[syndicated profile] file770_feed

Posted by Mike Glyer

Entries for the twelfth annual Baen Fantasy Adventure Award contest will be taken beginning January 20 at 12:01 a.m. Eastern through April 30th, 2026 at 11:59 p.m. Eastern. Full guidelines at the link. The winners will be officially announced during the Baen … Continue reading

2026 D.I.C.E. Awards Finalists

Jan. 15th, 2026 09:03 am
[syndicated profile] file770_feed

Posted by Mike Glyer

The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) has announced the nominees for the 29th annual D.I.C.E. Awards. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and Ghost Of Yōtei lead the pack with eight nominations each.  The winners will be announced February 12. The complete list of … Continue reading

Community Thursdays

Jan. 15th, 2026 01:15 am
ysabetwordsmith: A blue sheep holding a quill dreams of Dreamwidth (Dreamsheep)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
This year I'm doing Community Thursdays. Some of my activity will involve maintaining communities I run, and my favorites. Some will involve checking my list of subscriptions and posting in lower-traffic ones. Today I have interacted with the following communities...


* Replied to a post by [personal profile] fox_in_me on [community profile] addme.

* Posted "How to use habit science to help you keep your New Year’s resolution" in [community profile] goals_on_dw.

* Commented under the January 14 Just One Thing post in [community profile] awesomeers.

Daily Happiness

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:49 pm
torachan: a cartoon bear eating a large sausage (magical talking bear prostitute)
[personal profile] torachan
1. We have been wanting to do a weekday trip to Universal Studios, but like Knott's, they have really limited hours during the off season and right now they close at 6pm on weekdays, which means dinner is not really doable due to traffic, so I'd suggested going for lunch today since I didn't have anything time sensitive at work until three, but the forecast was sunny and 80 degrees, so we decided to pass lol.

Instead we decided to get lunch from a place in Gardena we'd heard about recently from youtube (which Carla actually tried out herself last month and liked) and then she'd do some shopping while I went in to work. So we did that and had a delicious lunch of teriyaki chicken and beef with a Chinese chicken salad on the side, but when she semi-jokingly brought up going to Disneyland for dinner since we were already halfway there, I checked and there was availability, so we ended up doing that as well after work and had a very nice dinner down there, too. (And since the sun was down by the time we got there, the temps had gone way down.)

2. I'm getting my tattoo tomorrow! The appointment is for 2pm, so I'm going in to work in the morning and then heading over there straight from work.

3. Yet another cat getting cozy in Carla's new suitcase lol.

2026 Disneyland Trip #3 (1/14/26)

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:35 pm
torachan: aradia from homestuck (aradia)
[personal profile] torachan
We weren't planning a mid-week trip but Carla came down to Gardena with me today so we could go to lunch and she could do some shopping while I was at work, and she semi-jokingly suggested going to Disneyland for dinner afterwards, and when I checked there was full availability for both parks, so since we were already halfway there I figured why not?

Read more... )

Outgunned 1

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:59 pm
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll
My Outgunned game is a spy thriller of sorts. I thought it would be fun to skip the usual "characters start together, get briefed, plot their mission together" and so on, I'd start with three of the five breaking into an apartment. They are 14-year-old Diane Dean (the driver), 18-year-old Concordia Butterstein (unsanctioned intrusion and asset acquisition expert) and 70-year-old Jethro Winthrop (the smooth talking fellow who hired the other two because they offered the best value for price)

Read more... )
petra: CGI Obi-Wan Kenobi with his face smudged with dirt, wearing beige, visible from the chest up. A Clone Trooper is visible over one shoulder. (Obi-Wan - Clones ftw)
[personal profile] petra
The other day, I posted If you wanna know if he loves you so, a 150-word story about a boy meeting his soulmate(s)(?).

I included discussion questions in the first comment because I had recently had a Tumblr conversation with [personal profile] teland where I linked her to someone floating the possibility of discussion questions on fanfiction with the implication that the questions, and responses, would be AI slop.

She responded by writing discussion questions for her seminal DC Comics identity porn story, A clarification of range, written before we called it "identity porn" and long before the term got diluted into "X doesn't know Y's secret identity... yet!" which is more properly, if less catchily, (if I do say so myself) anagnorisis.

If you have any knowledge or inquisitiveness whatsoever about DC Comics, run, do not walk, to read or reread that story. I still laugh about it regularly, and I have to remind myself it's not canon. I read it before I read any of Young Justice or the relevant Teen Titans, and it built foundational parts of my characterization.

Here are [personal profile] teland's questions:
Students! Did you know 'The End' is just the beginning? Follow along with me, and the story will never die! )

My response was:

Tonight’s homework: Read Whither Kelvin Trillion, Wither the Republic (Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Explicit, the one in which one character writes filthy limericks about everyone else in canon worth boinking and a few who aren’t.)

Pre-reading: Given your knowledge of the author, speculate on the pairings.

Discussion Questions )

Té and I had a good laugh about it.

Then we got talking about soulmates as a trope, and I wrote the story linked at the top with discussion questions.

[personal profile] sanguinity's comment threw me bodily to the floor, convulsed with giggles of joy. It's considerably longer than the drabble-and-a-half I wrote and shows an attention to detail I cannot but applaud.

I may have broken kayfabe in my response. Can you blame me?

See, sometimes a good grade in commenting is normal to want and possible to achieve. I definitely got a good grade on the story and questions, so it's only fair.

But it's not a perfect grade, due [personal profile] sanguinity having good enough taste not to have watched the Star Wars prequels. Gotta deduct points for not reading the deeply silly text.

Poetry Fishbowl Update

Jan. 14th, 2026 08:58 pm
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
The Call for Themes is still open if you want to suggest topics for early 2026. Now's the time, because I hope to post the poll on Thursday.

Don't even try.

Jan. 14th, 2026 09:48 pm
hannah: (Sam and Dean - soaked)
[personal profile] hannah
Today I learned a photo-scanning app has a number of embedded ads that show up after a certain number of photos, exhorting you to buy a subscription rather than keep using the free version. You can't skip them, either. It left a bad taste in my mouth. What made the taste worse was finding out you can't just delete your account: you need to send the company a request to do that.

For an app designed to scan photographs to convert physical media into digital information, all the better to easily share some photographs from the Twentieth Century. I'd have thought that the added bonuses from a paid account would be enough to entice some purchases, and they try to get your money even while using the bare-bones, no-frills version that's fairly limited in scope and capabilities. While you're already using it.

It's further cemented my position to generally avoid apps on principle. That principle being "I don't have time for bullshit."

Bionic ears

Jan. 14th, 2026 07:42 pm
cathrowan: (Default)
[personal profile] cathrowan
I got fitted with my first pair of hearing aids a month ago. Some of my friends complain about theirs. I'm having an excellent experience and am so glad this technology exists. I had no idea how bad my high-frequency hearing loss was until it was compensated for. Our dishwasher makes a soft chime when you press a button! Who knew? (Not me.)

2026 VES Awards Nominees

Jan. 15th, 2026 02:14 am
[syndicated profile] file770_feed

Posted by Mike Glyer

The Visual Effects Society released the nominations for the 2026 VES Awards on January 13, encompassing 25 categories across film, television, special venue projects, technological innovation, student projects, and more. The VES Awards will be held on February 25 in Los Angeles. … Continue reading

Octopus and Quarter Moon

Jan. 14th, 2026 07:57 pm
yourlibrarian: Cat and Moon (NAT-Cat and Moon - sallymn)
[personal profile] yourlibrarian posting in [community profile] everykindofcraft


I wanted something a little rough looking to go with this because the octopus is so shiny. Didn't have anything that fit the bill which was the right size, and I wanted to make this a bit longer of a necklace. So I used groups of metal bead ends along with some blue E beads for the ocean angle.

Read more... )
[syndicated profile] file770_feed

Posted by Mike Glyer

(1) FANTASY INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING. Stephen Granade recommends this ”AO3 fic in which Isaac Chotiner interviews the guy who runs the lottery in Shirley Jackson’s ‘The Lottery’”. “Why one small American town won’t stop stoning its residents to death” by Charlotte … Continue reading
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


A vast megadungeon from Expeditious Retreat Press for D&D, AD&D, and other tabletop fantasy roleplaying games.

Bundle of Holding: Halls of Arden Vul (from 2022)

Your spirit watched me up the stairs

Jan. 14th, 2026 02:54 pm
sovay: (Default)
[personal profile] sovay
My schedule for Arisia this year is minute, but a fairly big deal for me since the state of my health last allowed me to participate in programming in 2021. I mean, at the moment the state of my health is failed, but I'm still looking forward.

Dramatic Readings from the Ig Nobel Prizes
Saturday 3 pm, Amesbury AB
Marc Abrahams et al.

Highlights from Ig Nobel prize-winning studies and patents, presented in dramatic mini-readings by luminaries and experts (in some field). The audience will have an opportunity to ask questions about the research presented—answers will be based on the expertise of the presenters, who may have a different expertise than the researchers.

Cursed Literature
Sunday 4:15 pm, Central Square
Mark Millman (m), Alastor, Kristina Spinney, Sonya Taaffe

Some literature describes haunted houses; other books seem like they are haunted, as though the act of reading the book is inviting something vaguely unclean into the reader's life. Whether considering the dire typographical labyrinths of The House of Leaves, or the slowly expanding void at the heart of Kathe Koja's Cypher, some works leave a mark. Panelists will explore books that by reputation or their own experience, produce a lingering unsettled feeling far beyond the events and characters of the story.

SFF on Stage
Sunday 5:30 pm, Porter Square B
Raven Stern (m), Andrea Hairston, Greer Gilman, Sonya Taaffe, Stephen R. Wilk

Science fiction and fantasy have long been mainstays of live theater; William Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1595. Peter Pan introduced one of the 20th century's best known characters in 1904. In 1920, R.U.R. gave us the word "robot." Universal Studios' famous version of Dracula was adapted not from the novel, but the wildly successful Broadway play. That's not even getting into modern musicals like Wicked or Little Shop of Horrors. What does it take for genre to work in a live setting, and where have we seen it succeed (or fail)?

Anyone else I can expect to see this weekend? The ziggurat awaits.

Birdfeeding

Jan. 14th, 2026 11:59 am
ysabetwordsmith: Cartoon of me in Wordsmith persona (Default)
[personal profile] ysabetwordsmith
Today is cloudy, windy, and cold.

I fed the birds.  I've seen a few sparrows.

I put out water for the birds.

EDIT 1/14/26 -- We saw a flock of geese flying mostly north.   

Read-in-Progress Wednesday

Jan. 15th, 2026 12:20 am
geraineon: (Default)
[personal profile] geraineon posting in [community profile] cnovels
This is your weekly read-in-progress post~

For spoilers:

<details><summary>insert summary</summary>Your spoilers goes here</details>

<b>Highlight for spoilers!*</b><span style="background-color: #FFFFFF; color: #FFFFFF">Your spoilers goes here.</span>*
james_davis_nicoll: (Default)
[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


...Wait, we're supposed to believe that it's the rebels who are wrong?

Side-Eyeing Science Fiction’s Love of Empire

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