Abandoned Barrandov Pool in Prague, Czechia
Dec. 5th, 2025 10:00 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
atlas_obscura_places_feed
Hidden beneath Prague’s Barrandov cliffs, the abandoned Barrandov swimming pool is a ghostly jewel of the city’s past. Once a gleaming playground of sport and sun, its long pool, soaring 10-metre diving tower, and sun-drenched terraces now lie in quiet decay, slowly surrendered to ivy and shadow.
Morning light once danced across the water, but by afternoon the cliffs swallowed it whole, leaving only the cold hush of memory. It is a place where ambition and elegance linger in silence—a hauntingly beautiful reminder that even the grandest dreams can be claimed by time.
In its heyday, the Barrandov Swimming Pool was a marvel of modern design and luxury. Opened in 1930 as Czechoslovakia’s first competition pool, it drew crowds to its terraces, boathouse, sandy beach, and courts.
Spectators numbered in the thousands, while actors, athletes, and enthusiasts flocked to race, swim, and sunbathe in a space that felt like a palace of leisure. Functionalist architecture met ambitious engineering, making the pool not just a sports venue, but a celebrated symbol of innovation and style.
Tried a perfume oil at Ritual and it was a Mistake.
Dec. 5th, 2025 03:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goodbyebirdPlus side I've picked up a couple of Christmas presents, plus a half off face cream for myself.
If I hang my clothes up to dry when I get home and start the bedding, then empty the dishwasher? Not a whole day wasted, look at me go.
Rec-cember Day 5
Xena for Fanart Friday =)
"Gabrielle, do it." by gabbiemara @ reddit. Delectable vampire piece.
badass feminist icons by
![[instagram.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/profile_icons/instagram.png){kind=icon}
artbykristele. Fun portrait of Xena and Gabi in a fighting pose. Good pals by
rennerei. Legs around waist! Smooches! AiaiaiaiaiiiStay Down by laurenknight @ bsky. Xena being in charge, and Callisto is more than happy about it. So fun!
[FFXIV Fic] Gentle Dark, Chapter 2: I Would Speak of Fate
Dec. 5th, 2025 09:44 amanneapocalypse
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
Series: With Lilies and With Laurel
Length: 9,043 / 92,000
Chapter: 2/15
Summary:
Heartbroken after the loss of his dearest companion, Urianger labors to save two worlds in which he has never felt more alone.
Notes:
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! )
Martin Luther Statue in Hickory, North Carolina
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:00 amatlas_obscura_places_feed
Twelve feet of gray granite, a four-foot pedestal, and one imposing figure. Sculpted by Jon Hair, this monumental Martin Luther commands the plaza at Lenoir-Rhyne University, inviting visitors to appreciate the craftsmanship, scale, and presence of the statue.
Outdoors and publicly accessible, it’s perfect for history buffs, Reformation enthusiasts, and anyone curious enough to take a closer look.
The statue was donated by Irwin Belk, who made the Belk department store chain a Southern institution and the largest privately owned department store in the U.S. during his tenure.
How low could Trump's approval realistically go?
Dec. 5th, 2025 12:32 pmstrength_in_numbers_feedI came across a new poll from POLITICO on Thursday that shares more data on Trump’s ever-declining numbers on the economy. POLITICO reports:
Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters. Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.
And the piece includes this graphic:
Déjà vu, right?
In another piece out Thursday, Natalie Jackson, a pollster and columnist at the National Journal, writes that “some of the [Republican] party faithful are starting to defect—and it’s because of the economy.”
It may feel like people are over-covering the economy recently, but remember, this is worth paying attention to since it’s the number-one issue for anywhere between a clear plurality and a slight majority of voters (the precise number depends on how you ask the question). Affordability is also the number one issue in congressional communications today — on both sides of the aisle.
Economic malaise is a serious problem for Trump. He won in 2024 because economic anxiety conditioned lots of voters to pull the lever against the incumbent. But now, he is the target of their ire. Losing economy-focused swing voters would cause a bloodbath for Republicans in the 2026 midterms. The 2025 statewide elections and special election in Tennessee’s Seventh District on Tuesday confirm the party is in trouble.
But, in quantitative terms, how bad is this problem for Trump, really? Are we talking about Bush 2008 levels of disapproval? Worse than Trump’s first-term ratings after Jan. 6, 2021? Today’s Chart of the Week: How low could Trump’s approval go?
To stay up to date with all the data on the 2026 midterm elections, and get updates about my plans for more polling and forecasting, be sure to sign up to get Strength In Numbers in your inbox:
And consider a paid subscription to get premium analysis weekly and support all the data work I’m doing here on Substack.
Trump’s approval could fall 3 points with greater disaffection from economy-focused Republicans
The core question we are interested in is the following: What would Donald Trump’s approval rating be if current supporters abandoned him because of economic anxiety?
To start with, here are Trump’s job approval and disapproval ratings from my average for SIN sister site FiftyPlusOne. Today, we estimate that 39.7% of adults approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 56.1% disapprove of his job.
For context, this is a pretty bad number. With a -16 net rating, Trump is as unpopular as he was at this point in his first term, and more unpopular at this point than any president who came before him. (The following chart is from the SIN data portal.)
So Trump is starting in a pretty bad place. But even at a 39% approval rating, things could be worse. That’s because his approval rating is currently being shored up by Republicans who do not think he is doing a good job on the economy. Let me unpack this.
First, consider this crosstab from our November Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll. The screenshot below shows that 47% of self-described Republicans agree with the statement “Donald Trump has achieved his goals on the economy,” while 43% say he has not. If I’m Trump or a Republican running for office in 2026, I’d be pretty worried about these numbers. This level of defection from your own party cannot be good!
But now, let’s see how these voters in each group feel about the job Trump is doing as president. The table below shows Trump’s job approval rating among voters in each of our six groups (for each of the three parties, voters saying Trump has vs has not achieved his economic goals):
How to read this table: Among Republicans, for example, 96% of people who say Trump has achieved his goals on the economy also approve of his job as president. That number falls to 64% among Republicans who say he has not achieved his goals on the economy. Another example is that 73% of independents who say Trump has achieved his economic goals approve of the president — but this makes up a small portion of our sample, at just 3% of all respondents to the poll. Independents are much more likely (per the screenshot!) to say Trump has not achieved his goals, at a rate of 4:1 (62% vs 15%).
(I have included respondents who say they “don’t know” if Trump has achieved his goals at the bottom of the table. This row includes respondents from all parties.)
This table should not be surprising to you, since responses to the two questions are expected to be highly correlated. Voters who say Trump hasn’t kept his promises also disapprove of his job as president at a higher rate than those who say he has kept his promises? Shocker!
But what the table gives us is a way to recalculate Trump’s approval rating, if we make new assumptions about how voters feel about his performance on the economy.
Here’s how this works: If you multiply the `Percent of sample` column by the `Approve` column and sum up those numbers, you will get the overall job approval for the president that we reported in our poll: 40% approve. Do the same with the `Disapprove` column, and you’ll get 57% overall disapproval for Trump. For proof this works, here’s a spreadsheet of math, and here’s our original poll release.1
Now it’s hypothetical time. To estimate what Trump’s approval would be if more Republicans disapproved of his job on the economy, we reduce the `Percent of sample` percentage for the first row of the table above and increase the percentage in the second row. What should that number be? Right now, slightly more Republicans say Trump has “achieved his goals” vs not achieved them (47 vs 43%, per the first table screenshot in this section). But if we change these numbers to, say, 40% and 60%, then Trump’s recalculated overall approval drops by 1.3 points to 39% in our poll.
Assuming a disaster scenario for the economy that pushed 80% of Republicans to say they think Trump hasn’t kept his promises on the economy, his overall approval would fall to 36.7%, per our spreadsheet.
To me, this illustrates two things:
Trump’s approval could take a small-to-medium hit from more Republicans rating him negatively on the economy (between 1 and 4 points, depending on the size of the economic shock you’re gaming out).
The real hit for Trump would come from broader disaffection among Republicans, regardless of how they feel on the economy.
For a final simulation, we can reduce Trump’s approval rating among all Republicans by 10 percentage points. Per YouGov, that is roughly the same decline in support the president has seen since taking office (so it’s not an unreasonable simulation).
Dropping Trump’s approval rating by another 10 points among Republicans puts him at a 33% approval overall. Of course, in that scenario, political independents might also move against the president. Decrease their approval of Trump (from an already terrible 27%), and he ends up at 31.7% overall.
That would be almost as bad as his approval rating after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol (29%, according to the Pew Research Center).
The title of this article is “How low could Trump’s approval realistically go?” I think I have answered it with the above data, which gives two answers:
First, further incompetence in managing the U.S. economy would turn more Republicans against the president on his handling of the issue, in turn decreasing his approval by between 1 and 4 points.
But a larger drop in Trump’s approval (to the mid-30s) would require broader political problems, or a sustained decrease in his rating among Republicans — regardless of how they feel about the president’s performance on the economy. Another 10-point drop in Trump’s approval with GOP voters would put him at a 33% rating — near his all-time low.
The implications of this piece for Democratic strategy are two-fold. First, considering to campaign on affordability and Trump’s economic mismanagement is a high-leverage way to reach hesitant Trump approvers inside the Republican Party. Remember, there are a lot of self-described Republicans who do not have particularly right-leaning beliefs. Here is the big graphic from my piece “The Hidden Axis” published last month:
And most of those voters in the middle aren’t very ideological; they just want a party that delivers pragmatic government and economic prosperity for them. The “hidden axis” is the non-ideological spectrum:
Trump began his presidency with talk of a broad mandate for change and popular will at his back. But over the last year, we have gotten a lot of data about how small his core constituency truly is. If economic anxiety keeps rising, it’s going to get even smaller.
If you want to play around with the data in my table and see how different levels of loyalty and anxiety impact Trump approval, make a copy of this spreadsheet and give things a whirl.
For clarity, the original poll release says 41% approve, but that’s due to rounding in the intensity column of the report. Math using the collapsed approve/disapprove ratings at an individual level yields 40.3% approval, rounding down to 40%, and 56.6% disapprove, rounding up to 57%.
Outfit Formula: Plaid Coat
Dec. 5th, 2025 11:01 amyoulookfab_feedFor those who enjoy wearing plaids and would wear the pattern in outerwear, this post is for you. Plaids (or checks and tartans) come in all sorts. The colours of the plaid can be bold, muted, neutral, non-neutral, two-toned or multi-coloured. The scale of the pattern can be larger or smaller. The length of the coat can be shorter or longer. The longer the length, bigger the plaid, and brighter the colours, the bolder the coat. Conversely, some plaids are as subtle as false plains, and almost look solid.
The collection below shows examples of plaid coats.
A plaid coat seems limiting because it’s patterned instead of solid. Although these days, the idea is to just wear it over anything. That might be harder to do in practice because of clashing colours and patterns. Rest assured that if the plaid is in your neutrals, or its colours are well represented in your wardrobe, it will seamlessly work with many outfits. Feel free to pattern mix with a plaid coat too.
Onto some plaid coat outfit inspiration.
1. Statement Plaid Squared
A maxi coat in a navy and toffee plaid is worn over a plaid co-ord in a mismatched plaid. The blouse and trousers co-ord are in a matching green, navy and toffee plaid. The toffee and navy in each of the plaids unites them so that they work together. Bordeaux loafers add a touch of red. A cherry red bag adds more red. A chocolate brown hat adds a trendy touch.
2. Sporty Luxe
A pair of very dark blue, dressy flared jeans is combined with a white tee. A black zip-through sweater hoodie is the next layer. A coat in a grey, black, white and red plaid tops the lot. The hood is worn outside the coat for a great visual effect. White sneakers match the tee. A dressy black bag matches the hoodie.
3. Subtle Plaid Squared
An olive, cream and black bias cut flared skirt is combined with an olive V-neck pullover. A black belt is added for waist definition. An olive and black plaid coat tops the lot. The mismatched plaids live in harmony because they share black and olive components. Tall black boots match the belt and the black in the plaids. Plaid coats can work equally well over dresses.
4. Berries Jubilee
Last, black flared jeans are combined with a tucked ombre sweater in black, cream, and cranberry. A back western belt and chunky heeled black boots discreetly match the pants. A conversational berry-toned plaid coat tops the lot. Add jewellery, watch, bag, headgear and eyewear as desired.
It’s been years since I had a plaid coat. I have plaid jackets but no plaid coat. I like bold and subtle plaids. I find them energizing and quite versatile. If the right plaid coat found me, I’d snap it up. How about you?
NOTE: Some rich content in this post was omitted because it isn't supported by the feed. Please visit the post on youlookfab.com to see the additional content.
Large, contain multitudes, do not wish to brag
Dec. 5th, 2025 11:01 amoursinPeople asking me last night 'what do you/are you working on?'
Duh. I flannelled and gave the general field, rather than saying: I completed my PhD over 30 years ago, I have published 6 books, 3 co-edited volumes, and getting on for 70 articles and chapters, have done assorted meedja appearances, have lost count of the reviews I've done -
Not to mention the website, the blog, the assorted things that fall into the category of other -
'My Deaaar, it's all a long story and rather complicated' and my most recent publication was not even in my field, it was being a sort of Litry Scholar.
Thing is there were some persons of maturer age there who were, I gathered in conversation, getting back into the academic swing, so I might have been doing that, rather than trying to get back up out of something of a trough?
Did mention, apropos of cute cuddly spirochaete, that I had worked on History of Loathsome Diseases of Immorality: but gee, I am large, I contain multitudes, and I have been going a long time.
ETA
Not that I consider the organisers of 'prestigious World Conference on Women’s Health, Reproduction,and Midwifery, scheduled for 08-10 June 2026, in Paris,France' to really Know Who I Am since they are begging and pleading for my attendance on the basis of my 'remarkable work' a recent review of a book on the history of abortion.
Okay, they do offer partial support for accommodation and registration, and brekkers and lunch at the conference (this implies, o horrors, breakfast sessions).
What if my boys could mean the world to me and I could matter too
Dec. 5th, 2025 05:27 ambeansideIn exciting news, Jess finally decided that they'd like to get a picture with Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, who are voice actors from the Transformers movies, so we went ahead and got that. That'll be on Sunday, followed by the Transformer's panel. I don't think we're doing anything tonight, since we probably won't get in til late. Instead, we'll spend tomorrow there, and see all the shit we can see. And we'll probably leave after the panel on Sunday for the long haul home.
We'll see how it goes, I guess. I don't know how much stamina we have, but we'll go for it.
Yesterday was good. We drove to Sibley for Jess' post op, got there early as usual and were done about 10min before the actual appointment time. We were pulling out of the garage as it was hitting Jess' appt time. Not any huge traffic either way, which was nice. Pretty smooth. Then we took the puppy for his walk, and I worked for half a day.
Work was busy and a bit chaotic as it always is this time of the year. We're trying to get in a kiddo for a long appointment, which is not going well so far. We had one, they couldn't take it, so we're back to figuring things out.
After that, it was a trip up to Hunt Valley for my tattoo. It wasn't as bad as I was fearing. My last tattoo was done by an apprentice 20 years ago, and I get the feeling that he was heavy handed. I managed to hold rock still, and we got it done an hour and a half early. I was expecting to be there til 8:30, but was done at 6:52pm. I had to shift a few times, but I did that while she was switching needles or adding more colors.
Anyway, meet Owlbert the Owlbear.
I love him so much!
Done by Ronie at Layer3 Collective, same as Jess' tattoos.
Right now, he still feels like a mild sunburn. But that is not unexpected after having someone basically flay the top few layers of skin for 2 hours.
It's weird. I've always gotten tattoos to commemorate things. This is the first one I've gotten that is just kind of random. Not particular commemorating anything, just wanted it. It's kinda cool. Since Ronie wanted some D&D art for her portfolio, she gave me a discount. The total tattoo cost $250. Jess' last one was I think $400.
Ronnie uses Saniderm, so I don't have to fuck with it, except to change the dressing tonight. Then I can put on the second one and leave it til Sunday night. Which is handy, since we're going to be at the con.
After that was one, I slept like a rock. Fell asleep early and did not stir thereafter. It was nice, especially after getting up early to go to Sibley.
Okay, on that note, it's time for me to go forth and get myself together. I still have a bit of packing to do! Everyone have a most excellent Friday!
The Day in Spikedluv (Thursday, Dec 4)
Dec. 5th, 2025 05:48 amspikedluvI did a load of laundry, hand-washed dishes, ran a load in the dishwasher, went for several walks with Pip and the dogs, cut up chicken for the dogs' meals, and scooped kitty litter. I finished up chili for supper and made cornbread. (The chili was not my best, disappointing.)
I stopped at the library to pick up a book. Our library didn’t have the new In Death book yet, so Librarian #2 (not the head librarian), who has already read the book, took it out from a different library where she also works, for me. I need to get that book read quickly and take even better care than usual since it’s not even signed out under my name. There was a surprise book that I had actually requested waiting for me, too.
I hung my wreath! Wreaths used to come with a little wire thingy that you could loop over the hanger, but no more. I had to wait to get a piece of wire from the garage to use.
I lit my scented candle, turned on the few Christmas ornaments that light up, and put the shuffle on my old iPod that barely works these days so I could listen to Christmas music and did a good number of Christmas cards! Very pleased with myself.
I started the new In Death book I got today and Zoo Tampa was my background tv in the evening.
Temps started out at 30.2(F) and reached 30.9. When I got home around noon, it was 29-something and just kept hovering in that vicinity, 28, 29, 30 . . . It was also very windy. Very. We weren’t supposed to get any snow, but suddenly I’m getting warnings for snow squalls from TWC app. We got enough snow that I had to go back out and shovel after supper clean-up, while Pip was out blowing open the trails again. (Between the snow and the wind, the trails had gotten pretty clogged in certain places.) It had already fallen to 15 degrees by that point, so it was chilly out, and still windy.
Mom Update:
Mom was doing the same, sadly. She’s still eating, thankfully, but not all of it is sitting well. She tucked herself away in her ‘den’ where she is hidden from seeing what the weather is like because she didn’t like seeing more snow coming down, and watched a Hallmark movie that she enjoyed, then her usual Love Boat and Mama’s Family. *g* One of her friends from work called her, which was nice.
New Worlds: A Brief History of Science
Dec. 5th, 2025 09:04 amswan_towerSome of our oldest written texts are, in fact, just lists of things: types of trees, types of bird, that sort of thing. They may have been used for teaching vocabulary in writing, but they also serve as a foundational element for knowledge, one so basic that the average person today barely even thinks about it. But how can you learn about Stuff if you haven't first thought about what Stuff is out there?
The Onomasticon of Amenope goes a step further. Not only does this Egyptian text from three thousand years ago set out to help the student learn "all things that exist," but it organizes them into loose categories, summarized by Alan Gardiner as things like "persons, courts, offices, occupations," "classes, tribes, and types of human being," and "the towns of Egypt." This is a vital step in scholarship, not only in the past but the present: even today, we wrestle with questions of categorization and how best to group things, because there's no single "right" answer. What system is best depends on what you want to use it for, and how you approach this issue reveals a lot about where your priorities are. (Think of a grocery store: what's revealed by having dedicated shelving for things like "Hispanic foods" and "Asian foods," and what items could arguably be placed among them but aren't.)
Another very early category of scholarship is travel writing or travelers' reports -- basically, accounts of ethnography and natural history covering foreign lands. These have often been highly fanciful, reporting things like people with no heads and their faces in their stomachs, but why? It's hard to say for sure. In some cases the information probably got garbled in the transmission (think of the game "telephone"); in others, the observer may have misunderstood what they were seeing; sometimes the teller deliberately jazzed up their material, and sometimes they made it up out of whole cloth, perhaps to support whatever larger point they wanted to make. From our modern perspective, it often looks highly unreliable . . . but it's still a key element in laying the foundations of knowledge.
Once you have foundations, you can start building upon them. Much ancient scholarship takes the form of commentaries, works that aim to explain, expand upon, or contradict existing texts, often by pointing at another text that says something different. You also get textual criticism, which is our modern term for a practice going back at least two thousand years: when works are copied by hand, there is significant need for scholars comparing the resulting variants and attempting to identify which ones are the oldest or most accurate. Basically, undoing that game of telephone, lest things get garbled beyond comprehension.
What you don't tend to get -- not until more recently -- is research as we think of it now. There absolutely were people who attempted to explain how the world worked, but they largely did so by sitting and thinking, rather than by actively observing phenomena and testing their theories. That doesn't mean they weren't curious about things, though! How the heck does vision work, or smell? Why do objects fall down? What makes the planets seem to "move backward" through the sky, rather than following a straight path? What engenders disease in the body? People have been trying to answer these questions for thousands of years. The pop culture image of pre-Enlightenment science is that people just said "it's all because of the gods" and stopped there, but in truth, pre-modern people were very interested in finding more specific answers. Yes, it was all due to the gods, but that didn't mean there weren't patterns and rules to the divine design. Even medieval Christians, often assumed to be uninterested in or afraid of asking questions (lest the Church come down on their heads), argued that better understanding the mechanics of God's creation was an expression of piety, rather than incompatible with it.
But it's true that they largely didn't conduct experimentation in the modern, scientific method sense. Science and philosophy were strongly linked; rather than aiming to dispassionately observe facts, much less formulate a hypothesis and then see whether the data bore it out, people sought explanations that would be in harmony with their beliefs about the nature of existence. Pre-Copernican astronomy was shaped by philosophical convictions like "the earth we humans live on is supremely important" and "circles are the most perfect shape, therefore the one ordained for the movement of heavenly bodies" -- because why would divine entities arrange things any other way?
Scholarship and science were also strongly shaped by respect for past authority, to the point where luminaries like Aristotle were practically deified. (Or literally deified, in the case of the Egyptian chancellor Imhotep.) It marked a tremendous sea change when the English Royal Society in the seventeenth century adopted as its motto Nullius in verba, loosely translated as "take nobody's word for it." They resolved not to accept the wisdom of yore, not until it had been actively tested for veracity . . . and if it failed to hold water? Then out it went, regardless of who said it and how long it had been accepted as dogma.
This is, of course, a highly simplified view of the history of science. Not everything proceeded at the same pace; astronomy, for example, has an incredibly long history of precise observation and refinement of instrumentation, because correctly understanding the sky was vital to things like the creation of calendars, which in turn affected everything from agriculture to taxation. Biology, meanwhile, spent a lot longer relying on anecdata. But it's vital to remember that things which seem completely obvious to us are only so because somebody has already done the hard work of parsing the mysteries of things like the circulation of blood or the chemistry of combustion, which in fact were not obvious at all.
And this opens an interesting side door for science fiction and fantasy writers. The history of science is littered with theories eventually proved incorrect -- but what if they weren't wrong? Richard Garfinkle's novel Celestial Matters operates in a cosmos where Aristotelian biology and Ptolemaic astronomy are the reality of things, and develops its story accordingly. There's a whole Wikipedia list of superseded scientific theories, which could be fodder for story ideas! (But tread carefully, as some of those theories have pretty horrific implications, especially when they have to do with people's behavior.)
It's also worth thinking about what theories we hold today will look hilariously obsolete in the future. We like to think of ourselves as having attained the pinnacle of science and everything from here on out is just polishing the details, but you never know when an Einstein is going to come along and overturn the status quo with a new, deeper explanation of the facts. Of course none of us know what those future theories will be -- if we did, we'd be the Einsteins of our generation! But if you can spin a convincing-sounding foundation for your theory, you can present the reader with a world that contradicts what we think we know today.
(originally posted at Swan Tower: https://is.gd/jG7X6K)
Just One Thing (05 December 2025)
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:03 amnanila in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
awesomeersComment with Just One Thing you've accomplished in the last 24 hours or so. It doesn't have to be a hard thing, or even a thing that you think is particularly awesome. Just a thing that you did.
Feel free to share more than one thing if you're feeling particularly accomplished! Extra credit: find someone in the comments and give them props for what they achieved!
Nothing is too big, too small, too strange or too cryptic. And in case you'd rather do this in private, anonymous comments are screened. I will only unscreen if you ask me to.
Go!
PHs #36-46 (Post check-in 2/2)
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:55 pmmodzilla in fffxThe following pinch hits & the pinch hits on the last post are due at 11:59pm EST on Saturday January 24th 2026. To claim, please reply with your AO3 name, and let me know which recipient/PH number you want. You're also welcome to claim by emailing mod.modzilla@gmail.com. You can swap from your current assignment to a pinch hit; if so, please say that's what you're doing - otherwise I'll assume you're picking up an assignment on top of any current assignments.
Minimum requirements: An art gift must be a completed comic at least 10 pages or 40 panels long; a fic gift must be a story at least 10,000 words long. You can also fulfil a pinch hit by giving two complete half-length works, if your recipient has opted into that for the fandom(s) you are creating in. Any work must be for a fandom your recipient has requested and one character/relationship/worldbuilding tag requested in that fandom, and must avoid their DNWs.
Pinch hits can now be claimed in 5k or 20-panel increments if the recipient has opted into receiving half-length works. Please say in your claim if you're claiming a pinch hit for 5k (fic) or 20 panels (comic), and for what fandom.
( Pinch hit #36 - fic - Final Fantasy XII x4, Metaphor: ReFantazio (Video Game), Persona 5, Wolf's Rain (Anime), Final Fantasy XV )
( Pinch hit #37 - art, fic - 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, Wind Breaker (Anime), 悪役令嬢の中の人 | Akuyaku Reijou no Naka no Hito | The One Within the Villainess (Manga), 9-1-1 (TV) )
Canon promo post: The One Within the Villainess
( Pinch hit #38 - fic - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling x3, Superman (Movie 2025), Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, True Blood (TV) )
( Pinch hit #39 - fic - Stargate Atlantis, Kolja | Kolya (1996), Cesta do pravěku | Journey to the Beginning of Time (1955), Jurassic Park Original Trilogy (Movies) )
( Pinch hit #40 - art, fic - ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon, The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells, Superman (Movie 2025), Original Work, The Amazing Digital Circus (Web Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series) )
( Pinch hit #41 - fic - Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen, DCU (Comics, Numb3rs (TV) )
( PARTLY CLAIMED - Pinch hit #42 - art, fic - Yellowjackets (TV), Doctor Who (2005), The Librarians (TV 2014), Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Agatha All Along (TV) )
This pinch hit can be fulfilled with one story of 5,000+ words or one comic of 20+ panels.
( Pinch hit #43 - art, fic - Original Work, ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia (Anime & Manga), The Amazing Digital Circus (Web Series) )
( Pinch hit #44 - art, fic [varies by request] - Men's Hockey RPF, Wednesday (TV 2022), Outlast (Video Games), Original Work, Glee (TV 2009) )
( Pinch hit #45 - art, fic [varies by request] - Dragon Age (Video Games), Breaking Bad, Succession (TV 2018), The Owl House (Cartoon), Falsettos - Lapine/Finn )
( Pinch hit #46 - fic - Superman (Movie 2025), The Librarians (TV 2014), Leverage (US TV 2008), Crossover Fandom [various], Star Trek: Voyager, Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Captain America (Chris Evans Movies) )
PHs #4, 18, 23, 27-35 (Post check-in 1/2)
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:54 pmmodzilla in fffxThe following pinch hits & the pinch hits on the next post are due at 11:59pm EST on Saturday January 24th 2026. To claim, please reply with your AO3 name, and let me know which recipient/PH number you want. You're also welcome to claim by emailing mod.modzilla@gmail.com. You can swap from your current assignment to a pinch hit; if so, please say that's what you're doing - otherwise I'll assume you're picking up an assignment on top of any current assignments.
Minimum requirements: An art gift must be a completed comic at least 10 pages or 40 panels long; a fic gift must be a story at least 10,000 words long. You can also fulfil a pinch hit by giving two complete half-length works, if your recipient has opted into that for the fandom(s) you are creating in. Any work must be for a fandom your recipient has requested and one character/relationship/worldbuilding tag requested in that fandom, and must avoid their DNWs.
Pinch hits can now be claimed in 5k or 20-panel increments if the recipient has opted into receiving half-length works. Please say in your claim if you're claiming a pinch hit for 5k (fic) or 20 panels (comic), and for what fandom.
( Pinch hit #4 - art, fic [varies by request] - 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong, Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends, Thor (Movies), Hannibal (TV) )
( Pinch hit #18 - fic - Nantucket Trilogy - S.M. Stirling, Crossover Fandom x2 [Grimm TV/Guardian TV, Grimm TV/Christabel - Coleridge], 长公主在上 | Zhǎng Gōng Zhǔ Zài Shàng (Web Series), 绅探 | Detective L (TV) )
( Pinch hit #23 - art, fic [varies by request] - Shadow of the Leviathan - Robert Jackson Bennett, LitenVerse - Nino Cipri, Stellar Harvest series - Eleanor Arnason, Original Work, Crossover Fandom [Queen's Gambit TV/Man Who Fell To Earth 1976], The Breakfast Club (1985) )
( Pinch hit #28 - art, fic [varies by request] - Hazbin Hotel (Cartoon) x2, Overwatch (Video Game), Slow Horses (TV), Brew Solves - Fandom, Dangan Ronpa Series, Death Note (Anime & Manga) )
( Pinch hit #29 - fic - Top Gun (Movies), DC Extended Universe, Edge of Tomorrow (2014), Almost Famous (2000), DCU Comics )
( Pinch hit #30 - fic - 人渣反派自救系统 - 墨香铜臭 | The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, The Fall of the House of Usher (TV 2023), 成化十四年 | The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty (TV), Among Us (Video Game), F1 (Movie 2025), One Piece (Anime & Manga), 重启之极海听雷 | Reunion: The Sound of the Providence (TV 2020) )
( Pinch hit #31 - art, fic - Dream SMP, 原神 | Genshin Impact (Video Game), Dangan Ronpa Series, Cookie Run (Video Game) )
( Pinch hit #32 - fic - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (TV), Murder She Wrote, Jem and the Holograms (Cartoon), G.I. Joe (Cartoon), Voltron: Lion Force (1984) )
( Pinch hit #33 - art, fic [varies by request] - The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), Voltron: Legendary Defender, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga), Alien vs Predator (Movies) )
( Pinch hit #34 - art, fic [varies by request] - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Dead To Me (TV), The Coffin of Andy and Leyley (Visual Novel), Cruel Intentions (1999), American Horror Story: Asylum )
( Pinch hit #35 - art, fic [varies by request] - Baldur's Gate (Video Games), Star Trek: The Next Generation, Naruto (Anime & Manga, 聖剣伝説３ | Seiken Densetsu 3 | Trials of Mana (Video Game) )
Click for links to CLAIMED pinch hit requests!
Pinch hit #27 - art, fic [varies by request] - 天官赐福 - 墨香铜臭 | Tiān Guān Cì Fú - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, Elden Ring (Video Game), Dark Souls (Video Games), Bloodborne (Video Game), 魔尊也想知道 - 青色羽翼 | Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know - Cyan Wings, 魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù, 전지적 독자 시점 - 싱숑 | Omniscient Reader - Sing-Shong, 내가 키운 S급들 - 근서 | S-Classes that I Raised - Geunseo, 飞狐外传 | Side Story of Fox Volant (TV 2022), And Another Lovely Day (Webcomic)
crazy hot days
Dec. 5th, 2025 08:40 amtielanA slightly cooler next week, but pretty warm (high 20s, early 30s) through to Jan.
Next week is supposed to be some rainfall here and there. We can hope. It will make things awfully sticky, but sticky I can manage.
The bit I'm nervous about is a handful of seedlings I planted out a few days ago - melons and pumpkins. Don't know if they're going to survive it - I've watered them morning, noon, and evening, covered them with shadecloth, but none of that is a guarantee when the temps hit 40C.
Oy.
My sister is worried about the chickens, who aren't coping real well with the heat - they never do, but it's particularly difficult in these super-hot days, and when there's not a lot of spaces where they can stay cool. I might have to let them back into the triangle garden, so they can take shelter in the thickets of the trees there.
I'm kind of wondering if I can set up a specific space for them during the middle of the day. They won't get to move around so much, and they might be at risk of dogs going by (although the owners around here are good and keep them on leashes...most of the time, except when Bev's dogs get out) but...it'll be cooler?
Anyway, I gotta go out and check that the chooks aren't overheating.
(no subject)
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:38 pmcahnLast time I asked for recs, years ago, someone recommended Tiffany Aching, which the nieces were too young for at the time, but now may be the time (if I haven't passed it already). I just started Wee Free Men and am enjoying it a lot so far, and that may be part of the present. (I guess Tiffany is 9? so maybe technically too young for Senior!niece? But the book does read to me as more of a high-school reading level than a 9-year-old reading level.)
Other things: D's sister and brother-in-law are extremely devout and conservatively evangelical Christians and don't read fantasy at all (though they have come to accept their kid reading it). I don't think I could give her anything at this time that, say, has explicit sex scenes, or a gay or trans main character, and I'd also be a bit wary of too much violence/horror-themes. So, for example, Some Desperate Glory, which I already gave to D's nephews, is out.
Extra points for subtext of "here's how you grow up" and "here's how you deal with a flawed parent." (My sense -- which could of course be mistaken -- is that D's sister is an incredible parent that anyone would be lucky to have, and brother-in-law is less so. I do not think that there's anything particularly bad going on (I'm sure I have at least my share of flaws as a parent too), just that I remember at that age books being a helpful way to work through figuring out independence and becoming a different person than my parents.)
Daily Happiness
Dec. 4th, 2025 07:01 pmtorachan2. While I was waiting to go to the airport last night and trying not to get to sleepy, I finally tried the Trader Joe's chai concentrate we'd picked up a while back. Mixed with the gingerbread oatmilk (also Trader Joe's), it tastes exactly like the gingerbread chai lattes we love from Starbucks. Cheaper to make at home, plus also they are still on strike, so we haven't been going to Starbucks.
3. I finally gave the PS5 a go! I bought Horizon Zero Dawn a week or so ago and have been meaning to give it a go, but just never found the time to go out in the living room and fire it up. (This is why I love the Switch so much, because I can play at my desk. For some reason I am really avoidant about playing games on the TV, idek.) I just played the (extremely long) intro segment so far, but I did enjoy it. Also played a bit of the free Astro game that came with the system and it's fun, too. And then I went ahead and ordered the Playstation Portal, which is a handheld accessory that allows you to play PS5 games away from the TV (you do need an actual PS5 to use it). It was even on sale!
4. I got the Thanksgiving bagel sandwich this morning for us to share. It was pretty tasty, but it had a lot of fried onions on it, which is less than ideal. I'd ask for it without them if I got it again, but since it's only going to be around a bit longer I probably just won't get it again.
5. I finished another puzzle today.
This is the puzzle we had hanging around in the closet for years and years because we wanted to be puzzle people but then we had cats and nowhere to do puzzles. But when we got the garage remodelled and had a space to do puzzles, I found it too daunting. But now I've done a lot of puzzles and felt up to the task. It was definitely a challenge, though it would have been more of one if the pieces had been more uniform. It has two main types of pieces, some more square and some long and thin, so that made it easier to figure out what went where.
6. Chloe's looking a little wild.
Book Review: The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp
Dec. 4th, 2025 06:28 pmrocky41_7 in booknookAuthor: Leonie Swann (trans: Amy Bojang)
Genre: Fiction, mystery, murder mystery, crime thriller
Book # (checks notes) 13! From the "Women in Translation" rec list has been The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp by Leonie Swann, translated from German by Amy Bojang. This book concerns a house full of elderly retirees who end up investigating a series of murders in their sleepy English town.
This book was truly a delight from start to finish. I loved Swann's quirky senior cast; they were both entertaining and raised valid and very human questions about what aging with dignity means. It did a fabulous job scratching my itch for an exciting novel with no twenty-somethings to be seen. Now Agnes, the protagonist, and her friends are quite old, which impacts their lives in significant ways. However, I felt Swann did a good job of showing the limitations of an aging body--unless she's really in a hurry, Agnes will usually opt to take the stair lift down from the second floor, for instance--without sacrificing the depth and complexity of her characters, or relegating such things merely to the youth of their pasts.
The premise of this book caught my attention immediately, but after a lifetime of books with riveting premises that dismally fail to deliver, I was still wary. I'm happy to report that The Sunset Years of Agnes Sharp fully delivers on its promise! Swann makes ample and engaging use of her premise.
The story itself is not especially surprising; if you're looking for a real brain-bender of a mystery or a book of shocking plot twists, this is not it. But I enjoyed it, and I thought Swann walked an enjoyable line between laying down enough clues that I could see the writing on the wall at some point, without giving the game away too quickly. There are no last-minute ass-pulls of heretofore unmentioned characters suddenly confessing to the crime here! The main red herring that gets tossed in the reader is likely to see for what it is very quickly, but for plot-relevant reasons I won't mention here, it's very believable that Agnes does not see that.
Agnes herself was a wonderful protagonist; I really enjoyed getting to go along on this adventure with her. She had a hard enough time wrangling her household of easily-distracted seniors even before the murders started! But the whole cast was endearing, if also all obnoxious in their own way after decades of settling on their own way of getting through life.
Bojang does a flawless job with the translation; she really captures various English voices both in the dialogue and in Agnes' narration. The writing flows naturally without ever coming off stilted or awkward.
I really had fun with this one, and I'm delighted to here there's apparently a sequel--Agnes Sharp and the Trip of a Lifetime--which I will definitely be checking out.
Choices were made
Dec. 4th, 2025 08:13 pmlannamichaelsFor no good reason (yes I'm procrastinating on something), trying to decide tonight which is the most WTF of the music videos I have had to watch and rewatch and rewatch this year. Is it the WTFFFFF of the "clink clink" visual in Yum Yum? Or is it Shwekey deciding to stop the song right in its tracks to do a commercial for Baron Herzog? They are both so WTF.
-YUM YUM | Rabbi Greenspan | Featuring Afiko.Man & Mendy Worch | TYH Music
-SHWEKEY - Baruch Hashem It’s Shabbos
If you don't understand Yum Yum, don't worry, neither do I.
2025 Universal Studios Trip #1 (11/27/25) Part 1
Dec. 4th, 2025 05:28 pmtorachan( Part 1: The Morning )
all we're looking for is love and a little light
Dec. 4th, 2025 03:11 pmgwynA short list (it looks long, but it's the short list): I bought a new used laptop from Back Market when my old 2012 workhorse started having these weird spasms and would shut down. The new one, a 2020, I picked specifically because it had an intel processor instead of the new M1 chips, because I had a couple older programs that are crucial to my work that I wasn't sure would run on an M1. It went great until last month, when it wouldn't boot at all. I sent it back to the refurbisher and they said they couldn't repair it (a lie, I'm positive) so would send a replacement. Unforch, it wasn't what I ordered (it had an M1), so I had to mail it back via UPS last week (before turkey day).
Even more unfortunate, apparently UPS "never picked it up" from the mailing center, it's not in the system, so they won't give me a refund. Back Market forced me to do the refund option instead of sending me a replacement again since that's their policy. So assuming I would have a refund coming, I bought an entirely new 2020 just like the first one.
But now I guess I'm completely screwed out of over $700. Which I really don't have. Because I cannot prove a negative, and the mailing center dropoff of course doesn't give receipts for prelabeled packages. Which, even if I'd scheduled UPS to come to my house and pick it up, I wouldn't have a receipt either, if I didn't think to like wait by the door or something and make sure he scanned it. So there is nothing apparently I can do, because no one has this tracking number and I can't prove I sent it. Maybe it was stolen, maybe the UPS guy was a fuckup, who knows. All I know is Back Market won't give me my refund. They were like "bye, Felicia."
Even better, I cannot get the new 2020 laptop I had to buy to work, by installing from my backup so I can port over all my crucial programs. Mr.
minim_calibre helped me with my first install problem when they came by on thanksgiving for min's annual drive-by pieing (she makes the best pumpkin pies, just like I would make them so now I don't have to make them myself!), and then again when I was having a completely new issue and he solved it, the day min and I went to see Wake Up Dead Man (which is cute! although the lack of a comma in the title is beyond irritating!). So those issues solved, I have attempted at this point to use migration assistant to get my old macbook air stuff over to the new one now probably 12 times, and it never works. The boxes are all checked, it says it's taking an hour or whatever to install from the backup, and nothing. Nothing in the restored files or any other folder they could exist in.Apparently, you cannot use the apple genius bar for this type of thing. I was hoping to go there today but this isn't an issue they will assist with. They send you to articles, all of which I've read, and all of which tell you steps I have indeed taken. I did not have this problem with the laptop in April, which is making me even angrier. On top of losing over seven hundred bucks, I'll have to probably pay someone to help me be able to use this laptop, or maybe--I'm seriously considering this--send back the new one (with receipts this time so that means drive all the way to the nearest UPS store a half hour away and watch them while they scan it), then get a refund for it, and buy another one somewhere else. At this point I almost don't care about the programs and should just get an Mwhatever number they're on because getting a refurbished on is turning into such a nightmare. I keep thinking I might semi retire, but now I need money so I don't know. I just am not sure what to do.
Because on top of all this misery, my furnace was making dying noises and so I had to suddenly replace that. Furnaces are expensive, y'all. It was not a great time, but when they showed me the condition of the old furnace, I knew it had to go. It's beyond its lifespan, I knew that, but till now, it had been a pretty decent performer. The only good thing was that the new one has the same footprint as the old one, so they were able to put it right on top of the metal base, and use the existing pipe work for the gas and venting. It makes noises, but I was assured they were normal, though when it's blowing the air, it's quieter than the old one.
But of course, nothing ever goes right for me (seriously, this has been a longstanding joke with my friends, that I'm a walking Murphy's Law and whenever something can go wrong, it will, when it involves me), they charged me the full amount of over 8k on top of the 50 percent deposit I'd already given them, and when I called they were like "oh no! we'll refund it of course" but it's going to take 5-10 business days. I have to pay interest on that, since I put it on my credit card because I wanted to get the points, figuring I'd just move money over right away from my line of credit. It stings, since I will be paying for the roof for a while, and now this on top of everything...just so not what I needed. Financially, this has been a catastrophic year.
All my hopes of getting a new car (I love my Beetle, I do, but she's 20 years old now and there are parts of her that are literally falling apart and sometimes can't be replaced) have vanished now. I don't know what to do about the new laptop yet, I'm just sick and sad and hopeless. I'm taking a new drug because I guess my thyroid is hypo now?? which everyone is like, could just be normal happenstance, could be related to chemo, shrug, but I'm not super fond of some of the side effects. I'm supposed to talk with her about it at end of December after I've been on it for two months. But it sounds like one more drug I'll be on for life, however long that is.
I've been trying to not make this horrible list longer, but I may have to have a root canal, but won't be able to do it for quite a while despite tooth pain (still have to get to the dentist but ya know, funds) because one of the chemo drugs I get infusions of has a major side effect called necrosis of the jaw. Like. It's horrifying. If they do dental work that goes into your jaw bones, zometa can cause the jaw to become necrotic (dead) and your teeth come out, etc. See? Horrifying. Someone in my support group lost a huge section of his jaw and all his teeth to it, and had to have everything rebuilt. They say that they now know a lot more than they did years ago, so if you stop the infusions for 3 to 4 months or something, and don't have them for a month or so afterward, it should be okay. But I'm not sanguine about my chances.
Anyways. I'm sorry for so much doom and gloom. I did have a lovely birthday, so there was that! It was an exceptionally rare sunny day birthday--I can count on one hand the number of times it's been sunny on my birthday so it was extra nice because I treated myself to a mani-pedi and was afraid I'd be out walking in flip-flops in bare feet in pouring rain. (Tho as it was, I stepped off the curb and my foot was immediately covered by mushy leaves and cold water, so ha ha, it happened anyway.) Then my friend Keith and I went out to a pricey seafood place I really wish I went to more often (should fix that), here in West Seattle, and they do all this nice stuff for your birthday including giving you the really good tables with the spectacular views across Elliott Bay to downtown Seattle. Their special that night was lobster, and I am nuts for lobster, so perfect timing.
I think I might try to find somewhere in the budget (ha ha ha ha) to get a mani-pedi more often. One of my meds has ruined my hands and feet, my skin is like slick paper and the edges of the nails peel away all the time. Not necessarily for polish, but just to have someone help me maintain them, because it's hard on me at this point, especially my feet. We'll see, I guess.
12/4/2025 Loop Road & Laurel Canyon Road
Dec. 4th, 2025 04:44 pmmrkinchNo warblers, just locals, but no nuthatches or creepers, either. Good to be out, though.