2) going to make a back up of my photo's

3) going to watch a Downton Abbey episode before crawling into bed early.

james_davis_nicoll

A moment of foolish charity drags impoverished Altair Jones into a deadly struggle.

Angel With a Sword (Merovingen Nights, volume 1) by C J Cherryh

jonw

I love bats. Not in some weird teenage goth way (no offence to teenage gothers), but because I have a lot of empathy for our fellow earthlings that have no agency, and especially a lot of empathy for the cute ones. Not all bats are “cute”, but there are many that look like tiny dogs with big leather wings that definitely fall into that territory.

I’m thinking of building a bat house on my property. I start searching around, as one does, and was really pleased to see a set of really detailed instructions to do so. Even so detailed that there are different styles depending on whether we’re housing nursing bats or not. Yes, I want to house nursing bats because the only thing cuter than a flying fox is a baby flying fox.

I’m still not totally sure what bats are in my area. I read that there are something like 17 known species on this island, but two or so have only been identified audibly and not yet seen.

I am aware that there are bird house cams that people put inside bird houses to watch their activities. I plan to do the same with my bat house.

We will all learn together whether we indeed attract some bats and if so, their antics. Stay tuned!

Does anyone else have any experience with bats or bat houses?

Current Mood: excited

soemand

I think this is a street scene in Gaeta. My camera doesn’t always link the location to the photo.

Fun fact, John Cabot was born here.

jonw

I feel seen.

Current Mood: amused

silver_chipmunk

Got up this morning at 10:00, had breakfast and coffee, and called

mashfanficchick. Ze said to call back at 3:00 cause ze was still sleeping.

So I took a shower and washed my hair and dressed. The I decided to change the light bulb in my living room ceiling lamp. Not the bulb I just replaced awhile ago, there's two bulbs in the lamp. Anyway, I got up on the ladder and unscrewed the knob that holds the glass dome on the lamp... and the knob slipped out of my hand and fell. No big deal, I thought, I heard it hit the floor, it can't have gone far...

I can't find it. I have searched and searched and searched, Under things, moved things, cleaned, everything, everywhere I can think that it could possibly be, I can't put the dome back on without the knob to hold it in place...

It is amazingly frustrating and annoying, I can't stop looking. I finally made myself put the ladder away and do other things til 3:00 when I called [Unknown site tag]. Ze was still sleeping but I HAD to get out of the apartment an stop looking for that knob. So I said I'd come over anyway.

Which I did. Ze was still sleeping so I let myself in and settled down and played on my phone. I ate snacks, and played solitaire. Finally at 7:00 I Teamed the FWiB and ze got up.

I got off with the FWiB at 8:00 cause there was something on TV he wanted to see, and

mashfanficchick and I started planning dinner.

We decided on sushi, and ordered it, hung out til it arrived, and then ate.

After we finished we hung out for awhile more while ze got ready to spend a week cat sitting at zer friend's place.

Finally, at a bit after 11:00 I Ubered home. Where I have still been trying to figure where that knob could have gotten to.

Anyway, that was the day. I called the Kid but she didn't pick up. I got texted by someone from my Saturday meeting, which was nice.

Gratitude List:

1. The FWiB.

2.

mashfanficchick.

3. Clean hair.

4. Sushi.

5. The people in my meetings.

6. Bed soon.

Current Mood: frustrated

jonw

We have had this bbq for about 8 months. Today we noticed it has a button for lights. And also that the knobs for the lit burners are red.

Wow. We feel a little sillly.

Current Mood: embarrassed

got_quiet posting in

beautifulmechanical

( You're about to view content that a community administrator has advised should be viewed with discretion. )

james_davis_nicoll

"In 1947 and 1948, Agee wrote an untitled screenplay for Charlie Chaplin, in which the Tramp survives a nuclear holocaust; posthumously titled The Tramp's New World, the text was published in 2005."

kat_lair

***

Title: Cast Away
Author:

kat_lair
Fandom: Stargate Atlantis
Character: Radek Zelenka
Tags: Ficlet, Stranded
Rating: G
Word count: 668

Summary: When Radek regains consciousness, the puddle jumper is empty.

Author notes: Written for

lomelinde for

fandomtrees. This is unbetaed so if you spot a typo/mistake, you should absolutely tell me about it.

Cast Away on AO3

( Cast Away )

***

jonw

I had had a Wired subscription forever. My Dad got it for me years ago as a birthday gift and my Mom Keeps renewing it even though my Dad passed some time ago.

I love the covers. This one is no exception.

Current Mood: funny

greghousesgf

Apart from the bldg manager being her usual rude bitchy self when I was paying my rent earlier this morning, I'm in a pretty good mood today. I had so much fun with my friends at the Chinese restaurant last night, we had Peking duck, General Tso's chicken, ginger beef fried rice and a couple of dim sums. I hadn't had Peking duck in decades but it was my birthday.

Current Music: Elvis Costello

glowingfish

Which means it is time to drink some tea. My first class of the day is in 40 minutes.
That should give my tea time to kick in, right?

james_davis_nicoll

Eight death-metal miniatures games from OptimisticNL inspired by, and compatible with, the artpunk tabletop roleplaying game Mörk Borg.

Bundle of Holding: Forbidden Psalm

gs_silva

"That'd be useful! I'll grab you one." Maurice is talking about the Clapper again.

"I don't want it," Jon grumbles, moving away.

"But it's right here!"

"No."

Maurice looks closer at the display, seeing a whole bunch of As Seen On TV products.

"Just get your things so we can go," Jon snaps at him.

They leave and head to the gym. Maurice has both the arm brace and the back brace on and he's squirming uncomfortably.

"What's the verdict?" Jon asks.

"I feel like a mummy," Maurice complains. He's supposed to be carrying a duffel back with their gym clothes in it. Oh well.

"That reminds me..." says Jon. He gets on the weight lifting bench. I didn't draw how. Or all the prep they had to do. But I did draw Maurice spotting him.

Anyway, Jon continues. "What can we do to convince you not to ditch the Halloween party this year?"

"I didn't ditch on purpose," Maurice claims. He's taking his spotting job seriously, even though his right arm is all wrapped up. "I got sent on an impossible quest."

"So you won't run away?" Jon asks. "You survived your wedding, hmm?"

***

These daily comics don't end in convenient places. I think tomorrow's will creep toward that a little better than the last two. Sometimes things stand alone, and sometimes they ought to get posted together. Which I did consider, but it's supposed to be a 'daily' comic.

***

A lot of appointments lately, a lot of driving. A lot of fatigue. Hanging in there for the moment, though. I'm looking forward to March - I plan to hack back the buckthorn and bittersweet so I can make room for the native species that keep trying to angle for space in the borders of my back garden.

tommx

( You're about to view content that the journal owner has marked as possibly inappropriate for anyone under the age of 18. )

soemand

Just checked the long‑range forecast for my wife’s cross‑country skiing adventures. So far things look decent through February 13—after that, the rain will likely wipe out whatever snow we’ve managed to accumulate. Long‑range forecasts can shift, of course, but getting a solid month or more of skiable conditions in our maritime climate is rare enough that I’ll take any good news.

As I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t take much to change our fortunes. A shift of the storm track by as little as 50 nautical miles can mean the difference between a fresh snowfall and a cold, miserable rain. Life on the edge of the rain–snow line keeps things interesting.

jonw

By no means am I a professional movie reviewer, but I do often wonder why not. I don't mean that I want to do that as a career, more like I wonder what kind of credentials are expected from those who do. Everything looks simple from the outside but are complex nevertheless, and movie reviews are probably no different. I secretly think reviewers of all ilks are too full of themselves (nobody cares what you think) and tend to exude moral superiority where none is present (AKA: "I would never give a perfect review because nothing is perfect."). Art in all forms is so subjective that I have to wonder what use reviews serve at all. But, I digress...

Hollywood has one thing right; people will watch movies based on the cast. I had no real interest in the Thursday Murder Club, but it has such a great cast, aside from Ben Kingsley who I find cringey, that I gave it a whirl.

Aside: Dreamwidth has a really poor selection of editors. I prefer markdown by a mile, but there appears to be no "cut" token in markdown. It only exists in HTML mode, but I am really not into typing <em> some text</em> over _ some text _. I thought I could write an entry in markdown then switch to html to put the cut tag in, but the editor lost half my entry when I did that so I guess that's not a plan. But I digress again...

I liked the movie, almost entirely because of the cast. The retirement home is quite the place and I enjoyed thinking that one day perhaps I could retire to such a place, but mostly it was the cast. The story was very linear, easy to follow, and the writer kept checking in with us to make sure we were keeping up. I felt like I could leave the room for 10 minutes and come back to shortly be updated and thus not miss a thing. That is great if you do leave the room, but makes for a very tame ride if you don't.

The plot is quite simple, there is something that I think is supposed to be a twist or surprise ending but it doesn't land with any aplomb so it doesn't add any spice to the movie.

It reminded me a lot of the series Only Murders in the Building on CBC. Like reminds me a lot. I did not hate it, but I will likely forget that I saw it in a few days. Most shows or movies leave me with a silly phrase or something like that I use for a while after watching, but this one did not. There is very little to remember about this movie despite the stellar cast.

Current Mood: indifferent

soemand

I’m a little torn on the new “groundhog” making waves this year. Lucy the Lobster has apparently joined the weather‑forecasting circuit, and I have questions.

For starters, a lobster has no burrow. That alone feels like a major strike against any shadow‑based meteorological authority. And even if Lucy did have a burrow, I’m not convinced a lobster is equipped to interpret its own shadow in the first place.

All of this lands, fittingly enough, on the anniversary of the Groundhog Day Gale—a reminder that real weather doesn’t care much for mascots, crustacean or otherwise. It’s charming, it’s quirky, it’s very East Coast, but as forecasting methods go, it’s… let’s say unconventional.

oracne posting in

everykindofcraft

I started learning to knit three days ago, and am working on doing multiple rows of knit stitch on some giant plastic needles made for kids.

I am enjoying myself so far! We shall see how far this journey takes me!

dark_kana posting in

3_good_things_a_day

1) watching Downton Abbey again during lunch break

2) delicious chocolate with orange flavor

3) a very very very early night in

Profile

mapsedge

Seamlyne Reproductions

Navigation

June 2023

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
				1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

Page Summary

Style Credit

Style: Night Sea for Tranquility III by branchandroot

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Feb. 14th, 2026 01:04

Conquering the internet, one cup of coffee at a time.

Network

Navigation

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags