Marvel Icon Dump 2025
Jan. 15th, 2026 12:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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fandom_iconsVarious Marvel icon dump of various comics/shows/animated/film characters/pairings.
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Clouds Swimming over Lago Argentino
Jan. 15th, 2026 05:01 am![[syndicated profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/feed.png){kind=small}
earthobservatory_iod_feed
December 27, 2025
When an astronaut aboard the International Space Station snapped this photograph of Lago Argentino in Patagonia on December 27, 2025, a school of fish-shaped clouds lingered over the glacial lake’s teal waters. Determining the clouds’ type and origin from the photograph alone is challenging, but several NASA scientists and university researchers offered a theory after reviewing the image.
“The lens shape reminds me of lenticular clouds, which usually form near or over mountains,” said Maria Hakuba, a research scientist in the aerosols and clouds group at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “The edges of the cloud also look quite smooth rather than ‘fuzzy,’ which suggests they’re ice clouds that are relatively high up.”
Lenticular clouds form as a result of lee waves, which develop when prevailing winds are forced up and over a topographic barrier, often a mountain range, and when the overlying air is stable. Air expands and cools at the crest of the waves, causing vapor to condense and form cloud droplets. Conversely, air on the other side of the waves descends, warming the air and causing the cloud to evaporate. The result is a set of seemingly stationary clouds that hover in place downwind of mountains. Lenticular clouds are often eye-catching, sometimes described as having shapes like almonds, upside-down dinner plates, lentils, flying saucers, or stacks of pancakes.
Hazem Mahmoud, a data science lead at NASA’s Langley Research Center, agreed that the clouds were likely lenticular and offered additional insight. MODIS (Moderate Resolution Spectroradiometer) data suggest cloud-top altitudes near 9,200 meters (30,000 feet) and cloud-top temperatures around 220 Kelvin, along with relatively large particle sizes consistent with the presence of ice crystals, he said. “The high altitude and microphysical properties suggest Cirrocumulus lenticularis,” he said.
Strong surface-level winds common in Patagonia likely swept across the glacial lakes of Los Glaciares National Park, forcing unusually moist air over the Andes, producing the lens-shaped clouds. Sublimation—the conversion of ice directly into water vapor—of glacial ice likely contributed to their formation by adding extra moisture into the air, he added.
Wind shear and turbulence may have caused the elongated, trailing appearance that made the clouds resemble a school of fish, Mahmoud explained. These forces stretched and organized the clouds horizontally above the lake, while shadows cast onto the landscape accentuated their forms. “Together these clouds tell a remarkable story of interaction between the lake’s moisture source, the Andes’ dynamic topography, and atmospheric circulation,” he said.
Santiago GassĂł, an atmospheric scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, agreed they were likely lenticular clouds, citing the environmental context and Patagonia’s reputation as a hotspot for lenticular cloud formation.
“Very often the clouds here are stationary and trapped by lee waves on the downwind side of the mountains,” GassĂł said. “They often don’t precipitate because most of the moisture gets left on the west side of the mountain.” The stereotypical image of lenticular clouds is that they sit stationary at the top of mountains, but in reality, they tend to drift away “depending on the turbulence and flow,” he added.
All three scientists agreed that without analyzing more data, it’s hard to say definitively whether the cloud is lenticular or a type of cumulus. The challenge with a single astronaut photograph or satellite image is that we largely see the cloud-top properties, Mahmoud said. “If we also had lidar or cloud radar data, we could measure the vertical structure and thickness and more confidently differentiate a thin lenticular layer from a deep cumulonimbus column,” he said.
Whether cumulus or lenticular, it’s a coincidence that “fish” is the name atmospheric scientists sometimes use to describe formations of a type of shallow convective cloud found over the ocean. It was one of the patterns, along with “sugar,” “gravel,” and “flowers,” identified by a team of researchers who analyzed decades of MODIS cloud observations.
Readers with a penchant for cloud classification can participate in GLOBE Clouds, a GLOBE citizen science project that makes it possible for students and members of the public to contribute to NASA research projects. As part of the project, participants have the opportunity to use Clouds Wizard, a feature that guides users through cloud identification with a series of interactive questions, animations, and photos.
Astronaut photograph ISS074-E-8940 was acquired on December 27, 2025, with a Nikon Z9 digital camera using a focal length of 116 millimeters. It is provided by the ISS Crew Earth Observations Facility and the Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit at NASA Johnson Space Center. The image was taken by a member of the Expedition 74 crew. The image has been cropped and enhanced to improve contrast, and lens artifacts have been removed. The International Space Station Program supports the laboratory as part of the ISS National Lab to help astronauts take pictures of Earth that will be of the greatest value to scientists and the public, and to make those images freely available on the Internet. Additional images taken by astronauts and cosmonauts can be viewed at the NASA/JSC Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth. Story by Adam Voiland.
References & Resources
- Alexander, J.M. & Teitelbaum, H. (2011) Three-dimensional properties of Andes mountain waves observed by satellite: A case study. Journal of Geophysical Research Atmospheres, 116(D23).
- American Meteorological Society Lenticularis. Accessed January 14, 2026.
- American Meteorological Society Cumulus. Accessed January 14, 2026.
- Bony, S., et al. (2020) Sugar, Gravel, Fish, and Flowers: Dependence of Mesoscale Patterns of Trade-Wind Clouds on Environmental Conditions. Geophysical Research Letters, 47(7), e2019GL085988.
- DLR Institute of Atmospheric Physics (2020, September 7) Discovery of record-breaking mountain waves above the South American Andes. Accessed January 14, 2026.
- The GLOBE Observer What is GLOBE Clouds? Accessed January 14, 2026.
- Mount Washington Observatory A Closer Look at Lenticular Clouds. Accessed January 14, 2026.
- NASA Earth Observatory (2024, September 12) Marvelous Lenticularis. Accessed January 14, 2026.
- Pautet, P.D., et al. (2021) Mesospheric Mountain Wave Activity in the Lee of the Southern Andes. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 126(7).
- Smith, R. (2005) Orographic Atmospheric Phenomena in Patagonia: A preliminary survey. Croatian Meteorological Journal, 40(40), 325-328.
- World Meteorological Organization Lenticularis. Accessed January 14, 2026.
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ubiquitous comic strips
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:10 pmcalimacA discussion elsewhere of the death of Scott Adams led to a consideration of how culturally ubiquitous Dilbert was in its heyday, however astonishing that may seem to those who only know it in its sad decline.
It's one of a series of strips that have held that status, with a new one close to waiting in the wings when the previous honoree begins to fade away.
I'm not sure how culturally ubiquitous early strips now honored as pioneers were - like The Yellow Kid (1895-98) and Krazy Kat (1913-44). The earliest one that I expect hit that status was Little Orphan Annie, which premiered in 1924, followed by Popeye the Sailor Man (first appeared in Thimble Theatre 1929). Those two are still cultural touchstones today, and I suspect they were heavily popular at the time; certainly Popeye soon made the jump to animated cartoons.
The next one I know about was Barnaby by Crockett Johnson (later of Harold and the Purple Crayon fame). This strip about a little boy and his louche fairy godfather Mr. O'Malley had a short run (1942-52) and is now pretty much forgotten except among those who've collected reprint volumes of it. But it was a big hit among commentators and SF fans, at least: the Berkeley SF club, founded in 1949 and still around when I joined in the late '70s, adapted its name - the Elves', Gnomes', and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder and Marching Society ("Little Men" for short) - from the name of Mr. O'Malley's social club in the strip.
Barnaby kind of puttered off in its later years, and allegiance switched to Pogo by Walt Kelly, which started in 1948 and quickly became very popular, not least for its wicked political commentary, with characters like Simple J. Malarkey, a parody of Joe McCarthy. Kelly wrote songs for the strip which were published and recorded, both originals and his still-famous fractured Christmas carol lyrics, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie."
Pogo had its several-year run as the cultural ubiquity and then faded a bit into the background, to be replaced by the biggest cultural powerhouse of them all, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, which started in 1950 but took a few years to hit its stride. But during the 1960s, at least, it pervaded American culture to an extent hard to believe if you didn't experience it. And its pervasiveness popped up spontaneously from outside sources. There were books about it (this one, from 1965, was a collection of Christian sermons using the strip as textual illustrations, and this unlikely thing became a bestseller); there were songs (I first heard this one sung by the kids on the bus to camp in 1966 and I still know all the lyrics); NASA even named manned spacecraft after Peanuts characters.
But the strip faded from cultural intensity quickly after 1970, despite having another 30 years to run during which it maintained its prominence on the comics page. The cultural hit of the 1970s was undoubtedly Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, which began in 1970. Plotted more like a soap opera than any of its predecessors, Doonesbury was even more explicit politically than Pogo. (This one, among others, won Trudeau the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.)
Doonesbury took a hiatus in 1983-4 and then rebooted itself; it was still popular, but the torch of cultural ubiquity quickly passed to Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, which ran 1985-95; uniquely among these creators, Watterson stopped the strip before he could run out of steam. And then Dilbert, which began in 1989 and had built up its renown by the time Calvin and Hobbes signed off.
Dilbert started to fade by the mid-2000s. Since then, I dunno - newspaper strips as a cultural icon have faded with the fall of print. In my circles, maybe xkcd by Randall Munroe, which came along in a very timely fashion in 2005, but I'm not sure how commonly-known it is generally, and it's not even a strip in the traditional fashion. But that's where I think we are now.
It's one of a series of strips that have held that status, with a new one close to waiting in the wings when the previous honoree begins to fade away.
I'm not sure how culturally ubiquitous early strips now honored as pioneers were - like The Yellow Kid (1895-98) and Krazy Kat (1913-44). The earliest one that I expect hit that status was Little Orphan Annie, which premiered in 1924, followed by Popeye the Sailor Man (first appeared in Thimble Theatre 1929). Those two are still cultural touchstones today, and I suspect they were heavily popular at the time; certainly Popeye soon made the jump to animated cartoons.
The next one I know about was Barnaby by Crockett Johnson (later of Harold and the Purple Crayon fame). This strip about a little boy and his louche fairy godfather Mr. O'Malley had a short run (1942-52) and is now pretty much forgotten except among those who've collected reprint volumes of it. But it was a big hit among commentators and SF fans, at least: the Berkeley SF club, founded in 1949 and still around when I joined in the late '70s, adapted its name - the Elves', Gnomes', and Little Men's Science Fiction, Chowder and Marching Society ("Little Men" for short) - from the name of Mr. O'Malley's social club in the strip.
Barnaby kind of puttered off in its later years, and allegiance switched to Pogo by Walt Kelly, which started in 1948 and quickly became very popular, not least for its wicked political commentary, with characters like Simple J. Malarkey, a parody of Joe McCarthy. Kelly wrote songs for the strip which were published and recorded, both originals and his still-famous fractured Christmas carol lyrics, "Deck Us All With Boston Charlie."
Pogo had its several-year run as the cultural ubiquity and then faded a bit into the background, to be replaced by the biggest cultural powerhouse of them all, Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, which started in 1950 but took a few years to hit its stride. But during the 1960s, at least, it pervaded American culture to an extent hard to believe if you didn't experience it. And its pervasiveness popped up spontaneously from outside sources. There were books about it (this one, from 1965, was a collection of Christian sermons using the strip as textual illustrations, and this unlikely thing became a bestseller); there were songs (I first heard this one sung by the kids on the bus to camp in 1966 and I still know all the lyrics); NASA even named manned spacecraft after Peanuts characters.
But the strip faded from cultural intensity quickly after 1970, despite having another 30 years to run during which it maintained its prominence on the comics page. The cultural hit of the 1970s was undoubtedly Doonesbury by Garry Trudeau, which began in 1970. Plotted more like a soap opera than any of its predecessors, Doonesbury was even more explicit politically than Pogo. (This one, among others, won Trudeau the Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.)
Doonesbury took a hiatus in 1983-4 and then rebooted itself; it was still popular, but the torch of cultural ubiquity quickly passed to Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, which ran 1985-95; uniquely among these creators, Watterson stopped the strip before he could run out of steam. And then Dilbert, which began in 1989 and had built up its renown by the time Calvin and Hobbes signed off.
Dilbert started to fade by the mid-2000s. Since then, I dunno - newspaper strips as a cultural icon have faded with the fall of print. In my circles, maybe xkcd by Randall Munroe, which came along in a very timely fashion in 2005, but I'm not sure how commonly-known it is generally, and it's not even a strip in the traditional fashion. But that's where I think we are now.
wednesday books has edwardian girl musicians with unconventional upbringings
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:14 pmlandofnowhereThe Devourers, Annie Vivanti Chartres. I've been getting into the archives of Emily E Hogstad's blog The Song of the Lark recently, which has some really good deep dives into forgotten woman in music -- after reading The Devourer and the Devoured about child prodigy Vivian Chartres and her mother, ex-prodigy poet Annie Vivanti, who wrote this semi-autobiographical novel about a poet mother of a violin prodigy: as Hogstad says, "One gets the impression that three-quarters of the novel is, in fact, a memoir. But which three-quarters? ". The writing in this novel is really good, and I generally enjoyed the panoramic family saga aspects, but ultimately the worldview and the thesis that geniuses destroy everyone around them is just too depressing. Also the novel has an interesting combination of realism in its setting (which spans Europe and New York) and a plot which defies the laws of probability. Some racism, including a few uses of the n-word (though no characters on color are portrayed) lots of not-very-examined classism, and the Italian characters lean into unflattering stereotypes sometimes. I have mixed feelings about this novel but unreservedly recommend the essay I linked above, which has some of the better quotes quotes.
Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell. Read because ofskygiants' review which sums it up pretty well. I too would have adored this book at age 10! This pairs interestingly with The Devourers in terms of setting and theme, but ultimately it's not trying to do serious social commentary, it's trying to have an adventure with fun hijinks.
Rooftoppers, Katherine Rundell. Read because of
skygiants' review which sums it up pretty well. I too would have adored this book at age 10! This pairs interestingly with The Devourers in terms of setting and theme, but ultimately it's not trying to do serious social commentary, it's trying to have an adventure with fun hijinks.All 10 references to Dust in the second Book of Dust volume
Jan. 14th, 2026 11:07 pmerinptahA thing I kept noticing in The Secret Commonwealth: any time someone brought up Dust, as in Rusakov particles, it went by fast. One character would mention it — another one might react — but then the conversation would move right along to something else.
The original HDM trilogy did a really solid job with this concept. Lyra first hears about it as one of many mysterious Scholar Things she spies on without understanding. When she gets a child-friendly explanation, it’s the Church-doctrine propaganda version. Readers follow along with her, and later with other POV characters, building out our knowledge as they hear more perspectives and see more experimental results.
There are good reasons Dust wouldn’t come up much in La Belle Sauvage. It’s a flashback, so even the experts are 10 years’ less knowledgeable, and young Malcolm (unlike Lyra) isn’t interacting with those experts much in the first place. If anything, the Rusakov physics in that book felt kinda shoehorned in. Bonneville is a Rusakov researcher, Malcolm finds his notes…then Mal keeps asking about it (even though it’s not relevant to surviving the flood, and he has no reason to expect it would be), and Bonneville keeps giving accurate answers (even though he has no motive to be honest, and every motive to make up something scary/demoralizing).
But TSC is a flash-forward. They have all the discoveries of HDM, plus another 10 years’ worth of research. A bunch of the main characters are professionally interested. This would be the point in the trilogy where you get to properly reintroduce Dust to the reader!
And instead…well, here are all the times it comes up:
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Admin Post: Last Day for GYWO 2026 Pledges
Jan. 15th, 2026 12:01 am![[admin post]](http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/entry/admin_post.png){kind=small}
gywomod posting in getyourwordsoutToday is the ABSOLUTELY LAST DAY to make your pledge for getyourwordsout 2026. We will not accept any pledges or membership requests made after January 15—no excuses or exceptions. You MUST PLEDGE to be a member. (If you are listed on the 2026 Writers list, you’re good to go.)
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getyourwordsout 2026. We will not accept any pledges or membership requests made after January 15—no excuses or exceptions. You MUST PLEDGE to be a member. (If you are listed on the 2026 Writers list, you’re good to go.)Have you pledged?
Read the Pledges & Requirements post before committing to your writing goals for the year & then fill out the GYWO 2026 Pledge Form (linked at the post!)
Have you requested to join the Dreamwidth community?
Request to Join
Have you confirmed your pledge was processed?
Check the 2026 Writers list
After today you cannot make ANY further changes to your pledge or membership, so it's also the last day for second guessing and switching pledges.
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Outgunned 1
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:59 pmjames_davis_nicollMy 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... )
( Read more... )
Discussion questions on fanfiction and what can happen if you try them out
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:57 pmpetraThe 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 withteland 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 areteland'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 )
TĂ© 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.
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, duesanguinity having good enough taste not to have watched the Star Wars prequels. Gotta deduct points for not reading the deeply silly text.
I included discussion questions in the first comment because I had recently had a Tumblr conversation with
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
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 )
TĂ© 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.
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
sanguinity having good enough taste not to have watched the Star Wars prequels. Gotta deduct points for not reading the deeply silly text.Reading Wednesday
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:58 pmtroisoiseauxIn War and Peace, Count Bezukhov has died, leaving - after some deathbed wrangling over his multiple wills by grasping relatives - his illegitimate and bewildered son Pierre a wealthy noble, which surely will cause no one any problems. Interesting, in terms of narrative structure and the famous first line of another Tolstoy novel, that this is followed by an immediate smash cut to a different unhappy family, the Bolkonskys.
Poking along in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings; the "other writings" in this collection apparently include his 1920s-30s trial reporting, but I'm still on his 1930s-40s comedic gangster stories, which so far have universally ended with an impromptu marriage, except for the one that ended with the doll seducing and drowning the gangsters who killed her husband. I'm not sure that Runyon supports women's rights but he does support women's wrongs.
Also started another short story collection, China Miéville's Three Moments of an Explosion; I'm two stories in, both of which have had the feel of picking up an idea and turning it around to see the way light reflects off of its different facets - only just long enough to see each different flash of light - and I'm really liking it so far. The title story is flash fiction about urban exploration in a future with "rotvertising" (brand logos coded into "the mottle and decay of subtly gene-tweaked decomposition" or detonation) and time-dilating drugs; the second is a child's-eye view of a future where long-melted icebergs return to float over London while coral blooms across Brussels.
Poking along in Damon Runyon's Guys and Dolls and Other Writings; the "other writings" in this collection apparently include his 1920s-30s trial reporting, but I'm still on his 1930s-40s comedic gangster stories, which so far have universally ended with an impromptu marriage, except for the one that ended with the doll seducing and drowning the gangsters who killed her husband. I'm not sure that Runyon supports women's rights but he does support women's wrongs.
Also started another short story collection, China Miéville's Three Moments of an Explosion; I'm two stories in, both of which have had the feel of picking up an idea and turning it around to see the way light reflects off of its different facets - only just long enough to see each different flash of light - and I'm really liking it so far. The title story is flash fiction about urban exploration in a future with "rotvertising" (brand logos coded into "the mottle and decay of subtly gene-tweaked decomposition" or detonation) and time-dilating drugs; the second is a child's-eye view of a future where long-melted icebergs return to float over London while coral blooms across Brussels.
Don't even try.
Jan. 14th, 2026 09:48 pmhannahToday 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."
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."
and another worm
Jan. 14th, 2026 08:49 pmstepnixWormgame uses spell components as the limiting factor for its spellcasting, which is a clever way to do spellslots without using the phrase "spell slots," but you mostly get the spell ingredients on the surface, not in the dungeon. The monster harvesting system is for alchemy, different thing, doesn't do spells. But! that one "spell components are the reason wizards dungeon crawl" post i saw was compelling to me, so now i'm imagining a megadungeon setup where "hey you found a vein of Sorcerer's Sulfur, you can harvest enough for one cast of Fireball every time you pass this floor" is part of regular dungeon exploration "new component cache discovered" on the event table, "your old cache has been raided by rival adventurers," etc. I'm also imagining "add a renewable component cache to the mapped dungeon" as a potential level-up option for wizards, or "you can now repurpose one component as another" idk i think there's juice here
(no subject)
Jan. 14th, 2026 08:28 pmskygiantsOn the first weekend of January genarti and I went along with some friends to the Moby-Dick marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which was such an unexpectedly fun experience that we're already talking about maybe doing it again next year.
The way the marathon works is that people sign up in advance to read three-minute sections of the book and the whole thing keeps rolling along for about twenty-five hours, give or take. You don't know in advance what the section will be, because it depends how fast the people before you have been reading, so good luck to you if it contains a lot of highly specific terminology - you take what you get and you go until one of the organizers says 'thank you!' and then it's the next person's turn. If it seems like they're getting through the book too fast they'll sub in a foreign language reader to do a chapter in German or Spanish. We did not get in on the thing fast enough to be proper readers but we all signed up to be substitute readers, which is someone who can be called on if the proper reader misses their timing and isn't there for their section, and I got very fortunate on the timing and was in fact subbed in to read the forging of Ahab's harpoon! (genarti ALMOST got even luckier and was right on the verge of getting to read the Rachel, but then the proper reader turned up at the last moment and she missed it by a hair.)
There are also a few special readings. Father Mapple's sermon is read out in the New Bedford church that has since been outfitted with a ship-pulpit to match the book's description (with everyone given a song-sheet to join in chorus on "The Ribs and Terrors Of the Whale") and the closing reader was a professional actor who, we learned afterwards, had just fallen in love with Moby-Dick this past year and emailed the festival with great enthusiasm to participate. The opening chapters are read out in the room where the Whaling Museum has a half-size whaling ship, and you can hang out and listen on the ship, and I do kind of wish they'd done the whole thing there but I suppose I understand why they want to give people 'actual chairs' in which to 'sit normally'.
Some people do stay for the whole 25 hours; there's food for purchase in the museum (plus a free chowder at night and free pastries in the morning While Supplies Last) and the marathon is being broadcast throughout the whole place, so you really could just stay in the museum the entire time without leaving if you wanted. We were not so stalwart; we wanted good food and sleep not on the floor of a museum, and got both. The marathon is broken up into four-hour watches, and you get a little passport and a stamp for every one of the four-hour watches you're there for, so we told ourselves we would stay until just past midnight to get the 12-4 AM stamp and then sneak back before 8 AM to get the 4-8 AM stamp before the watch ticked over. When midnight came around I was very much falling asleep in my seat, and got ready to nudge everyone to leave, but then we all realized that the next chapter was ISHMAEL DESCRIBES BAD WHALE ART and we couldn't leave until he had in fact described all the bad whale art!
I'm not even the world's biggest Moby-Dick-head; I like the book but I've only actually read it the once. I had my knitting (I got a GREAT deal done on my knitting), and I loved getting to read a section, and I enjoyed all the different amateur readers, some rather bad and some very good. But what I enjoyed most of all was the experience of being surrounded by a thousand other people, each with their own obviously well-loved copy of Moby-Dick, each a different edition of Moby-Dick -- I've certainly never seen so many editions of Moby-Dick in one place -- rapturously following along. (In top-tier outfits, too. Forget Harajuku; if you want street fashion, the Moby-Dick marathon is the place to be. So many hand-knit Moby Dick-themed woolen garments!) It's a kind of communal high, like a convention or a concert -- and I like concerts, but my heart is with books, and it's hard to get of communal high off a book. Inherently a sort of solitary experience. But the Moby-Dick marathon managed it, and there is something really very spectacular in that.
Anyway, as much as we all like Moby-Dick, at some point on the road trip trip, we started talking about what book we personally would want to marathon read with Three Thousand People in a Relevant Location if we had the authority to command such a thing, and I'm pitching the question outward. My own choice was White's Once And Future King read in a ruined castle -- I suspect would not have the pull of Moby-Dick in these days but you never know!
genarti and I went along with some friends to the Moby-Dick marathon at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which was such an unexpectedly fun experience that we're already talking about maybe doing it again next year.The way the marathon works is that people sign up in advance to read three-minute sections of the book and the whole thing keeps rolling along for about twenty-five hours, give or take. You don't know in advance what the section will be, because it depends how fast the people before you have been reading, so good luck to you if it contains a lot of highly specific terminology - you take what you get and you go until one of the organizers says 'thank you!' and then it's the next person's turn. If it seems like they're getting through the book too fast they'll sub in a foreign language reader to do a chapter in German or Spanish. We did not get in on the thing fast enough to be proper readers but we all signed up to be substitute readers, which is someone who can be called on if the proper reader misses their timing and isn't there for their section, and I got very fortunate on the timing and was in fact subbed in to read the forging of Ahab's harpoon! (
genarti ALMOST got even luckier and was right on the verge of getting to read the Rachel, but then the proper reader turned up at the last moment and she missed it by a hair.) There are also a few special readings. Father Mapple's sermon is read out in the New Bedford church that has since been outfitted with a ship-pulpit to match the book's description (with everyone given a song-sheet to join in chorus on "The Ribs and Terrors Of the Whale") and the closing reader was a professional actor who, we learned afterwards, had just fallen in love with Moby-Dick this past year and emailed the festival with great enthusiasm to participate. The opening chapters are read out in the room where the Whaling Museum has a half-size whaling ship, and you can hang out and listen on the ship, and I do kind of wish they'd done the whole thing there but I suppose I understand why they want to give people 'actual chairs' in which to 'sit normally'.
Some people do stay for the whole 25 hours; there's food for purchase in the museum (plus a free chowder at night and free pastries in the morning While Supplies Last) and the marathon is being broadcast throughout the whole place, so you really could just stay in the museum the entire time without leaving if you wanted. We were not so stalwart; we wanted good food and sleep not on the floor of a museum, and got both. The marathon is broken up into four-hour watches, and you get a little passport and a stamp for every one of the four-hour watches you're there for, so we told ourselves we would stay until just past midnight to get the 12-4 AM stamp and then sneak back before 8 AM to get the 4-8 AM stamp before the watch ticked over. When midnight came around I was very much falling asleep in my seat, and got ready to nudge everyone to leave, but then we all realized that the next chapter was ISHMAEL DESCRIBES BAD WHALE ART and we couldn't leave until he had in fact described all the bad whale art!
I'm not even the world's biggest Moby-Dick-head; I like the book but I've only actually read it the once. I had my knitting (I got a GREAT deal done on my knitting), and I loved getting to read a section, and I enjoyed all the different amateur readers, some rather bad and some very good. But what I enjoyed most of all was the experience of being surrounded by a thousand other people, each with their own obviously well-loved copy of Moby-Dick, each a different edition of Moby-Dick -- I've certainly never seen so many editions of Moby-Dick in one place -- rapturously following along. (In top-tier outfits, too. Forget Harajuku; if you want street fashion, the Moby-Dick marathon is the place to be. So many hand-knit Moby Dick-themed woolen garments!) It's a kind of communal high, like a convention or a concert -- and I like concerts, but my heart is with books, and it's hard to get of communal high off a book. Inherently a sort of solitary experience. But the Moby-Dick marathon managed it, and there is something really very spectacular in that.
Anyway, as much as we all like Moby-Dick, at some point on the road trip trip, we started talking about what book we personally would want to marathon read with Three Thousand People in a Relevant Location if we had the authority to command such a thing, and I'm pitching the question outward. My own choice was White's Once And Future King read in a ruined castle -- I suspect would not have the pull of Moby-Dick in these days but you never know!
small amusing things
Jan. 14th, 2026 08:08 pmunicorndukeproject: get my parents moving on projects is going well, I helped my mom paint most of a room in the rental this afternoon, high priority since they finally have renters moving in feb 1st. it took 30 mins of her flitting around doing sanding and wandering away and me taping things and then we got to painting. I rollered and she did brush touchups of corners and edges. I'll need to roller the main areas again tomorrow but progress! There is a second room and then we'll switch to their house doing primer on some walls there.
My phone has decided to receive group text messages again, verizon must have changed something on their end. I'm still using a unihertz phone and just accepted that I wouldn't receive group texts, the only ones I am regularly in are my family group chat or my parents and I. So I could just ask my parents if there was group texts in the family group chat. This actually worked okay. Not great, but I didn't miss much. But something changed, I now get all the group texts.
early bedtime today I think, two loads of straw spread, moved a bunch of equipment, pulled a lot of twine out of the straw shredder too.
My phone has decided to receive group text messages again, verizon must have changed something on their end. I'm still using a unihertz phone and just accepted that I wouldn't receive group texts, the only ones I am regularly in are my family group chat or my parents and I. So I could just ask my parents if there was group texts in the family group chat. This actually worked okay. Not great, but I didn't miss much. But something changed, I now get all the group texts.
early bedtime today I think, two loads of straw spread, moved a bunch of equipment, pulled a lot of twine out of the straw shredder too.
Adventures Elsewhere — December 2025
Jan. 15th, 2026 12:38 amhelloladies posting in ladybusinessAdventures Elsewhere collects our reviews, guest posts, articles, and other content we've spread across the Internet recently! See what we've been up in our other projects. :D
( Read more... )
I'll be back later
Jan. 14th, 2026 07:18 pmcornerofmadnessIF my power stays on. The rain has become ice and my power has become iffy. The real other annoyance is suddenly stations I had this morning, I no longer have and I have no idea WHY. It's like they want me to buy one of those boxes that pirates every station everywhere.
ETA so yeah, the power calmed down and the storm seems to have passed AND my stations are all back. What the actual fuck?
I ran up to Jackson because multiple books came in at once. Isn't that always the way? I put one book on hold, I'll see it 6 weeks from now. I put 5 books on hold, all 5 come at once. They're all for the popsugar challenge. I decided to knock out all the ones I KNOW I don't have on my shelves off the bat.
Did I mention I was looking at writers retreats this summer? Sadly I can't find any where I'd like to be at a price I'd like to pay. the one I really want to do off the coast of Maine is only Graduation Weekend or when I'm in school. The other one in Maine is over 1000 and that's not the price of the retreat (which is only a couple of days), just the B^B part. too bad because it's very close to my BFF from medical school and I could have gone to see her too
I need to send in my ideas to present at the Louisville steampunk thing. Like ASAP I'll submit them to the Gettysburg one too
One of the books I picked up from the library was The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Hunting (or something like that). It prompts a question for everyone. Do you have an author who based on their blurbs writes exactly what you want to read but in reality writes in in exactly the way you hate? It can't just be me, right? This is my third Grady Hendrix book and it's way too early to give up on it but I already hate everyone. I have not liked a single book I've read but based on the blurbs I should have loved them. Lisa Jackson is another. I get all excited by the blurb and then see her name on the cover and get all disappointed because I have disliked every book I've read by her. So we'll see what's up with that.
What I Just Finished Reading:
The Witching Hour - by Heather Graham. crap
Murder in the Ranks - loved this one
What I am Currently Reading:
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Hunting
A Curious Kind of Magic
What I Plan to Read Next: La Grand Familia and Zombie Day Care and the library books including one on Sally Ride and one Alison Bechdel who did Fun House. I hope this is better than that thing. (I needed a book about a character who does pilates. This graphic novel has that)
ETA so yeah, the power calmed down and the storm seems to have passed AND my stations are all back. What the actual fuck?
I ran up to Jackson because multiple books came in at once. Isn't that always the way? I put one book on hold, I'll see it 6 weeks from now. I put 5 books on hold, all 5 come at once. They're all for the popsugar challenge. I decided to knock out all the ones I KNOW I don't have on my shelves off the bat.
Did I mention I was looking at writers retreats this summer? Sadly I can't find any where I'd like to be at a price I'd like to pay. the one I really want to do off the coast of Maine is only Graduation Weekend or when I'm in school. The other one in Maine is over 1000 and that's not the price of the retreat (which is only a couple of days), just the B^B part. too bad because it's very close to my BFF from medical school and I could have gone to see her too
I need to send in my ideas to present at the Louisville steampunk thing. Like ASAP I'll submit them to the Gettysburg one too
One of the books I picked up from the library was The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Hunting (or something like that). It prompts a question for everyone. Do you have an author who based on their blurbs writes exactly what you want to read but in reality writes in in exactly the way you hate? It can't just be me, right? This is my third Grady Hendrix book and it's way too early to give up on it but I already hate everyone. I have not liked a single book I've read but based on the blurbs I should have loved them. Lisa Jackson is another. I get all excited by the blurb and then see her name on the cover and get all disappointed because I have disliked every book I've read by her. So we'll see what's up with that.
What I Just Finished Reading:
The Witching Hour - by Heather Graham. crap
Murder in the Ranks - loved this one
What I am Currently Reading:
The Southern Book Club's Guide to Vampire Hunting
A Curious Kind of Magic
What I Plan to Read Next: La Grand Familia and Zombie Day Care and the library books including one on Sally Ride and one Alison Bechdel who did Fun House. I hope this is better than that thing. (I needed a book about a character who does pilates. This graphic novel has that)
What I’m doing Wednesday and first class went great
Jan. 14th, 2026 06:21 pmwriterlibrarianTeaching stuff: First week went fine, the first zoom session went great. Over 20 students attended, it’s optional and we record it for those who can not attend. I’m almost done with the texts for week 3. My TA is wonderful. What are the chances I would get a Chinese exchange student… really. I was so happy when I got her resume. She’s organized, engaged. We both love to plan things out. We planned the heck out of the session on Monday. The content, the time allowed for each section and we delivered an hour of content on the dot. We were both really proud of ourselves.
I decided to post more and at least post on Wednesday. So here goes my reading for the past week.
What I’m doing Wednesday
Reading
I’m finishing v.8 of Heaven Official’s Blessing, This is the last book of the series. I read book 1 and 2 at the end of the summer, put it on pause then picked it up again mid November and I haven’t read much else since. I loved the series. It kept me reading and interested. There are plot twists I saw coming, others not at all. Which is the mark of a good series in my book.
I also read graphic novels for the class. I read in no particular order :
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (Manga), Vol. 1 I will continue to read the series. It was a satisfying read.
A study in Emerald. Neil Gaiman. I’m okay with reading it. It’s a different remix of Doyle with a dash of Lovecraft and a bunch of other literary kinda Easter eggs. I’m not fond of reading Gaiman these days but I needed to for the session on remixes, adaptation etc., of Doyle’s works.
2 French Canadian graphic novels. One I really liked and it’s available in English translation for those who might want to check it out.
UTown by Cab. I really liked the condensed plot, the graphics, the whole punk, gritty atmosphere and I know the area that inspired the author. Gentrification, poverty, artists, etc. A good graphic novel.
1 French graphic novel. Quand j’ai froid by Valentine Choquet. My crush of the week. Almost no text but plenty of emotions.
Watching
Love between Lines. Modern romance cdrama. So so good. Adults who talk about the misunderstanding, slowly falling for each other. The VR Republican Alternate universe escape game is so good. Both leads have chemistry, the acting is good, the story is good. It's about architecture, which is one of my thing. I'm watching in real time which is the one irritant.
Glory. Historical, political, matriarcal cdramaWhich is on hold because it hit kinda of a slump. I'm stalled at episode 12.
Flight to you. Modern work place cdrama set in aviation industry. It ties me over waiting for the new Love between lines episodes. Wang Kai (of Nirvana in fire) is his stoic self. It's a nice story. I'm up to episode 8.
I did finish last week Shine on me which was so much fun. One of the greenest green flag male lead in the same league as The First Frost and The Best Thing. Two really good modern cdrama romance from 2025.
Crafting
Started thisFox in Winter Forest cross-stitch because I got tired of stitching flowers with a gazillion colour threads. So I put on hold my really big project to tackle this smaller one with less than 10 colour threads.
That's it.
Have a good rest of the week. I know I will.
I decided to post more and at least post on Wednesday. So here goes my reading for the past week.
What I’m doing Wednesday
Reading
I’m finishing v.8 of Heaven Official’s Blessing, This is the last book of the series. I read book 1 and 2 at the end of the summer, put it on pause then picked it up again mid November and I haven’t read much else since. I loved the series. It kept me reading and interested. There are plot twists I saw coming, others not at all. Which is the mark of a good series in my book.
I also read graphic novels for the class. I read in no particular order :
The Other World's Books Depend on the Bean Counter (Manga), Vol. 1 I will continue to read the series. It was a satisfying read.
A study in Emerald. Neil Gaiman. I’m okay with reading it. It’s a different remix of Doyle with a dash of Lovecraft and a bunch of other literary kinda Easter eggs. I’m not fond of reading Gaiman these days but I needed to for the session on remixes, adaptation etc., of Doyle’s works.
2 French Canadian graphic novels. One I really liked and it’s available in English translation for those who might want to check it out.
UTown by Cab. I really liked the condensed plot, the graphics, the whole punk, gritty atmosphere and I know the area that inspired the author. Gentrification, poverty, artists, etc. A good graphic novel.
1 French graphic novel. Quand j’ai froid by Valentine Choquet. My crush of the week. Almost no text but plenty of emotions.
Watching
Love between Lines. Modern romance cdrama. So so good. Adults who talk about the misunderstanding, slowly falling for each other. The VR Republican Alternate universe escape game is so good. Both leads have chemistry, the acting is good, the story is good. It's about architecture, which is one of my thing. I'm watching in real time which is the one irritant.
Glory. Historical, political, matriarcal cdramaWhich is on hold because it hit kinda of a slump. I'm stalled at episode 12.
Flight to you. Modern work place cdrama set in aviation industry. It ties me over waiting for the new Love between lines episodes. Wang Kai (of Nirvana in fire) is his stoic self. It's a nice story. I'm up to episode 8.
I did finish last week Shine on me which was so much fun. One of the greenest green flag male lead in the same league as The First Frost and The Best Thing. Two really good modern cdrama romance from 2025.
Crafting
Started thisFox in Winter Forest cross-stitch because I got tired of stitching flowers with a gazillion colour threads. So I put on hold my really big project to tackle this smaller one with less than 10 colour threads.
That's it.
Have a good rest of the week. I know I will.