This is not concerning at all
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
james_davis_nicollSFWA is running a LLM poll for which there seems to little point if they were not planning on legitimizing the use of LLMs.
Who on the board is responsible, I wonder?
Who on the board is responsible, I wonder?
Reading Wednesday
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:15 amsabotabbyJust finished: Nothing.
Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Well, we're a third of the way in! After coughing up blood repeatedly for the last half a dozen chapters and blaming it on acclimatization to the altitude, our feckless hero has finally seen a doctor (at the TB sanatorium!) and gotten himself formally diagnosed. So now he's stuck up the mountain indefinitely. He's very chill about it though, as the lifestyle—five meals a day, cheap accommodations, lectures, and interesting conversations—is way more fun than going to work. Also he has fallen for another patient, Madame Clavdia Chauchat (great cat name if you have a new adoptee in your life), who despite being Russian, married, uncouth, and outside of his social class, reminds him of a boy he had a crush on as a kid. Our bisexual king Hans Castorp!
Of course I can't help but read modern interpretations into this, and the parallels to the disability community online, the relief of diagnosis after you've experienced mysterious weird symptoms and then connecting with other people who are quietly suffering. Hans Castorp would have loved the internet.
Can a book be both boring and engrossing? Yes.
Currently reading: The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. Well, we're a third of the way in! After coughing up blood repeatedly for the last half a dozen chapters and blaming it on acclimatization to the altitude, our feckless hero has finally seen a doctor (at the TB sanatorium!) and gotten himself formally diagnosed. So now he's stuck up the mountain indefinitely. He's very chill about it though, as the lifestyle—five meals a day, cheap accommodations, lectures, and interesting conversations—is way more fun than going to work. Also he has fallen for another patient, Madame Clavdia Chauchat (great cat name if you have a new adoptee in your life), who despite being Russian, married, uncouth, and outside of his social class, reminds him of a boy he had a crush on as a kid. Our bisexual king Hans Castorp!
Of course I can't help but read modern interpretations into this, and the parallels to the disability community online, the relief of diagnosis after you've experienced mysterious weird symptoms and then connecting with other people who are quietly suffering. Hans Castorp would have loved the internet.
Can a book be both boring and engrossing? Yes.
Wednesday's Comic
Dec. 24th, 2025 09:43 amjbwoodford posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
girlgenius_lairLess talking, more swords.
Of course Bang is wearing a black bra with little skulls on it.
(Edited to correct date.)
Of course Bang is wearing a black bra with little skulls on it.
(Edited to correct date.)
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:58 amjames_davis_nicoll
What would you do if you could meet a dead loved one one last time? Ayumi Shibuya can make that happen.
Lost Souls Meet Under a Full Moon (Lost Souls, volume 1) by Mizuki Tsujimura
Girl Genius for Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Dec. 24th, 2025 05:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
girlgenius_main_feedThe Girl Genius comic for Wednesday, December 24, 2025 has been posted.
The Day in Spikedluv (Tuesday, Dec 23)
Dec. 24th, 2025 06:34 amspikedluvThank you so much for the Christmas cards adafrog, cornerofmadness, lunabee34, mistressofmuses, reeby10 and southernmedicine!! It's been really nice to receive them in the mail.
I did not go downtown today. I hadn’t slept well (waking up at 3am with all the things running through my head), so I went back to bed after Pip left for work.
I visited mom and helped clear the paperwork off the table so we had room to eat on Christmas. (Which mainly involved creating stacks of toss, file and shred, and then tossing and filing; shredding still has to be done, but at least it’s still off the table).
I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, emptied the dishwasher and ran another load, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, baked chicken for the dogs’ meals, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I hit the bank drive-thru for mom and made banana bread for Christmas. Supper was leftover chuck roast.
I marathoned three more eps of The Pitt. Secrets of the Zoo was once again my evening background tv.
Temps started out at 32.9(F) and reached 40.9 (once it did, it immediately turned around and started down again). The TWC app originally called for 1-3 inches, but today it said less than an inch over the course of the entire day. Guess which I was rooting for? Thankfully the updated forecast was the correct one. We had very light snow over the course of the day, but not enough to accumulate.
Mom Update:
Mom looked good when I saw her. ( more back here )
adafrog, cornerofmadness, lunabee34, mistressofmuses, reeby10 and southernmedicine!! It's been really nice to receive them in the mail.I did not go downtown today. I hadn’t slept well (waking up at 3am with all the things running through my head), so I went back to bed after Pip left for work.
I visited mom and helped clear the paperwork off the table so we had room to eat on Christmas. (Which mainly involved creating stacks of toss, file and shred, and then tossing and filing; shredding still has to be done, but at least it’s still off the table).
I did two loads of laundry, hand-washed dishes, emptied the dishwasher and ran another load, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, baked chicken for the dogs’ meals, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I hit the bank drive-thru for mom and made banana bread for Christmas. Supper was leftover chuck roast.
I marathoned three more eps of The Pitt. Secrets of the Zoo was once again my evening background tv.
Temps started out at 32.9(F) and reached 40.9 (once it did, it immediately turned around and started down again). The TWC app originally called for 1-3 inches, but today it said less than an inch over the course of the entire day. Guess which I was rooting for? Thankfully the updated forecast was the correct one. We had very light snow over the course of the day, but not enough to accumulate.
Mom Update:
Mom looked good when I saw her. ( more back here )
Pluribus 1.09 (Season Finale)
Dec. 24th, 2025 10:46 amselenakIn which Buffy Summers already knew that the hardest thing in this world is how to live in it, Carol.
( Spoilers have to choose between the girl and the world )
( Spoilers have to choose between the girl and the world )
(no subject)
Dec. 25th, 2025 01:23 amfarsidecomics_feed“You eat your dirt, Billy. You want to grow up as big and slimy as your dad, don’t you?”
(no subject)
Dec. 25th, 2025 01:23 amfarsidecomics_feed“Neanderthals, Neanderthals! Can’t make fire! Can’t make spear! Nyah, nyah, nyah!”
(no subject)
Dec. 25th, 2025 01:23 amfarsidecomics_feedNAVIGATIONAL BOOKS / ACME OUTBOARD MOTOR With gas! / ACE SIGNAL FLARES / A-1 INFLATABLE BOAT
Advent calendar 24
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:16 amantisoppistWill saw there only a gap in the crowd, with beyond it the group of musicians. As he stood there, they struck up once more 'Good King Wenceslas', the carol they had been playing when first he entered the room, through the Doors. Merrily the whole gathering joined in singing, and then the next verse came and Merriman's deep voice was ringing out across the room, and Will realised, blinking, that the verse to come was his.
He drew breath, and raised his head.
Sire he lives a good league hence,
Underneath the mountain ...
And there was no moment of farewell, no moment in which he saw the nineteenth century vanish away, but suddenly with no awareness of change, as he sang he knew that Time had somehow blinked, and another young voice was singing with him, the two of them so nearly simultaneous that anyone who could not see the lips moving would have sworn that it was one boy's voice alone . . .
[...]
On Christmas night, Will always slept with James. Both twin beds were still in James's room from the time before Will had moved up to Stephen's attic. The only difference now was that James kept Will's old bed piled with op art cushions, and referred to it as 'my chaise longue'. There was something about Christmas Eve, they both felt, that demanded company; one needed somebody to whisper to, during the warm beautiful dream-taut moments between hanging the empty stocking at the end of the bed, and dropping into the cosy oblivion that would flower into the marvel of Christmas morning.
And it was the same as it always was, as he lay curled up happily in his snug wrappings, promising himself that he would stay awake, until, until...
... until he woke, in the dim morning room with a glimmer of light creeping round the dark square of the curtained window, and saw and heard nothing for an enchanted expectant space, because all his senses were concentrated on the weighty feel, over and around his blanketed feet, of strange bumps and corners and shapes that had not been there when he fell asleep. And it was Christmas Day.
So, 1000xResist
Dec. 24th, 2025 08:10 amrydra_wongI was too tired to have the focus for Dark Souls-ing in the last few days, so binge-played 1000xResist and now I feel like I'm been punched in the head.
Basically a walking simulator/visual novel, so don't go expecting complex gameplay, but HOLY FUCK.
For all of you looking for fiction with fucked-up complicated women who are somewhere on a spectrum from "morally grey" to "evil but sympathetic" (with the odd dip into "idealistic but destructive") having fucked-up dynamics with other fucked-up complicated women: 1000xResist has SO MANY of them. It has almost no characters who don't fit that archetype, in fact.
(I considered whether it passes the reverse-Bechdel test -- i.e. two male characters have a conversation that's not about a woman -- and I think it may juuust scrape past in a 5-second exchange in one of the flashbacks, but barely. There are very very few men in this story, for plot-related reasons.)
I found out afterwards that the development team were a devised theatre group who decided to start making a game when everything was shut down during the pandemic, and somehow this fully checks out (complimentary).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1675830/1000xRESIST/ (you can even pick it up in a bundle with Slay The Princess for bonus visual novel headfuck)
Do note the content notes from the devs: Photosensitivity Warning: Flashing Lights, Cursing and Crude Language, Generational Trauma, Acts of Violence and Terrorism, Disease Outbreak, Mention of Suicide, Mention of Animal Cruelty/Pet Death, Blood, Body Horror, Emotional Abuse, Bullying, Dead Bodies, Vomit, Drowning, Fire, Gore, Needles, Racism and General Mature Content.
(I would also add a specific note for torture, and for fucked-up mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships, that being one of the core elements of the game, along with the aforementioned generational trauma.)
Basically a walking simulator/visual novel, so don't go expecting complex gameplay, but HOLY FUCK.
For all of you looking for fiction with fucked-up complicated women who are somewhere on a spectrum from "morally grey" to "evil but sympathetic" (with the odd dip into "idealistic but destructive") having fucked-up dynamics with other fucked-up complicated women: 1000xResist has SO MANY of them. It has almost no characters who don't fit that archetype, in fact.
(I considered whether it passes the reverse-Bechdel test -- i.e. two male characters have a conversation that's not about a woman -- and I think it may juuust scrape past in a 5-second exchange in one of the flashbacks, but barely. There are very very few men in this story, for plot-related reasons.)
I found out afterwards that the development team were a devised theatre group who decided to start making a game when everything was shut down during the pandemic, and somehow this fully checks out (complimentary).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1675830/1000xRESIST/ (you can even pick it up in a bundle with Slay The Princess for bonus visual novel headfuck)
Do note the content notes from the devs: Photosensitivity Warning: Flashing Lights, Cursing and Crude Language, Generational Trauma, Acts of Violence and Terrorism, Disease Outbreak, Mention of Suicide, Mention of Animal Cruelty/Pet Death, Blood, Body Horror, Emotional Abuse, Bullying, Dead Bodies, Vomit, Drowning, Fire, Gore, Needles, Racism and General Mature Content.
(I would also add a specific note for torture, and for fucked-up mother-daughter and sister-sister relationships, that being one of the core elements of the game, along with the aforementioned generational trauma.)
not a pav year
Dec. 24th, 2025 04:31 pmtielanBought carton egg whites to make the pav with. Didn't realise they'd overbeat so easily.
Ugh.
So I've made two pavs and neither one got to stiff peaks. Second time I actually looked up what went wrong and went "ARGH".
Do I try making a third?
Honestly, the last few years, my pav attempts have been somewhat substandard. They collapse and fall - I don't think I can get the gas oven cool enough for long enough to keep them from collapsing. It only goes down to about 120C before the dial cuts out and if possible you're supposed to leave it at around 80C for an hour.
Not an option in my oven.
I have a guest coming, too - invited a woman off a FB group "host a sister" who was bouncing around Christmas Day.
ETA: I ended up whipping up a third batch, and it's now in the oven. We'll try to bake the shell hard (high temp), then fluff the inside (long low temp).
Please please please please let this one work!
Ugh.
So I've made two pavs and neither one got to stiff peaks. Second time I actually looked up what went wrong and went "ARGH".
Do I try making a third?
Honestly, the last few years, my pav attempts have been somewhat substandard. They collapse and fall - I don't think I can get the gas oven cool enough for long enough to keep them from collapsing. It only goes down to about 120C before the dial cuts out and if possible you're supposed to leave it at around 80C for an hour.
Not an option in my oven.
I have a guest coming, too - invited a woman off a FB group "host a sister" who was bouncing around Christmas Day.
ETA: I ended up whipping up a third batch, and it's now in the oven. We'll try to bake the shell hard (high temp), then fluff the inside (long low temp).
Please please please please let this one work!
hark back
Dec. 24th, 2025 12:00 ammerriamwebster_feedMerriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 24, 2025 is:
hark back • \HAHRK-BAK\ • verb
Harking back can be about turning back to an earlier topic or circumstance, as in "a storyteller harking back to his youth," or it can be about going back to something as an origin or source, as in "a style that harks back to the turn of the previous century."
// The dinner conversation harked back to the lunch debate over what counts as a traditional holiday meal.
// The diner's interior decor harks back to the 1950s.
Examples:
"The single harks back to Chenier's heyday when his music was produced on 45s and put into jukeboxes, says [Maureen] Loughran." — Alicia Ault, Smithsonian Magazine, 25 June 2025
Did you know?
Hark, a very old word meaning "to listen," was used as a cry in hunting. The master of the hunt might cry "Hark! Forward!" or "Hark! Back!" The cries became set phrases, both as nouns and verbs. Thus, a "hark back" was a retracing of a route by dogs and hunters, and to "hark back" was to turn back along the path. From its use in hunting, the verb acquired its current figurative meanings concerned with returning to the past. The variants hearken and harken (also very old words meaning "to listen") are also used, with and without back, as synonyms of hark back.