Where LB Goes For Fun On The Internet

Jul. 15th, 2025 03:29 pm
lb_lee: a black and white animated gif of a pro wrestler flailing his arms above the words STILL THE BEST (VICTORY)
[personal profile] lb_lee
"LB, you're not on social media, and you live like some weird austere godless monk. Do you even have fun on the Internet???"

Oh, don't worry, friends. We have fun on the Internet:
  • Archive.org (for old music, old multi stuff, old website research, weird niche research... what DON'T I use Archive.org for? Seriously probably the website we spend the most time on)
  • Archive of Our Own (for prose fiction and porn--most known for fanfic, but its tag system is so good that we sometimes trawl the original fic archive for stuff)
  • the Anarchist Library (what it sounds like)
  • Bandcamp (for new music--I have YET to figure out how the fuck iTunes works)
  • LotusPrince's Let's Plays (this is the only Youtuber I really watch anymore, been watching him for over ten years, he is a softspoken, straightfaced completionist who tries to be positive about every game he plays, no matter how clunky or goofy, and he is still my favorite parasocial companion for when I am so brainblasted I really can't handle anything more complicated than "go to the right, fight boss.")
We use an RSS reader to stay on top of blogs and artist accounts scattered across the ether, but if it can't be RSSed, then we don't bother. Lotus Prince is the only exception; he's a self-limiting, Gatorade activity, something I only want when I'm badly depleted, and once I recharge, I'm off to the races again, digging around in 1998 soulbonding websites on Archive.org.

I only play one game now, hack103 (and we use our local offline copy. Our shoulder only allows it on occasion, but fortunately, Hack is from 1985 and pre-poopsocking, so it's a very easy game to put down for years at a time and pick up again.
oriolegirl: (Bucky's magic hat)
[personal profile] oriolegirl
I didn't make it to the PokemonGO meetup on Saturday. I finished cardio and strength training and thought, I'll just go to the first hour. But as the time was approaching to leave, I thought, well maybe I'll just go for the last hour and then head in to meet S for dinner. And then I just thought, nevermind. I did have dinner with S, though. I was telling her how I just couldn't last week and she was sympathetic and was all, that's how it goes sometimes and you just have to ride out the dips.

I have 4 weekly pillboxes that I fill once every 4 weeks. And it was time to do that on Saturday night. I got to my depression meds and remembered that last month my psych and I decided to try lower the dose. Not a whole lot, just a little bit. And I went, huh, I wonder if that's why I had the week of just couldn't. So I put the old dosage into the pill boxes. I'm not so just couldn't so far. We'll see.

Yesterday I saw the nutritionist again, who was quite pleased with me. Since I sold the car, I have to book a ZipCar to get to the weight management center. Adventures with ZipCar )

Solar Winds (1993)

Jul. 15th, 2025 12:35 pm
pauraque: Guybrush writing in his journal adrift on the sea in a bumper car (monkey island adrift)
[personal profile] pauraque
In this top-down sci-fi RPG, you play as Jake Stone, a bounty hunter in a distant galaxy. In the course of your regularly scheduled bounty hunting, you discover a conspiracy to suppress hyperdrive technology and prevent your people and their nearby enemies the Rigians from exploring beyond the local star systems. You and you alone (for some reason) must figure out who is trying to keep you locked in together and how you can escape.

Jake converses with an alien who says he is there to evaluate his peoples technology

I have intense nostalgia for one specific aspect of this game. Interestingly, in retrospect I think it is probably also the worst aspect of this game.

Namely: in space everything is extremely far apart. )

Solar Winds is not commercially available, which is slightly surprising given the developer's later high-profile work. But if you are so inclined, you can play part one and part two in your browser. I've read that the game was heavily inspired by Star Control II, which I haven't played, but I would be interested to check it out and compare.
larryhammer: Yotsuba Koiwai running, label: "enjoy everything" (enjoy everything)
[personal profile] larryhammer
The last time I posted about Yue Xia Die Ying, I had just read one of her xianxia novels and really enjoyed it. Since then, I’ve read two more of her historical romances. TL,DR: two thumbs up.

The first one, Like Pearl and Jade, is a more serious, if low-key, drama with romance. Technically the female MC is a transmigrator, but this identity has zero impact on the story and is used only as a framing device. The story and romance are both quite good, and I like how the frequent small digs at the patriarchy build to (small) actions that improve the status of (some) women. This is about the same size as I Am Average and Unremarkable, or about half of Journey to the West.

The second one, though, this one is a delight. The half-again longer* The Times Spent in Pretense I can only describe as a Chinese analog of Georgette Heyer. Its tone is relatively light, despite a redonkulous number of assassination attempts,** with a sheen of satire. More to the point, the male MC is outright Heyeresque, one of her Mark II models by Heyer’s classification, and his several brothers are as eccentric as any Heyer cast.*** The female MC, meanwhile, spends most of the first half playing several roles that are funny enough in themselves, but that eventually start colliding with each other, resulting in comedy gold.

Unlike Like Pearl and Jade, its feminism is baked in from the start. The female MC’s parents are both generals and military heroes. Her mother in particular is a badass beauty, with adoring female fans who proposition her in public — behavior viewed as more déclassé than scandalous. Way less hetereonormative than usual for a straight romance from mainland China. Meanwhile the female MC’s initial life goal is to acquire an estate near the capital where she can “raise male pets,” i.e. collect a harem of consorts — and her family quietly supports this, as it’s not an unknown hobby for noblewomen, though not one that gets publicly flaunted. The differences from our history are highlighted by contrast with a neighboring kingdom with traditional NeoConfucian values, where they look down on this degenerate place (while being baffled at how happy and prosperous it is despite its grave moral lapses).

I am also greatly amused by a minor character, part of a rival’s girl posse, who makes repeated metatextual commentary based on genre tropes.

Possibly best of all, though, the female MC never fades into the background, as happens all too frequently in Chinese historical romances, but is an active plot participant all the way through the climax.

Both recommended, the second highly so.


* So about three-quarters of a Journey West.

** Spoiler: not a single assassin succeeds.

*** My favorite is the would-be painter. The female MC’s first reaction to one of his landscapes is “What on earth was this painting? A bunch of heavily inked blobs and lightly inked blobs mixing together as friends?” Which is funny enough, but eventually it comes out that everything about this scene are even more examples of pretenses.


---L.

Subject quote from …Ready For It?, Taylor Swift.
rionaleonhart: the mentalist: lisbon, with time counting down, makes an important call. (it's been an honour)
[personal profile] rionaleonhart
[personal profile] doreyg reminded me of a detail in the first Danganronpa that means, if you do certain Free Time events, Naegi's probably going to end up blaming himself for the events of the second chapter. This fic grew out of that thought!

I really struggled with which names to use for this fic! Naegi has always been Naegi in my head, but there are other characters heavily involved who I think of by their given names, rather than their family names. I ended up going with the conventions of the official English release, referring to everyone by given name, but I can't tell you how many times I accidentally wrote 'Naegi' instead of 'Makoto'.


Title: a little too late
Fandom: Danganronpa
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 2,200
Summary: It's the second case. Makoto pieces some things together.


a little too late )

Murderbot fanvid: I Lived

Jul. 14th, 2025 09:52 pm
sholio: tv murderbot andrew skarsgard looking to the side (Murderbot-MB)
[personal profile] sholio
Okay, vid-source-assisting enablers, your reward is here. ♥



With every broken bone, I swear I lived. Team/family vid. (Contains some sci-fi violence as per the show, flickering/flashing lights in a couple of scenes, and canon pairings in the background, but it's mostly focused on team + Murderbot.)

Song: I Lived
Artist: OneRepublic
Length: 03:57
AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/67565471
Tumblr: here

Having made this in a fit of exploding feelings today, I plan to get subtitles/downloads up soon (as soon as I remember how to do all of that; it's been ages since I made a vid!).

Temp download: Download from Dropbox (286 Mb, it's huge)

tantalize

Jul. 15th, 2025 01:00 am
[syndicated profile] merriamwebster_feed

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for July 15, 2025 is:

tantalize • \TAN-tuh-lyze\  • verb

To tantalize someone is to cause them to feel interest or excitement about something that is very attractive, appealing, etc.

// She was tantalized by the prospect of a big promotion.

See the entry >

Examples:

"Craving a culinary adventure? Look no further than Manila Street Treats, nestled within the vibrant Tapatio Produce International Market and Shops building in Elkton. This hidden gem offers a diverse menu of Filipino and international flavors that will tantalize your taste buds." — Chester County Press (Oxford, Pennsylvania), 1 Apr. 2025

Did you know?

Pity poor King Tantalus of Lydia. The mythic monarch offended the ancient Greek gods, and was sentenced, according to Homer's Odyssey, to suffer in Hades the following punishment: to stand neck-deep in water, beneath overhanging boughs of a tree heavily laden with ripe, juicy fruit. But though he was always hungry and thirsty, Tantalus could neither drink the water nor eat the fruit: anytime he moved to get them, they would retreat from his reach. Our word tantalize is taken from the name of the eternally tormented king.



sovay: (Claude Rains)
[personal profile] sovay
Because I am more familiar with the operas than the film scores of Erich Wolfgang Korngold and tend to avoid even famous movies with Ronald Reagan in them, it took until tonight for me to hear the main theme for Kings Row (1942), at which point the entire career of John Williams flashed before my eyes. Other parts of the score sound more recognizably, symphonically of their era, but that fanfare is a blast from the future it directly shaped: the standard set by Korngold's tone-poem, leitmotiv-driven approach to film composing, principal photography as the libretto to an opera. I love finding these taproots, even when they were lying around in plain sight.

I don't think that what I feel for the sea is nostalgia, but I am intrigued by this study indicating that generally people do: "Searching for Ithaca: The geography and psychological benefits of nostalgic places" (2025). I am surprised that more people are not apparently bonded to deserts or mountains or woodlands. Holidays by the sea can't explain all of it. I used to spend a lot of my life in trees.

I napped for a couple of hours this afternoon, but my brain could return any time now. The rest of my week is not conducive to doing nothing. The rest of the world is not conducive to losing time.

Jukebox 2025!

Jul. 14th, 2025 07:32 pm
alchemise: Faith, dancing (AtS: dance)
[personal profile] alchemise
There are some great works in the collection this year. I received a lovely romance story for Barenaked Ladies - Lovers in a Dangerous Time:

Nothing Worth Having (1902 words) by felcast
Fandom: Lovers in a Dangerous Time - Barenaked Ladies (Song)
Rating: Mature
Additional Tags: Post-Apocalypse Glamping
Summary: What do you do when everyone but your girlfriend vanishes overnight? According to Molls, you go find ‘em.

Other works I really enjoyed:

Last One on the Ground (4 words) by Anonymous
Fandom: Abandoned Town - The Smooth Maria (Song)
Rating: General Audiences
Additional Tags: Art

Perigee (1025 words) by galaxyofroses
Fandom: Bad Moon Rising - Creedence Clearwater Revival (Song)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character
Additional Tags: Magic, POV Second Person, Apocalypse, Horror
Summary: The moon is a sly bitch with a slantwise smile.

Heartlock (1226 words) by felcast
Fandom: Lock-Keeper - Stan Rogers (Song)
Rating: Mature
Summary: I wouldn't trade your life for one hour of home.

Living Here Today (1431 words) by Iseult_Variante
Fandom: Mr. Blue Sky - Electric Light Orchestra (Song)
Rating: General Audiences
Additional Tags: Magical Realism, Weather, Optimism, Having a Nice Day
Summary: And don't you know
It's a beautiful new day?
Hey...

[ SECRET POST #6765 ]

Jul. 14th, 2025 07:05 pm
case: (Default)
[personal profile] case posting in [community profile] fandomsecrets

⌈ Secret Post #6765 ⌋

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


01.


More! )


Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 30 secrets from Secret Submission Post #968.
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.

Stars Without Number, With Adventures

Jul. 14th, 2025 08:33 pm
schneefink: Babylon 5 (Bab5)
[personal profile] schneefink
We've now played four half-day sessions of our "Stars Without Number" campaign and I'm having a lot of fun.

Our party owns and operates a mining ship, and our first two sessions featured quite a bit of asteroid mining, and also a rescue mission and exploration. Then the space pirates attacked! Not us directly but the space station we are currently based at, so we helped fight them off. And then our latest session was mostly shopping & intel gathering & planning: it sounds like there's an entire fleet of pirates, likely from outside the system, and they've sabotaged and possibly taken over several stations/planets/routes. We'll find out more next time!, which sadly won't be until September because of vacations.

I really like my character. I'm a teleporter! (Talk about wish fulfillment.) Partial psychic/partial expert, because I thought being a full psychic would be overwhelming and I was mostly interested in one discipline anyway. Being able to teleport is so cool. I can teleport 1000 kilometres already and take three people with me.
I'm also really happy with my role in the party. In our main campaign I'm the youngest cat in a group of older and more headstrong cats, which I found difficult sometimes. This time I decided to play a character with more authority, and I've enjoyed it a lot. While all of our party members own the ship together and have equal say, on the bridge I'm the captain; and more importantly, I'm the one keeping track of our money and inventory. (Idk why our GM was surprised that I made a budget and business plan after the first session ^^ )
Our DM told us to prepare back-up characters in case we die, and I did, but I really hope I survive. I even ordered a nice mini figure for her :) As a party I think we've good odds of survival: we have a medic, a biopsionic (=healer), and I can teleport us out in emergencies. Fingers crossed.

I also really enjoy the system, both the setting and mechanically. Playing in a sci-fi world is a welcome contrast after around three years playing in a fantasy world as cats. And playing someone with supernatural abilities feels especially cool after three years as a non-magical archer.
One thing I didn't expect to enjoy this much is leveling up. In our previous system we earn adventure points and we can spend those on improving abilities/skills/etc., but it's more gradual, which tbh makes more sense in-universe. Buuut, leveling up just feels cool. Especially when I can pick new abilities.
What I like less is how ship combat works. So far it's been a little tedious as it seems like half the party always has very little to do; but I suspect that's also because our combat options as a mining ship are limited. We'll see how it goes. We just upgraded our weapons because of the pirates.

Once again our GM has underestimated how long it'll take us to get through his plot so we'll have to see how far we get/what happens when our fifth cat comes back from her year abroad. But until then I really look forward to our next adventures.
[syndicated profile] siriareads_feed

Posted by siria

The immortals dream of each other when the universe has decreed that they are not close enough to one another.

Joe and Nicky start dreaming of each other a month and a half into their truce, when they are sleeping side-by-side every night in the desert. How much closer can they be?

[Solid, but: no Cistercians then; better to store your codices on their sides.]

A poem for summer

Jul. 14th, 2025 11:53 am
sef1029: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan faces (Default)
[personal profile] sef1029
 FROM BLOSSOMS
 by Li-Young Lee

From blossoms comes this brown paper bag of peaches
we bought from the boy 
in the bend in the road where we turned toward
signs painted Peaches.

From laden boughs, from hands,
from sweet fellowship in the bins,
comes nectar at the roadside, succulent
peaches we devour, dusty skin and all,
comes the familiar dust of summer, dust we eat.

O, to take what we love inside,
to carry within us an orchard, to eat
not only the skin, but the shade,
not only the sugar, but the days, to hold
the fruit in our hands, adore it, then bite into
the round jubilance of peach.

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere 
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing, 
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.



esteefee: Gorgeous illo of Rodney and John with their lips about to meet, in shades of brown and purple, art by Crysothemis (mcboys)
[personal profile] esteefee
 My WIP for Rough Trade's Transcendence Challenge:

Title: Lighter Than A Feather
Fandom: SGA
Pairing: McShep
Rating: R
Tags: Magical AU, Paranormal, Historical AU, Action Adventure, Mystery
Warnings for Character Bashing (Ladon Radim, Elizabeth Weir)
Summary: Rodney McKay thought he was the best founder in Lanta; heck, all of Merka. But then he encountered the artisans at T&J's Sleep Goods, who make a pillow so incredible, so almost magical, people say it's like laying your head on an airy cloud. If only Rodney could discover their secret! It fully justifies him following John Sheppard around…

(no subject)

Jul. 14th, 2025 01:55 pm
watersword: Graffiti scrawl of "ignore this text" (Stock: ignore this text)
[personal profile] watersword

It turns out that North & South (2004) is not soothing to watch whilst stitching; I am not interested in the 1850's generally, I am in no fit state to be entertained by the Industrial Revolution and labor unrest, and the cinematography is bleak. Richard Armitage's jawline does not make up for these flaws.

The Three Sisters plot has begun giving me peas! It is surprisingly difficult to distinguish between "immature snap pea" and "mature snow pea". I should probably give up this plot next year, as the fee is almost twice as much as the one near my apartment, and getting there & back is annoying, and the plot is weed central ....but the raspberry patch! I got sour and sweet cherries at the farmer's market, which of course means that I made cherry-pit whipped cream to go with the cherry galette; it is now corn and zucchini season, which is one of my favorite seasons; I miss having a grill so much. It is absolutely perfect grilling weather.

Somehow I have three community events at the same time tonight: a embroidery meetup, a constituent outreach meeting with my city councilor, and a meeting of the neighborhood association board. ::facepalm::

sovay: (Morell: quizzical)
[personal profile] sovay
My week seems to have started with catapulting myself on zero sleep to a specialist's appointment starting half an hour from the end of the phone call, so I am eating a bagel with lox and trying not to feel that the earth acquires a new axial tilt every time I turn my head. Paying bills, shockingly, has not improved my mood.

After enjoying both The Big Pick-Up (1955) and The Flight of the Phoenix (1964), I was disappointed by Elleston Trevor's The Burning Shore (U.S. The Pasang Run, 1961), which ironically for its airport setting never really seemed to get its plot off the ground and in any case its ratio of romantic melodrama and ambient racism to actual aviation was not ideal, but I am a little sorry that it was not adapted for film like its fellows, since I would have liked to see the casting for the initially peripheral, ultimately book-stealing role of Tom Thorne, the decorated and disgraced surgeon gone in the Conradian manner to ground in the tropics, because of his unusual fragility: it is de rigueur for his archetype that he should pull himself out of his opium-mired death-spiral for the sake of a passenger flight downed in flames, but he remains an impulsive suicide risk even when his self-respect should conventionally have been restored. He is described as having the face of a hurt clown. He'd have been any character actor's gift.

Mostly I like that Wolf Alice named themselves after the short story by Angela Carter, but the chorus of "The Sofa" (2025) really is attractive right now.
silveradept: A kodama with a trombone. The trombone is playing music, even though it is held in a rest position (Default)
[personal profile] silveradept
[community profile] sunshine_revival posted up their fourth topic, even as the heat continues to hammer the Northern Hemisphere, along with humidity, and many of us hide in our climate controlled buildings against it.

We’re heading towards the middle of July, and I hope the weather is treating you kindly this summer, no matter where you are. Any fun plans so far? I’ve spent this week on the mountain, reconnecting with family and staying in a pretty cool house. And talking about houses…

Challenge #4:

Fun House
Journaling: What is making you smile these days? Create a top 10 list of anything you want to talk about.

Creative: Write from the perspective of a house or other location.
What makes you happy? )

More laughs and happiness later!
larryhammer: a symbol used in a traditional Iceland magic spell of protection (icon of awe)
[personal profile] larryhammer
For Poetry Monday, another bit of Japonisme:

On Seeing the Daibutsu, Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Long have I searched, Cathedral, shrine, and hall,
To find a symbol, from the hand of art,
That gave the full expression (not a part)
Of that ecstatic peace which follows all
Life’s pain and passion. Strange it should befall
This outer emblem of the inner heart
Was waiting far beyond the great world’s mart—
Immortal answer, to the mortal call.

Unknown the artist, vaguely known his creed:
But the bronze wonder of his work sufficed
To lift me to the heights his faith had trod.
For one rich moment, opulent indeed,
I walked with Krishna, Buddha, and the Christ,
And felt the full serenity of God.


Wilcox (1850-1919) was an extremely popular American poet with, shall we say, a mixed critical reception. She visited Japan in 1911. This is from her collection Picked Poems (1912), and is about the same statue as Kipling’s Buddha at Kamakura.

---L.

Subject quote from The Sign, Ace of Base.

Gratitudes dammit

Jul. 14th, 2025 09:31 am
kass: A glass of iced coffee with milk. (coffee)
[personal profile] kass
1. Murderbot! I deeply enjoyed the whole first season. I think they did a lovely job of translating from book into tv show, and Skarsgard has totally sold me on the role. (It helps that we know he loves the books too -- he wants to do right by them.)

2. Andor! I'm now seven episodes in and absolutely loving it. It feels awfully relevant to our moment. Also I am amused by the fact that this show also relies in part on the acting talent of a Skarsgard, just, y'know, a different one.

3. Rapport: Friendship, Solidarity, Communion, Empathy by Martha Wells, published to celebrate the Murderbot S1 finale.

4. Cold coffee with milk and splenda, and a distant patch of blue in the cloudy skies.

5. All of my laundry is folded and put away. This is, as ever, a temporary state of affairs but it's a nice one while it lasts.
[syndicated profile] dinosaur_comics_feed
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July 14th, 2025next

July 14th, 2025: Thanks to everyone who came out to the signings - it's always great to meet readers and ESPECIALLY great to meet readers in a city I've never been to before!! I had a fantastic time and I hope you did too!

– Ryan

2 shows; life stuff

Jul. 13th, 2025 10:07 pm
sakana17: lian chengbi wearing black (chengbi-lifechoices)
[personal profile] sakana17
I finished 五福临门 | Perfect Match (2025) (Cdrama, 36 episodes) and 相続探偵 | Inheritance Detective (2025) (Jdrama, 10 episodes), both of them on Netflix.

Perfect Match )

Inheritance Detective )

In other news (RL) )

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queenofstars: mckay: don't let the stars get in your eyes (Default)
QueenOfStars

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