larryhammer | Network

At which I was able to make a couple of minor contributions.

Reason why serving soldiers a very small statistical minority in divorce statistics pre-1914 (post then increased massively....): there were huge restrictions on how many could marry 'on the strength' so there were fairly few actually married in the first place. Mi knowinz on this partly from Victorian fiction (I think it features in one of Charlotte Yonge's) but mostly from Being A Historian who had to do with the Contagious Diseases Acts.

Also able to make some comments apropos of preserving archives of relevant organisations and the problems of digital records.

A lot of oh dear less change than one would like to imagine took place over time in matters of divorce, family disruption, domestic abuse, gendered assumptions, etc etc: but also, a sense that, in fact Back in The Past when women may not have had much agency, they were nevertheless using what they could get, e.g. separation law, protection orders, and various legal intricacies.

Also wondered how far they were able to manipulate (or the law was actually based on) certain patriarchal assumptions, which is what I found when reviewing book by one of the major contributors - i.e. that deserting husbands were falling down on doing patriarchy like they should, bad boy, no more right of coverture if your wife goes through a fairly cheap and simple legal procedure, post-1857.

Also there was a lot of archive love going on!

soemand

I've been profiling my home and work environments for ambient noise to better understand my listening experience. At home, it's a serene 25 dBA, while my workplace averages a much more active 50 dBA.

To maintain focus, I use headphones that provide 40 dB of isolation, and I typically listen to music at levels between 70-75 dB. Because most commercial music is mastered with a dynamic range of around 60 dB, the audio easily swamps any stray external sounds that might try to sneak through. All told, this setup creates a total sonic bubble—don't hear the background at all, regardless of what's happening around me.

Current Music: Wild World, Cat Stevens

thisbluespirit

Hello, I am still recovering, etc. Quite nicely as these things go, but still not up to doing all my usual little things.

Anyway, thought of something fannish and fun I could do if anyone wanted it - I made a personalised bingo card for

theseatheseatheopensea once, which was fun, and I do always love doing that kind of thing. So...

... if anyone else would find a custom-made bingo card (for writing/creating prompts) fun/useful/inspiring, comment here and I will have a go at making you one!

(I'll use the Bingo Generator, so it's very easy, and if I fail and include some rubbish prompts, a new card without such prompts can magically be re-generated with no trouble. Will do any size from 2x2 to 5x5.)

So just comment here if you'd like one & say what size card you'd prefer. You can also point me to/away from any fandoms/prompt types etc if you'd like, but no need. (If I'm really stuck for some reason, I'll just ask you for some pointers!)

lauradi7dw

Hey ding-dongs, let’s have a chit-chat about Ablaut reduplication.

If you have three words, the order usually goes 'I-A-O.'
-tic-tac-toe

If there are only two words, ‘I’ is the first and the second is either ‘A’ or ‘O.’
-click-clack
-King-Kong

smittenkitchen_feed

Posted by deb

https://smittenkitchen.com/2026/01/simple-crispy-pan-pizza/

https://smittenkitchen.com/?p=95129

If you want a homemade pizza that requires no kneading, no special flour, or long wait time (because who among us has ever said “what I really crave is pizza that will be ready 1 to 3 days from now”), you should really, really be making more pan pizzas at home. You might even consider it a worthwhile addition to your 2026 cooking bucket list.

https://smittenkitchen.com/2026/01/simple-crispy-pan-pizza/

https://smittenkitchen.com/?p=95129

schneefink

I think this is the last year I do

fandomtrees because like last time I didn't make as many gifts as I wanted and feel bad...

But I did write a post-canon Silksong drabble I'm quite proud of:
Silk Snare for

knave_of_swords
post-canon Lace(&Hornet) drabble
Summary: Much Silk was needed to see her sustained.
Notes: One of my favorite fannish drabbles I've written, I think it works very well.

I got pretty icons under my tree: some Hornet icons by

gimmighoulcoins and some Grian icons by

sarajayechan :D Lovely.

And I also got two other Silksong gifts recently:
Sunlight Dyed by

CrushingOnGogh
stained glass art
Summary: Hornet from Silksong, depicted in stained glass
So pretty! The lights and the colors and the shapes!

reprieve by

strifetxt
1k, Hornet & Shakra gen
Summary: Hornet, a conversation, and a musing.
Aaah the Hornet feelings <3

yourlibrarian posting in

tv_talk

Laptop-TV combo with DVDs on top and smartphone on the desk

Do you watch educational TV shows or documentaries? What makes these shows watchable or interesting to you? Are there particular ones that spoke to you?

brickhousewench

Quick Bullet Point Update for ya!

* Last Tuesday was my sister’s birthday. I found the perfect quote on Pinterst to send her for her birthday, "Happy Birthday to the only person in the world who fully understands why we turned out like this."
* Last Wednesday had dinner with

dredpiratebunny and her partner Jeff. It was nice to get a chance to chat with him and get to know him a bit better. Also, I came home with leftovers. =D
* Last Thursday Renn Adventures left for Egypt without me. I had hoped to sign up for the trip this year, but it just doesn’t feel like the right time to travel to the Middle East (again!). I had signed up for the initial 2024 trip that got cancelled due to the October Hamas attack on Israel back in 2023. The rescheduled 2025 trip was right after our trip to Pavia last year, so didn’t go on that one. And this year it still didn’t feel right. Someday I will make it to Egypt with Carl.
* Last Friday I had my first massage of the year with Jenny. It had been a month since I’d seen her due to the holidays. I needed that!
* I spent my three day weekend re-reading Hillbilly Elegy (by VP J.D.Vance) and reading Nobody’s Girl (by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre). Both were rather depressing books, as both grew up in completely dysfunctional families.
* Monday was my dad’s birthday, so called the folks to chat.

And now I’m back to work. Busy busy busy trying to get stuff done before end of quarter/end of fiscal year.

jazzy_dave

Bill Bryson "A Walk in the Woods" (Black Swan)

A Walk in the Woods opens with the author and his family moved back to the US, settling in New Hampshire. The author, never having attempted true, rugged hiking, becomes enamored with the idea of taking on the Appalachian Trail. This famous trail begins at Springer Mountain, Georgia and extends an astonishingly 2,000 (arguably more) miles to end in Maine at Mount Katahdin. Bryson’s journey actually begins when he finds himself and his credit card gearing up for the endeavour while also trying to lure friends from far and wide to join him on the excursion.

Katz, a former friend from childhood days in Iowa, answers the call for companionship. The reader is shocked when he appears out of shape and overweight with a dubious past – one cannot help but marvel (and giggle) at the contrast between the two men as they struggle with themselves, each other, and the famous hiking trail. Along the way, the reader meets other characters who become memorable despite their short stays; such as Chicken John the habitually lost hiker and Mary Ellen with the musical eustachian tubes. Seriously, you can’t make this stuff up.

Bryson has an uncanny knack for mixing humour with sobering facts. A Walk in the Woods finds the author blatantly honest about his own foibles, and those of others while attempting to hike the legendary Appalachian Trail. All the while he continues his commentary on deforestation, the US Parks & Wildlife service, and human ineptness in general. At 397 pages the book is more than a weekend read and may require some patience when reading through the author’s many elaborations on the danger we, as clumsy humans, pose to nature. Though the work was published in 2006 it is more relevant than ever both in consideration of climate change, as well as man’s desire to conquer even a small span of wilderness.

kitarella_imagines

Challenge #10: Big Mood (Board)

CHOOSE SOMETHING YOU LOVE AND CREATE A MINI MOOD COLLECTION OF THREE (or more) ITEMS THAT EVOKE YOUR FEELINGS ABOUT IT. You don’t have to limit yourself to visual media, or collect the items into a special format like a square (though you can if you’d like).

I had no clue what to do for this challenge but innitmarvellous told me about Colour Picking Palettes. So here is my GOAT Marc Marquez and his brother Alex, and their palettes! It is a mood board about their colours. Marc tends to be red, Alex tends to be blue. Also, Marc really does look like an elf these days, his ears and nose are getting pointed.😅

Here is an additional colour scheme for Alex, so he's not overshadowed by Marc:

Current Mood: artistic

james_davis_nicoll

Prime Minister Mark Carney, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland,

jazzy_dave

Rita Indiana "Made in Saturn" (And Other Stories)

We meet Argenis in the Havana airport--his father has sent him from the DR to detox. That doesn't go as planned, but we learn a lot about Argenis. When he makes it back to his aunt in the DR, we learn as he does.

Argenis struggles with his family history--and that is what this book is about. He is the younger and un-favored son of a former revolutionary. His parents were revolutionaries in the 60s. His father then flipped and took a position in Balaguer's government, and is now fairly high up. Argenis has little to no respect for his father, or his older brother who was a show-off as a child and is now a businessman who uses their father's connections. Argenis, meanwhile, is an artist and has attended art school. He started with cocaine before becoming hooked on heroin. Does he want to stop? It's unclear, but he DOES want to be able to function, to do his art, to not constantly be on the hunt for his next high.

As he manages to stay off the heroin, he learns more about what his parents, their friends, and his aunt went through--and about his grandmother's life as a maid--he gains some perspective. He has only ever wanted to do art. Not to perform recitations on his father's command as his brother did. Nor to use his father's connections to succeed in business--as his brother does. Yet he also finds it very sad how his grandmother--who now owns her former employers' house--still wears her maid's uniform and sleeps in her maid's room. Though she only serves herself. It seems he is ready to grow up and find a happy medium, if he can stay away from heroin.

brithistorian

Yesterday, I finished reading Beggars and Choosers by Nancy Kress, the sequel to Beggars in Spain. I enjoyed this book and found it engaging enough that the problems I had with Beggars in Spain no longer bother me.

As I noted in my reaction to Beggars in Spain, given the power of the other genetic modifications on the Sleepless, the lack of a need to sleep seems almost like an afterthought. Apparently Kress realized this as well, because in this book, humanity is divided into four groups (listed here in decreasing order of genetic modification):

Super-sleepless (AKA Supers)
Sleepless
Donkeys
Livers[^1]

The Sleepless are pretty much written out of the story — most of them are in prison by this point, and the ones who aren't are pretty much helpless to affect the course of the story. The Sleepless are still necessary to the overall arc of the story, though, as without them there would be no Super-sleepless.

I think the problems that I still have with both this book and with Beggars in Spain come down to them being the first two parts of a trilogy where the parts are pretty much inseparable[^2]. Looking back from Beggars and Choosers, Beggars in Spain becomes sort of a prologue ("I told you that story so I can tell you this one..."). I don't really feel like it would be possible to tell the story of Beggars and Choosers without having told Beggars in Spain first — there's simply too much to try to squeeze it all into early chapters and/or memories. At the same time, Beggars and Choosers suffers from "second book of a trilogy" disease: it doesn't end so much as just stops.

Also, I'd like to remind/inform you: I keep a list of links to the monthly logs of books that I read at this sticky post, and the monthly logs contain links to the reactions I've written. If you see a book title without a link, it means I haven't written a reaction to that book, but if you'd like to hear what I thought about it, leave a comment and I'll write a reaction!

[^1] I think "Livers" in this context is rather an awkward word — my mind immediately went to the organ, but instead it's formed from the very "to live."

[^2] It seems like there ought to be one word for "three stories told in three consecutive books which share the same world and characters" and another word for "one story split into three books because of the limitations of bookbinding and/or the nature of the publishing industry," instead of using "trilogy" for both.

mallorys_camera

We are in the midst of a severe solar storm, the magnitude of which has not been seen since 2003. The Aurora Borealis is supposed to be visible to the naked eye at my latitude, but I had to use the night settings on my iPhone camera to snap this:

And the Arctic blast is back. It is cold out. Very, very, very cold. Not supposed to rise above 18° F for the next three days.

###

As above, so below.

Trump is literally sundowning—a thing that happens to many people with dementia. They may seem coherent during the day, but at night, they lose it entirely, hence Trump's late-night social media posting mania: Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace!

The historical comparison is no longer strictly to Nazis anymore—though ICE is the Gestapo.

No, the historical comparison is more to Caligula.

Assuming human history continues past 10 years—to my mind, not a safe assumption at all—historians are going to be asking the same question over & over again, WHY didn't they DO something? He was so obviously insane.

Honestly, I do not know.

This is very, very difficult to live through.

Because, I mean, what do we do?

Ignore it? Keep living our lives as though it isn't happening?

There's a core of physical dread inside of me; I walk around, trying to ignore it, trying to maintain, but that's increasingly hard to do.

###

I have a bunch of errands to do today, plus the gym—bad weather has kept me away from the gym since Thursday last—but I have very little interest in doing them, very little interest in doing anything. Even parking myself in front of a screen & watching mindless television would not distract me from the mind monkey sitting on the Bodhi Tree's branch & chittering.

But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, so I guess I'll force myself to do those errands. As the I Ching reminds us: Perseverance furthers.

feuervogel

It's probably my last, because I've had increasingly stronger reactions over the last 3 or 4. After the original pair, I had the expected muscle aches and tiredness, but after the last one, I had fever (38.6) and chills and spent 2 days in bed with max ibuprofen until a friend suggested taking Benadryl. That cleared it up.

Yesterday I took 25 mg of Benadryl before the shot (3 pm) and another 25 after (because I didn't want to pass out on the bus), then went to bed early. Today I've had worsening fever and chills that Benadryl helps somewhat, and I just took 600 mg of ibu because I woke up from my nap and was shivering violently. I'm also hungry and queasy at the same time, and my neck is sore and stiff.

I went for a short walk before getting groceries and felt Wrong, and while I was shopping, I got queasy.

So most likely it's some kind of allergic-type reaction. I can't find anything useful through Duck Duck Go, unfortunately. I don't know if I should go to a doctor if I'm not better tomorrow.

The ibu brought down my fever and made my skin stop hurting, so that's an improvement. I'm going to go eat some applesauce, because the thought of anything solid makes me gag.

daisyface posting in

fandomcalendar

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Current Mood: excited

paperghost posting in

journalsandplanners

ysabetwordsmith suggested I share this short list of resources for printing stickers and other relevant accessories.

This is old news, but Stickermule has shown their asses again by giving away free pro-ICE merchandise, so people have been scrambling for other suppliers for custom stickers. I'm thinking about ordering stickers of my art by Harmonycon. I can't keep up with a million tweets and my Bluesky feed is already scrambled, so here's what I've found:

https://www.standoutstickers.com/
https://stickerguy.com/
https://thestickybrand.com/en-ca (limited time deals page is worth looking at)
https://thestickerlad.com/home (website looks like a WIP but furry-owned. Prices are ok)
https://stickerninja.com/ (this looks like Stickermule's biggest rival)
https://unionmadestickers.com/en-ca (you can probably use them for non-union stuff lol)
https://stickerblitz.com/ (another rival with good prices)
https://zapcreatives.com/en-us
https://wiki.scumsuck.com/resources:stickers (guide on how to print your stickers at home. Lists options for scanners and paper to buy, etc.)
Vograce orders from China but I've had a good experience ordering sample packs and one-off keychains from them. YMMV. It's better for physical goods. Not sure of any alternatives that let you do one-off orders.

birdandmoon_feed

https://www.tumblr.com/birdandmoon/806265542645317632

How to get into nature.

Nature valentines available here.

https://www.tumblr.com/birdandmoon/806265542645317632

shipperslist

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lydamorehouse

Your daily laser-eyed loon, this one facing forward, determined, shooting its lasers to say "Melt Ice." (by Rin Mix)

Yesterday, as noted it was one of our colder days. It was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, so Shawn had the day off work. I decided to limit my activities, though I did sign up to a Discord group which is organizing around doing laundry for people who have now been stuck indoors for so long trying to wait out the gestapo occupation.

One of the things I decided to do, however, was go singing. Our hyper-local singing group decided that due to the temperature, people would start inside a coffee shop. Our organizer made sure it was okay for us to sing a little bit indoors, but since people in the Twin Cities often gather at coffee shops to do work, we kept our indoor songs to a minimum. We then braved the outdoors for a couple of rounds of various songs, including this incredible re-working of Pete Seeger's "Which Side Are You On?"

The chorous remains the same, but the verses now read:

Come all you good people
Some news to you I'll tell
Of how your loving neighbors
Have come to give ICE hell

Chorus:
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?

Another neighbor killed today
Oh when will this all cease?
Another mother dead, my friends
Murdered by police.

[chorus]

My mother was a feminst
And she taught me how to see
The road to ruin is paved with gold
by the patriarchy

[chorus]

So let the North Star* guide us
Back towards democracy
Reject the threats of fascists
Or we can not be free

[chorus]

Oh, neighbors, can you feel it?
Oh, tell me that you can.
Will you stay silent?
Or will you take a stand?

[chorus x2]

I found this version to be incredibly powerful and while we were standing outside the coffee shop on Snelling Avenue singing our hearts out, a car at the stoplight opened its doors. I turned, expecting the worst, but it was a beat-up Toyota and probably the window crank didn't work and so the people inside were trying to hear what we were singing/saying. They were a couple of Lantinx guys and hearing what we were singing brought HUGE SMILES to their faces. When they noticed us noticing them they gave us big thumbs up, smiles, and waves.

That reminded me that even small acts are sustaining... to the fighters and those we fight for.

I also ran into a friend of a friend who also lives in Midway, so it was really nice to actually see a familiar face while out and about.

I was also happy to see that the New York Times finally had a big article about the mutual aid efforts in today's paper.They focused exculsively on the food donattions, and again, I wish that people could see the whole huge variety of things people are doing--the scope of which is truly staggering. However, it's a good article and if you are local (or are interested in what I'm talking about),

naomikritzer did a lovely round-up of ways to get involved on her blog: https://naomikritzer.com/2026/01/19/how-to-help-twin-cities-residents/ She has promised to work on a similar list for folks from out-of-town/national/international who want to help as well. I'll post that here once she writes it.

All right, comrades. Stay warm! Stay strong!

===

For those of you who might not know, the Minnesota state motto is E'toile du Nord (in French) which translates as The Star of the North. If you see protestors shouting that phrase, they are not Canadian (or French) agitators, but folks who have decided that being the star of the north means that we are leading the country in how to defend democracy.

themis1 posting in

girlmeetstrouble

Chapter 14: ( Read more... )

Comment: The line ‘all women love semi-rape’ left me speechless. Also, again Bond hasn't bothered to check the status of the bodies in the car ... which he admits was an error, but such a rookie one for somebody as experienced as he is!

Chapter 15: ( Read more... )

Comment: Mostly under a cut, other than the observation that Bond is pretty open with being a 'secret' agent - not very secret at all! ( Read more... )

And that's the end of this one! What's next?

Current Location: office
Current Music: None

jesuswasbatman

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jesuswasbatman

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rebeccmeister

The first day of the spring semester is always a little funny for me, because it's a Tuesday and usually I teach labs on Tuesdays, but I don't want to start the semester with a lab.

Instead I get to do fun things like get my syllabus photocopied and Muppet-flail about how very soon my time will no longer belong to me.

rolanni

Monday, condensed

The Long Back Yard

1 Monday morning. Snowing lightly. And the sound of chainsaws from next door.

I expect it will be my turn when and if the guys get here with the equipment since they have to take down two big pines for me.

In the meantime, since I don't have any work to do today, I'm sitting in the comfy chair in the window in my office with the happy light on, dictating this note to the world.

How's everybody doing today?

2 My mission today, aside from staying away from chainsaws and falling logs, is to change out the cat fountains, and catch up with friends at Front and Main this afternoon.

I will also, today, or tomorrow, be posting Explanatory Notes to the Read-Along thread on Splinter Universe, explaining why I fell off the wagon, and offering some insights to the rest of Agent of Change and Conflict of Honors.

I am now reading Carpe Diem, aka Val Con and Miri go to Madison, Maine, which I'll note that they arrived there before we did. We finished Carpe and mailed it to our editor before we made our own migration to Maine, where we fetched up in Skowhegan, which is right handy to Madison. The first time we drove through Madison's shopping district, I said to Steve, "This looks really familiar." And he laughed at me, the rat. Which is when the penny dropped, and I said, "It's real?"

3 Well. That's a different look. I purely hate taking down trees, and, yes, I know that these were in fact very sick trees, and a danger to the house in the next high wind, and that the top of one had already (previous to our tenancy) snapped off in a windstorm, but -- still.

Trees.

4 So, that was a nice visit before the group splits for winter vacations. Front and Main has an amazing lobby. There was a woman at one of the tables all set up with her papers and her laptop, and honestly I think she's on to something. The tomato-veggie-lentil soup was very good, and so was the company.

Went to the grocery after, but forgot to go to the hardware store. Ah, well. I'll be out again tomorrow.

I believe I will putter for the rest of the day. Maybe make a frittata and see how that goes. I should freeze the second pork chop so I have something to draw on; I let the freezer get a little low. I made a fresh batch of hummus a couple days ago, so that's not quite gone. Maybe some time this week I can bake bread. Oh! And I can finally finish my second glass piece.

So this is what people who don't write books do. Wow.

Still snowing, just enough to be pretty.

While the tree guys were doing their thing, Firefly and Tali went back to Steve's office, but Rook vanished, so he missed the play-by-play. When I came home, he had a lot to say about how the trees are gone, Mom, while he was sitting on my lap, banging his head on my chin. I think we've managed to agree that it was probably for the best, since he's had a wee dram of dry food and wandered off to the bedroom window.

And so, the midday report.
* * * * *
The Long Back Yard:

#
Tuesday. Sunny and cold. Trash and recycling are at the curb. The space where the trees used to be is noticeable, but not raw, thanks to the snow.

Breakfast was leftover soup. Lunch with either be leftover frittata or leftover pork and sauerkraut. Prolly pork; frittata will go better in the evening, after needlework.

I have errands this morning, because! not only did I forget I needed to go to the hardware store yesterday, and even though I was there, I forgot to pick up my meds, so back to the grocery for me.

I woke up at 5, and said to Tali, who happened to be sleeping next to me at that time, "I don't have to get up now." She knocked her head into my chin -- I'm not sure if she picked that piece of communication up from Rook or he from her -- and started to purr. And I went back to sleep.

I thought I was going to update the Read-Along blog last night, but I wasn't able to get into Splinter Universe. That's been fixed, so I can get with that today. Instead of updating, last night I carried on with Carpe Diem, where I've just now gotten to the point where Val Con is introducing his kin's theme songs to Miri.

And that's what I've got this morning.

What's everybody doing today?

thewoksoflife_feed

Posted by Kaitlin

https://thewoksoflife.com/general-tsos-ground-chicken-shortcut/?adt_ei=*|EMAIL|*

https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=94466

Shortcut General Tso's Chicken with ground chicken

Ground chicken is the key to making a Shortcut General Tso’s Chicken that cuts out extra chopping and deep-frying steps without compromising on the sweet tangy sauce and satisfyingly craggly texture! We have a simple step-by-step recipe as well as a YouTube video showing you how to make it! Ground chicken to the rescue! When […]

https://thewoksoflife.com/general-tsos-ground-chicken-shortcut/?adt_ei=*|EMAIL|*

https://thewoksoflife.com/?p=94466

james_davis_nicoll

One of Canada's great missteps was not mining the border. The other was not building intermediate range nuclear-armed missiles.

james_davis_nicoll

November 25, 2026 would have been Poul Anderson’s 100th birthday. As there is no guarantee any of us will see November 25, 2026, I’ll borrow an idea from Tom Lehrer’s That Was the Year That Was and start writing something appropriately celebratory now.

Homeward By Starlight

Improve your sword and sorcery through inspirational verisimilitude!

On Thud and Blunder by Poul Anderson

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: geeky

falena posting in

fancake

This is my first time posting here, hope I'm doing it right

Fandom: The Pitt

Pairings/Characters: Mel King/Frank Langdon

Rating: Explicit

Length: 15,986

Creator Links: Lirazel on Ao3, lirazel

Theme: Crack treated seriously, (not really) unrequited love, (something) made them do it, sex pollen

Summary:

There are all kinds of protocols in place to prevent this sort of thing, but of course they mean exactly nothing when faced with the reality of emergency medicine.

Frank and Trinity both complain that Mel has no sense of self-preservation, but she’s actually a very careful and responsible person. Despite what they say, she never puts herself in danger if she can help it, she feels that she makes level-headed decisions even under pressure, and even if she usually finds people hard to read, she’s read The Gift of Fear and is pretty sure she can tell when someone has actually malicious intent.

Pretty sure until, with no warning at all, a patient—Griffin Jackson, white male, 27, complaining of chest pains—pulls out a tiny jar of neon-yellow powder and pops off the top.

Reccer's note: This is a classic fandom trope (sex pollen) treated seriously. Mel and Frank are just co-workers in canon, but in canon it's obvious they have a connection and this fic explores how much they might grow to mean to each other, and it does so while keeping them (and all other characters that appear) tremendously in character. The sex is, of course, very hot too. :D And the fic also does consent right!

Fanwork Links: i want to be the one patrolling your border

Mods, we need a tag for The Pitt and the pairing too maybe, please? Thank you.

princessofgeeks

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Current Mood: ecstatic

tamaranth

2026/012: Troth — E H Lupton

“Don’t be so bourgeois, darling. You’re a powerful magician and your lover is a retired god. Of course things are going to be a bit unusual.”
“It’s terrifying.”
“Eh, bien?” Mariah made a dismissive French noise. “It’s love. It’s supposed to be terrifying.” [p. 191]

Third in the series, and the last (for now) of the novels that focus on Ulysses and Sam. It begins with the two moving into a new apartment together, and meeting the neighbours (Vikram and Sita) who have a ghost problem -- and, it turns out, a connection to Sam's family.

Both Ulysses and Sam are growing up.( Read more... )

Current Mood: cheerful

loganberrybunny

Public

Watch on YouTube

I found this Cinderella from 2000 on YouTube and thought it would be fun to share it here, especially for the benefit of those of you in poor benighted countries that don't do panto. Apologies for the iffy technical quality (360p, aspect ratio etc) but in all honesty if you require beautifully slick presentation then you probably won't enjoy panto anyway! This isn't the best panto I've ever seen, and I think it loses steam a little in the second half, but it's certainly far from the worst. And yes, non-panto-people, it absolutely is required for there to be about four hundred dodgy innuendos in front of an audience of eight-year-olds. That's how panto works. I don't even like innuendo humour, and I still make an exception here. Have fun, boys and girls!

Current Mood: amused

fred_mouse

.. I'm not being grumpy at all philosophy today, although I have days when I encounter bits and I have Thoughts and Opinions that can be summed up as 'philsophy sucks'. I have not, historically, engaged very well with particular bits of philosophical thinking and/or the way it is presented.

Today, I'm struggling, because I am being too literal. And because the starting point is swan == white, and then the author is extrapolating out from that. I, however, fall over at the first hurdle, because I have to stop and parse swan==white, and spend time getting out of my comfort zone, rather than starting in my comfort zone. And I get that this is Western Australia is a niche case (and, presumably, anywhere our swans have gone and set up communities) issue.

And not only do I struggle when I encounter this damn thinking. But I get annoyed. Black swans have been known about *in Europe*---the source of most of the philosophy I try reading---for at least 150 years (the Swan River Colony was established in 1829, there were French and Dutch explorers in the vicinity before). These explanations don't start with 'let us assume that there are only white swans' or anything acknowledging this. Or at least, the ones I remember encountering don't.

I hate not being able to grasp the foundational thought on which the next n pieces are built. It makes it so hard to read. I suspect I'm going to skip this chapter and see whether the next one (different authors) is better.