eleanorjane | Network

Title: 'Cursed Silence'
Author:

but_can_i_be_trusted
Fandom: Original Fiction
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Notes: Using Challenge #22: Steampunk AU, Challenge #29: Decade-Specific AU, and Challenge #47: Coffee Shop & All Variants AU. Crossposted to

genprompt_bingo.
Summary: "So. They finally took an assistant for me, did they," I heard a voice mutter.

( Cursed Silence )

hannah

Picking up the materials for a new contract project today had me thinking about average expectations. It's a small enough project to fit inside a banker's box, and a deep enough project to keep me busy for quite a few weeks. It's also not a heavy project - like I said, banker's box - but I was told I might need a cart to carry the box the few blocks from its owner's apartment to mine. I carried it on top of the twenty-some-odd jars of herbs and spices I'd bought from someone moving out of their apartment, plus the olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and jarred tomato products. It was inconvenient to maneuver, but not hard to carry.

It's going to involve cataloging personal letters, probably with indexing who sent them and who received them, who else was mentioned and where they were sent from, and I'm already thinking about how to set this all up for optimal ease of use. The hauling it over was the easy part. It's why I keep going to the gym - vanity's a small part of it, and a much larger part is being able to haul stuff around without needing the help of other people, or even much in the way of carts.

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Music: nothing now

alethia

I told myself I'd be better about posting here, so I shall try! And at the very least, it will let me use the lovely icons made by

melroseee!

( The Pitt 2.12 )

Current Mood: bouncy

bluapapilio

Summary: Follows the life of a hero who manages to win all battles with only one punch. This ability seems to frustrate him as he no longer feels the thrill and adrenaline of fighting a tough battle, which leads to him questioning his past desire to be strong.

Maan I should've known I was going to have to start over from the beginning. I feel between the manga, webcomic and anime I should remember more than I do...

Chapter 1-2: Saitama's origin story. He got turned down for a job and decided nothing matters anymore, but he runs into a monster after a boy and ends up helping without thinking. He remembers his childhood dream of becoming a hero.

After winning the fight, he trains so hard he loses his hair but gains invincible power. He soon realizes that his heart now feels empty.

Chapter 3: Took down siblings, one made the other a giant killing machine.

Chapter 4: Had a dream there were monsters strong enough to challenge him. Honestly if Saitama wants to keep capturing that rush he should learn lucid dreaming.

Chapter 5: Worrying about how he's becoming emotionally numb. "I feel no fear, no joy, no excitement nor anger."

On the back of that there's a hilarious moment where Saitama can't squash a mosquito because it keeps escaping. 😂 Saitama lives in Z City where a demon level mosquito lady attacks.

Genos's first appearance!

Chapter 6: I love how Saitama reacted to Genos telling him about the mosquitos. "That's bad, isn't it? Let's run for i-..." Even for an invincible man mosquitos are still a Nope.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, Genos's body is way too fragile...

I love Saitama took out the mosquito lady with a slap like he was trying to do with the mosquito from earlier.

Chapter 7: Genos shares his entire life story in two paragraphs... 4 years ago a cyborg attacked his village. His brain had been damaged during the transplant. Genos was the only survivor out of his family but he had to be put in a cyborg body.

He says 'Dr. Stench' passed by his town on accident to stop the cyborg, but what if he's the one who made the cyborg and he felt guilty and that's why he helped Genos?

We may have found out more later I just don't remember;;

'House of Evolution', where the mosquito lady came from, wants to study Saitama.

Current Mood: tired

setsuled posting in

disneyplusshows

I felt bad for casting aspersions on Wonder Man without watching it properly so I went back and watched the first two episodes. It's not as bad as I originally thought though it does fail the test, "Would I Watch This If It Weren't the MCU?"

( Extremely mild spoilers for the first two episodes of Wonder Man behind the cut )

Hollywood loves to make movies about itself but they're only occasionally successful at the box office. Here's my top ten list:

10. Tropic Thunder
9. The Other Side of the Wind
8. All About Eve
7. Once Upon a Time in Hollywood
6. In a Lonely Place
5. Inland Empire
4. Sullivan's Travels
3. Sunset Boulevard
2. Singin' In the Rain
1. Mulholland Drive

Wonder Man is available on Disney+.

Current Mood: groggy
Current Location: Hollywood
Current Music: "Little Geneva" - Muddy Waters

case posting in

fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #7021 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

All spoiler warning/content warning stuff today!

( More! )

Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #1001.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

cassiope25 posting in

stargateficrec

Show: SGA

Rec Category: Rodney McKay
Characters: Rodney McKay, John Sheppard, Ronon Dex
Pairings: Rodney/John
Categories: slash, emotional hurt/comfort
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Words: 9,562
Author's Journal:

sgatazmy
Author's Website: Tazmy on AO3
Link Fic: A Good Enough Timeline
Link Podfic: mp3

Author's summary: Years after Elizabeth stepped through the gate to her demise, Atlantis is a thriving city in a hopeful future. Rodney, however, still struggles with Elizabeth’s loss and his role in her death. He’s determined to go back and save her.
But at what point does he stop trying to change the timeline and accept the one he’s in? Can John convince him before it's too late?

Why This Must Be Read: The emotional aftermath of losing Elizabeth, and Rodney's stubborn, even desperate attempt to set things right—risking everything, struggling with John over desire and reality, their relationship on the line—almost broke my heart.
It’s written with so much love for Rodney and John, with such thoughtfulness and insight—it offers you a new perspective and makes you really reflect on the deeper nature of life and fate, of right and wrong.
This isn't about a lighthearted fix-it or an easy way out, but a beautiful ode to conviction and dedication, hopes and boundaries, denial and acceptance, friendship and love.
Don't miss out on it!

There's also a wonderful podfic of this fic, beautifully read by Tazmy herself. I add the link here too.

( snippet of fic )

olivermoss

The world is a dark place... so it's good to know that Mischief Management has fucked up again: https://www.reddit.com/r/Barbie/comments/1s57zzo/barbie_nightmarefest/

Yes, the revolting transphobes who tried to use trans people as a shield while their Romance Con melted down over Harry Potter drama? And then went on to get a contract with Mattel? Things have gone so badly this is getting mainstream attention. I can only imagine what Swell Entertainment's notifications look like right now.

This video: https://www.reddit.com/r/Barbie/comments/1s5fbin/we_got_dashconned_yall/ reminds me of some liminal horror games I've seen.

vivdunstan

Just typed up a review of this. And for avoidance of any doubt, this is Perth Museum in Scotland, not Australia! Which usually has the Stone of Destiny, and currently also has the last letter of Mary Queen of Scots.

bluapapilio

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

Current Mood: hungry

shadaras posting in

fandomcalendar

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

xkcd_feed

https://xkcd.com/3225/

We're working to make sure the images are as up-to-date and accurate as possible, with a minimum number of sponsored galaxies.

https://xkcd.com/3225/

trobadora posting in

sid_guardian

Quick reminder that this year's 520 Day Reverse Exchange sign-ups close in three hours. If you've been meaning to sign-up, this is your last chance! :)

michifugu

wow a lot of government are so persistent to add “Age Verification” I am sure it's because they wanted to protect children safety not because they wanted to implement digital surveillances or being lobbied by big tech company to sell our data for ads!

yourlibrarian

1) For those who use Zoom for meetings, something to be concerned about: WebinarTV Turning Zoom Calls into AI Podcasts. Stanford has issued guidelines to campus users to prevent it happening.

2) Turns out Xfinity offered us free Peacock (supposedly Peacock Premium but we have ads anyway). Getting Peacock access was quite a process though. All I should have had to do was click the email link and accept the offer. In fact, everything I tried kept sending me to a 404 page. ( Read more... )

3) When I finally did get into Peacock, I used it to watch Song Sung Blue and thought it was mostly an enjoyable film. I liked Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson leaning into their ages and downplaying his looks. The music was fun and it was a nice, small scale love story. ( spoilers ).

3) The Peacock issue wasn't the only technical frustration of the last few days. After finishing my taxes and other to-dos I had pending, I wanted to take some time to get back into my LEGO Star Wars game on the Xbox which I'd last tried almost 3 years ago. ( Read more... )

4) I feel surprisingly upset to hear that Starfleet Academy is essentially cancelled. (There's another season coming but that had already been planned before S1 began). I wrote earlier about how much I was enjoying it, and that was before I watched the fourth episode. I will miss these characters, and it seems there's so much more that could be done.

5) The latest

marchmetamatterschallenge writing prompt was "How do you define genres? Is it still a useful tool to find entertainment you like, or have offerings become so niche and melded that it's hard to use categories anymore? Was it ever something useful for you, personally?"

To some degree yes, but increasingly no. ( Read more... )

Poll #34417 Kudos Footer-568

This poll is anonymous.
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5

Want to leave a Kudos?

View Answers

Kudos!
5 (100.0%)

bluapapilio

[Fanfic] [Supergirl | Supercorp main] You & Me & Holiday Wine - Holiday and beyond AU and everything you could ask for with these two character in novel form. Recommended even if you haven't seen Supergirl and want some great F/F. (100k/9hr).

Youtuber: Magic By Mikaila - Wonderful skits!! Various fandoms but Percy Jackson and Twilight are two off the top of my head.

I want you to recommend me THEE #zosan fic. (twitter) - I can copy/paste some if desired.

i do love ghibli's howl's moving castle because it's very sweet and gentle and touched with melancholy; but [...] (twitter)

copy paste here

Solve crimes and steal hearts in Burn the Midnight Oil, a supernatural neon-noir romance visual novel - LGBTQ+ and het options!

Every TCF story arc in a nutshell - Trash of the Count's Family

Current Mood: hungry

tyger

Soooo this evening my neighbour came over to let me know that we have a water leak in the front yard. (Again.) I actually saw it was super boggy yesterday, I just thought it was the rain! I mean, it's boggy out back, too, so...

Anyway, it's not the tap itself this time, but it's something around there. So I had to turn the water off at the mains, which is... less than convenient. And I'll need to call the plumber in the morning. Boooooo. (Luckily we have water in the tank again, so at least the toilets still flush!)

So, that meant I didn't get any stripping work done this evening - I do NOT want to mess with paint stripper without a ready source of water on hand in case of spills etc. But I DID do a bunch of sanding with the electric sander this afternoon, and I got a LOT done there. (I just had to stop due to noodle arms needing a break, and then it was too dark, alas.)

As it turns out the sandpaper I had on was almost at the end of its life; once it became obviously dead and I switched it out stuff went a LOT faster. So hopefully tomorrow I can get all the rest of the stuff the electric sander can reach done! And then strip the rest if possible, because even with the electric sander it takes A While to get enough paint off, so with the hand sander my arms are gonna be SO sore...

My cocoa and other baking supplies finally came today, too! Ended up taking like a week from when I ordered it, but that's okay, it's here now! So I made some more zucchini bread! I'll take a loaf over to the neighbours tomorrow in thanks, I think. :3 From the piece I had I don't think the chocolate buttons are as good as the choc chips, so next time I might smash them into bits before adding them, that might help. Experiments!!!

I really should try and flip my sleep schedule, btw. It's cold again, why am I staying awake through the coldest hours and sleeping through the warmer ones, this is stupid...

Current Mood: sleepy
Current Location: Birthplace

yourlibrarian posting in

common_nature

The sunset last weekend looked very simple, but I liked its casual glow stretched on the clouds. Less than 10 minutes later my partner called me to come look at the sky and the red in it was astonishing.

( Read more... )

forestofglory

Have some more thoughts about media!

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girlvol 1-2 by Ryan North, Erica Henderson, et al— Remember last time when I was like “maybe I should reread Squirrel Girl”? Well I decided to go for it and that was a great idea, thanks past me. These are so much fun! I enjoy Doreen’s unconventional approach to problem solving and her general enthusiasm for everything! I’m also glad that they kept the letters sections in the collected volumes – I love getting to see all the cute cosplay and squirrel pictures.

(Reading this had made me think about the were a bunch of girl centric fun comics around 2015. I wish that trend had continued)

Lumberjanes: True Colors by Lilah Sturges, polterink, et al— The final Lumberjanes graphic novel. Pretty cute, though I do feel that these graphic novels aren’t as good overall as the main series.

Mamo by Sas Milledge— I really liked this fantasy graphic novel about two young women trying to deal with a town where the magic has gone wrong. The art was so good! Lots of big sweeping landscapes, but also great details. Lots of excellent birds too!

( Batman: No Man's Land and Batgirls )

bluapapilio

"Ai ga Aru Nara Ii Janai /
It's All Good as Long as There's Love"

Previous: Ai ga Matteru
Next: Itsumo Anata no Koto Bakari

Abe Akane, 2914

MangaUpdates

MyAnimeList

Chill Chill

Summary: A manga picking up Yoshinaga and Takao's story a few years later. Takao, now a college graduate, starts up a small business with ex-classmates. However, the life of an adult is not what be expected it to be ultimately leaving him with his newly found inner turmoil.

My comments: Another time skip. Takao works with Ozawa and Miyata selling imported goods, the two look different now and are lovey-dovey.

Yoshinaga has been busy studying for work and Takao starts to feel restless and insecure, so he brings it up but Yoshinaga dismisses him, prompting Takao to leave.

I don't think it fully addressed everything it needed to but I still liked the message that you don't get to decide for your partner if you're worth it, and you don't have to be some ideal of perfect to be with your partner especially if you're trying to be better.

I think the art is starting to change a bit now since the publish date is going up. I wasn't big on how Ozawa and Miyata look now.

My rating: 7.5/10

Current Mood: tired

smbc_comics_feed

Posted by Zach Weinersmith

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/shocks

Click here to go see the bonus panel!

Hovertext:
S and S is a form of S and M.

Today's News:

https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/shocks

tarlanx posting in

sweetandshort

Challenge: March: Bingo
Fandom: Word of Honor

Tired	Hero

Peace	Star

anneapocalypse

Fandom: Final Fantasy XIV
Rating: Mature
Archive Warnings: Major Character Death
Relationships: Urianger Augurelt/Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Urianger Augurelt & Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Ardbert & Urianger Augurelt, Unrealized Ardbert/Urianger Augurelt, Pre-Urianger Augurelt/Warrior of Light
Characters: Urianger Augurelt, Moenbryda Wilfsunnwyn, Ardbert Hylfyst, Elidibus, Unukalhai, Tataru Taru, Minfilia Warde, Warrior of Light, Dewlala Dewla, Y'shtola Rhul, Yugiri Mistwalker, Thancred Waters, J'Rhoomale, Blanhaerz, Lamimi, Naillebert, Haneko Burneko
Additional Tags: Grief/Mourning, Angst, Religion, Isolation, Loneliness, Patch 3.4: Soul Surrender Spoilers (Final Fantasy XIV), Elezen Warrior of Light, Female Warrior of Light, Canon-Typical Violence, Guilt, Emotional Repression, Child Neglect, Childhood Memories, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Internalized Ableism
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 61,957 / 92,000
Chapter: 10/15

Summary:

Heartbroken after the loss of his dearest companion, Urianger labors to save two worlds in which he has never felt more alone.

Notes:

In light of the way Y'shtola speaks of her own disability, I thought it might be best to add an "Internalized Ableism" tag, so that has been done.

If you're new here, please start with Chapter 1!

Final Fantasy XIV is owned by Square Enix. This is a non-commercial work of fanfiction.

( Read on AO3 )

( ...or below! )

Previous Chapter | Next Chapter

bluapapilio

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

Current Mood: tired

tarlanx posting in

sweetandshort

Challenge: March: This and That
Prompt: Trust
Fandoms: Fangs of Fortune, Word of Honor, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

Moments of trust.

Fangs of Fortune - Trust 01 by Tarlan

The Yin-Yang Master - Dream of Eternity - Trust by Tarlan

badly_knitted posting in

fandomweekly

Theme Prompt: #294 – Pining
Title: So Far From Home
Fandom: The Fantastic Journey
Rating/Warnings: PG
Bonus: Yes.
Word Count: 1000
Summary: Scott misses his home and family, longs to get back to them, but perhaps he’s not the only one pining for everything they’re missing.

( So Far From Home... )

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: my desk

muccamukk

RAYE's This Album May Contain Hope has dropped. I have a three-hour plus bus trip to visit my parents. I'm going to put it on repeat.

serafaery

henna on my head.

been very productive and active today and got through EVERYthing, including cooking healthy meals for myself AND Josh this morning - it made me late departing to work but I still somehow was able to get ready on time, luckily! - all my orders shipped, been reading the Flourishing book all day and downloaded their app - omg I need HELP lol, I have a LOT of work to do on all of the pillars of well being (Awareness, Connection, Insight, Purpose) but the only one I got a good score on was connection. I thought I was a relatively aware and insightful person with at least some sense of purpose but apparently not! Maybe this is partly because I took the quiz in the middle of my lunch break at work lol.

Anyway, took a much needed nap when I got home from work, rinsed off the chicken eggs from up the street so Josh won't fear them (he's a little squeamish about unrinsed eggies), played with Avalanche, made myself a beautiful healthy dinner, I did eat crackers today but not too crazy much, and everything else was super healthy. (collard greens with beets and mushrooms, drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with hemp seeds and unfortified nutritional yeast, this was part of both lunch and dinner, along with my usual greek yogurt with fruit bowl in the morning with walnuts and cinnamon and goji berries, snacks were one of the farm eggs with rosemary, a banana, two tiny apples, sweet potatoes with organic pasture butter with my dinner.)

I've been skipping afternoon coffee/lattes for the most part, maybe down to once a week at this point, and always before noon, having traded it for collagen coffee in the late morning after my first ritual cup that starts my day well before breakfast.

My morning ritual consists of brewing coffee while tidying up the kitchen and making sure everything is ready for Josh to make his breakfast, feeding Avalanche, and then sitting outside and doing a bit of appreciation and I'm adding a five minute loving kindness meditation in there, while listening to the birds, brushing Avalanche on my lap, and sipping my coffee. I put treats out for the shifty crows and they scold us until we leave, too skittish to come while we are there.

Meanwhile the crows at the Overlook House practically land on my head, asking for cashews, lol.

Granted: they've known me a lot longer.

Skipped work on taxes but I feel like Shadowplay is more important, tonight. I genuinely believe I can finish them tomorrow after work, or Saturday with Josh's help at the very latest. He decided not to go back to Smith Rock to climb this weekend so he'll be around.

I think we should celebrate once I file with a visit to the Ole Bolle troll on Sunday :) Have some mindfulness matcha tea and I can do my awareness practice. :)

ragdoll posting in

addme_fandom

Name:

ragdoll
Age group:Legally 60s, mentally 20s, physically 100s
Country: US
Subscription/Access Policy: It's been awhile since I've been on here so I'm probably pretty good about mutual access and subscriptions as long as people are the same. I have filters on here that are probably utterly null and void, so will probably be an open book for at least most of it.

Main Fandoms:

Star Trek: pretty much all of them except maybe VOY since it's never been my thing. TOS, DS9 and LD are my top contenders. I cosplay Commander Pelia, girl!Booklet, and my ancient TOS OC, plus I'm attempting to dress as an Andorian this year.

Doctor Who: I've been a DW fan since 1978 when I came across it by accident on BBC 1 in a hotel room in Stratford. My Doctors are: 4, 5, 8, 9, 11 and 12. I've met every one from Jon Pertwee through Jodie Whittaker, including Richard E Grant. I'm sure (I will meet Ncuti Gatwa some day.) I've met nearly every companion going back to Carole Anne Ford and William Russell, and through Millie Gibson. My unicorn is Karen Gillian. I thought I'd finally been able to cross her off my list at NYCC last year, but wound up having to cancel all my plans due to health stuff. 😭 I co-writer THE book on DW fandom in the US, am Masquerade director at Gallifrey One and LI Who. I also cosplay as 13, an Osgood, several versions of Donna Noble, and Joy Almondo plus I have a variant 13 who is mash up of 13 and Sylvi from Loki.

MCU especially Thor, Jane Foster, Loki, Ant-Man, Shang Chi, Natasha Romanov, Alexei, Trevor Slattery, the Vision-Maximoff family, Agatha Harkness, Lilia Calderu, Kamala Khan & family, Fantastic Four, OG Guardians of the Galaxy, Peggy Carter, and Black Panther. I was a Marvel comics fan for years, and the MCU just makes me very happy overall.

Star Wars: I've been a fan since I saw the first one in the theater (6 times) as a 14 year old in 1977. The OT is still near and dear to me. I don't hate any of the films although Rise of Skywalker is dreadful. Andor was brilliant. !ñ?I am, however, obsessed with The Mandalorian and Din Grogu. I'm counting the days until I get to see my little green jelly bean again.

The Beatles: I've been a Beatles fan since I was a kid. I love them dearly. I have been obsessed with George Harrison for the past 50 years. He's my Grumpy Pisces Fish. I'm currently working on a book of essays about women influenced by them.

Critical Role: A good friend introduced me to The Legend of Vox Machina animated show some time after the second season aired on Prime. I enjoyed it, but promptly forgot the plot. Did a rewatch when S3 was released, then S3 and promptly forgot again. I never watched the live play show because why would I want to watch other people play D&D? How boring! I want to play myself. I knew the cast was coming to NYCC last year, but I wasn't that interested in meeting them. I knew they were doing a live show at Radio City Music Hall which was a wedding of two characters, one of which I was aware of thanks to some people doing a C2/Doctor Who cosplay mash up at Gallifrey years ago. I knew her name was Jester, she was a blue Tiefling, and people liked to cosplay her. Why would I want to go to get wedding? (Not that anyone asked me to go with) Then all of last year happened, and I had to cancel all my NYCC plans since I could barely walk due to multiple spinal surgeries over the summer.

(I'm getting to the point, I promise!) In November, The Mighty Nein started airing on Prime and the same CR obsessed friend promoted me to watch it. I grudgingly agreed to it. And within about 10 minutes of episode 1, I fell in love. It was like the D&D version of Guardians of the Galaxy for me. I got those characters. I fell in love with Jester and Fjord and Nott The Brave (no comma). I was blown away by episode 5. Once MN was over, I rewatched VM again...and hadn't remembered anything about it except for the characters and how pervy Scanlan was. I then started reading up on all the campaigns, watched the live wedding and cried, watched a few other one offs. My friend then pushed me to catch up on Campaign 4 during their holiday break, so I powered through 9 or 10 4-hour shows, and somewhere right after the overture, I fell in love with the entire Soldiers table. Then the Seekers table. And now the Schemers table. My friend and I now do watches "together" long distance every Thursday at 10 pm EST. Then talk a lot about theories etc. I've also developed crushes on basically the whole cast. Bi panic powers activate!

Other Fandoms: David Bowie, Muppets, Quantum Leap, Leverage/Leverage Redemption, Monty Python/the Rutles/Fawlty Towers, Twin Peaks, ASoIaF/House of the Dragon/A Knight of Seven Kingdoms, Barbie, Cozy mysteries, historical mysteries, Rolling Stones, 1960s music, 1980s (new wave, punk) music, HandMade Films, Steven Moffat shows, Death in Paradise, Big Bang Theory-verse, TTRPGs, RuPaul's Drag Race (US, Canada, UK, Down Undah etc), costume dramas (Upstairs Downstairs, I Claudius, Downton Abbey, Gilded Age, Murdoch Mysteries, Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries,Bookish, All Creatures etc)

Fannish Interests: Conventions, being on discussion panels, cosplay, some podcasts (I miss being on one regularly), former fan fic writer, former runner of online Fannish communities, former runner of fan fic/fan art exchanges, and other prompt challenge communities, discussion on social media, pro writer of reviews in essay form, travel to filming locations, making new friends, buying dolls or toys, reading tie-in novels/short stories etc

OTPs and Ships: Jester/Fjord, Tony/Pepper, Thor/Jane, Steve/Peggy, Carole/Val, Daemon/Rhaenyra, Wanda/Vision, Agatha/Rio, Amy/Rory, Doctor (esp 8, 11, 12 and 13)/River, Sophie/Harry Wilson, Parker/Hardison, probably others but I'm not that invested in shipping these days. Oh and George/my OC.

Favourite Movies: Singin' in the Rain, A Hard Day's Night, Help!, Yellow Submarine, Labyrinth, Muppet Treasure Island, American in Paris, The Producers, Hairspray (not the musical!), Les Girls, Time Bandits, Withnail & I, Star Wars OT, Thor/Dark World/Ragnarok, Ant-Man, Black Panther, First Avenger, Winter Soldier, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy, Knives Out, Back to the Future 1 & 2, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Forbidden Planet, Kind Hearts & Coronets, RHPS, Shang Chi & the Legend of the 10 Rings, Fantastic Four: First Steps, Casablanca, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, The Court Jester, Life of Brian, Head, Deadpool & Wolverine, Valley Girl, What We Do In The Shadows, Down With Love

TV Shows: Aside from the already mentioned: WandaVision, Agatha All Along, Elsbeth, Psych, Monk, Poker Face, The West Wing, The Newsroom, Firefly, X-Men 97, Xena, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Wednesday, Bridgerton, anything by Sally Wainwright, Renegade Nell, Wonder Man, Creature Commandos, Young Sheldon, Rutland Weekend Television, Murphy Brown, Frasier, Coupling, Midsomer Mysteries, Marlow Murder Club, Sherlock, Miss Scarlet, Beyond Paradise, Ted Lasso, Shrinking,The Boys,The Venture Brothers, White Collar, Brokewood Mysteries, Shakespeare & Hathaway, Inspector Morse, Endeavour, Interview with the Vampire/Vampire Lestat, Sandman, Dead Boy Detectives, Good Omens

Books: Roman Sub Rosa series, A Free Man of Colour series, Harry Dresden, Hitchhikers Guide etc by Douglas Adams, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings trilogy, Foundation Trilogy, Tusk Love, anything by Dickens except Great Expectations

Music Beatles, Stones, Bowie, The Who, Pete Townsend solo, Blondie, the Cure, Depeche Mode, Pretenders, the Monkees, Fleetwood Mac, Kate Bush, thenewno2, Karen Elson, movie scores, big band, klezmer, Tschaikowsy, Mozart, Beethoven, Leonard Bernstein, Broadway original cast albums: The Producers, Spamalot, Hairspray, Rocky Horror Show, Something Rotten, Man from La Mancha

Games: I don't really play games other than ttrpgs

Comics/Anime/Misc: Sandman, Marvel in general esp 1980s X-Men, The Mighty Thor (Jane Foster), Watchmen, Unthinkables and related titles, Hearteater, some other indy titles, Blue Eye Samurai

osprey_archer

I showed up at

asakiyume’s place just a couple of days before St. Patrick’s Day, so we decided it would be the perfect time to catch up on the latest movies released by the Irish animation studio Cartoon Saloon, still perhaps most famous for its first movie The Secret of Kells.

We perhaps should have saved Wolfwalkers for St. Patrick’s Day itself, as it’s actually set in Ireland. Young Robyn Goodfellowe has just arrived in Ireland with her father, a professional hunter who has been hired by Oliver Cromwell to eliminate the wolves in the nearby woods. Once the wolves have been driven out, the wild woods can be cut down and converted to farmland, thus by proxy also taming the wild Irish people.

Young Robyn is supposed to stay home and do chores, but in classic heroine mode, she would much rather dash about the woods hunting with her father. Unable to accompany him on his hunt, she instead goes into the woods on her own, and accidentally falls into one of her own father’s snares!

Robyn is released by mischievous young wolfwalker Mebh, and they spend a happy day frolicking through the forest together. But in the process of releasing Robyn from the trap, Mebh nipped her. And that night when she falls asleep, Robyn’s spirit rises from her body in the form of a wolf…

Absolutely gorgeous animation. I particularly loved all the sequences featuring the wolfwalkers in wolf form, particularly the eerily beautiful image of Robyn’s wolf-spirit frantically trying to return to her body when the whole town is attempting to hunt down this wolf that inexplicably got into the town walls.

I was also impressed ( spoilers )

The animation in My Father’s Dragon wasn’t quite as lovely, or rather didn’t have quite as many opportunities for numinous loveliness. But I also enjoyed it, which surprised me because I didn’t particularly like the book it’s based on and likely wouldn’t have tried it if it weren’t Cartoon Saloon.

The book (also called My Father’s Dragon) is a straightforward tale about a boy going to an island where he defeats and/or escapes various ferocious animals (crocodiles, tigers etc) in order to rescue a baby dragon. The end. A brisk recitation of a series of events without much character development or worldbuilding of the island or anything else.

The moviemakers clearly realized that in order to stretch the story to feature-length, character development and worldbuilding and so forth was just exactly what they’d need. The result is a much richer story, where the various ferocious animals are no longer basically an obstacle course but characters with their own motivations. Also, the human protagonist meets the baby dragon much earlier, which changes his journey from a solo quest into a sort of heartwrenching buddy comedy.

The filmmakers were trying very hard, and unfortunately sometimes you could see the gears grinding as they strained to get the emotional effect they wanted, which of course serves to undermine that effect. But still, an ambitious “shot for the moon and landed among the stars,” which is still a pretty decent place to land.

dolorosa_12

It's been a challengingly busy week (if I owe you comments, I will get to them at some point this weekend, sorry), and my brain is a bit rubbish at coming up with a prompt this time around, so I'm going with the following:

What is the most memorable icebreaker question you've been asked, in any context?

james_davis_nicoll

Two teens are forced to consider each other's point of view.

Flip by Ngozi Ukazu

calzephyr posting in

common_nature

Wednesday was just another snowy spring day when this guy showed up!

OMG! A Northern shrike!!!

I was upstairs in my office when I heard the budgies flapping and didn't see the problem at first.

Then I saw this beautiful, but deadly bird!

He flew at the window and scared the budgies again, so I moved the cage away. He sat there for a good long time and flew away. He was not bothered at all by me standing right at the window looking at him.

Shrikes impale small birds and animals "for later", so I'm going to keep an eye on my bird feeder because I don't want my rose bush to become a graveyard. I haven't seen it again so far today, so perhaps the snow derailed his travel plans like everyone else lately.

Black and grey bird sitting on a bird feeder hook

pauraque

Back in 2008 the creators of Homestar Runner released a short escape-the-room Flash game starring Strong Bad's nebulously-defined private eye/crooked cop alter ego, Dangeresque. I played it, it was fun. Then in 2023 they revamped the original game and re-released it with two brand new episodes, so of course I bought that, and it sat in my Steam library for a year. Then they threw in a free DLC that added another episode, and it sat in my Steam library for two more years.

But this year I'm going to get my Steam backlog under control. This time for really real.

standing behind an office desk, dangeresque makes a sarcastic remark about really needing an unsolved stamp

standing behind an office desk, dangeresque makes a sarcastic remark about really needing an unsolved stamp

The first episode has Dangeresque trapped in his office until he can "solve" a cold case (i.e. fabricate evidence out of whatever's lying around). I think it's pretty close to the original Flash game, though I haven't played that in 18 years, so who knows. In the second episode, Dangeresque flees the scene but runs into car trouble (i.e. a bomb under the hood that he has to defuse). The trilogy wraps up with Dangeresque forced into an alliance with his gangster nemesis Perducci, whose other enemies are plotting to bump him off. Once you've beaten the three main episodes, you unlock the fourth, this time starring Homestar's alter ego Dangeresque Too as villanous goons have him trapped in an elevator. All told, it's about three hours of gameplay.

If you like Homestar Runner and you like point-and-click adventure games, you will like this. I do, and I did. The writing is funny, the puzzles are absurdist but fair, and if you blow yourself up the game just puts you right back where you were before you did the dumb thing you did. I would play ten more of these if they made them, though I can't guarantee I would play them within a punctual timeframe.

Dangeresque: The Roomisode Triungulate is on Steam for $7.99 USD, and includes the free DLC.

languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73142&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-purist-jungle

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73142

Anne Abeillé's recently-published book "La Grammaire se Rebelle" describes linguistic prescriptivism as "la jungle puriste" / "the purist jungle".

But wait, don't prescriptivists want to turn the natural linguistic wilderness into a well-tended formal garden? Maybe, but in fact prescriptive rules are often incoherent as well as contrary to elite as well as informal usage, as we've often observed.

There's more to say about the many metaphors for linguistic prescriptivism — for example, the parallels with socio-political authority and rebellion — but for now, here's the avant-propos of Abeillé's book, followed by Google Translate's (very good) English version:

Qu’est-ce que la grammaire ? L’ensemble des règles qu’on emploie pour parler et pour écrire. Ces règles sont robustes et souvent séculaires, bien intériorisées par la plupart des francophones, même s’ils n’en sont pas toujours conscients. Mais elle est souvent réduite à une liste de pièges à éviter, de mots à proscrire (malgré que, se rappeler de, en vélo), sans justification rationnelle (« parce que c’est comme ça », « parce que c’est plus beau »). Pourtant, les usages vilipendés par les puristes actuels ont une logique et une histoire, ils sont bien présents dans la littérature qu’on nous cite souvent en exemple, et ils n’ont pas toujours été considérés comme des fautes. Et au lieu de parler de « fautes », il vaudrait mieux, le plus souvent, parler de variantes, et de prestige associé (ou non). Pour qu’il y ait faute, il faut qu’il y ait règle, et les « règles » des puristes sont souvent contradictoires, inapplicables, s’appuyant sur des usages obsolètes et largement fantasmés. Loin d’être de simples coquetteries un peu désuètes, elles nuisent en fait à la compréhension de la langue et à son enseignement.

Ce livre est un exercice de démocratisation grammaticale, pour survivre dans la jungle puriste, qu’on a beau désherber, et qui repousse toujours, avec des diktats d’un autre âge qui visent à réduire nos moyens d’expression. Pour utiliser à bon escient les formes dites « populaires » ou « familières », au lieu de les dévaloriser, puisqu’ailleurs, ces mots sont plutôt positifs (un acteur populaire, une mélodie familière, un parfum familier). Il s’agit de réhabiliter le français de tous les jours, notre langue commune, car pourquoi avoir honte de ce qui nous unit ? Pour retrouver le plaisir d’apprendre et d’enseigner la langue dans toute sa richesse, le plaisir de parler et d’écrire, avec des règles solides, fondées sur des régularités observables.

What is grammar? It is the set of rules we employ to speak and write. These rules are robust—often centuries old—and deeply internalized by most French speakers, even if they are not always consciously aware of them. Yet, grammar is often reduced to a mere list of pitfalls to avoid and words to proscribe (such as *malgré que*, *se rappeler de*, or *en vélo*), without any rational justification—merely "because that’s how it is" or "because it sounds better." However, the usages vilified by today’s purists possess their own logic and history; they are amply present in the very literature often cited to us as a model, and they have not always been regarded as errors. Indeed, rather than speaking of "errors," it would usually be more appropriate to speak of variants—and of the prestige (or lack thereof) associated with them. For an error to exist, there must be a rule; yet the "rules" espoused by purists are often contradictory and inapplicable, relying on usages that are obsolete and largely fanciful. Far from being mere, slightly quaint stylistic affectations, these notions actually hinder our understanding of the language and the way it is taught.

This book is an exercise in grammatical democratization—a means of survival within the purist jungle, which, no matter how often we attempt to weed it out, always grows back, bringing with it archaic dictates aimed at curtailing our means of expression. Its purpose is to make judicious use of forms labeled "popular" or "familiar"—rather than devaluing them—given that, in other contexts, these very terms carry positive connotations (a *popular* actor, a *familiar* melody, a *familiar* scent). It seeks to rehabilitate everyday French—our shared language—for why should we feel ashamed of that which unites us? It aims to restore the joy of learning and teaching the language in all its richness—the sheer pleasure of speaking and writing—guided by solid rules grounded in observable regularities.

I have the impression that linguistic prescriptivism has always been stronger in France than in the Anglophone world, at least since the post-revolutionary effort to establish a standard national language (and its broader European context).

As a result, Abeillé's book is maybe more striking for French readers than its equivalent would be in the English-speaking world, where (for example) the anti-prescriptivist Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage was first published in 1989, and Webster's Third New International Dictionary sparked controversy immediately after its publication in 1960.

I wonder, is there a Francophone parallel to the on-going decline of English-language prescriptivist books, mass-media columns, and the like?

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73142&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-purist-jungle

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=73142

fred_mouse

New-to-me flavour of chips: Thins Potato Chips Margherita Pizza.

Soooo tasty. Strong on the fake cheese, light on the tomato, reasonable on the basil / other herbs.

(brought home by Youngest from a picnic. This might be a short term variant).

gingicat

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Current Mood: grateful

sabotabby

There was a lot of great content this week but one particularly moved me, and that's Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff's "If Not Us Than Who: The Russian Partisans at War Against Putin." (Part 1, Part 2).

My biggest disagreement with people who I'm otherwise in political lockstep with is Ukraine. Most (North American) leftists are wrong about this. I know this because I have actually been to Ukraine (and Russia), not just in touristy areas, and they for the most part haven't and don't know what they're talking about and are generally basing their opinions on either Cold War nostalgia, residual anti-imperialist trauma, or the appalling behaviour of some diaspora Ukrainian communities. My shitlib position is that you shouldn't invade other people's countries and kill them because you want their land or resources. Even if—and this is critical when we're talking about Palestine or Iran too—you don't like them and some of them are bad people. If that makes me a NATO stooge or CIA asset so be it.

Margaret and guest Charles McBryde share my opinion and also argue with other leftists about this, so you already know I'm going to agree with them. (Though not totally—we are all leftists here after all.) And you know who else does? A fuck of a lot of Russians. These two episodes focus on the frankly heroic actions of the Russian activists who resist Putin's authoritarianism, including Ruslan Siddiqui, who is genuinely cool not just for his political convictions but with the truly brass balls panache with which he acted. Margaret refers to him as the most cyberpunk guy she's ever heard of and this is true. I should write to him.

Anyway, it's a really wild ride about how to resist authoritarianism when regular political channels are cut off, which is of relevance in Russia and only in Russia, given that it's the only country that disappears people off the streets, murders its dissidents, and cracks down on freedom of expression.

regshoe

...on the back he saw a neat little résumé in Miss Pembroke’s handwriting, intended for such as him. “Allegory. Man = modern civilization (in bad sense). Girl = getting into touch with Nature.”

—The Longest Journey, chapter 12

~~Pan Pipes~~ The Celestial Omnibus and Other Stories (1911) is a collection of various of E. M. Forster's short stories originally published in magazines over the previous decade or so; it is dedicated to The Independent Review, one of those magazines and evidently an Apostles/Bloomsbury project, which had ceased publication some time previously. The stories are a delight and I enjoyed them very much, but I fear an attempt to explain why risks falling into the triteness quoted above, or else perhaps the other, at least more entertaining, way of getting things right-but-wrong (or wrong-but-right) of Charles Sayle's view on 'The Story of a Panic', described by Forster in the essay 'My Books and I':

Then he showed Maynard what the story was about. B—— by a waiter at the hotel, Eustace commits bestiality with a goat on that valley where I had sat. In the subsequent chapters, he tells the waiter how nice it has been and they try to b—— each other again. [...] I was horrified and did not want to meet Charles Sayle. In after years I realised that in a stupid and unprofitable way he was right and that this was the cause of my indignation.

What shall I say about them, then? The stories, which may or may not be variously about Nature and b——y, are all more or less fantastical. The title story is meant very literally; it's about an omnibus that goes to Heaven (from Surbiton), and the bus is driven and Heaven peopled by famous authors and literary characters from through the ages. 'The Story of a Panic', 'The Road from Colonus' and 'The Curate's Friend' all feature classical themes; the first two are set in Italy and Greece respectively, while the Faun of the latter, haunting the hills of (of course) Wiltshire and usually 'only speaking to children' who forget him when they grow up, reminded me for a moment of Kipling's Puck, though Forster does more adult things with him. 'The Other Side of the Hedge' is also about Modern Civilisation and what it loses sight of, and is really more of an allegory than 'Other Kingdom', despite Agnes Pembroke's comment on the latter—for, what delighted me most of all in this collection, that story is (with a few minor alterations of detail) Rickie's story about the Dryad described in chapters 7 and 12 of The Longest Journey. Apparently Forster had written but not yet published it when he put it in the novel. Important and highly recommended reading for any Forster fan and anyone else who thinks this sort of thing sounds worthwhile.

nnozomi posting in

senzenwomen

Suzuki Hideru was born in 1888 in Aichi; her father, a salt merchant and part-time inventor, was intent on getting his children the education he had not been granted himself. After graduating from a local girls’ high school in 1906, Hideru entered Japan Women’s University (the first graduate of her school to go on to college) and graduated in 1910. She continued to attend chemistry classes there even after her graduation, because, as she said later “there weren’t any suitable jobs, and I didn’t want to get married.”

There she served as assistant to Nagai Nagayoshi, the eminent pharmaceutical scholar (whose wife Therese was a professor of German at the same university) for classes and experiments. Handling everything from teaching to clerical work for minimal pay, she was so busy she ate her meals standing up. Certified as a chemistry teacher in 1912, she began teaching at the university’s affiliated high school the following year, taking over the chemistry course from Tange Ume when the latter began graduate school. Hideru went on to qualify as a pharmacist (possibly choosing a deliberately different path from the leading women scientists Yasui Kono and Kuroda Chika, according to her sister) in 1918, mostly self-taught; she wrote the names of pharmaceutical ingredients on her ceiling and lay staring at them before she fell asleep. She also taught herself German by writing all her notes and papers in German rather than Japanese.

From 1921 on Hideru did graduate work at the University of Tokyo, which did not accept women students at the time; her teacher Nagai convinced another of his former students to make a special exception for her. Devoted to her work even when handling dangerous ingredients, she continued to study there (while still teaching) until 1926, but was never granted a degree. Thereafter she did her own experiments at Japan Women’s University, eventually teaching at the university as well as high school level there and developing a devoted following of students who appreciated her strictness and with whom she talked late into the night. Her younger sister Kayo was among her students, asking her one evening “so what grade did I get on the exam?” “Ask me tomorrow at school, don’t mix public and private,” Hideru scolded.

In 1932 she received a research study to investigate the structure of perillen, a substance originally identified by her professor at Tokyo University. Her assistant Tsuji Kiyo once accidentally destroyed all of her research materials, to be met with an explosion of fury; Kiyo, horrified, vowed to devote her life to Hideru in expiation, and pretty much did so until Hideru’s death, making sure she had healthy versions of the foods she wanted when diagnosed with diabetes. Hideru wrote to Kiyo during the war, when food was scarce, “I keep your snacks in my bag and munch on them as I walk to school.”

In 1937, upon publishing her paper on perillen, she was granted a Ph.D., making her the first woman in Japan to receive a doctorate in pharmaceutical science. Hideru continued thereafter to teach and research; during World War II, when normal school life became impossible, she researched gas masks and grew mushrooms in the bomb shelter. She died of diabetes-related complications in 1944 at the age of fifty-six, having spent her last days caring for the elderly Tange Ume, the senior chemistry colleague she most admired.

Sources
https://www.ge-at-utokyo.org/hideru-suzuki (English) Short summary of Hideru’s life and various photos, including her Ph.D. diploma and her papers in German and Japanese

the_comfortable_courtesan

We are pleas'd to announce the publickation today of Choices: Taking Decisions (Clorinda Cathcart's Circle, #25), in elecktronical form and as a pretty bound volume:

A Parliamentary election causes considerable upheaval to the summer plans of Society in general, and of Clorinda and her circle. But besides any choices concerning the government of the nation, several of them find that they have to make decisions touching on more personal matters.

though there is alas some delay in the production of the Google edition.

It is anticipat'd that the work will shortly be available via Overdrive for libraries.

The usual notes on Allusions and References have been provid'd.

swan_tower

Ars longa, vita brevis -- but even art doesn't last forever. At least, not without a lot of help.

The ephemerality of art does, of course, depend on what you're doing. Performing arts are fleeting by nature: there's notation or (nowadays) recording, but when we talk about preserving something like music or dance, we tend to mean the art form as a whole, making sure there continue to be practitioners and audiences. In this sense it's much like a craft, where you need an ongoing series of teachers and students to inherit their wisdom -- which includes passing on the specific details of a song or a dance, an oral story or an epic poem, if you don't have a way of committing those to a more permanent medium. If that chain of transmission gets broken, then skills or entire works of art may be lost.

Physical art is more fixed, but that doesn't mean it's lasting. I've talked before about how much literature was destroyed after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire cut down on the availability of papyrus: that stuff isn't durable, and so anything written on it has to be copied and recopied, over and over again, as the original version decays. Many kinds of wood-pulp paper have a similar problem with acid; unless it's specially treated (acid-free paper), it succumbs to what's poetically known as "slow fire," gradually turning the paper more and more brittle until the slightest touch causes it to disintegrate. Modern science has ways to stabilize and de-acidify the paper, but for these kinds of artworks, "preservation" usually consists of continually making new copies, so that the content survives even if the container does not.

Some things you might think don't need conservation. Fired clay has survived for thousands of years; surely it's perfectly fine, right? Not necessarily. Depending on how the clay was treated, it may still contain salts that can expand and crack the material, even to the point of it disintegrating into useless fragments. Salt and other chemicals can also attack stone, accumulating either through rain (which is rarely entirely pure), through wind, or through dampness rising from the ground. Heat and cold also create stress on the stone which can lead to cracks: microscopic ones at first, but as the strain continues, and especially if those cracks are infiltrated by substances that expand and contract at different rates, entire pieces can break off. This is why so many ancient statues are missing noses, hands, and other protruding bits.

Even if it's less dramatic than that, weathering takes a gradual toll. Erosion from wind and water scrapes away infinitesimal layers of detail from the surface, year after year. Iron obviously rusts, but nearly any metal can corrode in one fashion or another -- sometimes damaging not only itself, but everything around it. Wooden elements not only rot but warp, placing stress on anything they connect to. Pigments fade and discolor, perhaps from the mere touch of light; textiles combine the vulnerabilities of those pigments with the brittleness and decay of organic material. Insects may eat away at artworks or lay their eggs within them; moss and lichen, while picturesque in their own way, hasten the breakdown of whatever they've latched onto. The list of potential sources of damage is nearly endless.

The cruelest twist is that sometimes we ourselves are the cause of the very problems we're trying to address. Our efforts to preserve great works of art go back for centuries, but our knowledge of how to do that well is much more recent. Past conservators have worked diligently to clean dirt and overgrowth off statues or paintings . . . not realizing that the cleansers they're using are causing other kinds of damage, especially once the long term comes into play. Maybe it looks fine in the moment, but it's actually dried out the paint so that later on it begins to crack and flake away from the canvas or panels beneath.

Our efforts to halt or reverse damage can likewise become part of the problem. Adding metal brackets to stabilize some work of stone may seem like a good idea, but their corrosion or warping can destroy what they were meant to protect. (This likely contributed to the collapse of Coventry Cathedral during the Blitz, as the fire heated the iron supports added by the Victorians.) And have you ever wondered why so many paintings by the Old Masters look dark and yellow? That's because at some point, some well-meaning person gave them a coat of varnish to protect the paint beneath -- and then, in the decades or centuries since then, the varnish has aged and collected dust, distorting the colors of the painting and obscuring finer details. You can see this in a video by Philip Mould that recently made the rounds of the internet, showing him cleaning away a thick layer of discolored varnish to reveal a startlingly vibrant portrait beneath.

And finally, conservation sometimes includes touching up the original -- but where the line is between "touching up" and "adding your own ideas" may be in the eye of the beholder. Quite a few classical sculptures you might see in Italy nowadays were actually found as fragments, with Renaissance artists hired to "restore" the missing portions according to their own vision -- look into the famous grouping Laocoön and His Sons to see the replacement right arm Laocoön was given, versus the one found later that seems to have been the original. A portrait of Isabella de' Medici in the Pittsburgh Carnegie Museum of Art was so thoroughly overpainted that the curator actually thought it was a modern fake; only upon X-ray examination did she find the original was holding an urn and had a completely different face. And, most egregiously, the "restorers" Sir Arthur Evans hired for the frescos in the Minoan palace of Knossos exercised so much of their own creativity around the surviving fragments that they transformed what we now know was a depiction of a monkey into a young boy.

The key goals nowadays are prevention, stability, reversibility, and honesty. Prevention means producing art on durable materials like acid-free paper, keeping fragile materials in climate-controlled rooms, bundling up outdoor sculptures in wintertime to protect them from the cold, and otherwise trying to forestall problems from getting a foothold in the first place. Stability means leveraging our improved knowledge of chemistry to ensure that the materials we use to repair or protect works of art are less likely to cause damage later on. Reversibility means doing our best to guarantee that anything we add can be removed later on without harm: it's fine to put protective varnish on a painting or a sculpture, so long as we can also wipe it away. And honesty means that, if we fill in the gaps on some fragmentary relic, we let the seams show, instead of trying to pass off our own additions as the genuine article.

Do we succeed at adhering to these goals all the time, in all circumstances? Of course not. And even when we try, we may miss the mark, such that later generations curse us for well-meaning interventions that accidentally made things worse. But we do the best we can with the knowledge and tools we have, which is all that anyone can promise.

Patreon banner saying "This post is brought to you by my imaginative backers at Patreon. To join their ranks, click here!"

(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/kvMTkk)

ghostbees posting in

holmestice

Name:

ghostbees
Contact email: The usual
AO3 username:

vernets
Treat preference: Yes please!

( Read more... )

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: MCU
Pairings/Characters: Loki, Thor
Rating: Gen
Length: 13k
Creator Links:
Theme: siblings, AU, fork in the road, character development, gen, politics, family,

Summary: "Because you are my brother," Thor told him.

(Politics and family on Asgard. A brotherly love story.)

Reccer's Notes: This goes AU just after the first Thor movie. It's a fascinating exploration of what might have been, and of Thor and Loki and Odin and what it means to be King of Asgard.

Fanwork Links: That Sheds His Blood With Me

beatrice_otter posting in

fancake

Fandom: BBC Sherlock
Pairings/Characters: Sherlock Holmes, John Watson
Rating: teen
Length: 3k
Creator Links:

AJHall
Theme: siblings, family, gen, friendship, asexual characters, fandom classic

Summary: "Anyway. Enough of my embarrassing sibling brothel stories. Tell me yours."

A Sherlock conversation, over breakfast.

Reccer's Notes: I am shocked to find that this fic has not been recced before! This is a such a lovely picture of John and Sherlock's relationship, contrasted with Sherlock and Mycroft's relationship. (Not all sibling relationships are good or healthy.)

Fanwork Links: Breakfast at 221B

olivermoss

What is better than a rogue pot hole repair artist?

Two of them:

This one is Fill The Void.

Where is the line between public art and street art? Some of the surroundings of Portland's Chinese Garden are murals and carvings that should be there, some of the paint is clearly street art, but there are also layers in between where I am not sure:

( More of the above and some other shots )

fignewton posting in

stargateficrec

This entry will be open through the 31st. The April reccers post will go up Wednesday.

Comment with the username you'll be using to rec and the category you want. Choose a category from the list below or select a more rare category that has been used in the past. If you want to rec a category that is not on the list below or in Memories, that's fine, too: you may volunteer for a category that isn't listed.

By signing up, you are committing yourself to reccing at least two (preferably four) stories in that category during the month of April. You don't have to check the Memories before choosing which stories to rec. If you have a good fic to rec, go for it! Do remember, though, that story links must be freely accessible, without requiring any sort of login to view. The FAQ and rec template, with detailed instructions, can be found here. Reccers may add self-recs once they have done their minimum two for their category of the month, and see more details at the FAQ entry.

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dine

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crantz

My movie list is now at 210 entries - I'd be adding The Barbarian Brothers tonight but I got exhausted at minute 39 and rainchecked the bff for tomorrow night. Finally some oiled hunk content though. A man has needs.

We were going to watch Shin Godzilla tonight (the Movie Pals, which consist of me, Ann, and Vali) but I discovered a Lovecraft movie by Roger Corman was leaving Prime in a few days so we switched to The Dunwich Horror starring Dean Stockwell and Sandra Dee. Sandra Dee's hair kept increasing in size as a dominance thing and Dean Stockwell had an amazing style of line reading. Also he has very pretty eyes. I was pleased/surprised they thanked me for the movie choice after. That was nice! I liked that.

The slump is sort of being overcome, since last post.

I bought 48 cadbury creme eggs because it turns out you can just buy the box they take the singles out of before they open it. Follow me for more life hacks.

I've been roleplaying a lot in City of Heroes lately, something I never did outside of close friends before and it has been a lot of fun. I think my main attractiveness as a roleplayer is I do not think I need to win any encounter, social or fighting.

Today's episode involved my character trying to kidnap another and it going so poorly the hostage gave the kidnapper a pep talk.

calzephyr posting in

1word1day

Scarificator - noun.

If you're a fan of history or old-timey literature, you probably ran across the treatment of bloodletting. However, did you ever think about how it was done? I didn't until I saw this Reddit post.

Enter this fiendish-looking, spring-loaded contraption, the scarificator. Inside the brass box are gears used to snap the blades out. As one might guess, it was popular in the 19th century.

By David R. Ingham at the English-language Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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