(no subject)
May. 30th, 2026 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skygiantsI am under a kind of curse, which is that if I see a King Arthur riff that looks exceptionally strange or funny I must bring it home to experience and add to my collection [mentally, metaphorically] [the physical book does not need to stay in my physical home once I have consumed its contents].
King Arthur in the children's novel The Camelot Code: The Once and Future Geek is also under a kind of curse, which is to say, he's King Arthur. I found this novel in a used bookstore and read the back copy explaining the plot, which is that Arthur time travels to the future, self-Googles, and immediately decides to abandon his destiny and try out for the football team instead. The mirror crack'd from side to side, "the curse has come upon me," I cried, eyes fixed on Camelot, etc.
So! The Camelot Code begins with best friends Sophie and Stu, playing their favorite video game Arthurian Flavor World Of Warcraft with their buddy Melvin from California. Alas! Stu can't raid next Friday because he has recently joined the soccer team and he has to go to pizza with them. Sophie worries that their friendship, which is built around being geeks who don't have normal high school hobbies, is perhaps doomed. :((
Meanwhile, in The Indeterminate Past, best friends Serving Boy Arthur and Princess Guinevere (a plucky warrior princess who can absolutely use a sword but is also at risk of being Sold Off Like A Mule to the Highest Bidder in Marriage) are hanging out secretly distributing largesse to oppressed peasants. Alas! They can't distribute any more largesse because evil Agravaine and Kay have shown up to bully them and oppress the peasants even more. Arthur worries that their friendship, which is built around being compassionate heroes who are not married off to evil knights, is perhaps doomed. :((
These two worlds connect when, during a visit to Merlin's Crystal Cave [it's very sparkly] [Merlin distributes Ray-Bans to all visitors], Gwen and Arthur accidentally drop Uther's magical scabbard down a time portal to Massachusetts, which Merlin keeps open for the wi-fi. Through a series of chaotic events, Arthur ends up at Sophie and Stu's school, while Stu under a shape-changing spell has to sub in for him at Camelot to pull the sword out of the stone and get the legend off on the right track.
Merlin is able to recruit Sophie and Stu specifically because! it turns out! he's their raid buddy Melvin! To be clear, this is not part of some Merlin master plan. Merlin just enjoys Arthurian-flavor WoW and it is NOT weird for him that everyone in Arthurian-flavor WoW greets each other by going "May the Merlin be with you."
( The rest is under a cut because I do feel compelled to describe the entire plot in detail )
Okay, that's all. It's in the mental collection. My curse has been lifted, and the book can now leave my house again.
King Arthur in the children's novel The Camelot Code: The Once and Future Geek is also under a kind of curse, which is to say, he's King Arthur. I found this novel in a used bookstore and read the back copy explaining the plot, which is that Arthur time travels to the future, self-Googles, and immediately decides to abandon his destiny and try out for the football team instead. The mirror crack'd from side to side, "the curse has come upon me," I cried, eyes fixed on Camelot, etc.
So! The Camelot Code begins with best friends Sophie and Stu, playing their favorite video game Arthurian Flavor World Of Warcraft with their buddy Melvin from California. Alas! Stu can't raid next Friday because he has recently joined the soccer team and he has to go to pizza with them. Sophie worries that their friendship, which is built around being geeks who don't have normal high school hobbies, is perhaps doomed. :((
Meanwhile, in The Indeterminate Past, best friends Serving Boy Arthur and Princess Guinevere (a plucky warrior princess who can absolutely use a sword but is also at risk of being Sold Off Like A Mule to the Highest Bidder in Marriage) are hanging out secretly distributing largesse to oppressed peasants. Alas! They can't distribute any more largesse because evil Agravaine and Kay have shown up to bully them and oppress the peasants even more. Arthur worries that their friendship, which is built around being compassionate heroes who are not married off to evil knights, is perhaps doomed. :((
These two worlds connect when, during a visit to Merlin's Crystal Cave [it's very sparkly] [Merlin distributes Ray-Bans to all visitors], Gwen and Arthur accidentally drop Uther's magical scabbard down a time portal to Massachusetts, which Merlin keeps open for the wi-fi. Through a series of chaotic events, Arthur ends up at Sophie and Stu's school, while Stu under a shape-changing spell has to sub in for him at Camelot to pull the sword out of the stone and get the legend off on the right track.
Merlin is able to recruit Sophie and Stu specifically because! it turns out! he's their raid buddy Melvin! To be clear, this is not part of some Merlin master plan. Merlin just enjoys Arthurian-flavor WoW and it is NOT weird for him that everyone in Arthurian-flavor WoW greets each other by going "May the Merlin be with you."
( The rest is under a cut because I do feel compelled to describe the entire plot in detail )
Okay, that's all. It's in the mental collection. My curse has been lifted, and the book can now leave my house again.
108 + 18 Doctor Who icons in 2 batches + 3 AO3
May. 30th, 2026 12:33 pmannabeth_roses posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fandom_icons108 Doctor Who icons from The Eleventh Hour, Vampires of Venice, The Wedding of River Song and a few miscellaneous icons. Pretty much all The Eleventh Doctor.
Teasers:
here @ my journal
Teasers for these behind the cut.
18 icons: 13 Doctor Who from The Hungry Earth & Cold Blood, 3 AO3 icons, and 2 miscellaneous humor icons. All Eleventh Doctor except one of Amy.
Text on the miscellaneous icons is from somethingshades_of_hades said to me.
( 3 more teasers )
here @ my journal
Teasers:
here @ my journal
Teasers for these behind the cut.
18 icons: 13 Doctor Who from The Hungry Earth & Cold Blood, 3 AO3 icons, and 2 miscellaneous humor icons. All Eleventh Doctor except one of Amy.
Text on the miscellaneous icons is from something
shades_of_hades said to me.( 3 more teasers )
here @ my journal
Sinister Syndicate of Space
May. 30th, 2026 12:00 pmmarycatelli posting in book_loveSinister Syndicate of Space by John C. Wright
Book 8 of Starquest.
Plots thicken -- and converge. Spoilers ahead for the earlier works.
( Read more... )
Book 8 of Starquest.
Plots thicken -- and converge. Spoilers ahead for the earlier works.
( Read more... )
I was reading this sf years ago, and it did not turn out well
May. 30th, 2026 03:51 pmoursinGene editing has the power to alter the trajectory of human evolution for ever; the direction it takes will depend on who wields the editing tools. “There is no public funding available for researchers in the space,” Tie explains. “Everything is privately funded.” It’s up to entrepreneurs to demonstrate the potential benefits for humankind, she says, so regulators may soften their hardline stance and allow them to rewrite human DNA.
O gee, we wonder why that is, and whether that is because it is flim-flam.
Also, just look at the people who are funding this, and we think that this is the C21st equivalent of Citizen Kane trying to make his mistress an opera star.
And as for this, I don't think she can really get away from it?
“Eugenics is a very heavy word,” Tie says just before taking questions from the floor. “I would prefer to stop throwing that word around.”
Can't help thinking this is another version of that thing I posted earlier this week about the supposition that you can make a quick 'n easy path to Big Desirable Scientific Breakthrough -
- and somehow I have been thinking all week about Charles Darwin moseying around the Galapagos, and over the subsequent decades gradually evolving the theory of evolution....
Unfortunately 'The Big Idea' on AI children as the future of reproduction is not yet online.
I also think of the fairly parlous state even in relatively advanced countries of women's ability to reliably control their fertility, have high-quality safe obstetrical care, etc, issues around children' nutrition, early years care, education....
But I guess these things do not have a gosh-wow factor.
some pictures of our trip
May. 30th, 2026 10:09 amthe_shoshannaGeoff is the photographer of our trips, because he has an actual camera and also travels with an actual laptop, making it much easier to manage the photos on the road. But I took a few with my phone, which I've now had a chance to go through, and some of them are pretty cool.
Here's Geoff on a typical coastal trail; this is from the really hard hike we did along the southern coast of Guernsey, and you can see one of the many many stairways we had to climb. This one isn't even that steep...
This is another Guernsey footpath, this one inland, The high banks on either side are probably old, overgrown stone walls, but it can be really hard to tell!
This is a beach on Jersey, at low tide. The trail we were following snakes through the dune grass above the tide line. If you look closely at the middle distance, you can see one of the many many many German bunkers that were built to defend against an expected Allied invasion. The Channel Islands were incredibly heavily fortified; according to Wikipedia, Guernsey ultimately had one soldier for every two civilians on the island. Some such emplacements have been maintained as historical markers and/or tourist attractions; many more are slowly being reabsorbed into the landscape, like this one.
This is a residential street we walked along in Jersey. I took this photo of a car passing us to show its scale; this is a two-way road.
I was fascinated by limpets. This is a close-up of the causeway to the tidal island of Lihou, at the northwest corner of Guernsey; parts of an old cobblestone road survive, but part of the causeway is just the rocky bottom of the sea channel there. It's only passable at low tide; at all other times it's under water. There were a lot of limpets on the stones!
And this is the boulder I took a photo of in Petit Bôt Bay on our last full day: its seaward side is 75% barnacles, 20% limpets, and 4% snails, with only 1% of actual rock showing. Beyond it you can see Geoff sitting on a rock; he had to move further up the beach every ten minutes because the tide was coming in so fast. This rock, which was chest-high on me, was completely under water before we left the beach.
And finally, here we are having lunch in Gorey on our last real day in Jersey before our final departure:
Geoff posted some other photos in his blog as we went along, so if you like photos and haven't checked it out already, there they are!
Thumbnails are under the cut; you can click through for full-size images.
Here's Geoff on a typical coastal trail; this is from the really hard hike we did along the southern coast of Guernsey, and you can see one of the many many stairways we had to climb. This one isn't even that steep...
This is another Guernsey footpath, this one inland, The high banks on either side are probably old, overgrown stone walls, but it can be really hard to tell!
This is a beach on Jersey, at low tide. The trail we were following snakes through the dune grass above the tide line. If you look closely at the middle distance, you can see one of the many many many German bunkers that were built to defend against an expected Allied invasion. The Channel Islands were incredibly heavily fortified; according to Wikipedia, Guernsey ultimately had one soldier for every two civilians on the island. Some such emplacements have been maintained as historical markers and/or tourist attractions; many more are slowly being reabsorbed into the landscape, like this one.
This is a residential street we walked along in Jersey. I took this photo of a car passing us to show its scale; this is a two-way road.
I was fascinated by limpets. This is a close-up of the causeway to the tidal island of Lihou, at the northwest corner of Guernsey; parts of an old cobblestone road survive, but part of the causeway is just the rocky bottom of the sea channel there. It's only passable at low tide; at all other times it's under water. There were a lot of limpets on the stones!
And this is the boulder I took a photo of in Petit Bôt Bay on our last full day: its seaward side is 75% barnacles, 20% limpets, and 4% snails, with only 1% of actual rock showing. Beyond it you can see Geoff sitting on a rock; he had to move further up the beach every ten minutes because the tide was coming in so fast. This rock, which was chest-high on me, was completely under water before we left the beach.
And finally, here we are having lunch in Gorey on our last real day in Jersey before our final departure:
Geoff posted some other photos in his blog as we went along, so if you like photos and haven't checked it out already, there they are!
Lord of the Rings: Die Wanderung, by Ithrenwen
May. 30th, 2026 03:09 pmbirdylion posting in fancakeLanguage: German
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Pairings/Characters: original hobbit characters, cameo of elven characters
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Length: 50k words
Creator Links: Ithrenwen
Theme: Journey and Travel, Pre-Canon, Backstory
Summary:
"In den ältesten Erzählungen finden sich Andeutungen, daß sie einst in den oberen Tälern des Anduin gehaust haben mußten, zwischen den Ausläufern des Großen Grünwaldes und dem Nebelgebirge. Die Gründe, warum sie später das schwierige und gefährliche Wagnis unternahmen, über das Gebirge nach Eriador zu ziehen, sind nicht mehr bekannt. Ihre eigenen Berichte erwähnen, daß sich die Menschen vermehrt hätten und ein Schatten auf den Wald gefallen ist, so daß er sich verdüsterte, und sein neuer Name war Düsterwald." (J.R.R. Tolkien, Herr der Ringe, Einführung: Über Hobbits)
Reccer's Notes: Die Geschichte beschreibt die Wanderung der Hobbits über das Nebelgebirge, die im Intro von HdR nur erwähnt ist, und deren mögliche Hintergründe. Der Fokus liegt dabei sehr stark auf der Reise und ihren Gefahren und Schwierigkeiten, denen diese Gruppe von Hobbits dabei ausgesetzt war.
English description, for the curious: The story describes how a group of hobbits made their way from the upper valleys of the Anduin, where they lived in earlier times, over the Misty Mountains. The story focuses on the travel itself and its dangers to which which this group of hobbits were subject.
Content Notes: depictions of violence and fighting, character death
Fanwork Links: "Die Wanderung" on fanfiktion.de
@runpunkrun Could you maybe add the tag "language: deutsch"?
Fandom: Lord of the Rings
Pairings/Characters: original hobbit characters, cameo of elven characters
Rating: Teen and Up Audiences
Length: 50k words
Creator Links: Ithrenwen
Theme: Journey and Travel, Pre-Canon, Backstory
Summary:
"In den ältesten Erzählungen finden sich Andeutungen, daß sie einst in den oberen Tälern des Anduin gehaust haben mußten, zwischen den Ausläufern des Großen Grünwaldes und dem Nebelgebirge. Die Gründe, warum sie später das schwierige und gefährliche Wagnis unternahmen, über das Gebirge nach Eriador zu ziehen, sind nicht mehr bekannt. Ihre eigenen Berichte erwähnen, daß sich die Menschen vermehrt hätten und ein Schatten auf den Wald gefallen ist, so daß er sich verdüsterte, und sein neuer Name war Düsterwald." (J.R.R. Tolkien, Herr der Ringe, Einführung: Über Hobbits)
Reccer's Notes: Die Geschichte beschreibt die Wanderung der Hobbits über das Nebelgebirge, die im Intro von HdR nur erwähnt ist, und deren mögliche Hintergründe. Der Fokus liegt dabei sehr stark auf der Reise und ihren Gefahren und Schwierigkeiten, denen diese Gruppe von Hobbits dabei ausgesetzt war.
English description, for the curious: The story describes how a group of hobbits made their way from the upper valleys of the Anduin, where they lived in earlier times, over the Misty Mountains. The story focuses on the travel itself and its dangers to which which this group of hobbits were subject.
Content Notes: depictions of violence and fighting, character death
Fanwork Links: "Die Wanderung" on fanfiktion.de
@runpunkrun Could you maybe add the tag "language: deutsch"?
Beer festival round up
May. 30th, 2026 11:09 amrmc28I managed to go Monday evening, Tuesday lunchtime to early evening (no closure Tuesday afternoon), Wednesday lunchtime and Thursday evening. Thursday evening was considerably more crowded but on the right side of my people-proximity tolerance: unsurprisingly I saw a lot of people I knew that evening, usually in passing.
I had multiple cheese platters over the course of the festival, and also got to taste vegan cheeses from other people's platters. Of the standard cheeses I especially liked Mayfield, Sussex Camembert[1], and Sheep Rustler, and the vegan standouts were Fetamorphosis and Shoreditch Smoked.
[1] I guess it's not trying to say it's Camembert de Normandie and thus not breaching PDO?
I managed to try all the AF beers available that I wanted to, and rotated back around to Mash Gang's Lesser Evil chocolate cherry stout for my last drink of the festival (we also have cans of it in the fridge now along with a couple of their IPAs for me to try). Nirvana Brewery's offerings were also pretty good, cementing my feeling that the best AF beers come from AF-specialist breweries rather than standard breweries making an AF option. Butcombe's Goram IPA Zero was the only real disappointment of the festival, will not bother again.
I also had both available AF ciders. Hogan's High Sobriety has an excellent name and was pretty good, but the prosaically-named Premium Low-Alcohol Cider from locals Cranes was even better.
Final Fantasy XIV and Anne of Green Gables (1979) icons
May. 29th, 2026 10:26 pmsorayomi posting in fandom_icons🌼 100x100 Total: 36
[19] Final Fantasy XIV
[17] Anne of Green Gables / Akage no Anne (1979)
🌼 300x300 Total: 15
[15] Final Fantasy XIV
Posted here @heartsaligned
[19] Final Fantasy XIV
[17] Anne of Green Gables / Akage no Anne (1979)
🌼 300x300 Total: 15
[15] Final Fantasy XIV
Posted here @
heartsalignedand we are home!
May. 29th, 2026 05:34 pmthe_shoshannaGoing Home, part 2
Our flights were uneventful, although the five-hour layover in Heathrow was, you know, five hours long. I had a window seat on the hop from Jersey to Heathrow, putting Geoff in the middle so that I could have the view, but on the transatlantic flight I took the middle and gave him the aisle, so he could have a little more legroom. Our rowmate in the window seat was the first person on the entire trip to be freaked out by our masking; she was afraid that we were masking because we were sick, and stammered several sentence fragments of inquiry without actually managing to say it. "I mean, it's just that-- Most people don't-- Are you--? Or do you just--?" I took pity on her and told her that we were fine, we just always mask, and added, "Look at it this way: you know we're careful. You have no idea how careful any of these other people are!" which she more or less acknowledged the truth of, but I'm not sure she entirely believed me that we weren't sick. I felt for her, but I also felt like, you know, if you're worried, then there's a fairly simple way you can give yourself significant protection against airborne diseases! Have you considered wearing a mask?
On that flight I watched the 2018 film Boy Erased, based on the memoir of a young gay man whose parents sent him to conversion therapy. It was good, but it also made me think of Jacob Tierney talking about wanting to represent queer joy in Heated Rivalry; this movie is exactly the kind of queerness-as-trauma story he was reacting against.
On arrival in Canada we spent the night in an airport hotel, which was exactly as forgettable as every other two-star airport hotel. Eating those pour-your-own waffles and weird-textured scrambled eggs and sausage always makes me nostalgic for VividCon. Then a train home, which ran almost two hours late, whee, but at least it didn't do that on the outbound leg and risk us being late for our plane! (The train runs late so often that there's a standard protocol for apology credits; we have each been given the equivalent of a $14 travel voucher. Gee, thanks.) And our own bed is soooooo comfortable, and our shower has such good water pressure (not only did all the Channel Islands hotels have feeble showers, even the Canadian airport hotel did), and I went shopping today and have a chicken in the oven for tonight and a fridge full of fresh food for later. I have to figure out what to do with the Guernsey chili crisp with seaweed; I'd love to find a recipe that really shines with it. Not that I've opened a jar to taste it, yet... Maybe I'll slather it on salmon or a firm white fish. Ideas welcome!
Today I crossed sixteen items off my to-do list, but it just keeps growing, as I find more and more things I need to catch up on...
Unintelligilent design
May. 29th, 2026 11:14 pmcosmolinguistV has the conviction that chronic illness should prevent prevent you from ordinary illnesses -- allergies or colds or whatever -- I would like to offer my own observation:
I have somehow acquired a blister on my foot at rhe same time as my eczema, which is also on my feet, is flaring.
This feels excessively unfair. (Especially because the blister is in a spot on my heel that there's no point putting a bandaid on because it'll immediately fall off due to how skin moves.)
Will admit to my persistent cynicism about Les Francaises
May. 29th, 2026 07:26 pmoursinFrance overturns law classing people as property – 178 years after it abolished slavery
Have been for some considerable time casting sceptical glances at the whole liberte egalite fraternite thing, because that third element did seem rather to circumscribe the application....
(And also the historical tendency to consider that o-la-la, they were far more sorted in matters erotique - a good deal of this was surely the perception of gents Britannique en vacances, surely.)
I was a bit stunned by this: Argentina’s ‘European’ self-image under renewed scrutiny after racist incidents in Brazil, but agreeably surprised to find that Brazil (which was very late to abolish slavery) has a law of 'racial insult'. Although it has significant racial problems.
![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
Multi-Fandom icons
May. 29th, 2026 10:38 pmmagnavox_23 posting in fandom_icons86 fandom icons including: Project Hail Mary, Artemis II, Stargate SG-1, The Mandalorian, Good Omens *spoilers*, Deadloch, Our Flag Means Death, Doctor Who, My Life Is Murder, Starsky & Hutch, Hazbin Hotel, Hellava Boss, Sherlock, MacGyver, Bob's Burgers, Brandon Rogers, Ryan Gosling, Richard Dean Anderson, Pedro Pascal, Stephen Colbert, Dan Shea, Paulina Alexis, Jodie Whittaker, Lucy Lawless, Zahn McClarnon...
Check out the rest here. <3
Check out the rest here. <3
Season finales time!
May. 29th, 2026 12:08 pmselenakFor All Mankind Season 5: Season Finale: now that was a great season finale!
( Spoilers pay the price and see it through )
The Testaments Season 1: Season Finale: a good finale, with my only problems coming from knowing the source material, otherwise I would completely cheer what has been a very good first season.
( Spoilers have told an excellent coming of age story in a severe dystopia )
( Spoilers pay the price and see it through )
The Testaments Season 1: Season Finale: a good finale, with my only problems coming from knowing the source material, otherwise I would completely cheer what has been a very good first season.
( Spoilers have told an excellent coming of age story in a severe dystopia )
