vivdunstan

Based on an audience poll, this is the free epic for the November 4, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl reaching its $300 goal. It came out of the October 7, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by a prompt from

fuzzyred. It also fills the "Herbs" square in my 10-1-25 card for the Fall Festival Bingo. This poem belongs to the series One God's Story of Mid-Life Crisis.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

contrary_cal

And I remembered about book posting.

Writing is still not happening, but I have read some things over the past two? three? weeks.

Books I've read

Murder in the Trembling Lands by Barbara Hambly: A much better Ben January mystery than the last one I read, not least because it isn't at least 50% flashback. I missed much of the supporting cast (what, no Dominique? No Chloe?), but Livia got some good stuff to do and Ben's Janvier 'relatives' were...interesting to meet, to say the least.

One day she's going to have to kill off Hannibal, though.

Slow Gods by Claire North: I got this a couple of days after it was released and burned through it in three days flat, which is good going for me at the moment. A good thinky premise with a fantastic main character who is Changed by his (unwanted, unwilling and unhappy) experience of being an interstellar pilot in ways that he doesn't understand any more than anyone else does, and lovely universe-building. And the Slow. I really liked the Slow.

What I'm reading

Nothing right now.

What's next

None of my library holds are likely to show up in the next few days, so it will probably be A Stocking Full of Spies when I next get to Dymocks.

In other things, I'm looking forward to seeing Now You See Me 3 in the cinema on the first day of my summer break, and The Choral in the new year. And possibly the proshot of Six, if it makes it to my cinema. I hope it does - at reasonable showing times, given it was the screening days/times that prevented me from going to see Hamilton on the big screen - because I enjoyed it a lot on stage and would like to see it again. I'm currently trying to decide what I want to see of the State Theatre Company's 2026 program, too, and whether I should go to see the State Opera production of Carmen in which one of my former students will be singing the role of Carmen. Money, of course, will be the deciding factor, but you can't just spend on bills, books and home improvement or your life will be more dull than not.

OTOH, I need a new bed along with the laundry renno and those are pricey these days. Priorities...

oursin

Happy birthday,

jesuswasbatman!

china_shop

kangaroos (tolerated brief stroking)
a tight huddle of six ring-tailed lemurs
red panda trying to sleep in a windblown tree
sleeping snow leopard
tiger actually up and doing things
sunbear ditto (the only bear in Aotearoa, apparently)
meerkats! climbing on us! (we had a paid "close encounter")
misc. others

And the rain mostly held off until we were at lunch afterwards. \o/

pennyarcade_feed

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

New Comic: X-Mas: Days Of Future Past

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

sholio

I read this book over the last couple of days on

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

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

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

So obviously I had to read this book.

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

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

nanila posting in

awesomeers

It's challenge time!

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

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

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

Go!

girlgenius_main_feed

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20251126

The Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, November 26, 2025 has been posted.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20251126

adore

I just saw something so gorgeous. YouTube decided to recommend me a c-pop performance amongst all the k-pop in my feed, and oh gosh this was jaw-dropping.

Watch on YouTube

I spent the first 30 seconds of the video thinking Liu Yu is animated because he looks too ethereal to be real. He's also charmingly expressive. Friends and dwenizens who enjoy period/costume c-drama, I think you'd really dig this. His long hair! His flowy robes!

There's a part of the performance where the swishing of his robes veiled his face in a beautiful accident (or was it by design?), and the cheering of the fangirls in the crowd at that moment made me smile. Another portion of the song where the cheers are particularly loud are when he raises the veil of his dancer (who's also the stand-in/self-insert for the love interest) with the tip of his fan, to smile into her eyes (and steal her heart, no doubt). The ending was lovely too, with her holding his fan edge and walking with him as though he'd offered her his hand. He's using the fan in the place of skinship and for some reason that's SO hot to me.

Someone in the comments said 'elegance of a noble with the playfulness of a youth' and that's absolute BARS.

Setting context for the second treat. I don't usually enjoy white man handsome (because the jaw shape, physique, mannerisms etc. in men favoured by Western media tends to make them look and seem like Johnny Bravo, who was child Mynah's first ick). But it turns out that fan edits to Lana Del Rey songs are a good way to discover men who are of the Caucasian persuasion, chosen by Western media to fill screens, and yet still get away with being beautiful. Often I feel something, and even when I don't, nine times out of ten I see the appeal.

This made me feel something.

Watch on YouTube

I haven't read the book nor have I seen this movie, but I definitely Felt Something and I think it stands beautifully on its own, as some fan-made pieces do. And I definitely had a crush on this version of Dorian, tragic in the way you'll be if you're forever stuck in the post-adolescent angst of your mid-twenties.

Bonus: I saw an edit of young Leo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet to Lana Del Rey's "West Coast" and it's pretty cool. And I finally get the appeal lol! When I saw clips of later him, like in Titanic or Gatsby, I just couldn't see what all the fuss was about. ~~Maybe Leo dates under 25 year olds because he peaked at 25 and can't get over that lol~~

Better yet, look at Erika Linder cosplaying young Romeo-and-Juliet era Leo DiCaprio.

Watch on YouTube

That's peak.

Current Mood: enthralled

daily_illuminator_feed

http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-26

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<img [...] fighting">') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

<p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-26">http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-26</a></p><a href="http://https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/fighting-fantasy-solo-adventure-gamebooks-set-2"><img align="right" alt=""Fighting" books="" border="1" fantasy="" hspace="8" src="http://www.sjgames.com/img/newsq/illq/2025/FFcolorlogoThumb.png" vspace="6" /></a> <div> Pledging is now open on <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/fighting-fantasy-solo-adventure-gamebooks-set-2"><b>Kickstarter</b></a> for the next five books in the solo adventure series <i><b>Fighting Fantasy</b></i>. In books 6-10, which feature most of the original art from the first editions, you'll journey through thrilling stories.</div><div> </div><div> <i><b>Island of the Lizard King</b></i> – "To free the prisoners held on this remote isle, you must face the Lizard King himself. And the Lizard King cannot be defeated." Written by Ian Livingstone, 224 pages.</div><div> </div><div> <i><b>Scorpion Swamp</b></i> – "The mysterious morass has never been mapped. What might it hold? Power? Wealth? Knowledge?" Written by Steve Jackson (US), 224 pages.</div><div> </div><div> <i><b>Caverns of the Snow Witch</b></i> – "It began with six Northmen murdered near the chill Icefinger Mountains. It may end with the whole world as cold and lifeless as the mountain peaks." Written by Ian Livingstone, 224 pages.</div><div> </div><div> <i><b>House of Hell</b></i> – "It was a fateful night. The deceptive directions. The relentless rain. The car accident. That was only the beginning." Written by Steve Jackson (UK), 240 pages.</div><div> </div><div> <i><b>Creature of Havoc</b></i> – "Who are you? What are you? A victim? An experiment? A savior? A monster? You may be all of these – or something entirely different." Written by Steve Jackson (UK), 384 pages.</div><div> </div><div> Four pledge levels are available, so you can pick the book of your choice . . . or collect them all!</div><div> </div><div> •<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>$1 - Access to the pledge manager at the close of the campaign</div><div> •<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>$15 - Select one book</div><div> •<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>$60 - All five books</div><div> •<span style="white-space:pre"> </span>$80 - All five books, plus a unique, custom slipcase to protect them</div><div> </div><div> Visit <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sjgames/fighting-fantasy-solo-adventure-gamebooks-set-2"><b>Kickstarter</b></a> today to learn more about each of these exciting books and make your pledge for <i><b>Fighting Fantasy</b></i>!</div><br /><br /> – <a href="mailto:michelle@sjgames.com"> Michelle Richardson</a><br /><br /> <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/"><b>Warehouse 23</b></a><b> News: The City Never Sleeps Because Of All The Action</b><br /><br /> There are a million stories in the city, and they're all exciting! <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0377"><i><b>GURPS Action 9: The City</b></i></a> shows how you can add <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-0138"><i><b>GURPS City Stats</b></i></a> to your <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/products?taxons%5B%5D=558399025-sb"><b><i>GURPS Action</i></b></a> campaigns. It also features six sample cities to use with your own action-packed adventures. Download it today from <a href="http://www.warehouse23.com/">Warehouse 23</a>!<p class="ljsyndicationlink"><a href="http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-26">http://www.sjgames.com/ill/a/2025-11-26</a></p>

ysabetwordsmith

Tiny Yellowstone quakes ignite a surge of hidden life underground

Researchers studying Yellowstone’s depths discovered that small earthquakes can recharge underground microbial life. The quakes exposed new rock and fluids, creating bursts of chemical energy that microbes can use. Both the water chemistry and the microbial communities shifted dramatically in response. This dynamic may help explain how life survives in deep, dark environments.

Fascinating!

Also, things like this are why I laugh when space exploration only targets "life as we know it." There are whole ecosystems right here on Earth that don't rely on the Sun for their power source. Just most people tend to ignore them. Since Earthlike worlds seem uncommon in this galaxy, most life is going to be hidden in hot rocks, under ice, etc. and is only likely to become visible without tools if it forms a mat of slime somewhere a bit more hospitable. Really. Most xenobiology is done with a microscope. But it's also why I want to scrape the recently exposed parts of Antarctica to see if anything survived under its ice.

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Life is full of things which are hard or tedious or otherwise unpleasant that need doing anyhow. They help make the world go 'round, they improve skills, and they boost your sense of self-respect. But doing them still kinda sucks. It's all the more difficult to do those things when nobody appreciates it. Happily, blogging allows us to share our accomplishments and pat each other on the back.

What are some of the hard things you've done recently? What are some hard things you haven't gotten to yet, but need to do? Is there anything your online friends could do to make your hard things a little easier?

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

This is an advance announcement for the Tuesday, December 2, 2025 Poetry Fishbowl. This time the theme will be "Sentient and Self-Aware Machines." I'll be soliciting ideas for androids, robots, sexbots, sentient ships, other digital people, programmers, gizmologists and super-gizmologists, super-intellects, rebels, researchers, journalists, historians, explorers, partners, teachers, leaders, superheroes, supervillains, teammates, ethicists, activists, other people who work with self-aware machines, programming, changing or breaking programs, building hardware, choosing a hardware body, finding partners, upsetting predictions, expecting the unexpected, researching, revising theories, teaching, adventuring, leaving your comfort zone, discovering things, conducting experiments, observation changing experiments, experiments changing paradigms, adapting, improvising, troubleshooting, cleaning up messes, cooperating, taking over in an emergency, saving the day, discovering yourself, studying others, testing boundaries, coming of age, coming out, running away from home, going off the rails, subverting fate, learning what you can (and can't) do, sharing, preparing for the worst, fixing what's broke, upsetting the status quo, changing the world, accomplishing the impossible, recovering from setbacks, returning home, cyberspace, computer centers, HAMshack, robot factories, worldgates, liminal zones, schools, sharehouses, libraries, laboratories, supervillain lairs, makerspaces, nonhuman accommodations and adaptations, stores, starships, bizarre exoplanets, foreign dimensions, other places frequented by digital people, American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Robots, hardware, software, quicklife, artificial intelligence, ethics of self-aware machines, toolkits, space exploration, reversals, contradictions, conundrums, puzzling discoveries, sudden surprises, inventions that change everything, the buck stops here, trial and error, polarity, intercultural entanglements, asking for help and getting it, enemies to friends/lovers, interdimensional travel, lab conditions are not field conditions, superpower manifestation, the end of where your framework actually applies, ethics, innovation, problems that can't be solved by hitting, teamwork, found family, complementary strengths and weaknesses, personal growth, and poetic forms in particular.

Among my more relevant series for the main theme:

An Army of One has the AYES.

The Blueshift Troupers is designed for easy crossing with other genres or tropes as they visit different planets, thus can easily accommodate self-aware machines.

Diminished Expectations has the gynoid and others.

Kung Fu Robots is entirely about self-aware robots.

P.I.E. has Zephyr, a digital person.

Polychrome Heroics has the rescued sexbots among others.

Schrodinger's Heroes is dimensional science fiction, designed for easy crossing with any other characters / setting / genre, thus convenient for self-aware machines.

The Steamsmith includes the tommies.

Or you can ask for something new.

Linkbacks will reveal a verse of any open linkback poem.

If you're interested, mark the date on your calendar, and please hold actual prompts until the "Poetry Fishbowl Open" post next week. (If you're not available that day, or you live in a time zone that makes it hard to reach me, you can leave advance prompts. I am now.) Meanwhile, if you want to help with promotion, please feel free to link back here or repost this on your blog.

( New to the fishbowl? Read all about it! )

Current Mood: busy

ysabetwordsmith

Is lifestyle shaming good politics?

Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen wrote about the imperial mode of living to refer to lifestyles in the high income countries that were based on massive exploitation of cheap labor and cheap resources from poor countries. By framing the problem in this way, it seemed they were putting a lot of responsibility on people in high income countries about how they choose to live their lives, by engaging in consumption way beyond their needs.

( Read more... )

Current Mood: busy

soc_puppet

So the mood themes I've submitted to be site-supported already I did so in a somewhat haphazard and convoluted way (directly asked Denise about it in a

dw_news post, emailed from there). I thought it would be most polite this time around to go through official channels, rather than just digging up the emails I used last time and being all, "Hey, remember me? I made another mood theme!"

The official Dreamwidth Github wiki currently says that mood themes need to be emailed to Denise for review, but critically does not provide an email for Denise. Or any other way to contact her. The tags labeling her as staff seem to be broke. I tried submitting a support ticket about it, but was told that it would be easiest for me to just create my own Github account and submit the potential new mood theme as an issue.

I've got a Github account; I made one last year, as a possible way to submit my mood themes then, and decided it was waaaaay too complicated. I logged in again to give it a good faith effort, and good gravy, I can understand why I noped out last time! There's a shit-ton of how-to documentation to go through, and I really don't think all of it applies to me just. Submitting my silly images. But I also don't want to skip all of it, because I'm sure I'll miss out on something important if I do?

Anyway. I'm probably going to ask a friend if it'd be too cheeky of me to just try and join the DW Volunteers Discord and ask if someone would be willing to walk me through the process, because that's where I'm at now.

Current Mood: frustrated

eye_of_a_cat

Hello and thank you so much for making something for me! I have some general likes and DNWs here, and then some fandom-specific likes, thoughts and prompts on the ships. Everything beyond the DNWs are intended as ideas and suggestions only, though - please create whatever calls to you, and as long as it avoids my DNWs I'll be delighted to read it.

( Likes and NSFW likes, DNWs, and opt-ins )

( Star Wars )
( Babylon 5 )
( Rings of Power )
( Tolkien books )
( Eagle of the Ninth )
( Challengers )

brithistorian

An addendum to yesterday's QOTD from Jim Henson: When I was growing up, Jim Henson meant a lot to me. Not only because I enjoyed the shows and movies he created, but also also because I knew that he was also from Mississippi, so seeing what he was able to accomplish gave me hope that I would be able to rise above my geographic origins and do something worthwhile. When seemingly everyone who produces everything you enjoy or admire is from someplace else, you cling that much harder to the one example you have who came from the same place you do.

sovay

I had just been thinking about Jack Shepherd because he was one of the founding members of the Actors' Company which had sparked off in 1972 with Ian McKellen and Edward Petherbridge, whose memoir I was re-reading last night. He'd left the company by the time of their adaptation of R. D. Laing's Knots (1970) and thus does not appear in the 1975 film which seems to have been their only moving picture record, leaving me once again with strictly photographic evidence of this sort of reverse supergroup experiment in democratic theater. (Shepherd at far right resembles a pre-Raphaelite pin-up in jeans, but I like to think if I had Caroline Blakiston's arm round my shoulders I wouldn't look that brooding about it.) Then again, I missed most of his film and famous television work, too: my reaction to his death is derived entirely from his astonishing Renfield in the BBC Count Dracula (1977), who holds more than a candle to the icons of Dwight Frye or Pablo Álvarez Rubio, a heartbreakingly weird and human performance of a character who may not be entirely sane in a world with vampires in it, which doesn't mean he's not to be trusted about them. I loved how much of his lucidity slides between his Victorian hysteria and his careful impersonation of a reformed lunatic which is not always and for good reason convincing. I loved his kiss of Judi Bowker's Mina, not his master's initiatory drink, but a damned soul's benison, the offering of his life. Not just because he became my default horror icon on this site, I thought about him more than any other character from that sometimes surprisingly faithful adaptation. His bare wrists, his shocked hair. His actor had such a knack in the role for the liminal, death seems on some level too definite to believe.

Current Music: Jeff Tweedy, "Enough"

senmut

AO3 Link | Following the Fortunes of War: Chapter 4 (100 words) by Merfilly
Chapters: 6/6
Fandom: TOS - Dreadnought! - Diane Carey, TOS - Battlestations! - Diane Carey
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Piper/Sarda
Characters: Piper, Sarda, Judd "Scanner" Sandage, Merete AndrusTaurus
Additional Tags: Friendship, Slice of Life, POV First Person
Summary:

Various stories, following the friends from their novel adventures

Even I have my limits on 'winging it'. Scanner had been inventive, but we still had deteriorating dilithium crystals and were in, to use a Terran saying, B.F.E. near Gorn space.

I didn't lose my temper, something Sarda reassured me across our bond was for the best. I left the bridge, went down to our poor engineer, found Dyson had beat me there.

"Tell me what to do; Sarda has the conn."

"Aye aye captain," Skellus said, giving me tools and directions.

It was going to mean minimal power, and Scanner had saved us, but we'd get back to base.

lovelyangel

Yesterday I was shopping in the Nike Company Store, as I wanted to check out the new Nike Pegasus Premium shoes, and I was surprised by some music that started coming over the overhead sound system.

I was thinking that’s TWICE! And a recent song... maybe “Strategy”? Then, a moment later... ah, no! It’s “Do not touch” by MISAMO! Amazing! I could never have imagined a MISAMO song being played in a store in the United States.

(Admittedly, Nike works hard to keep up with current trends, especially in music. Their store music is on point, moreso than most places. Vibes are pretty important in sales.)

Last Friday, MISAMO announced their first full album, Play, would be released on February 4, 2026. MISAMO continues to up their momentum (somehow, in spite of being in the middle of a TWICE World Tour).

Tangentially related, today CDJapan notified me of the reissue of the Sound Collection of Gunbuster. I have the first two Gunbuster CD releases, but I don’t have this third release. The content of this 3-disc set has a big overlap with the first two CDs, but there is some material which is on neither. I was eager to place the preorder... but...

I realized the release date for the Gunbuster CD set, January 28, 2026 – just a few days before the MISAMO album release. The MISAMO Play album is not yet available for preorder. If I wait until it is, I can order the Gunbuster and MISAMO releases at the same time, and get them in a single shipment (coincidentally in time for Angel’s Month). I am now waiting... waiting...

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Page Summary

ysabetwordsmith - Poem: "No Worthless Herbs"
contrary_cal - Oh hey, it's Wednesday!
oursin - (no subject)
china_shop - Seen at the zoo today
pennyarcade_feed - X-Mas: Days Of Future Past
sholio - The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre
nanila in awesomeers - Just One Thing (26 November 2025)
girlgenius_main_feed - Girl Genius for Wednesday, November 26, 2025
adore - Treats
daily_illuminator_feed - November 26, 2025: Embark On Epic Adventures In Fighting Fantasy Books 6-10
ysabetwordsmith - Wildlife
ysabetwordsmith - Hard Things
ysabetwordsmith - Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, December 2
ysabetwordsmith - Politics
soc_puppet - Grumble grumble grumble
eye_of_a_cat - Dear Holly Poly writer
brithistorian - Addendum to yesterday's QOTD
sovay - Is your heart hiding from your fire?
senmut - 30 in 30: Star Trek Novels
lovelyangel - Delights from Japan

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Network

Poem: "No Worthless Herbs"

Oh hey, it's Wednesday!

(no subject)

Seen at the zoo today

X-Mas: Days Of Future Past

The Spy and the Traitor - Ben MacIntyre

Just One Thing (26 November 2025)

Girl Genius for Wednesday, November 26, 2025

Treats

November 26, 2025: Embark On Epic Adventures In Fighting Fantasy Books 6-10

Wildlife

Hard Things

Poetry Fishbowl on Tuesday, December 2

Politics

Grumble grumble grumble

Dear Holly Poly writer

Addendum to yesterday's QOTD

Is your heart hiding from your fire?

30 in 30: Star Trek Novels

Delights from Japan

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November 2025

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