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[personal profile] james_davis_nicoll


Twelve books new to me. Four fantasies, one horror, one non-fiction, and six (!) science fiction works, of which at least four are series instalments.

Books Received, September 27 — October 3

Poll #33688 Books Received, September 27 — October 3
Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 5


Which of these look interesting?

View Answers

Children of Fallen Gods by Carissa Broadbent (December 2025)
0 (0.0%)

Enchanting the Fae Queen by Stephanie Burgis (January 2026)
1 (20.0%)

The Language of Liars by S. L. Huang (April 2026)
2 (40.0%)

We Burned So Bright by T. J. Klune (April 2026)
3 (60.0%)

We Could Be Anyone by Anna-Marie McLemore (May 2026)
0 (0.0%)

These Godly Lies by Rachelle Raeta (July 2026)
0 (0.0%)

The New Prometheans: Faith, Science, and the Supernatural
2 (40.0%)

Every Exquisite Thing by Laura Steven (July 2026)
1 (20.0%)

The Infinite State by Richard Swan (August 2026)
0 (0.0%)

Green City Wars by Adrian Tchaikovsky (June 2026)
2 (40.0%)

Moss’d in Space by Rebecca Thorne (July 2026)
3 (60.0%)

Platform Decay by Martha Wells (May 2026)
4 (80.0%)

Some other option (see comments)
0 (0.0%)

Cats!
4 (80.0%)

creepy_shetan: cropped movie screenshot of Bard and Thranduil side by side on horseback (and elkback), Thranduil looking at Bard, Bard looking ahead (Tolkien // the Bowman & the Elvenking)
[personal profile] creepy_shetan posting in [community profile] comment_fic
[ If you're interested in being a Tuesday-Thursday guest host, you can sign up here. Thanks! ❤ ]
↑↑↑ Available dates:
October 14 & 16
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Well, hi there. ^_^ It's Saturday once again, which means it's time for a Free for All. There are no themes to follow for prompts or fills. If you've had any ideas this week that didn't really work with Tuesday's or Thursday's posts, today's your chance to prompt 'em. Be free, and have fun! ✎

Just a few rules:
1. No more than five prompts in a row.
2. No more than three prompts in the same fandom.
3. Use the character's full name and the fandom's full name for ease in adding to the Lonely Prompts spreadsheet.
4. No spoilers in prompts for a month after airing, or use the spoiler cut option found here. Unfortunately, DW doesn’t have a cut tag, so use your best judgment when it comes to spoilers.
5. If your fill contains spoilers, warn and leave plenty of space, or use the spoiler cut.
6. If your story has possible triggers, please warn for them in the subject line!

Prompts should be formatted as follows: [Use the character's full names and fandom's full name]
Fandom, Character +/ Character, Prompt

Are today's prompts not catching your eye? No worries, because we have plenty of older prompts that just might do the trick! You can browse through the comm's calendar archive (here on LJ or here on DW) for themed and Free For All posts, or perhaps check out Sunday posts for Lonely Prompt requests. (Or, you can be like me, and try to save interesting prompts as you see 'em... and then end up with multiple text doc files full of [themes + links + prompts] that you can easily look through and search for keywords.) Multiple fills for one prompt are welcome, by the way! Oh, and you are very likely to find some awesome fills to read as well, and wouldn't it be nice to leave a comment on those lovely little writing distractions? ~_^

We are on AO3! If you fill a prompt and post it to AO3, please add it to the Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2025 collection.

If you are viewing this post on our Dreamwidth site: please know that fills posted here will not show up as comments on our LiveJournal site, but you are still more than welcome to participate. =)

If you have a Dreamwidth account and would feel more comfortable participating there, please feel free to do so… and spread the word! [community profile] comment_fic


A friendly reminder about our posting schedule: Themed posts for new prompts go up on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Saturdays are a Free for All day for new prompts of any flavor. Sundays are for showing Lonely Prompts some love, whether by requesting for someone to adopt them or by sharing any fills that you've recently completed.
huxleyenne: (deal me in)
[personal profile] huxleyenne posting in [community profile] booknook
Full Title: Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business

Author: Neil Postman

First Published: In the United States of America by Viking, an Imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 1985

Today I would like to briefly discuss a book I first read two and a half years ago, but has undoubtedly rocked my world, shaken my perception of entertainment, and every television/Internet-connected screen in which I find myself parked and glued.

This book, published in 1985, is as relevant as ever 40 years later, despite being a critical discourse on American television and its role in society.

Postman digs into all sorts of media, none of which he bombards with more side-eye than television news, which he basically regards as the apex of brainrot back in the 1980s, and quite frankly, I think he’s right.

I grew up in America, raised on a glut of television programs and commercials. If I had read his book any time before late 2016, I would have assumed this author was just kind of poo poo and anti-tech, or perhaps I would have likened him to the same kind of people who blame violence in schools on video games. I cannot see myself reading and accepting Postman’s work before 2016.

Now? Of all authors I’ve ever read in my life, I don’t think any have predicted America’s future with haunting accuracy the way Brave New World by Aldous Huxley has. It was Postman’s work that led me to Huxley (I already read Orwell in school by the time I found Postman, but Huxley was new to me.)

The value of reading Amusing Ourselves to Death in 2025 is that it can give readers, both open-minded Americans and folks in other countries, a picture of how it came to be that we, the people, are so easily influenced and swayed by hypnotic video media, and why that might be. It’s like, most of us see it, but don’t quite have the words for it. Instead, many people would lazily dismiss this as mere ignorance/stupidity and walk away feeling superior for the sake of feeling superior, probably.

I'm not here to express a "superior" or "heightened" awareness, as it were, but I am here to encourage everyone to think about what they watch, why, and how it might affect them. I think everyone has a right to know, especially because propagandists and advertisers don't want us to. It's not in the best interest of their bloated wallets for us to think critically about media consumption.

Anyway, Postman, a man who considered himself a “media ecologist,” expressed many concerns regarding television (and many of those concerns apply to how we use the Internet as well.) He has serious doubts about its ability to educate people, especially when education is the intent. He doesn’t regard it as a good source of information at all, least of all that which we call “news.” Heck, this man Postman, especially his 1980s self, would probably argue that a solid half hour of someone swimming in poo is of higher intellectual value than Fox News from an entirely unironic point of view.

As with any nonfiction book, I wouldn’t encourage anyone to read this and take it as gospel. It’s here to help you think, open your eyes, and draw your own conclusions, which is what Postman himself would want, I believe.

Postman was a critic with plenty of critics, and rightly so, I’m sure. Even so, he’s given me so much to think about, and I don’t know for sure if he’s the driving force or just a little piece of the puzzle, but the way I watch television now is different. I don’t know if I’d call it heightened awareness or disillusionment, but I’m relieved to have a voice from the decade in which I was born to give words to much of what I’ve been thinking of news, programs, and memetic culture over the past ten years. Take Postman's work with a grain of salt if you must, but do give him a chance if social sciences and humanities are of interest to you. Thank you.

"Long-held assumptions"?

Oct. 4th, 2025 12:35 pm
[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Mark Liberman

"New Autism Data Challenge Long-Held Assumptions", MedPage Today 10/3/2025:

Autism diagnosed during early childhood had a distinct genetic and developmental profile compared with autism diagnosed later, a large analysis of multiple cohorts showed.

[…]

The results challenge a long-held assumption that autism has a unified underlying cause.

The cited research paper is Xinhe Zhang et al., "Polygenic and developmental profiles of autism differ by age at diagnosis", Nature 10/1/2025. The abstract ends

These findings indicate that earlier- and later-diagnosed autism have different developmental trajectories and genetic profiles. Our findings have important implications for how we conceptualize autism and provide a model to explain some of the diversity found in autism.

The paper's evidence and its conclusions seem solid. But the MedPage article's reference to "a long-held assumption that autism has a unified underlying cause" is misleading, starting with the implication that "autism" is a category with well-defined, stable, and generally-accepted boundaries.

Several years ago, I quoted from a paper by Laurent Mottron, "A radical change in our autism research strategy is needed: Back to prototypes", Autism Research 6/2/2021, whose abstract starts this way:

The evolution of autism diagnosis, from its discovery to its current delineation using standardized instruments, has been paralleled by a steady increase in its prevalence and heterogeneity. In clinical settings, the diagnosis of autism is now too vague to specify the type of support required by the concerned individuals. In research, the inclusion of individuals categorically defined by over-inclusive, polythetic criteria in autism cohorts results in a population whose heterogeneity runs contrary to the advancement of scientific progress. Investigating individuals sharing only a trivial resemblance produces a large-scale type-2 error (not finding differences between autistic and dominant population) rather than detecting mechanistic differences to explain their phenotypic divergences. 

And it's easy to find similar concerns expressed across previous decades.

A few relevant past posts:

"Translating 'phenotypically diverse'", 5/12/2020
"'Reliability is confused with truth'", 6/26/2021
"Intonation in 'human emulation mode'", 5/9/2021
"Grouping-think", 6/9/2022
"RFK Jr on Autism", 4/18/2025

A relevant recent skeet:

The mystery of medical diagnosis!

[image or embed]

— Richard Kadrey (@richardkadrey.bsky.social) October 3, 2025 at 2:25 PM

[syndicated profile] languagelog_feed

Posted by Victor Mair

The Strange Reason Chinese Doesn’t Borrow Words

Time for another Julesy:

Once again, Julesy hits the nail on the head — squarely and repeatedly.

 

Selected readings

 

 

[syndicated profile] atlas_obscura_places_feed

The Street With No Name

Despite being created more than 160 years ago, this street outside the Levenshulme train station in Manchester has never had an official title. Neighbours began to refer to it as “the street with no name” and over the decades it has stuck.

As recognition of its unique status, nearby residents put up a sign bearing the curious moniker. Sadly, the sign disappeared later that summer, but eventually it was replaced with a new, larger sign, installed 12 feet off the ground to discourage thieves.

Nothing to do with U2, as far as anyone knows.

[personal profile] tcampbell1000 posting in [community profile] scans_daily
At [personal profile] iamrman’s request, I’m doing a few posts this week picking up where he left off in the DeFalco era of the Fantastic Four.

I will not be doing this issue by issue because I value my sanity. But #399 included an exceptional scene that brought a long-running sub-theme to a close, so I will throw a spotlight on that, and its follow-up the issue afterward.



What the double-dash INDEED! I didn’t even know 'death-struggle' was a VERB! )

Book Review: Coraline

Oct. 3rd, 2025 09:14 pm
chroniclesofreading: (Default)
[personal profile] chroniclesofreading posting in [community profile] booknook


AUTHOR: Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean (Illustrator )
RELEASED: April 24, 2012 by HarperCollins
GENRE: Dark Fantasy
AGE RANGE: Children's
SYNOPSIS: When Coraline steps through a door to find another house strangely similar to her own (only better), things seem marvelous.

But there's another mother there, and another father, and they want her to stay and be their little girl. They want to change her and never let her go.

Coraline will have to fight with all her wits and courage if she is to save herself and return to her ordinary life.


Celebrating ten years of Neil Gaiman's first modern classic for young readers, this edition is enriched with a brand-new foreword from the author, a reader's guide, and more.


Read More )
dialecticdreamer: My work (Default)
[personal profile] dialecticdreamer
Stepping Closer
By Dialecticdreamer/Sarah Williams
Part 1 of 1, complete
Word count (story only): 1709
[Wednesday, May 6, 2020, morning]



:: Two steps forward, one step back for the trio, but they are warned, not targeted. Part of the Edison’s Mirror arc. ::

Back to Neighborly Interests, part two
To the Edison's Mirror Index
On to Another Problem




The library doors sighed open, bringing a breath of mechanical air and the scent of paper as Vic stepped inside, tugging gently on Ed’s wrist. Aidan followed behind.

Slowly, Vic marched past the faux-marble desktops divided by tall, yellow-oak panels for privacy, each holding a computer in the center of the work surface. Beside him, Ed walked slowly past the tidy, four by three array. Only one of the desks was occupied, and the scruffy young man bobbing his head as he pressed the over-ear headphones against his head seemed oblivious to the world around him.
Read more... )
[syndicated profile] atlas_obscura_places_feed

Carousel

Hidden in the woods near the small village of Drängsered, Sweden, stands a forgotten carousel with a very unusual story. Locals call it “the carousel in the forest.”

In 1974, at the age of 67, farmer and handyman Gunnar Karlsson decided to build something magical for the children of his family and the village. On the site of an old mill, he dammed a stream, built a waterwheel, and connected it to the gearbox of an old Volvo. The ride had three gears — and on the fastest one it spun so wildly that riders had to hold on tight. On top, he fixed four garden benches to a wooden platform, creating a water-powered carousel hidden deep in the trees.

Today, the carousel is still there, though time has worn it down. The water no longer flows, the planks are rotting, and a sign warns that you enter at your own risk. Still, many visitors who follow the forest path can’t resist giving it a gentle push, imagining the laughter of children as it once turned with the power of the stream.

This strange and enchanting relic is a reminder of one man’s creativity, and of the secret treasures that sometimes wait in the woods. 

[syndicated profile] atlas_obscura_places_feed

The Charmille of Haut-Marêt is a charming hornbeam tunnel in La Reid, considered one of the longest covered walks in Europe.

It dates back to 1885, when Michel Nys commissioned two roadmen to plant a tree alley along the south-west edge of his property. The town blacksmith, Adolphe Corten, fashioned the metal rings that continue to hold the trees in place today.

Back then, the tunnel was around 1,000 meters long, made up of 4,700 hornbeams. That changed in May 1940, when German tanks tore through the northern section when invading the country. It was never replanted, and the tunnel now measures 573 meters.

After being left abandoned for decades, the walkway was classified in 1979 and completely restored by 1985. Due to the great care of the students of the nearby Agricultural School (IPEA), it is now considered one of the most beautiful tree tunnels in Europe.

Today, visitors can wander under this century-old arching canopy all year round, often dubbed the Tunnel of Love for its fairytale-like atmosphere.

Spider-Man ‘94 #1

Oct. 3rd, 2025 01:20 pm
cyberghostface: (Spider-Man)
[personal profile] cyberghostface posting in [community profile] scans_daily


"The 1990s Spider-Man animated series has become a beloved part of Spidey lore—it was the introduction to Peter Parker and his universe for an entire generation—and I’m delighted to be diving back into that universe. We’re treating this as the next season of the show, which means introducing new villains, new challenges, new adventures for Peter—while doing our best to remain true to the creative spirit that John Semper and Company established with the original show." -- J.M. DeMatteis

Scans under the cut... )
petra: CGI Anakin Skywalker, head and shoulders, looking rather amused. (Anakin - Trash fire Jesus)
[personal profile] petra
Here is my series (in progress) for Kinktober 2025. Every day will be at least one limerick, with some verse cycles when I get too inspired to constrain myself to one at a go.

Thus far, I am leaning in the Obi-Wan/Anakin + Padmé on bass direction. There may be other guest stars. We'll see! Each day is posted separately for tagging purposes.

The prompt list I am using is here. Put in a plug for your favorite and we'll see what I can manage!
[syndicated profile] atlas_obscura_places_feed

Bar of Ritz Hotel, París where Hemingway and Fitzgerald met

“When I dream of an afterlife, the action always takes place in the Paris Ritz,” wrote Ernest Hemingway. It’s the highest possible praise from a man who made a living off of seeing the world, writing brash yet wistful stories about his adventures, and (of course) spending excessive amounts of time in Europe’s most reputable watering holes. But what made the Paris Ritz so special to this beloved author?

Situated in the heart of the 1st arrondissement and just a few blocks north of the Seine, the Paris Ritz is a five-star hotel that embodies the essence of luxury. And rightfully so. One of the most iconic cities in the world introduced us to the original location for one of the most renowned brands in the hospitality industry. In a city so steeped in splendor and drama, anything less than over-the-top lavishness would feel out of place. There’s a clear reason why wealthy folks seeking materialistic pleasures have flocked to the resort since its founding back in 1898. Including our eponymously titled guest.

Hemingway frequented the bar (called Le Petit Bar back then) many times throughout his early-20th-century escapades living in Paris. Often times he was seen here accompanied with other greats from the Jazz Age such as F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald. There is even one tall tale that, close to the end of WWII, Hemingway claimed to have barged into the hotel and “liberated” it from the Nazis. Although there are many locales that bleed into fictionalized bars from works of his like The Sun Also Rises, there is no argument that Paris nightlife played a crucial role in both his writing and his overall life. The original bar at the Ritz sadly closed in the 1980ss, but was reopened nearly a dozen years later as an hommage to the late author.

The bar itself is very quaint. It is steeped in wood paneling with black and white photos and other memorabilia draped over the walls like the average American dive bar. But the setting is purposely designed in that manner... to give the guests the intimate feeling of being transported back to a different era. Bargoers can sit either in grand leather lounge chairs or rest on a stool at the bar while watching some of the world’s best bartenders carefully craft their order. The result? Elaborate cocktails that are delicious and quite potent (and yes, expensive too. Remember we are still at the Ritz). Ladies even get a decorative rose with their drink order. However, be ready to wait in line for a bit as the bar only holds up to 25 patrons at a time. But the wait is worth it. Whether it’s reminiscing with friends while drinking whisky cocktails over the gold leaf trimmed tables or meeting fellow strangers serendipitously for a night in Paris, Bar Hemingway provides the atmosphere to create a memorable night.

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[personal profile] runpunkrun posting in [community profile] fandomcalendar
Photograph of the full moon encircled with added text: Uncommon Settings, at Fancake.
[community profile] fancake is a thematic recommendation community where all members are welcome to post recs, and fanworks of all shapes and sizes are accepted. Check out the community guidelines for the full set of rules.

This theme runs for the entire month. If you have any questions, just ask!

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