New Post at Lady Business!
Jul. 29th, 2025 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
forestofgloryChill Chinese Reality Shows Rec List
tried really quite hard to lose my hair stick twice this event just gone
Jul. 29th, 2025 10:43 pmkaberett... this being the style I have already sacrificed one of to The Endless Woodchip. Attempt at loss the first occurred while putting up tent; attempt at loss the second occurred late on Saturday night, when I was rushing from A to B to provide a roll-mat to a player and lost a fight with the bunting we use to discourage people from walking into the tent in places we don't want them to.
It was dark. Nonetheless I spent several whole minutes searching before giving up and resolving to try again in daylight. Consequently I got up good and early to start hunting before the team started carting all of the Objects back out of the storage ISO (all of the in-character valuables get locked away overnight while the tent's unstaffed...) and... discovered it really wasn't going to need much hunting after all.
( Read more... )
Tragically the brass hair stick I pulled out of "freecycle" before letting the players at the aged-out lost objects... wound up getting dropped in a known fairly well-defined location, and vanishing utterly into the ether, despite a good five people having a hunt for it. Ah well; maybe it'll show up next time, and maybe it won't, and either way I am likely to have future opportunities to Acquire More Hair Adornment.
Tell the IOC: The US is not a suitable host for the Olympics
Jul. 29th, 2025 02:17 pmsquidgiepdx posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
communityactionusaThe United States, specifically Los Angeles, was chosen to host the 2028 Summer Olympics (the Games of the XXXIV Olympiad). But Los Angeles was chosen before Donald Trump won the US Presidency, and before the United States became a terror for anyone who isn't male and white. Given what is going on - especially in California - with immigrants and visitors alike, it would be prudent for the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to pull the games from Los Angeles and host the 2028 Summer Olympics anywhere else in the world.
If you so choose, you can contact the International Olympic Committee Executive Board, and/or Kirsty Coventry, the IOC president, and express your concerns.
Address letters to either IOC President Kirsty Coventry or the IOC Executive Board at this address:
Maison Olympique 1
Route de Vidy
1007 Lausanne, Suisse
Mention the following in your letters:
- Under Donald Trump, non-white people are facing horrible conditions in the United States
- People are being terrorized by ICE every single day
- Donald Trump and his administration have "disappeared" countless people - even those who are natural born citizens of the United States, and placed them in either concentration camps in the United States, or shipped them off to multiple foreign countries
- For the safety of all Olympians, don't host the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Move the games to a non-US venue
Conservation
Jul. 29th, 2025 04:01 pmysabetwordsmithIn a study, published in Ecology and Evolution, the research team released findings on two new species of kultarr (“cool-tar”), a carnivorous marsupial.
“Prior to this study, Antechinomys was considered to contain two species: A. laniger and A. longicaudatus,” wrote Cameron Dodd, lead author and a PhD student from UWA’s School of Biological sciences.
“With the description of A. auritus and resurrection of A. spenceri, A. laniger is now recognized as a species complex comprising three distinct taxa.”
Watson Birthday Fill!
Jul. 29th, 2025 03:19 pmsenmutChapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Basil of Baker Street & David Dawson
Characters: Basil of Baker Street, David Dawson (Great Mouse Detective)
Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Friendship
Summary:
Basil knows that Dawson is cleverer than he gives himself credit for, and he sets out to prove it, but things don't go exactly as planned.
Birdfeeding
Jul. 29th, 2025 02:52 pmysabetwordsmithI fed the birds. I've seen a mixed flock of sparrows and house finches.
EDIT 7/29/25 -- I put out water for the birds.
EDIT 7/29/25 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.
I found a cinnamon fern sprouting in the forest garden. :D I never know what will suddenly spring up from things I planted earlier.
EDIT 7/29/25 -- I did more work around the patio.
I've seen a pair of mourning doves.
EDIT 7/29/25 -- I checked the garden but nothing was ripe.
However, I think I've got a good start on my landrace zinnias. There is a nice cluster of purple and red ones where I planted the seeds gathered from the Charleston Food Forest last fall. :D Now I just have to hope that these do a good job of setting seed.
.
appointment with Carmen
Jul. 29th, 2025 02:54 pmredbirdI talked about how my gut is doing, and that I'm trying to reduce my use of naproxen (and NSAIDs generally) at the advice of the GI doctor. So far, that has meant waiting a little while before taking a naproxen because something hurts, and not taking it preventively for short walks. Airports, yes.
Carmen said there aren't a lot of good options, and recommended a turmeric supplement that someone she used to work for, who also did Ayurvedic medicine, recommended. I expressed some general skepticism, and specifically how much turmeric people had to eat to benefit. The recommendation is for a supplement that you tuck in next to your gum, so it's absorbed directly into the bloodstream. Carmen said "you can get it on Amazon," and Adrian pointed out after the visit that I should check the inactive ingredients carefully.
She also asked about my breathing, and I told her that recently, I've coughed up less phlegm after using the flutter valve, without having more trouble breathing. Less crap in my lungs is good, of course, and this means I won't worry much about skipping the flutter valve for things like travel and dental work. However, I'm basically sticking to the same twice-a-day schedule at least until the next time I see the lung doctor.
I also told Carmen about the strawberry allergy, and what symptoms I'd noted. I mentioned that I'm also probably allergic to stevia, and she made a note of both allergies.
The next appointment, in about three months, is for a physical exam, so longer and in person. At 1:30, so I can get lunch in Davis Square, weather allowing.
(no subject)
Jul. 29th, 2025 02:49 pmthedarlingoneof course it's scheduled to be 92°F and thunderstorming on thursday. at this point i don't care. i also have no news about finances, but we'll make it work somehow, i guess.
Check-In Post - July 29th 2025
Jul. 29th, 2025 07:26 pmbadly_knitted posting in get_knittedHello to all members, passers-by, curious onlookers, and shy lurkers, and welcome to our regular daily check-in post. Just leave a comment below to let us know how your current projects are progressing, or even if they're not.
Checking in is NOT compulsory, check in as often or as seldom as you want, this community isn't about pressure it's about encouragement, motivation, and support. Crafting is meant to be fun, and what's more fun than sharing achievements and seeing the wonderful things everyone else is creating?
There may also occasionally be questions, but again you don't have to answer them, they're just a way of getting to know each other a bit better.
This Week's Question: What do you like to listen to / watch while crafting?
If anyone has any questions of their own about the community, or suggestions for tags, questions to be asked on the check-in posts, or if anyone is interested in playing check-in host for a week here on the community, which would entail putting up the daily check-in posts and responding to comments, go to the Questions & Suggestions post and leave a comment.
I now declare this Check-In OPEN!
Varied engagements with animals and the natural world
Jul. 29th, 2025 06:30 pmoursinSome book reviews that have lately crossed my line of sight.
Andrea Ringer. Circus World: Roustabouts, Animals, and the Work of Putting on the Big Show:
Ringer is not interested in the perceived glitz and glamour of big top spectacles. Rather, she presents the golden age circus as a site of working-class labor, where both humans and beasts toiled from day till night under the near-constant gaze of thrill-seeking visitors.
....
_Circus World _is the sort of book that will captivate (and, in some cases, horrify) a great many readers. It's a
must-read for anyone interested in the history of the modern circus; the same is true for historians of animal entertainment and industry. Gender studies scholars will appreciate Ringer's fresh insights into the ways circuses amplified colonial and patriarchal notions of race, gender, and family. Plus, the book's short length and bite-sized
chapters make it ideal for classroom use. Above all, _Circus World _succeeds as a work of labor history, one that takes nontraditional work and nontraditional workers seriously.
***
Dominic Pettman. Telling The Bees: An interspecies Monologue. Possibly a bit twee/poncey?
Weary of the insistent demands and disappointments of online life in the early 2020s, Dominic Pettman turned to a very old practice: Rather than commenting on current events by posting for his followers on social media, he would tell the bees instead. The record of this experiment is _Telling the Bees: An Interspecies Monologue_ (2024). "Indeed, this time-honored activity--practiced in villages all over Europe, for centuries--seems much healthier to me than confessing things to the digital ether, the anonymous world via social media," he writes early in the journal (p. 2).
....
In Pettman's case, as a resident of New York City, he doesn't have much access to actual, in-the-flesh bees. The apartment co-op won't let him have a hive on the roof, for one thing. At the start he makes do by talking to "wild" bees he encounters on his walks in Central Park, but as the seasons change and the threats of COVID-19 force
ever smaller spaces of interaction, Pettman conjures and speaks to virtual bee--"the memory of bees," as he calls it, prompting a wry rejoinder from a waggish colleague: "These bees ... Are they in the room with us now?" (p. xi).
Readers seeking a journal of material human entanglement with physical bees will not find that here. Pettman's virtual bees are much more akin to the "virtual animal totem" [.]
***
This one does involve actual encounters with the beasts in question, it would appear: Leslie Patten. Ghostwalker: Tracking a Mountain Lion's Soul through Science and Story.
Patten then combats history and myth with a series of case and site studies in Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Colorado, and California, and interviews with mountain lion experts of every stripe--from trackers, hunters, and houndsmen (people who hunt with dogs) to wildlife biologists and conservation management specialists. Along
the way, Patten nimbly debunks so many myths about cougars--that they are isolate, cold-blooded killers who need to be managed to keep them from pets, livestock, and small children and that legal hunts are an effective way to manage and stabilize populations.
***
Hedgehogs in fact are ambiguously situated: Laura McLauchlan. Hedgehogs, Killing, and Kindness: The Contradictions of Care in Conservation Practice.
In the UK, hedgehog conservation is both necessary and supported by the public: Population numbers are in steady decline, while the animals themselves occupy a fond place in the British consciousness. The second section details her fieldwork in New Zealand at pest-control initiatives, including outreach events and community pest-control groups, conservation initiative Zealandia (a completely fenced ecosanctuary in Wellington dedicated to restoring
native flora and fauna), and her own "guerrilla" care for local hedgehogs. In New Zealand, hedgehogs are thriving despite their status as an invasive species, provoking widespread public animosity.
OTW Signal, July 2025
Jul. 29th, 2025 06:07 pm![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
otw_news_feedEvery month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.
In the News
A recently published study in Nature Humanities and Social Sciences Communications finds that fanfiction readers are more likely to click on stories that feel familiar, but they enjoy those stories more when there is something novel about them.
Balance theory, a widely accepted theory in psychology, suggests that for a creative work to be successful (widely enjoyed), it needs to find the middle ground between feeling comfortable and familiar, yet be novel enough to still be interesting.
Using Archive of Our Own (AO3) as their primary source, researchers analyzed metadata from over 670,000 fanworks across 23 fandoms. They measured a story’s novelty by comparing its content against other stories in the same fandom and measured success primarily with a ratio of hits to kudos, then compared the two datasets.
Researchers found that contrary to balance theory, the middle ground between familiar and novel does not guarantee success for fanfiction. Their research shows that stories that were more familiar tended to get more clicks, but it was stories with more novelty that had a higher hit to kudos ratio.
“Although high-novelty works tend to be read by fewer people, those who read are more likely to express their enjoyment.”
This study highlights that in fandom spaces, success isn’t completely defined by reach or popularity. A fic that is deeply enjoyed by a small audience can still be meaningful and impactful.
In “The K-popification of F1”, Teen Vogue looks at how a new wave of Formula 1 fans are reshaping the fandom. What was once considered to be a niche, male-dominated sport has become home to fan practices typically found in K-Pop communities. From fashion to fanvids, fans are engaging with the drivers and teams in a novel way:
In many ways, F1 has evolved from a legacy motorsport into something that feels more like a multimedia pop franchise. F1 drivers are no longer just elite athletes behind the wheel; they’re fashion muses, meme material, and, in the eyes of a growing Gen Z fanbase, idols. It’s no surprise the sport has drawn fans from other hyper-engaged fandoms.
Many fans in this new wave were introduced to Formula 1 through digital platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Netflix’s Drive to Survive, rather than traditional sports media. These platforms offer a behind-the-scenes look at the sport’s personalities, drawing in fans who may have never watched a race otherwise. These fans are bringing with them expectations shaped by K-pop fandom culture. They seek direct access to the drivers beyond the track, emotional narratives, and authentic representation.
This push for greater inclusion and visibility has helped lead to initiatives like the F1 Academy, an all-women racing series that reflects the changing face of the sport’s audience. It shows that the sport is starting to recognize how important diversity and representation are to its future.
These fans aren’t just redefining what it means to be an F1 supporter. They’re showing that fandom can be a powerful, intentional force that helps reshape the media it connects with.
OTW Tips
AO3 embraces the richness and diversity of fan-created content. Whether works include ship names, inside jokes, or niche tropes, the OTW values the creative freedom of its users while maintaining a commitment to ensuring AO3 remains a welcoming and navigable space. AO3’s Content Policy is designed with maximum inclusiveness of fanwork content and user safety in mind. Violations of the Terms of Service, including the Content Policy, are administered by the Policy and Abuse committee, which handles reports and concerns in accordance with AO3’s Terms of Service (TOS).
For more information on how our Terms of Service is applied, check out the Terms of Service Spotlight series or refer to the TOS FAQ.
We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.
Super Moisture Milk [Sasaki/Miyano; PG]
Jul. 29th, 2025 08:05 pmldybastet posting in anime_mangaFandom/Pairing: Sasaki to Miyano - Sasaki/Miyano
Summary: When Miyano gets a sunburn, it's Sasaki's time to shine.
Rating: PG
Content: Fluff, teenage boy romance, hurt/comfort
Disclaimer: I did not create these characters, they belong to Harusono Shô. I'm just borrowing them to act out my fantasies, while not earning any money whatsoever from it.
Notes: 550+ words. Written for the prompt sunburn. I've had great help from
zabimitsuki with beta and suggestions. :)Read it here: DW | AO3
Tuesday word: Favonian
Jul. 29th, 2025 10:38 amsimplyn2deep posting in 1word1dayFavonian (adjective)
favonian [fuh-voh-nee-uhn]
adjective
1. of or relating to the west wind.
2. mild or favorable; propitious.
Origin: 1650–60; < Latin Favōniānus. See Favonius, -an. foehn
Example Sentences
Favonian, fav-ō′ni-an, adj. pertaining to the west wind, favourable.
From Project Gutenberg
Such soft favonian airs upon a flute, Such shadowy censers burning live perfume, Shall lead the mystic city to her tomb; Nor flowerless springs, nor autumns without fruit, Nor summer mornings when the winds are mute, Trouble her soul till Rome be no more Rome.
From Project Gutenberg
Soft spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, Recalls the first.”
From Project Gutenberg
See, the summer gay, 680 With her green chaplet, and ambrosial flowers, Droops into pallid autumn: winter grey, Horrid with frost, and turbulent with storm, Blows autumn, and his golden fruits, away: Then melts into the spring: soft spring, with breath Favonian, from warm chambers of the south, Recalls the first.
From Project Gutenberg
The wind blew free that morn that we, High-hearted, sailed away; Bound for Favonian islands blest, Remote within the utmost West, Beyond the golden day.
From Project Gutenberg
