oursin: Photograph of small impressionistic metal figurine seated reading a book (Reader)
[personal profile] oursin

What I read

After Hours at Dooryard Books was really good - set in 1968 in a used bookstore in Greenwich Village - this was so not a Summer of Love - but lots of Unhistoric Acts - also I really liked that what I feared was going to be one of those three-quarter way through Exposure of Dark Thing/Arising of Unexpected Crisis in Relationship actually didn't go angst angst angst wo wo wo.

Slightly Foxed #88: 'Pure Magic': pretty good selection, though rather irked by the guy fanboying over Room at the Top and all he can say about the sexism side of things is that the protag's behaviour to women 'may be less than admirable but he is not a cad'. O RLY. What do you call putting the local rich guy's daughter in the club and then chucking your older woman mistress, who dies horribly in a car accident?

Robert Rodi, Fag Hag (1992) - of its period perhaps. I think there may be works of his I remember more fondly than this one? Don't really recommend.

Dick Francis, Hot Money (1987): this is one in which I was waiting for the narrator to get, as per usual for a DF protag, nastily done over, probably by one of his siblings or in-laws in this convoluted tale of seething envies within the family of a much-married tycoon. He did get blown up but that was not personal and so did his father. No actually woodsheds but there was a glasshouse and various other nooks and crannies to see something nasty in.

On the go

Back to Lanny Budd - O Shepherd, Speak! (#10) (1949) - Lanny as ever finds himself where it's happening in the final stages of WW2 - have got to the aftermath of the war, and thinking about peace. Quite a way to go.

Up next

No idea.

Prompt 2679: Scratch

Nov. 26th, 2025 08:34 pm
immortalje: Typwriter with hands typing (Default)
[personal profile] immortalje posting in [community profile] dailyicons

Today's prompt is: scratch



• You have 2 days time to submit an icon for this prompt (in other words, until prompt 2681 gets posted)!
• Prompt 2677 have been closed.
• If you have any questions regarding the prompt, feel free to ask in a comment.
• To submit an icon you simply reply to this post with the following information:
Icon:
Claim: (only necessary if it's a specific claim)
Status: (e.g. #1/10 - number of icon completed/table size)

Pre-formatted

Book review: The Once and Future King

Nov. 26th, 2025 10:32 am
rocky41_7: (Default)
[personal profile] rocky41_7 posting in [community profile] booknook
Title: The Once and Future King
Author: T.H. White
Genre: Fantasy adventure

Last night I finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White, because I felt like it was time I made a real foray into the Arthurian legends. The actual first Arthurian book I read was The Mists of Avalon, but that was years ago and before I had heard the full story about Marion Zimmer Bradley. This book takes a decidedly different tone. I’m sticking to the most common name spellings for all of the characters here, because spellings do vary across all versions of these legends.

The first thing that surprised me about The Once and Future King is that it’s funny, and frequently in an absurd, dorky kind of way. Knights failing tilts because their visors fell over their eyes wrong, Merlin accidentally zapping himself away in the middle of a lesson because he was in a temper, the Questing Beast “falling in love” with two men dressed in a beast costume, that sort of thing. This silliness is largely concentrated in the first quarter of the book, which is about Arthur’s childhood, but it’s never fully lost.

The second surprise was how long the book focuses on Arthur’s childhood, but then again, it is setting the scene for Arthur’s worldview and the lessons he internalized as a child which shape his approach to being king.

Read more... )

Nonfiction

Nov. 26th, 2025 01:21 pm
rivkat: Dean reading (dean reading)
[personal profile] rivkat
Michael Grunwald, We Are Eating the Earth: The thing about land is that they aren’t making any more of it, and although you can make more farmland (for now) from forests, it’s not a good idea. This means that agriculture is hugely important to climate change, but most of the time proposals for, e.g., biofuels or organic farming don’t take into account the costs in farmland. The book explores various things that backfired because of that failed accounting and what might work in the future. Bonus: the audiobook is narrated by Kevin R. Free, the voice of Murderbot, who turns out to be substantially more expressive when condemning habitat destruction.

Tony Magistrale & Michael J. Blouin, King Noir: The Crime Fiction of Stephen King (feat. Stephen King and Charles Ardai): Treads the scholarly/popular line, as the inclusion of a chapter by King and a “dialogue” with Ardai suggest. The book explores King’s noir-ish work like Joyland, but also considers his horror protagonists as hardboiled detectives, trying to find out why bad things happen (and, in King’s own words, often finding the noirish answer “Because they can.”). I especially liked the reading of Wendy Torrance as a more successful detective than her husband Jack. Richard Bachman shows up as the dark side of King’s optimism (I would have given more attention to the short stories—they’re also mostly from the Bachman era and those often are quite bleak). And the conclusion interestingly explores the near-absence of the (living) big city and the femme fatale—two noir staples—from King’s work, part of a general refusal of fluidity.

Gerardo Con Diaz, Everyone Breaks These Laws: How Copyrights Made the Online World: This book is literally not for me because I live and breathe copyright law and it is a tour through the law of copyright & the internet that is aimed at an intelligent nonlawyer. Although I didn’t learn much, I appreciated lines like “Back then, all my porn was illegally obtained, and it definitely constituted copyright infringement.” The focus is on court cases and the arguments behind them, so the contributions of “user generated content” and, notably, fanworks to the ecosystem don’t get a mention.

Stephanie Burt, Taylor’s Version: The Poetic and Musical Genius of Taylor Swift: longer )

Kyla Sommers, When the Smoke Cleared: The 1968 Rebellions and the Unfinished Battle for Civil Rights in the Nation’s Capital: Extensive account of the lead-up to, experience of, and consequences of the 1968 riots after MLK Jr.’s assassination. There was some interesting stuff about Stokely Carmichael, who (reportedly) told people to go home during the riots because they didn’t have enough guns to win. (Later: “According to the FBI, Carmichael held up a gun and declared ‘tonight bring your gun, don’t loot, shoot.’ The Washington Post, however, reported Carmichael held up a gun and said, ‘Stay off the streets if you don’t have a gun because there’s going to be shooting.’”) Congress did not allow DC to control its own political fate, and that shaped how things happened, including the limited success of citizens’ attempts to direct development and get more control over the police, but ultimately DC was caught up in the larger right-wing backlash that was willing to invest in prisons but not in sustained economic opportunity. Reading it now, I was struct by the fact that—even without riots, fires, or other large-scale destruction—white people who don’t live in the area are still calling for military occupation because they don’t feel safe. So maybe the riots weren’t as causal as they are considered.
tinny: Guardian: Watercolor painting of the Black Cloak Envoy kissing Zhao Yunlan (made for me by goss) (guardian_weilan painted kiss)
[personal profile] tinny
I thought those were too pretty as a set to post them in a drop post... so here they are all in one: the ones I made for [community profile] icontalking for the theme "Hair", and the ones I made for [community profile] your_favourites for the theme "Favourite hairstyle" (= men with long hair):

Teasers:


14 hair icons - Kpop Demon Hunters, the Long Ballad, Guardian, Tangled )

I love comments, and if you have concrit for me, I'm open for that, too. All my icons are free to take and use, credit is appreciated. The list of makers whose textures and brushes I like to use is here in my resource post.

Previous icon posts:

wychwood: Teyla thinks Earth people are weird, and Ford has to agree (SGA - Teyla Ford insane native customs)
[personal profile] wychwood
I saw another article today that mentioned something in passing about libertarians wanting to go back on the gold standard, preppers hoarding gold, etc, and the thing that I don't understand is - why do people think that gold will be valuable in an apocalyptic / post-apocalyptic scenario?

The idea seems to be that paper money is a fiat currency and therefore won't be worth anything when society collapses (not to mention that hardly anyone carries any paper money these days!), which is probably true, or close enough. Therefore you should put your money into gold, which will still be valuable.

But it seems to me that gold in this context is effectively just another form of currency, a medium of exchange - gold itself doesn't have any real use that I know of beyond a) looking pretty and b) being exchangeable for things of value. Maybe c) there's some electrical stuff that uses tiny amounts of gold I think? So it's only valuable because other people agree that it's valuable, because other people will take it in exchange for other goods or services, because we have culturally agreed that gold is valuable.

I just feel like, you know, after the apocalypse when the survivors are starving and everyone's trying to grow crops or whatever, to quote what is probably Revelations 6:6 (via Larry Norman) "a piece of bread will buy a bag of gold". Or as Peter Blegvad (via Fairport Convention) says, "gold is the lowliest of metals - too soft for serious use; pretty, of course, warm to the touch..."

On the other hand, a lot of different cultures from many parts of the world appear to have agreed that gold is valuable. So what am I missing? Why are you better to put your savings into gold than, I don't know, aluminium or seed stocks or liquid nitrogen or something - anything - that would have actual use-value?
philomytha: Biggles and Ginger clinging to a roof (Follows On rooftop chase)
[personal profile] philomytha
Still reading steadily through the series. These books are just perfect for decompression reading, they're mostly lightweight though with the odd flash of seriousness, they're full of fun hijinks and adventures, all the characters are very nicely drawn and overall they're just plain fun to read. Plus a nice sprinkling of historical interest for the period.

Among Those Absent
Prisoners are escaping and disappearing with tremendous success. Tommy Hambledon has to find out why. While Biggles would have tackled this by looking for rogue airplanes, Hambledon tackles this by getting himself a cover as a fraudster and being sent to prison, whereupon he muscles in on someone else's escape and gets rescued from prison. By hot air balloon and parachute. And after Hambledon and a fellow escapee have a wonderful hot air balloon and parachute ride, they then have to deal with the fact that the escape gang want paying for their rescue out of the totally fictional ill-gotten gains Hambledon is supposed to have stashed somewhere. In the process of dealing with this, Hambledon encounters a different slightly shady group of guys who--well, their leader lives in a truly flamboyantly ridiculous suburban mansion which is named, and I really could not believe my eyes when I read this, Kuminboys. It is almost redundant to add that he has all sorts of miscellaneous young men calling on him at all hours who are willing to do all sorts of shady odd jobs for him. He deals with blackmailers unofficially. Manning and Coles never say anyone is gay or refer to sexuality in any way, but then they do things like this and I love it. And, well, there is a plot involving Hambledon sorting out the prison break gang, but I'm afraid my brain seized up at Kuminboys and I can't actually remember what happened otherwise. The anti-blackmail gang was fine at the end and so was Tommy, and that's the main thing.

Not Negotiable
This one opens with a prologue explaining that the Nazis had an industrial-scale programme forging currency from the various Allied countries in an effort to destabilise their economies. Now, after the war, large numbers of dubious notes are turning up across France and Belgium and Tommy Hambledon is trying to find the source. A fun Belgian detective teams up with him for this, and lots of Manning & Coles's usual vivid secondary characters including a reformed crook and a young man who tries crime and doesn't like it, plus two young women who attack a gangster with a frying pan with considerable success. Not one of the most outstanding, but plenty of fun to read.

Diamonds To Amsterdam
This was an absolute classic, featuring a mad scientist, so many people in disguise, gold and jewels and a seaplane and a Very Significant Umbrella and kidnappings and escapes and really everything you could possibly want. The story opens with our mad scientist being found murdered. The mad scientist in question had just solved, allegedly, the problem of how to turn silver into gold, and then someone bludgeoned him over the head and his notes all disappeared. Then his assistant disappeared, then his machinery was stolen, and Tommy Hambledon is traipsing around a Home Counties village trying to find clues to all of this and figure out what was going on, with occasional trips to Amsterdam thrown in for good measure. A great ride, plus some excellent whump as various characters are drugged or kidnapped and imprisoned, lots of fun all around.

Dangerous By Nature
Tommy Hambledon visits Central America. While this had some moments of period-typical racism, it was not as bad as I expected. The story was a familiar one from multiple Biggles and a Gimlet on this theme: in a fictional Central American state, a slightly lost British sailor saw a ship secretly unloading goods in a remote part of the country while hiding its identification. Hambledon is sent to investigate. He is told that he can liaise with the excellent American spy Mr Hobkirk who is already there; however no such person ever comes up. Instead he has a peculiarly devoted and helpful local man named Matteo who follows him around everywhere, produces useful information and kills assassins and generally devotes himself to Hambledon's wellbeing and work, far more than you would expect from the guy who you paid to carry your luggage to the hotel. Hambledon, unusually for him, has no suspicions about the identity of the capable and knowledgeable Matteo. Anyway, the country is run by your standard thriller dictator who has annoyed the local aristocracy and is fleecing the local peasantry and has plans to flee the country with all the wealth he can carry away, soon. Hambledon discovers that the mysterious cargo was of course weapons, supplied by the Russians; however the Russians are somewhat inexplicably arming both the President and also the old aristos who oppose him, and having bought everyone off with guns, they are busy building something involving lots of concrete in the middle of the jungle. Hambledon investigates, nearly gets killed many times over in the classic way, discovers he does not like jungles at all, and eventually figures out what it's all about. (spoilers for the plot)
It's atom bombs. The Russians are building a missile site so they can launch atom bombs at the Panama Canal. This book was written in 1950 and it's clear that Manning and Coles don't know that much about atom bombs at this point, because apparently there are twelve atomic warheads on site. This site gets shelled by the aristocrats, and the atom bombs are all set off by accident. Hambledon, hiding down the valley with his friends a few miles away, is fine. Radiation and fallout are not a concern for anyone. It's fascinating seeing that while everyone is scared of atom bombs, they are not nearly scared enough, they're treated as being functionally the same as super-sized regular bombs and there is no mention of any further ill effects. Hambledon arranges that the story is put out that a previously unknown volcano erupted and that was what the big mushroom cloud was all about (the mushroom cloud, evidently, they have heard of). And once all the atom bombs have detonated, the whole story is over.


Now Or Never
Hambledon has heard rumours of a secret resurgent Nazi society in occupied Cologne and heads out to investigate. Forgan and Campbell, our gay model train shop and lawbreaking-for-fun guys, come along to help out, impersonating the Spanish financiers who are supposed to be meeting the Nazis in Cologne - a job that does not become easier when the actual Spaniards show up. Meanwhile, Hambledon makes friends with an earnest and enthusiastic German private detective, and tries to figure out what's going on. Excellent atmospheric descriptions of bombed-out Cologne and life there as things start to recover postwar. These are all very much immediate postwar books, and it's fascinating to see what the attitudes are and the snippets of different settings, in France and the Netherlands and Germany and England, every character has a war backstory of some sort and most of the plots are about leftovers of war one way and another.

Alias Uncle Hugo
A Ruritanian adventure of a familiar mould for Biggles readers. Tommy Hambledon is undercover in Soviet-occupied Ruritania to retrieve the teenage king of Ruritania, who is living incognito with his elderly tutor to care for him, and take him to England. Presumably to head up a government-in-exile or possibly to go to school, Manning and Coles wisely leave the politics to look after themselves and concentrate on the fun bits, ie Hambledon undercover as a Soviet inspector of factories trying to find an opportunity to extract young Kaspar from his Very Communist School For Little Communists. Unlike Biggles, Hambledon has no compunction at all about leaving a trail of bodies behind him and does cheerfully shoot people in the head the minute they suspect him. He also has a great line in making friend with people and then dropping them in the shit, in this case several senior communist police officers who think he's the bee's knees right up until they get killed or arrested for their connection with him. There's some excellent Aeroplane Content in this one too, Hambledon doesn't team up with Biggles but his life might have been a bit easier if he had, and being sent to make a stealth landing in Ukraine to retrieve the Ruritanian Prince and the British spy who's rescued him is exactly the sort of job Biggles does all the time. But Hambledon has to figure out his own aeroplane evacuation, and there's plenty of aeroplane fun as he does so.

2025.11.26

Nov. 26th, 2025 06:09 am
lsanderson: (Default)
[personal profile] lsanderson
Trump may have inadvertently issued mass pardon for 2020 voter fraud, experts say
Pardons of Giuliani and others who took part in fake elector scheme were largely symbolic, but could have a big effect
Sam Levine in New York
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/25/trump-voter-fraud-pardon

Review
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery review – Josh O’Connor excels in another deadpan delight
Daniel Craig is joined by a sparkling array of talent including O’Connor, Glenn Close and Josh Brolin in this latest murder mystery with a religious undercurrent
Peter Bradshaw
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/nov/26/wake-up-dead-man-a-knives-out-mystery-review-josh-oconnor-excels-in-another-deadpan-delight

Do you know your Hopper from your Hellfire Club? Take our ultimate Stranger Things quiz
The final season of the epic Netflix 80s show is about to air. But how much can you remember about the world of the Upside Down? Test your knowledge with our fiendish quiz
Tom Huddleston
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/nov/26/ultimate-stranger-things-quiz

Study claims to provide first direct evidence of dark matter
Astrophysicist Prof Tomonori Totani says research could be crucial breakthrough in search for elusive substance
Ian Sample Science editor
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/nov/25/study-claims-to-provide-first-direct-evidence-of-dark-matter

Previously unknown Renoir painting sells for 1.8m euros at Paris auction
The oil painting depicting the artist’s son Jean had never been exhibited or sold before.
Agence France-Presse
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2025/nov/26/unknown-renoir-painting-son-sells-18m-euros-auction

floods ravage South East Asia
Kelly Ng
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ckg97wx144jo

The Abandons to Fallout: Nine of the best TV shows to watch this December
Caryn James
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20251124-nine-of-the-best-tv-shows-to-watch-this-december

John Quigley, chef to stars Bryan Adams and Tina Turner, dies
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgqzylxp4ewo

Former Harvest Best basketball coach gets life sentence in child sex-abuse case
Aaron Hjermstad’s charges stem from thousands of videos authorities found in his car after he fled the state in 2021. Authorities say there could be more than 120 victims in the videos.
by Katrina Pross
https://sahanjournal.com/public-safety/youth-basketball-coach-aaron-hjermstad-gets-life-sentence/

‘Abhorrent’: St. Paul City Council member criticizes police conduct at federal arrest
St. Paul police used tear gas and pepper spray Tuesday as hundreds of demonstrators confronted them and dozens of federal agents on the city’s East Side.
by Shubhanjana Das
https://sahanjournal.com/immigration/st-paul-east-side-ice-police-arrest/
sholio: shadowy man in trench coat (Noir detective)
[personal profile] sholio
I read this book over the last couple of days on [personal profile] 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, [personal profile] 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 )

Just One Thing (26 November 2025)

Nov. 26th, 2025 08:00 am
nanila: me (Default)
[personal profile] nanila posting in [community profile] 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!

Grumble grumble grumble

Nov. 25th, 2025 10:19 pm
soc_puppet: A brown hooded rat seen from behind as it is surfing the web at a desktop computer; barely visible on the computer's screen is the Dreamwidth logo (Computer time)
[personal profile] 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 [site community profile] 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.

Dear Holly Poly writer

Nov. 26th, 2025 03:23 am
eye_of_a_cat: (Default)
[personal profile] 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 )

Spammers and hate!bots at AO3.

Nov. 25th, 2025 07:40 pm
starwatcher: Western windmill, clouds in background, trees around base. (Default)
[personal profile] starwatcher
 

One of my friends just got a new-to-her comment on AO3, and I realized that a lot of people don't know about this, and it's a real gut-punch to get one out of the blue. Since forewarned is forearmed, I'll share what I know in case it happens to you. Feel free to copy and/or share this post wherever you feel it could be useful.

I see daily complaints / questions about this on Reddit. AO3 is having a terrible influx of bots and/or scammers. A common variant is a comment that is thrilled with your story, such that they want to "create art" or "create comics" or "discuss ideas for improvement." If someone says 'yes', the next request is to talk off AO3, where they start discussing/demanding money.

There are various forms of hate!bots. "Your story started out so good, then you ruined it by doing X, Y, and Z, how could you let down your readers like that?" Or, "Oh my god, who told you could write? Your story is ordinary and boring, and your grammar and sentence structure are the pits! Go back to school and grow up before you try writing again." By reports, some of them are quite viciously savage. Or, "Your story would be so much better if you included transgender representation; please think of all the trans folks who need to see themselves in media and add a trans character to your story!"

Another is accusations of using AI to write your story, they'll report you immediately, how dare you cheat like that, and you should delete all your stories / account now before you get banned. (For the record, AI is allowed at AO3.)

In other words -- anything that seems outside the norms of fandom interaction is probably a bot or scammer. For example, you know I make art, but I don't approach the author before I start to "sell" them on the idea. I make the art because I want to, then post it, then give the writer the code to use or not, as they choose. There's no going off AO3 to "discuss" it.

(Although there have been a few email exchanges with authors I knew well, to ask their preferences about projects I'd already started. Like "this dress or that dress?" And, "tree A or tree B?" But the dress and tree would be there regardless. It's all about context.)

The recommended response to any of these bots/scammers is to report the comment, then let AO3 deal with and swat them.

So far -- knock on wood -- I haven't had one of these comments, but I've learned about them from Reddit. (That's where I got all my examples.) As I said, be on the lookout, and share where appropriate.

EDIT: [personal profile] raine reminds me that there have also been hacking bots, trying to get into AO3 accounts. Users get an email saying, "someone has requested a password reset for your account." They can be ignored; since it comes to your email, it shows that the bots didn't succeed. AO3's statement is:
“We've recently received a number of other reports from users who are receiving password reset emails that they did not request. We would like to reassure you that receiving these emails does not necessarily mean that someone is deliberately trying to harass you or gain access to ("hack") your account, nor does it mean that your account is at risk.

Password reset emails are automatic messages sent when someone enters either your username or email address into the 'Forgot Password?' form. The emails themselves are not a security threat, and can be safely ignored so long as the email address associated with your AO3 account is secure. Your password will not change unless you use the password reset link."


Peace.

 

Is your heart hiding from your fire?

Nov. 25th, 2025 05:27 pm
sovay: (Renfield)
[personal profile] 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.

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